Posts Tagged Kate DiCamillo

5 Middle Grade Books About That Summer When Everything Changes

By on June 24, 2026   /   Book Lists, Fiction  

Summer can be an exciting season, inviting more time with friends and family, campouts under the stars, or fun-filled travel plans. However, the break in predictable school-centered schedules can also invite big changes! For me growing up, summers often meant relocation and new schools, for others it can bring big shifts in friendships or new family dynamics. Follow the kids in these five middle grade novels, as they navigate tricky summers when everything for them changes.

Why it matters: Low key, vacation-centric summers are pleasant, but some kids face a different kind of “heat” during their break from school. These stories may help a challenging summer feel less isolating. 

Go Deeper: For readers seeking emotionally touching summer reads that won’t fade like tan lines, these five middle grade novels are bound to stick.

Read Time: 4 Minutes

five young people paddle away from shore on different water crafts on the cover of the firefly summer.

“The Firefly Summer” (2023) by Morgan Matson

Summary:
Ryanna spends the summer with her mother’s estranged family in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she meets relatives she barely knows and begins uncovering family secrets. What starts as an unfamiliar summer becomes a journey of discovering where she belongs and what family really means.

Perfect for: readers navigating family changes, blended families, and searching for belonging.

a young person approaches a victorian house surrounded by flowers and fireflies with a ferris wheel in the distance on the cover of ferris.

“Ferris” (2024) by Kate DiCamillo

Summary:
Ferris Wilkey’s summer is turned upside down when her grandmother claims to see a ghost, her family is dealing with personal struggles, and everything feels slightly out of control. Through the chaos, Ferris learns more about her family, herself, and the complicated emotions that come with growing up.

Perfect for: readers looking for a funny, heartfelt story about family and change.

a young girl holds a lighthouse at night on the cover of ruptured.

“Ruptured” (2023) by Joanne Rossmassler Fritz

Summary:
During a summer vacation in Florida, Claire’s family is shaken when her mother experiences a medical emergency that changes the entire trip. Claire has to navigate fear, uncertainty, and the reality that sometimes one moment can change everything.

Perfect for: readers navigating a family crisis or searching for resilience, and lovers of novels in verse or deeply emotional stories.

a large group of chinese summer camp goers create a human tower on the cover of summer at squee.

“Summer at Squee” (2024) by Andrea Wang

Summary:
Phoenny Fang returns to Squee, a Chinese cultural summer camp, expecting another perfect summer with her friends, but things quickly change when friendships shift and new challenges emerge. As she navigates camp life, identity, and expectations, Phoenny learns that growing up means adapting to change.

Perfect for: readers experiencing friendship changes, identity questions, or who love a good summer camp adventure.

three girls of color sit on a picnic table braiding each others hair on the cover of the braid girls.

“The Braid Girls” (2023) by Sherri Winston

Summary:
Best friends Maggie and Lena spend the summer building a braiding business while balancing friendship, family expectations, and their dreams for the future. As their business grows, they learn that growing up means figuring out who you are and what kind of friend you want to be.

Perfect for: readers who enjoy friendship-focused stories, have an eye for creativity, or want to see characters exploring entrepreneurship.

In Closing:

When summer brings unexpected challenges or new beginnings, these five stories remind readers that not only can change be the start of something meaningful, but they are certainly not alone.

Until next time, remember: 💔+ 📚 = ❤️‍🩹

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Summer Reads

By on May 28, 2026   /   Book Lists  

Summer break is here! Welcome to sunshine, fireflies, and warm breezes. One of my favorite parts of summer break as a kid was reading underneath our big oak tree while lounging in a hammock. If your young reader is a seasonal reader, here are some sensational novels, novels in verse, and graphic novels to dive into this summer.

 

Summer at Squee By Andrea Wang


Phoenny Fang plans to have the best summer ever. She’s returning to Summertime Chinese Culture, Wellness, and Enrichment Experience (SCCWEE for short and “Squee” to campers in the know), and this year she’s a senior camper. That means she; her best friend, Lyrica Chu; and her whole Squad will have the most influence. It almost doesn’t matter that her brother is a CIT (counselor-in-training) and that her mom and auntie are the camp directors. Time spent at Squee is sacred, glorious, and free.

