Knucklehead: Tall Tales & Mostly True Stories About Growing Up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka

Summary: How did Jon Scieszka get so funny? He grew up as one of six brothers with Catholic school, lots of comic books, lazy summers at the lake with time to kill, babysitting misadventures, TV shows, and jokes told at family dinner. 106 p., Viking.

Find it at WCPL

Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris by R.L. LaFevers

Summary: When mummies go missing all over London, eleven-year-old Theodosia puts aside her fight against the Serpents of Chaos to save her father, who is suspected in the thefts, all the while avoiding a string of new governesses. 387 p., Houghton Mifflin Co.

Find it at WCPL

Big Mouth by Deborah Halverson

Summary: Fourteen-year-old Sherman Thuff, a student at the tomato-obsessed Del Heiny Junior High, has his hopes set on being a competitive eater, but when his training regimen begins to seriously interfere with his enjoyment of life and he even starts losing his friends, he decides he should rearrange his priorities. 342 p., Delacorte Press.

Stolen by Vivian Van Velde

Summary: A girl finds herself running through the forest at the edge of a village with no memory of anything, even her own name, and later learns that she might be twelve-year-old Isabelle, believed to be stolen by a witch six years before. 158 p., Marshall Cavendish.

Find it at WCPL

The Witches of Dredmoore Hollow by Riford McKenzie

Summary: Strange things begin happening at Elijah’s New England home just before his twelfth birthday in 1927, especially after two aunts he had never met whisk him away to Moaning Marsh, where he realizes that they are witches who need something from him in order to remove a curse. 264 p., Marshall Cavendish Children.

Dog Lost by Ingrid Lee

Summary: After living happily in a warm home with an eleven-year-old boy, a pit bull terrier is forced to survive on the streets, where its brave deeds surprise many residents who dislike or fear pit bulls. 197 p., Scholastic.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Summary: An orphaned boy is raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard. 312 p., HarperCollins Publishers.

Find it at WCPL

The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan by Nancy Springer

Summary: While fourteen-year-old Enola Holmes endeavors to save her friend Lady Cecily Alistair from an unwelcome arranged marriage, she meets with some assistance from her older brother, Sherlock, and interference by the eldest, Mycroft. 183p., Philomel Books.

Find it at WCPL

The Letter Writer by Ann Rinaldi

Summary: A young girl who serves as letter writer for her blind stepmother is haunted by her unwitting role in Nat Turner’s Rebellion, one of the bloodiest slave uprisings in the history of America. 224 p., Harcourt Children’s Books.

Find it at WCPL

Grow: A Novel in Verse by Juanita Havill

Summary: Two misfit children and other members of a Minneapolis, Minnesota, neighborhood are brought together by a woman creating a community garden. 159 p., Peachtree.

Find it at WCPL

The Remarkable & Very True Story of Lucy & Snowcap by H. M. Bouwman

Summary: In 1788, thirteen years after English convicts are shipwrecked on the magical islands of Tathenland, two twelve-year-old girls, one a native Colay, the other the child-governor of the English, set out on a journey to stop the treachery from which both peoples are suffering. 270 p., Marshall Cavendish Children.

Find it at WCPL

If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late by Pseudonymous Bosch

Summary: Cass and Max-Ernest discover the Museum of Magic, unscramble more coded messages, and solve new mysteries in their attempt to thwart the Terces Society’s ambitions of discovering immortality. 385 p., Little, Brown and Co.

Find it at WCPL

Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola

Summary: Watercolor illustrations and lyrical prose combine to tell the true story of Wangari Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, who changed the fate of her village in the highlands of Kenya by teaching her people how to care for it. 32 p., Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Find it at WCPL

Reaching Out by Francisco Jimenez

Summary: The author describes the many challenges he faced as the son of Mexican American migrant workers during his quest to continue his education and become an academic success, overcoming poverty, family turmoil, guilt, and self-doubt. 208 p., Houghton Mifflin.

Stolen Children by Peg Kehret

Summary: When armed thugs crash into the house and take them away to a cabin in the woods, babysitter Amy realizes she and little Kendra have become pawns in a dangerous ransom plot and so must find a way for the two of them to escape safely before their captors make their next move. 240 p., Dutton.

Find it at WCPL