Published by HMH Books for Young Readers

Summary:  Amelia Jones has always dreamed of attending The Mystwick School of Musicraft where her late mother became a maestro.  Amelia is a flutist who has studied musicraft with some local teachers, but is ill-prepared for the big time and bungles her audition to the school.  She’s shocked a few weeks later when she gets an acceptance letter.  But when she arrives at Mystwick, she discovers the letter was an error–it was intended for a different Amelia Jones, a piano prodigy who died the previous summer under somewhat mysterious circumstances.  Our Amelia is about to be sent packing, when the teachers discover a nifty bit of magic she inadvertently performed on the school grounds.  They decide to give her two months to get her magic up to speed, at which time she’ll have to audition again to stay for good.  Amelia is determined to work hard, but when the ghost of the other Amelia Jones seems equally determined to see her fail, it becomes more and more difficult for her to believe that she really belongs at Mystwick.  368 pages; grades 4-7.

Pros:  Harry Potter fans will enjoy this fun tale of a school where kids learn to use their musical talents to do magic.  There are plenty of plot twists and supernatural events to keep kids turning the pages, and the end seems to make a sequel inevitable.  I enjoyed listening to the Audible version of this which is free, along with quite a few other books: check out their site for details.

Cons:  Granted, Amelia had plenty of reasons to doubt her talents, but I got tired of her constant “maybe I just don’t belong here” refrain.

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Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Summary:  When Cal and his friend Drew see a bunch of coins walking toward a girl in their class named Modesty, they want to know more.  It seems as though Modesty is practicing magic, but when they get their hands on her book of spells, it’s not much.  They can make a few of the more mundane spells work for one minute at a time during five minutes of the day…or night, in a few cases.  What Cal wants most is to find a spell that will repair the expensive harvester he accidentally set on fire and to help save the family farm from the inventor who has found a way to create vegetables with a 3-D printer.  When a portal opens up into another world, the three kids find themselves in the midst of an effort to save that world from global cooling–with the help of a green-skinned kid librarian named Preface (Pre for short).  When Drew accidentally gets trapped in the other world, and Pre ends up back with Cal and Modesty, it’s up to the kids to save Drew, save the farm, and quite possibly save the world.  352 pages; grades 3-7.

Pros:  Fun doesn’t begin to describe this madcap magic adventure with an intriguing parallel universe, clever wordplay, and a few zings about fake news, corrupt leaders, and climate change deniers.  The adventures and laughs never stop; this will be an easy book to promote for summer reading.

Cons:  I’d love to see more of Cal, Drew, Modesty, and Pre, but everything wrapped up so neatly, I fear there will be no sequel.

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Published by HarperCollins

Summary:  Cordelia leads a happy, if somewhat sheltered life, with her father in a reimagined Victorian/Edwardian Boston, capturing and caring for monsters.  Her mother was also involved in this work until she disappeared in the jungles of Brazil.  When Cordelia wakes up one morning to find her father and most of the monsters gone, she finds herself on an unlikely journey to try to rescue them.  Assisted by an orphan named Gregory, whom she befriends after saving his zuppy (zombie puppy), and her ex-best friend Elizabeth, she travels to New York, Nova Scotia, and Worcester, attempting to track down her father and the monsters.  Along the way, she encounters cruel prejudice against monsters and some humans, and at last learns the fates of both of her parents.  She and her father are reunited, but realize that monsters are not meant to be kept in cages (or houses) and ultimately decide to let them go their own ways.  384 pages; grades 4-7.

Pros:  There’s plenty of adventure for Cordelia and her friends, as well as some interesting monsters, a couple of heartwarming friendship stories, and a timely message about valuing all forms of life.

Cons:  Try as I might, I never found this book as engaging as I was hoping (it got three starred reviews), and the message was repeated just a bit too often.

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