Erin Dionne

Hamlet Kennedy just wants to be your average, happy, vanilla eighth grader. But with Shakespearean scholar parents who dress in Elizabethan regalia and generally go about in public as if it were the sixteenth century, that’s not terribly easy. It gets worse when they decide that Hamlet’s genius seven year-old sister will attend middle school with her— and even worse when the Shakespeare project is announced and her sister is named the new math tutor. By the time an in-class recitation reveals that our heroine is an extraordinary Shakespearean actress, Hamlet can no longer hide from the fact that she—like her family—is anything but average. In a novel every bit as funny as her debut, Erin Dionne has created another eighth grader whose situation is utterly unique—but whose foibles and farces will resound with every girl currently suffering through middle school.

Walk the runway for all the world to see? Nope. No way. NEVER. At least, that's what I thought—until Aunt Doreen secretly entered me in the Miss HuskyPeach pageant for plus-sized girls. I couldn't do it, but I felt too guilty to quit. There was only one way out... This is the story of thirteen-year-old Celeste Harris, who used to be perfectly comfortable with her weight. She also used to think nothing would make eighth grade worse than super-popular, super-mean Lively Carson's persistent insults and attempts to steal her best friend. But along came the chance of being crowned a chubby teen queen, and suddenly it was clear: Things could be much worse. So Celeste crafts a plan—she'll sacrifice her chocolate cookie obsession, lose weight, and shrink right out of the competition. What follows is a series of escapades both hilarious and horrifying, as our heroine tries to hold her head high both on the catwalk and off—and learns to show the world who she is from the inside out.

Sarah Anne loves lacrosse, and the MK Nightshade series that everyone was obsessed over in grade school. The problem is that she's still obsessed, which is way too nerdy for a popular kid like her. So she hides her geekiness with a set of rules meant to keep her geek and jock selves separate. Except when she's offered a spot in a Nightshade fandom contest, where the winner gets to see the new movie premiere in LA. No one seems to think Sarah Anne can win, since she's up against a pair of guys in high school--but the more she's called a fake fan, the more determined she is to wipe the floor with her competition. As long as none of her friends or anyone at school knows what she's doing.Can she keep her geek identity a secret, win the contest, and manage to keep her friends even though she's been living a lie? Sarah Anne is going to have to make some choices about what's truly important to her and which rules she's going to break to stay true to herself.

For fans of Eerie , Elementary , Bailey School Kids , and The Notebook of Doom , the first book in a magical, spooky new chapter book series about friendship, community restoration and involvement, and helping your neighbors . . . even if some of them may be monsters. Bella Gossi just moved from New York City to the Massachusetts beach town of Shiver-by-the-Sea to live with her Uncle Van. Bella’s excited about helping her mom fix up the old movie theater, but she’s already missing her old home and her old friends, and just driving through downtown, it’s pretty clear that this place has seen better days. After meeting Cooper and his adorable basset hound, Casper, things start looking up. But when mom tasks them with clearing out an old trunk from the theater and picking the first movie they’ll show, that’s when the trouble begins. Out of the trunk pops a bat! But not just any bat . . . a kid vampire. A very hungry, very scared kid vampire, who’s lost and doesn’t know how to get home to his family. Bella and Cooper are a little frightened at first, too, but soon they’re on a mission to help Bram find his way home, because that’s what real friends do.