On the day Phoenny arrives, though, she learns that the Squad has been split up, and there’s an influx of new campers this year. Phoenny is determined to be welcoming and to share all the things she loves about camp—who doesn’t love spending hours talking about and engaging in cultural activities? But she quickly learns how out of touch she is with others’ experiences, particularly of the campers who are adoptees. The same things that make her feel connected to her culture and community make some of the other campers feel excluded.
Summer at Squee turns out to be even more transformative than Phoenny could’ve imagined, with new friendships, her first crush, an epic show, and a bigger love for and understanding of her community.

 

Ferris by Kate DiCamillo

It’s the summer before fifth grade, and for Ferris Wilkey, it is a summer of sheer pandemonium: Her little sister, Pinky, has vowed to become an outlaw. Uncle Ted has left Aunt Shirley and, to Ferris’s mother’s chagrin, is holed up in the Wilkey basement to paint a history of the world. And Charisse, Ferris’s grandmother, has started seeing a ghost at the threshold of her room, which seems like an alarming omen given that she is also feeling unwell. But the ghost is not there to usher Charisse to the Great Beyond. Rather, she has other plans—wild, impractical, illuminating plans. How can Ferris satisfy a specter with Pinky terrorizing the town, Uncle Ted sending Ferris to spy on her aunt, and her father battling an invasion of raccoons?

As Charisse likes to say, “Every good story is a love story,” and Kate DiCamillo has written one for the ages: emotionally resonant and healing, showing the two-time Newbery Medalist at her most playful, universal, and profound.

 

 

Half Moon Summer by Elaine Vickers


Drew was never much of a runner. Until his dad’s unexpected diagnosis. Mia has nothing better to do. Until she realizes entering Half Moon Bay’s half-marathon could solve her family’s housing problems.

And just like that they decide to spend their entire summer training to run 13.1 miles. Drew and Mia have very different reasons for running, but these two twelve year olds have one crucial thing in common (besides sharing a birthday): Hope. For the future. For their families. And for each other.

 

 

 

 

Blood in the Water by Tiffany D. Jackson

This summer, beware of sharks…

Brooklyn girl Kaylani McKinnon feels like a fish out of water. She’s spending the summer with family friends in their huge house on Martha’s Vineyard, and the vibe is definitely snooty. Still, there are beautiful beaches, lots of ice cream, and a town full of fascinating Black history. Plus a few kids her age who seem friendly.

Until the shocking death of a popular teenage boy rocks the community to its core. Was it a drowning? A shark attack? Or the unthinkable–murder?
Kaylani is determined to solve the mystery. But her investigation leads her to uncover shocking secrets that could change her own life as she knows it… if she survives.

 

The Firefly Summer by Morgan Matson

For as long as Ryanna Stuart can remember, her summers have been spent with her father and his new wife. Just the three of them, structured, planned, and quiet. But this summer is different. This summer, she’s received a letter from her grandparents—grandparents neither she nor her dad have spoken to since her mom’s death—inviting her to stay with them at an old summer camp in the Poconos.

Ryanna accepts. She wants to learn about her mom. She wants to uncover the mystery of why her father hasn’t spoken to her grandparents all these years. She’s even looking forward to a quiet summer by the lake. But what she finds are relatives…so many relatives! Aunts and uncles and cousins upon cousins—a motley, rambunctious crew of kids and eccentric, unconventional adults. People who have memories of her mom from when she was Ryanna’s age, clues to her past like a treasure map. Ryanna even finds an actual, real-life treasure map!
Over the course of one unforgettable summer—filled with s’mores and swimming, adventure and fun, and even a decades-old mystery to solve—Ryanna discovers a whole new side of herself and that, sometimes, the last place you expected to be is the place where you really belong.

 

 

The Trouble with Heroes by Kate Messner
One summer.
46 mountain peaks.
A second chance to make things right.

