Published by Random House Books for Young Readers

Summary:  When Maizy’s grandfather gets sick, she and her mother return to her mom’s childhood home in Last Chance, Minnesota.  Maizy’s not excited at the prospect of spending an entire summer with grandparents she barely knows, but Last Chance proves to be surprisingly interesting.  Her grandfather, Opa, tells her stories about Lucky, their ancestor from China who unexpectedly wound up in Last Chance and owned the Golden Palace restaurant that Maizy’s grandparents still run.  Lucky encountered hatred and racism in America, but also kindness, and Maizy has some similar experiences.  When the restaurant is targeted in a racist incident, Maizy is determined to find the culprit.  Her grandfather’s tales lead her to dig deeper into the story of the Paper Sons whose pictures hang on the walls of the Golden Palace, and she starts to connect with other Chinese American people around the country.  The whole community comes together when Maizy and her family need them the most, and she learns that there is more to many of her neighbors than meets the eye.  Includes a 10-page author’s note with lots of photos telling of her own Chinese American family’s story.  288 pages; grades 4-7.

Pros:  There’s a lot packed into this fast-paced story, and Lisa Yee does an excellent job of tying up many different threads in a heartwarming final scene.  Opa’s stories about Lucky are well-integrated into the text, each one just a page or two long so that it doesn’t feel like an interruption to the main narrative. 

Cons:  The fact that I loved the short chapters (some just a page long) probably doesn’t speak well for my diminished attention span.

Published by Random House Books for Young Readers

Summary:  Gina and her friends Edgar, Elena, and Kevin are dismissively referred to as GEEKs by a classmate.  Each one has a passion that some consider geeky: Gina’s an aspiring investigative reporter; Edgar is into theater; Elena loves science; and Kevin is a mathematician who’s running for class president.  They pool their talents to try to find a treasure rumored to have been hidden by Maxine Van Houten, inventor of the popular Bamboozler puzzle that helped her town flourish.  Since her death, the town has fallen on hard times that are affecting all four of the kids’ families.  As the GEEKs work their way through the clues left by Maxine, they start to suspect that someone is trying to beat them to the treasure.  It’s a race against time that will require all the brainpower the four of them can muster.  320 pages; grades 4-6.

Pros:  Mystery and puzzle fans will enjoy this treasure hunt story that celebrates friendship and loyalty as well as smarts.  Billed as book 1, it looks like we will be seeing more about the GEEKs.

Cons:  Readers may need to suspend their disbelief that the kids are able to solve the difficult puzzles as quickly as they do.

Published by Holiday House

Published by Quill Tree Books

Summary: These two collections of scary short stories were released in August, just in time to get in the library before Halloween.  Only If You Dare has 13 stories, mostly about kids whose normal lives are disturbed by some supernatural aspect.  They try to dismiss it at first, but eventually the nightmare comes true, the doll comes to life…well, you get the idea.  Hide and Don’t Seek is a collection of 19 stories, with a little more variety in the format, including a poem, a story told all in texts, and a collection of letters from a summer camp that you might want to avoid sending your kids to.  Both books have plenty of illustrations just in case your imagination isn’t overstimulated enough.  Only If You Dare is 208 pages, Hide and Don’t Seek is 224; both recommended for grades 4-7.

Pros:  Anyone who has worked in a library frequented by kids knows that these books will never be on the shelves.  The demand for scary stories is huge, and these stories are truly creepy.  Some kids’ horror is more funny than horrifying, but not these two collections.  They are definitely scary without being too disturbing for the intended age group.

Cons:  Horror is not and has never been my favorite genre, so reading 32 scary stories in a row…let’s just say I’ll be avoiding dolls and clowns for a while.

Published by Triangle Square

Summary:  Atticus “Atty” Peale knows what it’s like to be different. Her white father and black stepmother and brother make the family stand out in their small Alabama town.  She’s learned to speak up for herself, and being the daughter of a public defender makes her want to speak up for others.  When she and her younger brother Martinez get to know Easy, a shelter dog accused of biting a man, Atty becomes the dog’s advocate, going to court to try to save him from being put down.  Meanwhile, her father is spending long hours at the jail, working to save his own client, a neighbor and friend accused of murder.  Could the two cases be connected?  Atty, Martinez, and an interesting new seventh grade friend named Reagan need to keep their wits about them to solve the mysteries.  240 pages; grades 4-7.

Pros:  A fun girl detective with a mind and voice of her own make this debut novel a good choice for mystery fans.  There’s lots more there than just cracking the case: the perils of seventh grade, many well-developed quirky characters, and the impoverished but close-knit Alabama small town setting.

Cons:  The plot seemed to meander quite a bit, and a subplot about an alligator didn’t seem essential to the rest of the story.

If you would like to buy this book on Amazon, click here.