Published by Aladdin

Summary:  Mattie is generally a behind-the-scenes kind of girl, but when her favorite teacher Mr. Torres announces that the eighth grade play will be Romeo and Juliet, she decides to join her two best friends in auditioning.  She proves to have more talent than she’s given herself credit for.  Originally cast as Paris, she gets moved into a starring role when the boy playing Romeo drops out.  She slowly comes to terms with the fact that she has a crush on Gemma, the girl playing Juliet, and struggles with revealing her feelings to both Gemma and her best friends.  After some awkward rehearsals (those kissing scenes!), the play goes off without a hitch, and the final pages at a school dance reveal that Mattie and Gemma aren’t the only ones thinking about romance.  277 pages; grades 5-8.

Pros:  A sweet and funny school story with a coming-out twist.  Mattie is a sympathetic character who is fortunate enough to have supportive friends and family.  Theater fans will enjoy the narrative about putting on a play and might even be tempted to try some Shakespeare.

Cons:  The cover makes the girls look like they’re about 11, but the content is a little more mature.

Published by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers

Summary:  11-year-old Joe has spent almost his whole life in a sterile London hospital room, suffering from a rare immunodeficiency that prevents him from going outside.  His only human contact is with medical personnel, his older sister Beth (their parents were killed in a car accident), and Henry, an American boy with a similar disease with whom he Skypes.  Henry is getting ready for a trip outside in a suit designed for him by NASA.  When Joe’s eccentric new nurse Amir suggests a plan to secretly get Joe outside, Joe is intrigued but scared at the prospect.  Both boys get their trips out, Henry in front of TV cameras and Joe secretly in the dead of night, but there are serious consequences for them both.  Despite all his difficulties, Joe manages to move from one day to the next with a remarkably optimistic view.  352 pages; grades 4-7.

Pros:  A moving story that has its moments of sadness but ultimately remains hopeful.  Despite his limited life, Joe is a typical kid in many ways, with his love of superheroes, video games, and football (British-style).  I would recommend this to fans of Wonder if it weren’t becoming such a cliche to do so with any book that packs an emotional punch.

Cons: Flashbacks to 1976.

Published by Walden Pond Press

Summary:  Eric, a.k.a. Frost, is part of a tight group of four friends (nicknamed Bench, Wolf, and Deedee) who have protected each other through two difficult years of middle school.  When cellphones are banned at the beginning of eighth grade, he and his friends begin leaving notes on Post-Its.  Before long, these sticky notes are appearing on lockers and backpacks all over school, some silly, some wise, and some hurtful.  At the same time, a new girl, Rose, starts hanging out with the guys, causing a shift in the group dynamics.  Bench deserts them for another lunch table, and Deedee and Frost are the victims of a vicious bully who may or may not be one of Bench’s new friends.  Rose heroically comes to their rescue, but even she can’t protect them when the bully comes after Wolf.  The kids learn the power of words to hurt and to heal and the many varieties of friendship as they muddle their way through their final year of middle school.  384 pages; grades 5-8.

Pros:  A powerful and realistic friendship story that is unflinching in its portrayal of the social hierarchy of middle school.  This is sure to be a popular choice for readers, as well as teachers looking for interesting class discussions.

Cons:  Some language and some details about the bullying incident may make this more of a middle school book than an elementary one.

Published by Amistad

Summary:  Clayton Byrd is happiest when he’s playing the blues with his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd.  Cool Papa gives Clayton a harmonica, or blues harp, and lets him play it in his band; Clayton dreams of the day he’ll be allowed to play a solo.  When his grandfather suddenly passes away, Clayton is overcome with grief, intensified by his mother’s apparent lack of caring.  When she declares, “no more blues”, and takes away his blues harp, Clayton knows he has to do something.  He takes a day off from school, steals back his harmonica, and boards the subway in search of Cool Papa’s old band.  Along the way he loses both his blues harp and the treasured hat that belonged to his grandfather, falls in with a group of hip-hop artists that take their music onto the subway cars, and almost ends up in jail.  His mother comes through for him in the end, and the two of them develop a new appreciation and understanding of each other.  An author’s note tells more about blues, hip-hop, and how she came to write this book.  176 pages; grades 3-7.

