New Middle Grade Books for 2016: January – April
- Books
2016 is almost upon us (no, really…) and that means a whole new year of awesome, awesome new middle grade books.
These are all books by debut authors, which is doubly, triply awesome.
So here are a few details of the books:
Bounders, by Monica Tesler
Published: January 5th, 2016
Twelve-year-old Jasper and his friends are forced to go up against an alien society in this first book in a brand-new adventure series!
Thirteen years ago, Earth Force discovered a connection between brain structure and space travel. Now they’ve brought together the first team of cadets, called Bounders, to be trained as high-level astronauts. But Earth Force have been keeping secrets, and when Jasper and his friends find them out, they have to decide whether to rebel against the academy that brought them together or fulfill their duties and protect the planet, no matter the cost.
Goodreads | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Author Website
Paper Wishes, by Lois Sepahban
Published: January 5th, 2016
Ten-year-old Manami did not realize how peaceful her family’s life on Bainbridge Island was until the day it all changed. It’s 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Manami and her family are Japanese American, which means that the government says they must leave their home by the sea and join other Japanese Americans at a prison camp in the desert.
A moving debut novel about a girl whose family is relocated to a Japanese internment camp during World War II–and the dog she has to leave behind.
Goodreads | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Author Website
Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, by Patrick Samphire
Published: January 12th, 2016
The year is 1816, the place is Mars. Home of pterodactyls, spies, and clockwork butlers…
All 12-year-old Edward Sullivan wants is to read his Thrilling Martian Tales in peace. But when a villainous archaeologist kidnaps his parents, Edward and his sisters must set out across the Martian wilderness to save them.
Together they must evade ruthless foes, battle mechanical nasties, and escape deadly Martian hunting machines. If they can’t, they will never uncover the secrets of the dragon tomb and rescue Edward’s family.
SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB is a thrilling, action-packed adventure story, full of humor, wild inventions, and terrible danger.
(This is my book!)
Goodreads | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Author Website
Fenway and Hattie, by Victoria J. Coe
Published: February 9th, 2016
Fenway and his beloved short human, Hattie, are the perfect pair. She loves romping in the Dog Park, playing fetch, and eating delicious snacks as much as he does.
But when they move from the city to the suburbs, Hattie starts changing. She hangs out in a squirrely tree house. She plays ball without him. What could be happening?
Crushed and confused, Fenway sets out on a mission. He’s going to get his Hattie back and nothing will stop him.
The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price, by Jennifer Maschari
Published: February 23rd, 2016
Ever since twelve-year-old Charlie Price’s mom died, he feels like his world has been split into two parts. Before included stargazing and Mathletes and Saturday scavenger hunts with his family. After means a dad who’s completely checked out, comically bad dinners, and grief group that’s anything but helpful. It seems like losing Mom meant losing everything else he loved, too.
When he follows his sister into a magical world he finds it is identical to their own with one key difference – Mom is alive. But this idealized other world holds terrifying secrets, and he’ll have to defeat monsters both real and imagined or risk losing himself, his sister, and the true memory of his mother forever.
Goodreads | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Author Website
The Last Boy at St. Edith’s, by Lee Gjertsen Malone
Published: February 23rd, 2016
Seventh grader Jeremy Miner has a girl problem. Or, more accurately, a girls problem. Four hundred and seventy-five of them. That’s how many girls attend his school, St. Edith’s Academy.
Jeremy is the only boy left after the school’s brief experiment in coeducation. And he needs to get out. Jeremy takes matters into his own hands: He’s going to get expelled.
Together with his best friend, Claudia, Jeremy unleashes a series of hilarious pranks in hopes that he’ll get kicked out with minimum damage to his permanent record. But when his stunts start to backfire, Jeremy has to decide whom he’s willing to knock down on his way out the door.
Goodreads | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Author Website
The Hour of the Bees, by Lindsay Eagar
Published: March 8th, 2016
Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them…
While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she’s never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on and the heat bears down, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought.
The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, by Laura Shovan
Published: April 12th, 2016
When fifth graders learn that their school will be torn down and replaced by a supermarket, they take their teacher’s 1960s political teachings to heart and fight to save it.
Told through the poems of the eighteen students in fifth grade, the book follows each of them as they grow up and move on through the year.
Goodreads | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Author Website
Counting Thyme, by Melanie Conklin
Published: April 12th, 2016
When eleven-year-old Thyme Owen’s little brother, Val, is accepted into a new cancer drug trial, it’s just the second chance that he needs. But it also means the Owens family has to move to New York, thousands of miles away from Thyme’s best friend and everything she knows and loves. All Thyme can do is count the minutes, the hours and the days, and hope time can bring both a miracle for Val and a way back home.
Goodreads | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Author Website
My Seventh-Grade Life in Tights, by Brooks Benjamin
Published: April 12th, 2016
All Dillon wants is to be a real dancer. And if he wins a summer scholarship at Dance-Splosion, he’s on his way. The problem? His dad wants him to play football. And Dillon’s freestyle crew, the Dizzee Freekz, says that dance studios are for sellouts.
But as Dillon’s dancing improves, he wonders: what if studios aren’t the enemy? And what if he actually has a shot at winning the scholarship?
Goodreads | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Author Website
And that’s it, folks, for the first batch. I’ll post the next batch, for books later in the year, in a few months! Keep an eye out!
