For Librarians
Mom, I’m bored!
School is barely out for most districts, but perhaps you’ve already heard this from your tween.
Have no fear, the library and your local independent book store are here!
Check out the latest releases for your middle-grade readers. A bit of nonfiction, a dash of fiction and their boredom will be relieved!
Hector: A Boy, A Protest, and the Photograph that Changed Apartheid, written by Adrienne Wright
Page Street Kids, June 4 release
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On June 16, 1976, Hector Pieterson, an ordinary boy, lost his life after getting caught up in what was supposed to be a peaceful protest. Black South African students were marching against a new law requiring that they be taught half of their subjects in Afrikaans, the language of the White government. The story’s events unfold from the perspectives of Hector, his sister, and the photographer who captured their photo in the chaos. This book can serve as a pertinent tool for adults discussing global history and race relations with children. Its graphic novel style and mixed media art portray the vibrancy and grit of Hector’s daily life and untimely death.
Heartbreaking yet relevant, this powerful story gives voice to an ordinary boy and sheds light on events that helped lead to the end of apartheid.
Escape from the Isle of the Lost: A Descendants Novel (The Descendants), written by Melissa de la Cruz
Disney-Hyperion, June 4 release
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All the Greys on Greene Street written by Laura Tucker
Viking Books for Young Readers, June 4 release
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SoHo, 1981. Twelve-year-old Olympia is an artist–and in her neighborhood, that’s normal. Her dad and his business partner Apollo bring antique paintings back to life, while her mother makes intricate sculptures in a corner of their loft, leaving Ollie to roam the streets of New York with her best friends Richard and Alex, drawing everything that catches her eye.
Then everything falls apart. Ollie’s dad disappears in the middle of the night, leaving her only a cryptic note and instructions to destroy it. Her mom has gone to bed, and she’s not getting up. Apollo is hiding something, Alex is acting strange, and Richard has questions about the mysterious stranger he saw outside. And someone keeps calling, looking for a missing piece of art. . . .
Olympia knows her dad is the key–but first, she has to find him, and time is running out.
Sea Sirens (A Trot & Cap’n Bill Adventure) written by Amy Chu, illustrated by Janet K. Lee
Viking Books for Young Readers, June 11 release
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Trot, a Vietnamese American surfer girl, and Cap’n Bill, her cranky one-eyed cat, catch too big a wave and wipe out, sucked down into a magical underwater kingdom where an ancient deep-sea battle rages. The beautiful Sea Siren mermaids are under attack from the Serpent King and his slithery minions–and Trot and her feline become dangerously entangled in this war of tails and fins.
This beautiful graphic novel was inspired by The Sea Fairies, L. Frank Baum’s “underwater Wizard of Oz.” It weaves Vietnamese mythology, fantastical ocean creatures, a deep-sea setting, quirky but sympathetic main characters, and fast-paced adventure into an imaginative, world-building story.
Maximillian Fly written by Angie Sage
Katherine Tegen Books, June 11 release
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Maximillian Fly wants no trouble. Yet because he stands at six feet two, with beautiful indigo wings, long antennae, and more arms than you or me, many are frightened of him.
He is a gentle creature who looks like a giant cockroach. This extraordinary human wants to prove his goodness, so he opens his door to two SilverSeed children in search of a place to hide.
Instantly, Maximillian’s quiet, solitary life changes. There are dangerous powers after them and they have eyes everywhere. But in this gray city of Hope trapped under the Orb, is escape even possible?
Maximillian Fly is a masterful story brimming with suspense, plot twists, and phenomenal world building. This compelling novel delves into family dynamics and themes of prejudice, making the case for tolerance, empathy, and understanding.