Pros:  Newbery and Coretta Scott King honoree Williams-Garcia has created another sympathetic character in Clayton Bird, exploring the richness of blues and hip-hop cultures through his experiences and interactions with other fascinating characters.

Cons:  The story was too short to be as fully developed as One Crazy Summer and its sequels.

Published by Aladdin

Summary:  Izzy Cervantes is apprehensive about her month at Camp Foxtail, even though her best friend Mackenzie is going with her.  Things seem a lot different from Camp Sweetwater, where Izzy has been a leader for the past several summers.  For one thing, she and Mackenzie are put in different cabins.  But she’s excited to learn that her cabin, the Willows, has a traditional prank war with the Wolverines, one of the boys’ cabins.  At Camp Sweetwater, Izzy was known as a prank queen, but the other Willows, all Foxtail veterans, don’t seem interested in her ideas.  So Izzy invents an older brother, Tomas, claiming he was a Wolverine and a pranking champion.  She pulls off a pranking victory, and finds herself in the middle of a popular group of Willows.  But their friendship comes with a price, and Izzy can’t understand why Mackenzie is acting so cool toward her.  By the end of the month, Izzy has learned a lot about friendship, telling the truth, and herself.  352 pages; grades 3-7.

Pros:  A highly readable summer book, filled with a host of diverse characters, and a narrator whose voice rings true.  Readers will be ready to sign up for summer camp after reading about the activities and hijinks and Camp Foxtail.

Cons:  There are a lot of characters to keep track of.

Published by Aladdin

Summary:  Jeremy Wilderson calls himself the “retrieval specialist” of Scottsville Middle School–if someone steals your wallet or a teacher confiscates your phone, Jeremy will get it back without leaving a trace of evidence that he was there.  So when eighth-grader Mark hires him to find his missing key, Jeremy isn’t a bit suspicious, and it is mission accomplished within 24 hours.  But when he overhears teachers discussing the stolen master key that opens every locker in the school, he realizes that he’s been duped.  By the next day, locker robberies are sweeping the school, and Jeremy knows who is responsible.  But how can he bring down Mark without indicting himself?  There’s only one person who can help him: self-styled sixth-grade detective Becca, who also happens to be Jeremy’s #1 nemesis.  Can the two enemies come together to catch a thief?  256 pages; grades 4-7.

Pros:  Part of Aladdin’s MAX imprint targeting middle grade boy readers (I’m guessing, since two other titles in the series are entitled I Am Fartacus and 33 Minutes Until Morgan Sturtz Kicks My Butt), this is a fun middle school adventure told in Jeremy’s humorous voice. Recommended for fans of Swindle and The Great Greene Heist.

Cons:  The plot occasionally drifts into too much talk and not enough action.

Published by HarperCollins

Summary:  On page 214, Callie has just gotten to school late after trying, unsuccessfully, to defend her younger brother from a bully.  She’s (sort of accidentally) skipped school all week.  Placement tests for eighth grade are about to start, and her history teacher is ordering her to get to her homeroom so she won’t be late.  Callie is failing history, a fact that she has hidden from her parents, who already have enough to worry about since her father lost his lucrative new job.  At that moment, Callie’s new friend Cassius, who is going blind, calls to tell her he’s lost in the subway and needs her to come help him.  There’s more, including a grandmother still mourning the loss of her son, who was estranged from his parents after coming out as gay; two wealthy friends who keep asking Callie for the $250 she owes them; and the man in Apartment 1986 of her grandmother’s building, who might be her grandmother’s new boyfriend, and whose apartment seems to be a sort of time machine back to the year 1986.  272 pages; grades 4-7.

Pros:  The pace is fast and furious, all told in Callie’s funny, honest voice.  Callie tries to be an optimist, no matter what, but by the end of the story, she’s learned that life is both sunshine and shadows, and the best you can do is try to tell the truth about it and hang on to the people you love.

Cons:  As someone who actually lived through 1986, I wouldn’t choose it for a time-travel destination.