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Anna and Maggie are best friends growing up in a tiny town in Saskatchewan in 1948. Anna's big family means that she must help with the household and younger siblings, while her father's drinking is becoming a topic of town gossip. Maggie's life looks perfect from the outside, but she often feels like she doesn't belong in her own family. As the pressures and prejudices of small-town life get complicated for both girls, the only thing they can count on is their friendship.
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Lemons by Melissa Savage Lemonade's mama always told her: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But Lem can’t possibly make lemonade out of her new life in Willow Creek, where she’s forced to live with a grandfather she’s never met after her mother passes away. Then she meets eleven-year-old Tobin, the CEO of Bigfoot Detectives Inc., who is the sole Bigfoot investigator for their small town. After he invites Lem to be his assistant for the summer, they set out on an epic adventure to capture a shot of the elusive beast on film. But along the way, Lem and Tobin end up discovering more than they ever could have imagined. And Lem realizes that maybe she can make lemonade out of her new life after all.
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Take Down by Laura ShovanMikayla is a wrestler. When you grow up in a house full of brothers who wrestle, it's inevitable. It's also a way to stay connected to her oldest brother, Evan, who moved in with their dad. Some people object to having a girl on the team. But that's not stopping Mikayla. She's determined to work harder than ever, and win.
Lev is determined to make it to the state championships this year. He's used to training with his two buddies as the Fearsome Threesome; they know how to work together. At the beginning of sixth grade, he's paired with a new partner--a girl. This better not get in the way of his goal.
Mikayla and Lev work hard together and become friends. But when they face each other, only one of them can win.
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| Up for Air by Laurie MorrisonThirteen-year-old Annabelle struggles in school, no matter how hard she tries. But as soon as she dives into the pool, she’s unstoppable. She’s the fastest girl on the middle school swim team, and when she’s asked to join the high school team over the summer, everything changes. Suddenly, she’s got new friends, and a high school boy starts treating her like she’s somebody special. She’ll do anything to fit in and help the team make it to the Labor Day Invitational, even if it means blowing off her old friends. But after a prank goes wrong, Annabelle is abandoned by the older boy and can’t swim. Who is she without the one thing she’s good at? |
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| When the cops show up at Jesse’s house and arrest her dad, she figures out in a hurry that he’s the #1 suspect in the missing library fund money case. With the help of her only friend Springer, she rounds up suspects and asks a lot of questions. But she can’t shake the feeling that she isn’t exactly cut out for being a crime-solving hero. Jesse has a neuro-processing disorder, which means that she’s “on the spectrum or whatever.” As she explains it, “I get stuck on lots of stuff, like words and phrases and numbers and smells and pictures and song lines and what time stuff is supposed to happen.” But when a tornado strikes her small town, Jesse is given the opportunity to show what she's really made of—and help her dad.
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Kalvan Monroe is worried. Either he’s going mad or he really did wake up with uncontrollable fire magic and accidentally summon a snarky talking fire hare. (Yes, that’s right, a hare. Made of fire. That talks.) He’s got to be going crazy, right? But if he’s not, then magic actually is real, and he’s got even more problems to worry about. Because Kalvan isn’t the only one with powers. The same fire magic that allows him to talk his way into and out of trouble burned too brightly in his mother, damaging her mind and leaving her vulnerable to the cold, manipulative spells of the Winter King. Can Kalvan gain control of his power in time to save his mother, or will their fires be snuffed out forever?
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For Fans of Raina Telgemeier
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| All Vera wants to do is fit in, but that’s not easy for a Russian girl in the suburbs. Her friends live in fancy houses and their parents can afford to send them to the best summer camps. Vera’s single mother can’t afford that sort of luxury, but there's one summer camp in her price range―Russian summer camp. Vera is sure she's found the one place she can fit in, but camp is far from what she imagined. And nothing could prepare her for all the cool girl drama, endless Russian history lessons, and outhouses straight out of nightmares! |
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| Eleven-year-old Imogene has grown up with two parents working at the Renaissance Faire, and she's eager to begin her own training as a squire. First, though, she'll need to prove her bravery. Luckily she has just the quest in mind—she'll go to public school after a life of being homeschooled!
But it's not easy to act like a noble knight-in-training in middle school. Imogene falls in with a group of girls who seem really nice and starts to be embarrassed of her thrift shop apparel, her family's unusual lifestyle, and their small, messy apartment. Imogene has always thought of herself as a heroic knight, but when she does something really mean in order to fit in, she begins to wonder whether she might be more of a dragon after all. |
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| All Summer Long by Hope LarsonThirteen-year-old Bina has a long summer ahead of her. She and her best friend, Austin, usually do everything together, but he's off to soccer camp for a month, and he's been acting kind of weird lately anyway. It's up to Bina to see how much fun she can have on her own. At first it's a lot of guitar playing, boredom, and bad TV, but things look up when she finds an unlikely companion in Austin's older sister, who enjoys music just as much as Bina. But then Austin comes home from camp, and he's acting even weirder than when he left! |
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| Short & Skinny by Mark TatulliAs a middle schooler, Mark finds himself on the smaller side of the physical spectrum--being short AND skinny has really wreaked havoc on his confidence. So to end his bullying woes and get the girl, or at least the confidence to talk to the girl, he starts to explore bulking up by way of the miracle cures in the backs of his comics. His obsession with beefing up is soon derailed by a new obsession: Star Wars, the hottest thing to hit the summer of 1977. As he explores his creative outlets as well as his cures to body image woes, Mark sets out to make his own stamp on the film that he loves. |
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