Discovering new talents — from running to writing to pranking — helps these middle-school protagonists figure out who they are and what their futures could be.

In Ghost, the first volume of Jason Reynolds's Track series, seventh grader Castle "Ghost" Cranshaw has a talent for running as well as a tendency to get into trouble, both stemming from a traumatic night in his past. When Ghost happens upon the citywide track team, the Defenders, at practice and impulsively bests its fastest sprinter, the coach sees his potential. But Ghost's path to seeing the same potential in himself is littered with stumbling blocks. Reynolds presents conflicting emotions honestly and without judgment. Readers will root for the entire Defenders team — Ghost, Lu, Patina, and Sunny — and eagerly anticipate the next leg of their literary relay. (Atheneum/Dlouhy, 10–13 years)

Sixth grader Maggie feels out of place in her small-town middle school. She's a nerd who focuses her smarts on "hacking," an elaborate form of pranking that her late father learned at MIT. When Lena, equally nerdy and a little bit nosy, moves to town, Maggie finds a likeminded soul. Under their shared alter ego "The Mouse," Maggie and Lena claim responsibility for their amusing hacks and eventually run for class president. Jacqueline Davies's Nothing but Trouble might especially appeal to lonely studious-and-creative types, providing reassurance that they're not as alone as they may think. (HarperCollins/Tegen, 9–12 years)

In Mike Grosso's I Am Drums, twelve-year-old Sam Morris dreams of being a drummer but faces some daunting obstacles: she doesn't have a drum set, her parents aren't all that supportive, and the school music program is being cut. But she perseveres, raises the funds for lessons with prickly Pete Taylor, and finds that she's something of a prodigy. An appealing, goodhearted story of a preteen with the fierce determination to follow her passion, for all young people yearning to march to the beat of their own drums. (Clarion, 9–12 years)

Autumn, the seventh-grade aspiring-author protagonist of Claudia Mills's Write This Down, struggles with writerly problems, but even more with the problems of being a writer — self-confidence, ambition, jealousy, and the tricky privacy issue of using your family as material. When her hunger for publication conflicts with loyalty to her beloved (formerly; now he's acting like such a teenager) older brother Hunter, Autumn realizes that life doesn't always follow a script. Mills creates a warm, convincing portrait of an apprentice author in this mainly lighthearted and highly readable novel. (Farrar/Ferguson, 10–13 years)

From the November 2016 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.