Cog looks like an ordinary twelve year old boy, but he is an advanced android that the scientists at uniMind use to watch learning (cognitive development) behavior. He lives with Gina, who functions as his mother and sets him to do certain tasks so she can watch how he handles...

Hazel lives on a farm with her two mothers and her older brother Rowan. They have a heard of goats that her Mom milks for her business of making soaps and other products, and Mimi is a lawyer in town. Because of a change in the train schedule, Hazel has...

Albiorix is a young Medieval wizard from the mystical realm of Bríandalör who is Hall Master for the role playing game Homerooms and Hall Passes. He and his friends (Thromdurr, a barbarian; Sorrowshade, a gloom elf; Vela, a paladin; and Devis, a thief) meet at a local pub in between...

Why we still need biographies of first wave feminists: "A married woman taking her husband's name reflected that under legal principle of coverture she no longer had a separate legal existence of her own." (page 31) Women changing their names is one of my pet peeves, and now I have...

Sage lives out west in the town of Goldview, and her family is cursed. Years ago, her mother and her best friend (the mother of Sage's nemesis, Priscilla) got caught in a storm with pink lightning, and ever since, they've had to deal with the Contrarium curse, where if something...

Bella lives with the McBrides, who have several small children and often forget Bella's needs. She gets in trouble for things like trying to water the Christmas tree by peeing in the holder, and for knocking the tree down while trying to get her favorite snack (popcorn) off the tree....

In this short, middle grade graphic novel, DC superheroes from the Justice League answer e mails from young fans. Superman is asked if he ever makes mistakes, and a story unfolds with one of his rescues taking multiple wrong turns. Aquaman gets an inquiry about whether he smells like fish,...

Isaiah's family has struggled after the death of his sister in a car accident that wasn't her fault. The parents divorced, and Isaiah got in so much trouble that he had to spend some time institutionalized and was finally given the choice by his father-- either play football, or stay...

Bria has made some poor choices concerning friends and social media back home in Chicago, so her parents have decided to pack her off to spend the summer helping out on her aunt's farm in Iowa with her cousins. Since Bria doesn't find farm life as interesting as fashion, and...

Willa has struggled with a sensory processing disorder her whole life, but with supportive parents and some occupational therapy, she deals with it well enough that she doesn't even tell her best friend, Ruby, about it. She fits in well enough at The Children's School in New York City, where...

June 28th marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, New York City, so it's great to have a new middle grade title that does such a fantastic job of explaining the events of that week along with background information of the social constructs that lead to...

Emily and her parents go to China to bring home the little girl they are adopting. Emily isn't crazy about the idea, since she fears losing her parents and having a lot of her time taken up by her sister. She is interested in photojournalism, since her late grandmother was...

Usagi lives in a world where some children are born with extraordinary powers, either ones that are animal like qualities or work with the elements. She lives with her younger sister Uma and friend Toma, since her parents were killed when the Dragonlord took over and outlawed anyone with powers....

This was a completely fresh and engaging novel! There are very few books about cryptids out there (Savage's Lemons, Smith's Cryptid Hunters and Aldredge and DuBois-Shaw' s Sasquatch, Love, and Other Imaginary Things are the only ones I can think of), but the idea that since cryptid hunting isn't lucrative,...

Ranger travels back in time via a magical first aid kit, and must stay until he figures out how to help a key figure in a historical event. This time, he is helping Isaac, a young African-American boy who was a fisherman and who gets caught up in the struggle...