Dwight Foster Public Library: Kids' Books (for Ages 8-12): May 2026

Forbidden Mountain
by Brandon Mull

Every Anoran child dreams of the day they will enter the sacred bonding hut and match with a guardian--a spiritual guide who grants magically enhanced abilities. A lucky few will bond with Advocates, who promise greatness and glory. Others will be tempted by forbidden offers from the Accursed--dangerous spirits who bring nothing but destruction and a penalty of death to any Anoran who chooses them. But when Mako discovers that the worst of these agents of chaos has returned to spread an ancient evil through the empire, he faces an unthinkable choice: Will he bond with one of the Accursed to gain the power to stop another? Halfway across the empire, Arden has no guardian and no prospects of adventure...until she infiltrates an underground criminal network to find her missing friend. Relying on her knack for sensing the truth through even the smoothest lies, Arden finds herself at the center of a sinister conspiracy that runs much deeper than she ever imagined. Soon Mako's and Arden's fates collide, and together they must face bandit armies, dark secrets, and untold dangers to fight an enemy who could destroy all they've ever known.

Theft of the Ruby Lotus
by Sayantani Dasgupta

Ria Bailey finds herself in quite a fix, and it’s all because of a strange treasure that turns up in the mail one fateful day. It might be a ruby, and it just might hold the key to some troubling developments in her life. Most importantly, if she and her besties Miracle Owusu and Annie Hernandez can trace the significance and stay one step ahead of the mysterious strangers tracking their moves through the Metropolitan Museum of Art and out into the city streets of New York, then just maybe Ria can turn things around for herself. Sayantani DasGupta returns in rare form with a brand new story that's part love letter to the Metropolitan Museum and New York City immigrant families, part twisting and turning heist, and completely an examination of where art belongs, who gets to keep it, and what it means to be on display.

Mixed Feelings: A Graphic Novel: Volume 1
by Sara Amini

Things are getting hairy! What could go wrong on the first day of sixth grade? A: You wake up with leg hair out of nowhere. B: You have zero classes with your BFF and watch her run off with her new (annoying) friend. C:You struggle to decide which school club to join because being mixed race makes you feel like you don't belong anywhere. D:All of the above. SERIOUSLY?! At first, Sara's got mixed feelings about middle school. But she finds comfort in TV -- whether she's watching it, performing her favorite scenes, or imagining her life is a show itself. So when she joins drama club, Sara discovers a community where she can be anything she wants -- including herself. Has Sara finally found a place to fit in? Or will she instead find herself buried under her growing leg hair and off-stage friendship drama? In Sara Amini's semi-autobiographical story, navigating life as a mixed-race girl has never been more hilarious or heartfelt, with family, friendship, and fuzz all at the forefront of this laugh-out-loud and painfully relatable middle-school memoir.

The Last Comics on Earth: Across the Doodleverse: From the Creators of the Last Kids on Earth
by Max Brallier

In this final LAST COMICS adventure, our superheroes must face a mysterious new threat: Someone is stealing kids' schoolwork-margin doodles and turning them into an army of ANIMATED sketches! WHAT CAN OUR heroes do against the manic, illogical brilliance of LIVING doodles?! While they fight, Boy Lightning's drawing arm is kidnapped by a new villain and taken into the wastelands beyond the borders of Apocalyptia. Now our team must brave AS YET unseen worlds in order to save Jack from the machinations of DOODLEHEAD! Can our heroes save the world from a doodle-pocalypse?

Chasing Eruptions: How Volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft Helped Save 60,000 Lives-But Lost Their Own
by Curtis Manley

This beautiful biography in verse is about two French scientists who changed what we know about volcanoes. Katia, a curious girl who collected pebbles and dreamed of escaping her small town, grew up just a few miles away from Maurice, a boy who knew more about rocks and minerals than his own teachers. . . . When Katia and Maurice met as college students, they formed The Vulcan Team—named after the Roman god of fire—to observe, investigate, and document one of the most dangerous, natural phenomena on the planet: volcanoes! With dynamic art from award-winning artist Katherine Roy, Chasing Eruptions traces the legacy of Katia and Maurice Kraffts’ volcanic photographs and films—and how their footage continues to inspire and educate today.

The Ocean's Heart: The Tiny Creatures Essential to Life
by Jilanne Hoffmann

Far below the ocean's surface live tiny, restless creatures called zooplankton. They are the ocean's heart. The largest migration of animals on Earth happens every single night as billions upon billions of microscopic animals--zooplankton--paddle from the ocean's depths to its surface. On their journey, they swim daunting distances through predator-infested waters in pursuit of a midnight feast. Zooplankton are so small, and they live so deep, that we may never see them--but the entire food web depends upon their survival. Venture into the ocean's twilight zone with Jilanne Hoffmann's lyrical, evocative prose and Khoa Le's luminous illustrations of these tiny yet magnificent creatures.