Midsummer’s Mayhem Hardcover written by
Yellow Jacket, June 11 release
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Eleven-year-old Mimi Mackson comes from a big Indian American family: Dad’s a renowned food writer, Mom’s a successful businesswoman, and her three older siblings all have their own respective accomplishments. It’s easy to feel invisible in such an impressive family, but Mimi’s dream of proving she’s not the least-talented member of her family seems possible when she discovers a contest at the new bakery in town. Plus, it’ll start her on the path to becoming a celebrity chef like her culinary idol, Puffy Fay.
But when Mimi’s dad returns from a business trip, he’s mysteriously lost his highly honed sense of taste. Without his help, Mimi will never be able to bake something impressive enough to propel her to gastronomic fame.
Drawn into the woods behind her house by a strangely familiar song, Mimi meets Vik, a boy who brings her to parts of the forest she’s never seen. Who knew there were banyan trees and wild boars in Massachusetts? Together they discover exotic ingredients and bake them into delectable and enchanting treats.
But as her dad acts stranger every day, and her siblings’ romantic entanglements cause trouble in their town, Mimi begins to wonder whether the ingredients she and Vik found are somehow the cause of it all. She needs to use her skills, deductive and epicurean, to uncover what’s happened. In the process, she learns that in life, as in baking, not everything is sweet.
This Was Our Pact written by Ryan Andrews
First Second, June 11 release
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It’s the night of the annual Autumn Equinox Festival, whenthe town gathers to float paper lanterns down the river. Legend has itthat after drifting out of sight, they’ll soar off to the Milky Way andturn into brilliant stars, but could that actually be true? This year,Ben and his classmates are determined to find out where those lanternsreally go, and to ensure success in their mission, they’ve made a pactwith two simple rules: No one turns for home. No one looks back.
The plan is to follow the river on their bikes for as long as it takes tolearn the truth, but it isn’t long before the pact is broken by allexcept for Ben, and (much to Ben’s disappointment) Nathaniel, the onekid who just doesn’t seem to fit in.
Together,Nathaniel and Ben will travel farther than anyone has ever gone, down awinding road full of magic, wonder, and unexpected friendship*.
*And a talking bear.
The Girl Who Sailed the Stars written by
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When Oona Britt was born in the magical town of Nordlor, where all of the homes are built from wrecked ships, her parents never expected her to be a girl. Having listened to a faulty prediction from a washed-up soothsayer, they were promised a “bold and brave son,” so as the youngest of seven sisters, Oona’s birth became a disappointment — especially to her sea captain father, who doesn’t believe there’s a place for girls aboard ships.
But Oona is different from the rest of her family. She longs for adventure and knowledge. So she steals aboard her father’s ship just as he’s about to set sail for his annual winter whale hunt, and suddenly finds herself in the midst of a grand adventure! The ship has its own sea cat, Barnacles, and a navigator named Haroyld, who show Oona how to follow the stars. But for all that, Oona’s father is furious. Can she prove to him that she’s worth his love and pride, even though she’s not the bold and brave son he was promised?
The Boy, the Boat and the Beast written by Samantha M. Clark
Paula Wiseman Books/Simon and Schuster, Paperback release June 25
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A shout out to one of our contributors, Samantha M. Clark, as her middle-grade novel is released in paperback this month!
A boy washes up on a mysterious, seemingly uninhabited beach. Who is he? How did he get there? The boy can’t remember. When he sees a light shining over the foreboding wall of trees that surrounds the shore, he decides to follow it, in the hopes that it will lead him to answers. The boy’s journey is a struggle for survival and a search for the truth—a terrifying truth that once uncovered, will force him to face his greatest fear of all if he is to go home.
I’ve been looking forward to telling you all about Kurt Kirchmeier’s recent middle-grade novel, The Absence of Sparrows (a Junior Library Guild Selection), for a couple of weeks now. It’s been described as Stranger Things meets Alfred Hitchcock. So all you fans of the hit Netflix series and the Master of Suspense: settle in and read all about the book, the author, and how the novel came to be. (For a chance to win a copy of the book, leave a comment.)
In the small town of Griever’s Mill, eleven-year-old Ben Cameron is expecting to finish off his summer of relaxing and bird-watching without a hitch. But everything goes wrong when dark clouds roll in.
