Middle Grade Fiction

Chinese American Mei, 13, lives in a Sierra Nevada lumber camp in 1885. Her father, Hao, is the head cook; her best friend, Bee, is the white daughter of the camp manager.

Twelve-year-old Sofia, Samoan/white, living in New Zealand in the mid-1970s, is chosen to participate in a regional speech competition after wowing with a classroom presentation titled “About Me.”

Evie is teased by other middle school girls at her Jewish private school because of her parents’ work–they run a funeral parlor; work that Evie is interested in pursuing someday.

Bug and Bug’s mom are grieving Bug’s Uncle Roderick, who lived with them and recently passed away after a long illness. It was Uncle Roderick who taught Bug about ghosts, so when spooky things start happening–doors open and close, objects moved around–Bug suspects it’s Uncle Roderick, trying to communicate something important.

In the dead of night, Kazu spies a girl in white emerging from his family’s altar room in Masuda, Japan. The next day, Kazu is bewildered when his classmates act as though the girl, Akari, has been a member of their class for years.

Nathan, 11, is spending a few summer weeks with his paternal grandmother, Nali, who lives in a mobile home on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico.

Petra Peña, 12, her little brother, Javier, and their scientist parents are among those chosen to flee earth in 2061 as the planet faces destruction.

Ben, a “what-if kid” with many worries and fears, is spending a week with his mother, who left him when he was three years old, in her off-the-grid cabin on a small island in northern Minnesota.

Rigel, 11, who is white, lives with her family in the Alaskan bush. But when her parents announce they’re getting divorced, Rigel and her sisters move with their mom to “Outside”–their maternal grandmother’s in Connecticut.