The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo; illus. by Julie MorstadIntermediate Candlewick 160 pp.10/23 9781536216752 $17.99An aged sea captain dies, leaving a chest containing five puppets. After some trials and adventures, the puppets—boy, girl, king, owl, and wolf—end up in the grand home of a pair of sisters and fulfill...
Gustav Is Missing!: A Tale of Friendship and Bravery by Andrea Zuill; illus. by the authorPrimary Random House Studio/Random 40 pp.4/23 9780593487471 $18.99Library ed. 9780593487488 $21.99e-book ed. 9780593487495 $10.99Little Cap is a small, bespectacled, mushroom-like creature who lives with his best friend, Gustav, a rather perky-looking slug. Their house is...
Gossamer Summer by H. M. Bouwman Intermediate Atheneum 192 pp. 5/23 9781665912532 $17.99 e-book ed. 9781665912556 $10.99 It’s summer, and ten-year-old Jojo and her three sisters have to entertain themselves because their romance-novel writer mom has a book due (“Mom on deadline was not nearly as fun as Mom not...
The Grace of Wild Things by Heather FawcettIntermediate Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins 368 pp.2/23 9780063142626 $17.99e-book ed. 9780063142640 $10.99The setting is Prince Edward Island, sometime close to the turn of the twentieth century. “The dirt road was reddish, like all the earth on the island, as if it were flushed with...
The Windeby Puzzle: History and Story by Lois LowryIntermediate, Middle School Clarion/HarperCollins 224 pp.2/23 9780358672500 $16.99In 1952 the body of an Iron Age child was discovered in a bog in Germany. In this hybrid volume—part fiction, part nonfiction—Lowry takes the known archaeological facts of this real-life discovery and crafts them...
Elf Dog & Owl Head by M. T. Anderson; illus. by Junyi WuIntermediate Candlewick 240 pp.4/23 9781536222814 $18.99Clay and his family are suffering the accumulated tensions of a “global sickness” shutdown. Online school, isolation from friends, financial worries, too much togetherness—Clay needs escape, and he gets it via a charming...
Simon Sort of Says by Erin BowMiddle School Disney-Hyperion 320 pp.1/23 9781368082853 $16.99Seventh grader Simon and his family are new to Grin and Bear It, Nebraska, an unusual town located in the National Quiet Zone, a center for scientific research that restricts radio transmissions. There’s no internet, and even microwave...
Wildoak by C.C. Harrington; illus. by Diana SudykaIntermediate Scholastic 288 pp.9/22 9781338803860 $17.99This novel, set in 1963, consists of three narrative strands. Londoner Maggie, nearly twelve, lives with a stutter. Her halting speech makes school a misery, and she’s facing the threat of being sent to a boarding school for...
Trashed! by Martha FreemanIntermediate Wiseman/Simon 304 pp.1/23 9781665905350 $17.99e-book ed. 9781665905374 $10.99Arthur Popper is a diffident, slightly anxious eleven-year-old who lives with his parents and younger sister above the family business, a thriving, capacious secondhand store in Boulder, Colorado. He works shifts in the store and is valued for being...