Sara Ryan

A funny and heartfelt LGBTQIA+ middle grade novel set against the backdrop of family drama and a library funding campaign in a small town.Alex Eager lives in Faillin, OR with her grandmother, a retired librarian. Life should be great for Alex, since she finally worked up the courage to ask her best friend PJ if they could be more than friends and she said yes. But their new relationship will have to be long distance, because PJ is moving. On top of that, Alex is worried that something is wrong with her increasingly forgetful grandmother. And to make matters worse, Faillin is holding a referendum on library funding, and things aren’t looking good. Will anything good for Alex ever last?Mountain Upside Down is a beautifully crafted story of a thirteen-year-old girl finding her place in her family and her community. It’s a queer-positive story that doesn’t center coming out. It’s a story of a library’s role in a community that doesn’t feature book banning. And it’s a story of long-held family secrets and resentment that focuses not on final resolution but learning how to communicate again.

Nicola Lancaster is spending her summer at the Siegel Institute - a hothouse of smart, articulate, intense teenagers living like college students for eight weeks. Nic's had theatre friends and orchestra friends, but never just friend friends. And she's certainly never had a relationship. But on the very first day, she falls in with Katrina the Manic Computer Chick, Isaac the Nice-Guy-Despite-Himself, Kevin the Inarticulate Composer... and Battle. Battle Hall Davies is a beautiful blond dancer from North Carolina. She's everything Nic isn't. Soon the two are friends - and then, startlingly, more than friends. What do you do when you think you're attracted to guys, and then you meet a girl who steals your heart?