Finn Connelly is nothing like his dad, a star athlete and firefighter hero who always ran toward danger until he died two years ago. Finn is about to fail seventh grade and has never made headlines . . . until now.
Caught on camera vandalizing a cemetery, he’s in big trouble for knocking down some dead old lady’s headstone. Turns out that grave belongs to a legendary local mountain climber, and her daughter makes Finn an unusual offer: she’ll drop all the charges if he agrees to climb all forty-six Adirondack High Peaks in a single summer. And there’s just one more thing–he has to bring along the dead woman’s dog.
In a wild three months of misadventures, mountain mud, and unexpected mentors, Finn begins to find his way on the trails. At the top of each peak, he can see for miles and slowly begins to understand more about himself and his dad. But the mountains don’t care about any of that, and as the clock ticks down to September, they have more surprises in store. Finn’s final summit challenge may be more than even a hero can face.

 

Away by Megan E. Freeman

After an imminent yet unnamed danger forces people across Colorado to leave their homes, a group of kids including an aspiring filmmaker and a budding journalist find themselves in the same evacuation camp. As they cope with the aftermath of having their world upended, they grow curious about the mysterious threat.
And as they begin to investigate, they start to discover that there’s less truth and more cover-up to what they’re being told. Can they get to the root of the conspiracy, expose the bad actors, and bring an end to the upheaval before it’s too late?

 

 

 

 

A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat

Dan’s always been a good kid. The kind of kid who listens to his teachers, helps his mom with grocery shopping, and stays out of trouble. But being a good kid doesn’t stop him from being bullied and feeling like he’s invisible, which is why Dan has low expectations when his parents send him on a class trip to Europe.

At first, he’s right. He’s stuck with the same girls from his middle school who love to make fun of him, and he doesn’t know why his teacher insisted he come on this trip. But as he travels through France, Germany, Switzerland, and England, a series of first experiences begin to change him—first Fanta, first fondue, first time stealing a bike from German punk rockers… and first love.

Funny, heartwarming, and poignant, A First Time for Everything is a feel-good coming-of-age memoir based on New York Times bestselling author and Caldecott Medal winner Dan Santat’s awkward middle school years. It celebrates a time that is universally challenging for many of us, but also life-changing as well.

 

Super Boba Café by Nidhi Chanani

In the fog-laden hills of San Francisco sits a sleepy independent boba café. Run by Jing Li and guarded by her kitty, Bao, it comfortably fades into the background. But inside the boba café, there’s a secret. Jing is the keeper of the monster of San Francisco. Each day she prepares one giant boba for nine hours to feed it.
When Jing’s granddaughter, Aria, comes to stay with her for the summer, she makes it her mission to turn the café around. Aria is quickly aided by Bao, who gives birth to eight perfect kittens.
Aria spreads the news of the boba cat café on social media and overnight it is overrun with excited customers. Each day Nainai Li (Grandma Li) finds reasons to close the café, but the demand only increases.

When she opens, the hill monster is left hungry and small earthquakes begin to plague the city. When Aria secretly follows her nainai to the hill monster’s cave, she isn’t sure what awaits. Will Aria be able to reason with the monster, or will she become its new favorite meal? Or might she disturb its underground existence and cause the Big One?

 

 

Mexikid by Pedro Martín

Pedro Martín has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito—his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution! But that doesn’t mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and sisters and the house is crowded enough! Still, Pedro piles into the Winnebago with his family for a road trip to Mexico to bring Abuelito home, and what follows is the trip of a lifetime, one filled with laughs and heartache. Along the way, Pedro finally connects with his abuelito and learns what it means to grow up and find his grito.

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Author Spotlight: Debra J. Stone, writer of The House on Rondo

By on October 6, 2025   /   Author Interviews, Diversity  
photo of Debra J. Stone

Photo by Anna Min of Min Enterprises Photography, LLC

We’re excited to welcome Debra J. Stone to our blog today. Debra is the author of The House on Rondo, a personal story of the street where her grandparents lived when she was a child. Thank you for being here, Debra, and for answering our questions.

Did you have any childhood dreams for when you became an adult? Yes. If so, did they come true?

