Featured Reads

In this illustrated middle grade novel by bestselling author Adiba Jaigirdar, a curious and competitive girl travels to celebrate Ramadan with her family in Bangladesh, where she learns about the country's climate crisis--and the true meaning of her favorite holiday. A must-read for fans of Saadia Faruqi and Kelly Yang!

Even though Nadia Islam is excited to meet her cousins on her summer trip to Bangladesh, she is disappointed not to be celebrating her first Ramadan fasting alongside her best friend, Yasmin. Then again, she just might find the news story that will get her picked to be her school paper's editor-in-chief!

As soon as she lands, Nadia realizes she has a lot to learn about Bangladesh. Fortunately, her favorite aunt (and fellow journalist) is spending the summer researching the disastrous flooding in the region--and she just might need Nadia's help to get the inside scoop about the country's climate dangers.

Meanwhile, Nadia's cousins are almost as competitive as she is, and suggest a contest to see who can keep the most fasts. Between her journalism and her determination to win the Ramadan Race, Nadia is sure to have the best Ramadan ever--right?

Adiba Jaigirdar's middle grade debut, with lovely interior artwork by Avani Dwivedi, celebrates family, faith, and community, and will inspire young readers looking to make their own difference in the world.

In the second book of this satisfying young middle-grade series, Abby McAdams has to deal with a lack of privacy, the onset of puberty, and all the other problems that can come with being a preteen!

Abby McAdams knows that BIG things are heading her way.

Her eleventh birthday. Fifth-grade graduation. The end of elementary school! There's also the end-of-year overnight camping trip, and she can't wait to practice her science skills. Additionally, Abby suspects she’s probably going to get her period any day now. But after a few false alarms, she's not quite so sure. Can Abby navigate new emotions, friendship dynamics, and her changing body—all while figuring out what kind of person she wants to be? 

With plenty of humor and heart, this is an encouraging story of self-discovery, transformations, and forging your own path.

From the three-time Coretta Scott King Honor winning author of The Skin I'm In comes a poignant story about a southern girl far from home at an elite girls boarding school in the north, who must find the courage to be herself and to dream of a brighter future, set against the backdrop of the great migration in South Philly.

You can be what you want in life.
Climb as high as you wish.
Nothing can stop you,
not even pedigree.

Hattie Mae is from Seed County, North Carolina. She knows hard work: milking cows, plucking chickens, minding the garden. Her hands are made for manual labor, her feet for dirt—that is, according to Lisa and some of the girls at Miss Abigail’s School for Exceptional Young Ladies in Philadelphia. In their eyes, Hattie Mae will never break into upper society and is unworthy of becoming a doctor or a lawyer.

Though Hattie Mae sticks out like a sore thumb and has more in common with the hundreds of Black folks pouring into the city looking for better opportunities during the Great Migration, she knows that she belongs. She just has to prove it to the rest of the girls—and maybe even to herself.

A moving coming-of-age story about finding the courage to be yourself, chasing your dreams, and lending a hand to others along the way.

Family secrets, friendship, and magic burst from the seams of this thrilling fantasy adventure that follows a ten-year-old girl as she discovers a new world behind her home in desperate need of her help and within it, her own troubling family legacy.

Madelyn has always been satisfied with her life of cozy meals, great books, and adventures with her father in the woods behind their farmhouse.

But when a mysterious child appears and invites her down a forbidden trail and into a new world, Madelyn realizes that there’s far more to life than she ever allowed herself to realize.

This new world, Asterwood, is wider, wilder, and more magical than she could ever imagine. And somehow, it’s people know who she is—and desperately need her help.

Accompanied by new friends—one ​who can speak the language of the trees and one with a mind as sharp as her daggers—and her calico cat, Dots, Madelyn embarks on an epic quest across a strange and sprawling forest world whose secrets just might help her save her own.​

From comedy superstar Romesh Ranganathan comes a second unique and hilarious middle-grade story, perfect for readers of David Baddiel, Little Badman and Adam Wins the Internet!

Like many 13-year-olds, Yasmin Pathman doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up.

Her parents want her to be a doctor, and expect her to focus on school--the only computer game they allow her to play is purely educational (yawn!).

Yasmin gets so good at it that the game's company invite her to play at a national competition. Her friends, teachers, and family are mega excited about the opportunity, but Yasmin's not!

So when her best friend Zane introduces her to a cool football game called FifPro, Yassmin's ready for some fun! She can't get enough of it, secretly playing matches whenever she can, hiding Zane's spare console from her parents, and spending her lunch hours swapping stats with her friends about an anonymous FifPro superstar called The Goat.

Before long, Yasmin's gaming talent means she's smashing every match and is desperate to become as great, if not greater than her hero. But when she receives an exciting invite to the national FifPro tournament she faces a dilemma--it's on the SAME day as the other competition!

Playing computer games might have taught Yasmin how to be a brilliant problem-solver, but this puzzle might be a level too far. Can she make everyone proud, beat The Goat, and convince her parents that she wants to be a professional gamer?

Nine and her friends team up with an unlikely ally to rescue Spoon’s friend from a dangerous witch in this third book in the adventurous, magical, and brilliantly funny The House at the Edge of Magic series.

Nine and her friends have cured the house’s hiccups and are off to the strange and utterly unpredictable Back of Beyond in search of Professor Dish—Spoon’s best friend and partner in all things alchemy.

When they find Dish trapped by the greedy witch Ophidia in the basement of a particularly marvelous shop, it soon becomes clear they’re going to need something more than Flabberghast’s dicey magic and Nine’s quick thinking to triumph this time.

Perhaps they can find a rather clever witch, one particularly good at curses…

Raised in a sanctuary hotel for spies, the daughter of one of its top agents is determined to follow in her mother’s footsteps and use her hard-won spy skills to help others in Confessions of a Junior Spy, a fun, fast-paced, middle grade series opener by Rosaria Munda.

Bea dreams of becoming a spy like her mom. Growing up in the Pangean Hotel, a secret sanctuary for spies, she spends her time studying self-defense, languages, codebreaking, and field medicine, preparing for the day when she can follow in her mother’s footsteps. But her mom has a different plan for Bea: She wants Bea to attend boarding school like one of the normal folk. Bea can’t think of a worse fate, the Life is all she’s ever known. But you do not say no to the Pangean League’s top spy.

While Bea is juggling test prep and applications with desperate plans to avoid going to normal school at all costs, a new girl moves into the hotel with her family. Chantal’s family is clearly on the run, and Bea and her best friend Tommy are certain they can use their skills and knowledge to help her.... If boarding school doesn’t get in the way first.