Gr. 3-6  Twelve-year-old Peter Gronkowski knows he’s Poplar Lane’s resident business professional: founder, CEO, CFO, and COO of Peter Presents, Inc. To increase his impact, he hires his first unpaid intern, neighbor and classmate Rachel Chambers, a quiet girl who dreams of being a writer. When Peter’s constant demands and claims to Rachel’s creativity drive her to break away and start a competing business, war is declared. [Read More]  

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Readers

Gr. 3-6 Moving during the school year is a drag, especially when it entails leaving your friends and the beaches of Florida for the chilly North. But Tessa’s dad’s new position with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra means there’s no arguing on that score. As soon as the family moves into their new (old) house, something makes its presence known through cold winds, a color-changing painting, mysterious drawings in Tessa’s sketch pad, and the sound of crying at night. [Read More]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Readers

Gr. 3-6 ***Starred Review*** The Prince and the Pauper is given Arabian Nights flair in this clever retelling that unites magic and adventure. Nalah is a peasant girl in New Hadar who must hide her magical abilities or be arrested. Halan is a powerless princess in the Magi Kingdom, where magic rules. Neither 12-year-old knows the other exists, but a magical mirror Nalah creates at the request of a family friend becomes a portal between their worlds. When Nalah’s father […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Readers

Gr. 3-6. Francesca “Frank” Patel couldn’t experience a worse summer. Her best friend is away, her cat is missing, and the school bully won’t leave her alone. When the horrid giant of a kid Nick Underbridge rescues her and takes her to his home, Frank doesn’t know what to make of him. His father is friendly, and the house is cheerful and filled with beautiful music. When she snoops behind a secret door, she discovers the source of the music: […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Readers

Gr. 3-6. For the past two years, 12-year-old Emmaline Beaumont’s father has been working day and night in the basement on a ghost machine intended to bring his wife back from the dead. Emmy feels abandoned, until one night, in anger, she flings her cup of tea into the machine’s mouth, and before she knows it, her mother appears in the kitchen for a few brief minutes. [Read More]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Readers

Gr. 2-4. Moving with their mother from Canada to their relatives’ home in England isn’t something brothers Jake, 11, and Simon, 6, want to do, but their father is in prison, and their house has been repossessed. The boys’ spirits change, however, when they encounter a magician who is retiring and gives them a stopwatch, an antique camera, and an old carpet that he claims are magical. [Read More]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Readers

Gr. 3-6. Bright and charming Audacity Jones finds herself on another adventure that takes her out of Miss Maisie’s School for Wayward Girls to New York City along with her best friend, Bimmy, her sly cat, Min, and Cypher, the relocated chauffeur. There they meet famous magician and escape artist Harry Houdini, who is the middle of planning his biggest theatrical disappearing act yet, making an elephant vanish in a crowded theater. While working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Readers