I wanted my own apartment and to live in a big city. Yes, I made my dream come true. I moved to Chicago in my early twenties and lived in a high-rise apartment. When I was about seven, my mother took me to see children’s theatre productions that made me want to be an actor. As an adult, I was a stage actor for a fifteen years.

It’s wonderful to know you made your dreams come true.

Did you love to read as a child? Yes. If so, can you tell us some favorite books?

I loved to read and went to a neighborhood public library.

My favorite books were the adventure stories of Jack London, especially, Call of the Wild, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville, and the poem “We be Cool,” Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales, “The Littlest Mermaid,” scary stories by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven,” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne, and The Little House on the Prairie series, but I stopped reading them because of Pa’s ugly remarks about native people. My cousins were of the Ojibway tribal nation. These are just a few that have come to my mind.Debra with family

Many wonderful childhood favorites. It’s a shame when stories quote people’s ugly remarks. I’m glad you were supportive of your Ojibway cousins.

What was an early experience where you learned that written language had power?

I learned how to spell my name before I entered kindergarten and I was the only one in my class who knew how to do that. I wrote letters to my paternal grandparents in California telling them news about the family, and they encouraged me to keep writing. Those letters developed into stories.

What was your biggest fear when you were young? Did you get over it?

The werewolf was my biggest fear after watching Lon Chaney, the actor in the movie. Yes, I got over it because they weren’t real. At least I hope so…

I sure hope so too. 😊

Debra with siblings

Debra with siblings

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Debra J. Stone as a child

None, I was very fearless as a young person. Except, when watching the werewolf movie!

It’s fabulous to meet someone who was fearless even when they were young. What a great role model for readers!

Is your past woven into the story?

Yes. I am the oldest of three. Every Sunday, my family drove to visit my maternal grandparents who lived in a house on Rondo Avenue in Saint Paul. We lived in north Minneapolis, across the Mississippi River, which divided the two cities. So it was exciting seeing the city streets with people and the traffic.

If so, how?

I wanted to give a voice to the voiceless. The House on Rondo, character, Zenobia, put a human face to the loss of a neighborhood community in the name of progress. The interstate highways isolated inner-city neighborhoods. Now, we travel around most major cities.

I remember Toni Morrison’s, saying to writers, “write the story you want to read,” has influenced my storytelling.

So this story has a deep personal connection. Thank you for sharing this with us. It had to be hard to see what happened to the neighborhood.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I didn’t know. I wanted to be an actor like Cicley Tyson or Ruby Dee and act on Broadway in New York.

What is your favorite or most challenging part of being a writer?

Procrastinating is my challenge. My favorite part is research and creating characters.

Have you had any careers besides writing?

Yes. I decided to leave an international banking training program to become an actor. I studied Stanford Meisner theatre technique in Chicago. After this, I acted in improvisational theatre and wrote sketches for performances. Later, when I came to a crossroad in my acting career, I moved back to Minnesota and worked in academic researching youth development programs. Lucky for me, I had other skills and interests that I followed.

You’ve chosen a very unusual viewpoint character. Can you tell us how you chose who to tell this story?

After a dozen drafts, the voices came through, and one of those voices was the house. It made sense to me and I liked it. I’m a big fan of magical realism, and I’m influenced by writers such as Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Toni Morrison, Percival Evertt, Kate DiCamillo, and others who use this interesting viewpoint of animating objects or animals.

In addition, both Zenobia and former cowgirl Mrs. Ruby Pearl are vivid characters. Can you tell us more about how you developed them? Are they real characters?

No, they’re not based on one single real person but are based on a composite of young persons and adults I’ve known in my life. However, the character of Mrs. Ruby Pearl is based on my research on a real Black cowgirl who lived in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the copyright of her photo dressed in western cowgirl gear in the early 1900’s. Instead, I was able to capture her essence in a photo from online resource of the African American Smithsonian Museum. The research helped make the fictional narrative real. I also like to use the acting skills I learned to develop characters.

cover of The House of Rondo bookWhat made you choose to write about Rondo Street?

I found that I couldn’t stop myself— it haunted me.

It was an obsession, a good one, of Rondo and the vitality of this community that I vividly remembered.