Old Man Crandall is the first to change–human one minute and a glass statue the next. Soon it’s happening across the world. Dark clouds fill the sky and, at random, people are turned into frozen versions of themselves. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no one knows how to stop it.
With his mom on the verge of a breakdown, and his brother intent on following the dubious plans put forth by a nameless voice on the radio, Ben must hold out hope that his town’s missing sparrows will return with everyone’s souls before the glass plague takes them away forever.
Kurt Kirchmeier lives and writes in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and has a soft spot for contemporary fantasy and dark coming-of-age stories. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines including Shimmer, Space & Time, Weird Tales, Tesseracts 15, and elsewhere. When he isn’t reading or working on his next middle grade novel, he can often be found outside, connecting with nature and photographing birds. Visit Kurt on Twitter at https://twitter.com/saskwriter or at his website www.kurtkirchmeier.net.
What was the inspiration behind The Absence of Sparrows?
The idea for this story sprang from a dream I had of my own father turning to obsidian. I explored the concept first in a piece of short fiction, which was published in a speculative fiction magazine in Ireland back in 2009. I thought that would be the end of it, but the two brothers from that story wouldn’t leave me alone, and kept on pestering me until finally I decided I needed to give them a larger stage. Books like Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon and Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury inspired me to make it a coming-of-age story.
Are you a birder like your character or did you become one for the novel?
I am indeed a bird-lover like my main character, Ben. I got into birding and bird photography maybe two or three years before I started to write this book, and some of my own experiences with certain species—bohemian waxwings, notably—are mirrored in the story. All of the species represented in the book are species that appear here in Saskatchewan. There were others I wanted to include, but since the bird insights are used to help Ben glean truths about the human condition as well, I couldn’t always make it work. I still wish I’d found a place for an owl!
I love the title The Absence of Sparrows. What was the inspiration behind it?
In the book, the main character comes up with a theory about why his neighborhood sparrows are missing and what their absence might mean for him and his family, so that’s part of the inspiration. The title also has a dual meaning in that birds are often seen as being symbolic of freedom, and the loss of freedom and control is very much central to the story.
What would you like readers to come away with after reading the novel?
First and foremost, I would hope they would come away thinking that what they just read was thrilling and cool, and that birds might be more interesting than they previously imagined. It’s also my hope that this book will resonate with kids who, for whatever reason, have had their childhoods cut short and who might be feeling lonely or isolated in their situation. Lastly, I’d like readers to come away wanting to think and talk about some of the challenges Ben faces in the book, like having to stand against his own brother, and weighing the fate of his own family against the fate of the community at large. These would be hard things for anyone to deal with, let alone an eleven-year-old boy.
Readers have called The Absence of Sparrows a page-turner. Do you have any tips on how to write that type of suspense that keeps readers engaged?
I think the unpredictable nature of the glass plague kind of lends itself to suspense, but I guess the important thing is for the stakes to be real and present so that momentum can build and be sustained. Lively pacing goes a long way, too. I try to omit unnecessary description and exposition wherever I can so the narrative never becomes “dense.” Huge blocks of unbroken text can slow readers down and cause their minds to wander. There’s no suspense in a wandering mind.
What are you working on now?
I just recently finished working on an upper MG novel that’s sort of a mix of adventure fantasy and post-apocalyptic road story, featuring dual protagonists (one boy, one girl), parallel storylines, and a twist on dragons. I’m also working on another MG novel about two boys who are obsessed with comic books and superheroes, and who are trying to solve a local mystery that might offer clues about a larger mystery going on in the world. This one has an environmental twist, and has been a lot of fun to write so far.
Thanks so much, Kurt, for this great interview!
For a chance to win a copy of The Absence of Sparrows, leave a comment. I’ll choose a winner at random on Sunday afternoon at 3 PM, and announce a winner shortly after. (U.S. Only, please.)