From award-winning author Hilary McKay comes an enchanting illustrated middle grade novel in the spirit of Matilda about a lonely orphan who dreams of escaping her ghastly aunt and uncle.Rosa has always believed there is magic in the world. Or at least, she hopes there is. She lost her parents when she was four, and her aunt and uncle moved into her home not long after, transforming it from a messy place of love and warmth to a cold world of business. Their approach to family is as phony as the plastic grass they sell, keeping Rosa at arm’s length and tucking her in at night by locking her in her room. Now eleven, Rosa’s loneliness threatens to overwhelm her. Her only solace is the magic she sees around her, particularly in a cat named Balthazar who comes to—and through—her window. When all the teachers at her school win the lottery and quit their jobs, Rosa’s aunt and uncle seize the opportunity to put an evil plan into action. They whisk Rosa away to Venice, intending to abandon her there. Luckily for Rosa, there are cats in Venice—and a laughing boy in a gondola and a family making sure she is fed. In Rosa’s darkest hour, can the magic she’s never lost faith in save the day?

An uplifting novel in verse about an immigrant girl adjusting to life in the US through her love of nature, music, and poetry, by the award-winning author of The Bridge HomeWhen Geetha and her mom move from India to Rhode Island after her parents’ divorce, they leave everything Geetha loves behind—her family, her friends, her dog, and all that’s familiar. As if that’s not hard enough, Geetha is bullied at her new school for her clothes, her food, and her English (who knew so many English words could be spelled or pronounced differently in the US—or just be altogether different!). She finds some solace in playing her flute and writing poetry, and even more when she meets Miguel, a kid with whom she has a lot in common, and the two of them help rescue an injured harp seal stranded on the beach. But Geetha can feel her anger building over lots of things—careless people who pollute the sea and hurt animals, and her mom for making her move. She’s never been so sad and angry. She can see a lot of her fears mirrored in the injured seal when she visits it at the Marine Mammal Rehabilitation Center, and this broadens her understanding of survival skills. And when she and Miguel start a beach-clean-up venture, she’s surprised to find how many kind kids are out there. Geetha is torn as the time comes to let the seal go, knowing she’ll miss him, but wanting the best for him. She’s learning to live with mixed feelings and accept that while there will always be rough waters, there are plenty of safe harbors too.

An action-packed new adventure series from Blue Peter Award-winning author Kieran Larwood and Waterstones Children's Book Prize winner Joe Todd Stanton. Young readers will love discovering the world of the Dungeon Runners! CALLING ALL DUNGEON RUNNERS - There's space for a new team of heroes. This is your chance to enter the leagues and fight your way to the top! Kit has dreamed of being a Dungeon Runner all his life, although being a gnorf (part gnome, part dwarf) means he's much smaller than the other competitors. But when a space opens up for a new team in the Dungeon Running League, Kit doesn't want to miss this chance to try out! With his new friends Sandy and Thorn, they're ready to take on anything - mazes, puzzles, monsters, treasure and most of all adventure! Are you ready for the games to begin? Welcome to the Dungeon!

Alternate cover editions of ISBN 9780143038092 can be found here. Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

"The book we all need at the time we all need it.” —Katherine Applegate, Newbery Award–winning author of The One and Only Ivan In this middle grade novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Gayle Forman, a boy who has been assigned to spend his summer volunteering at a senior living facility learns unexpected lessons that change the trajectory of his life.To say Alex has had it rough is an understatement. His father’s gone, his mother is struggling with mental health issues, and he’s now living with an aunt and uncle who are less than excited to have him. Almost everyone treats him as though he doesn’t matter at all, like he’s nothing. So when a kid at school actually tells him he’s nothing, Alex snaps, and gets violent. Fortunately, his social worker pulls some strings and gets him a job at a nursing home for the summer rather than being sent to juvie. There, he meets Josey, the 107-year-old Holocaust survivor who stopped bothering to talk years ago, and Maya-Jade, the granddaughter of one of the residents with an overblown sense of importance. Unlike Alex, Maya-Jade believes that people care about what she thinks, and that she can make a difference. And when Alex and Josey form an unlikely bond, with Josey confiding in him, Alex starts to believe he can make a difference—a good difference—in the world. If he can truly feel he matters, Alex may be able to finally rise to the occasion of his own life.

The beloved author of Because of Winn-Dixie has outdone herself with a hilarious and achingly real love story about a girl, a ghost, a grandmother, and growing up. 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.

From APALA-winning author and Guggenheim Fellow Kao Kalia Yang, a middle-grade debut about a Hmong-American boy's struggle to find a place for himself in America and in the world of his ancestors. Malcolm is the youngest child of Hmong refugees, and he was born over a decade after his youngest sibling, giving him a unique perspective on his complicated immigrant family. In the first part of the story, we meet Malcolm as an elementary school kid through the eyes of the adults in his life--his parents and siblings but also the white teachers at his Minnesota schools. As middle school begins, we encounter Malcolm in his own words, and suddenly we see that this "quiet, slow Hmong boy" is anything but. Malcolm is a gifted collector of his family's stories and tireless seeker of his own place within an evolving Hmong-American culture, and his journey toward becoming a shaman like his grandparents before him is inspiring and revelatory.

Welcome to the Adventure Zone! SEE! The illustrated exploits of three lovable dummies set loose in a classic fantasy adventure! READ! Their journey from small-time bodyguards to world-class artifact hunters! MARVEL! At the sheer metafictional chutzpah of a graphic novel based on a story created in a podcast where three dudes and their dad play a tabletop role playing game in real time! Join Taako the elf wizard, Merle the dwarf cleric, and Magnus the human warrior for an adventure they are poorly equipped to handle AT BEST, guided ("guided") by their snarky DM, in a graphic novel that, like the smash-hit podcast it's based on, will tickle your funny bone, tug your heartstrings, and probably pants you if you give it half a chance. With endearingly off-kilter storytelling from master goofballs Clint McElroy and the McElroy brothers, and vivid, adorable art by Carey Pietsch, The Adventure Zone: Here There be Gerblins is the comics equivalent of role-playing in your friend's basement at 2am, eating Cheetos and laughing your ass off as she rolls critical failure after critical failure.