Please tell us about the historical research you did to make this feel authentic.

I was fortunate to have a Jerome Fellowship in Literature so that I was able to travel to Nebraska and see for myself the Sandhills and the towns of western Nebraska. My maternal great grandparents migrated to this land after the US government moved the Pawnee nation to reservations. I researched Black migration to the West, and they became known as the Exodusters. I used documents at various state and county historical societies, local libraries, museums, oral histories, and government agencies records of transportation and interstate highway development. I used microfilm records of old newspaper articles. It was not possible to do more live interviews of people who lived during the early history of Rondo Avenue—most were deceased.

What was your favorite part of the research?

My favorite part of the research was finding 1920’s and later photos of the people who lived on Rondo.

What was the most difficult part of researching?

The most difficult part was finding out so few photos of Black people existed in historical societies and museums.

That’s such a shame that we’ve lost such an important part of our country’s history. I’m glad you’re doing what you can to make us aware of this part of it.

Did you have to leave anything out of this book that you wished you could have included? If so, what?

I wished I could have had included some of the research I did about the tribal nations who lived on the land in Minnesota and Nebraska. I wanted to include more stories about the Black towns of the Western United States. I couldn’t make it work in the narrative. Perhaps, it will be another story…

Can you share a bit about the resistance?

In my research, there were residents who tried to save their homes and businesses but lost them anyway.

In the resistance, there was sadness yet also joy. People are still celebrating the Rondo community by holding jazz festivals and rethinking about how to bringing Rondo Avenue back. Even though it will be a different community than the original.

I hope they can make that happen! It’s wonderful that people are still celebrating and creating a strong sense of community.

Do you have any message or advice for the teachers and parents who will be sharing your book with their students and families?

The importance of history and community.

What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

The joy of Rondo Avenue and whatever they want. It’s out in the world now, and I have no more control of this story I created.

Can you tell us what you’re working on now?

Hmmm, I have ideas but not ready to share what they are yet…

Well, we can’t wait to see what you write next. The stories of Black towns in the West and more history of the tribal nations in Minnesota and Nebraska all sound like wonderful avenues to pursue, but I’m sure your creative muse will direct you to the perfect story. When it does, we’ll be looking forward to reading it. For now, I’ll encourage our readers to pick up a copy of  The House on Rondo.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Debra J Stone writes essays, poetry, and fiction. She received a 2023–25 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in Literature and the 2023 Loft Mirrors and Windows Fellowship for writing books for BIPOC children and young adults. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and her Australian cattle dog, Ruby. Find her online at https://www.debrajeannestone.com/ or on Instagram @debra2036.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When thirteen-year-old Zenobia has to leave her friends and spend the summer at Grandma’s while Mama recovers from a stroke, life seems so unfair. But then the eviction letters start arriving throughout her grandparents’ neighborhood, and white men chalk arrows to mark the gas and water lines, and a new world of unfairness unfolds before her. It’s 1963, and Zenobia’s grandparents’ house on Rondo Avenue in Saint Paul—like all the homes in this thriving Black community—is targeted for demolition to make way for the new Interstate Highway 94.

As Zenobia gradually learns about what’s planned for the Rondo neighborhood and what this means for everyone who lives there, she discovers how her story is intertwined with the history of her family, all the way back to Great Grandma Zenobia and the secrets Grandma Essie held close about the reason for her light skin. With the destruction of the neighborhood looming, Zenobia takes a stand on behalf of her community, joining her no-nonsense neighbor, onetime cowgirl Mrs. Ruby Pearl, in a protest and ultimately getting arrested. Though Zenobia is grounded for a month, her punishment seems of little consequence in comparison to what is happening all around her. Even though the demolition continues, she is proud to discover the power and connection in protesting injustice.

The House on Rondo captures the heartbreak, resistance, and resilience that marks a community sacrificed in the name of progress—a “progress” that never seems to favor Black families and neighborhoods and that haunts cities like Saint Paul to this day. As Zenobia learns what can be destroyed and what cannot, her story teaches us that joy, community, and love persist, even amid violence and loss.

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