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In this follow-up to the Newbery-winning novel The Crossover, soccer, family, love, and friendship, take center stage as twelve-year-old Nick learns the power of words as he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams. Helping him along are his best friend and sometimes teammate Coby, and The Mac, a rapping librarian who gives Nick inspiring books to read. This electric and heartfelt novel-in-verse by poet Kwame Alexander bends and breaks as it captures all the thrills and setbacks, action, and emotion of a World Cup match!

Dimple is an Indian-American girl trying desperately to assimilate in her New Jersey neighborhood, until she meets an attractive Indian guy who shows her the charms of her own heritage.

Conservative, slightly uptight Leo finally finds out who his biological father is — his name is Maggot and he’s the lead singer of an old punk band that’s headed back on the road. Leo joins them to earn money and get to know how on earth this man could be his father.

In two volumes, Boxers & Saints tells two parallel stories. The first is of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by Westerners claiming the role of missionaries. Little Bao, inspired by visions of the Chinese gods, joins a violent uprising against the Western interlopers. Against all odds, their grass-roots rebellion is successful. But in the second volume, Yang lays out the opposite side of the conflict. A girl whose village has no place for her is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them. As the Boxer Rebellion gains momentum, Vibiana must decide whether to abandon her Christian friends or to commit herself fully to Christianity.

11-year-old Genie and his soon-to-be-14-year-old brother, Ernie, travel from their home in Brooklyn to spend the summer in rural Virginia with their grandparents. The boys are in for lots of surprises; they learn that their grandfather is blind, that there is no Internet, and more. Characters are distinct and vividly depicted as Genie narrates his satisfying story.

All Cat wants to do is design a clothing line for Bloomingdales. So with nothing more than a sewing machine, a little bit of money, and a dream, she heads to Manhattan. The story is a great fairy tale for Project Runway fans.

Friends grow apart while chasing guys and popularity during high school. Chloe is afraid to tell her friends about her budding romance with a nerd, while Mackenzie realizes that the most popular guy in school may not be worth it.

Los Angeles! City of tanned shoulders! Smog-spewing, pay-per-viewing, sit-com maker for the world!

Del’s put in 17 years there, bouncing among foster homes. Smart, sharp-tongued, a master mimic, she’s fed up with her world and with being Del. So she’s faked her own death and is leaving both herself and L.A. behind until her escape lands her in an all-day traffic jam.

Fast-forward eight years. It’s opening night for the one-woman play she’s written and is starring in a show called Breakout, about a Los Angeles traffic jam. Wildly funny, she seems to be skewering workaholics, road ragers, pickup artists, and car culture in general. But readers will see what her audience can’t, that the show is a portrait of herself, of her hunger for her mother and her terror of rejection, her free-floating identity and yearning for connection.

Flashing between Del’s present and future, Breakout gives us a backstage pass into a young playwright’s psyche, letting us watch her life being transformed into a art, heartache into comedy, solitude into community, and anger gradually giving way to acceptance.

Simone is adopted. She’s always known it, but she’s never wanted to know anything about where she came from. She’s happy with her family just as it is. Then one day, Rivka calls, and Simone learns who her mother was; a 16-year-old, just like Simone. Who is Rivka? What does she want? Why is she calling now, after all these years? The answers lead Simone to deeper feelings of anguish and love than she has ever known and prompt her to question everything she has taken for granted about faith, the afterlife, and what it means to be a daughter.

It’s a routine case, or at least as routine as a cases get when you’re a twelve-year-old private detective who’s been sleuthing for just a few months: Steve Brixton must don a neon wetsuit and work undercover to retrieve a stolen surfboard. But when the assignment goes all wrong, Steve finds himself caught inside mysteries involving wild surfers, pirate smugglers, thick-necked goons, and a sixth-grader who can’t find his gym shorts.

Retired private detective and current seventh grader Steve Brixton has a new job: He takes out the trash for five bucks a week. But it’s hard to leave the old game behind, and on a train trip down the California coast, Steve and his best chum, Dana, are pulled into a mystery involving a fleet of stolen automobiles, a vanishing girl, and a phantom train car. Oh, and there might just be some romance…

Seventh-grader Steve Brixton is an avid reader of the Bailey Brothers series, and he’s about to get a chance to put the detective tactics he’s read so much about into practice. He’s out to solve a mystery being investigated by America’s most secret crime solving agency: the United States Department of Library Sciences. It will take all of Steve’s skills to navigate this story of intrigue and crime as he tracks down the missing quilt (yes, quilt) containing all of America’s secrets.

After saving the United States of America in The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity, he has opened his own agency. Steve gets a call to solve the case of the Fairview diamond but it turns into an even bigger mystery. MacArthur Bart, author of Steve’s beloved Bailey Brothers series, has been kidnapped!! And there is only one 12-year-old detective who can find him. But not without the help of his best chum Dana and The Bailey Brothers Detective Handbook.

Fifteen-year-old Luther’s mother, The Sarge, rules an empire of halfway houses and slums. Luther himself is a much more ordinary guy, though he is caught between being a typical teen and being the Sarge’s son. Luther’s peculiar problems are resolved in a way that is sure to satisfy readers.

Young Bud runs away from the latest and worst foster home in search of his father. Though he doesn’t find his father, Bud (not Buddy) does find family, music, and more on his long trek across Michigan during the Depression. In this Newbery-winning novel, both humor and Bud’s naive voice make difficult issues accessible to younger readers.

Eddie’s father, two uncles, and best friend are all dead, and it’s a struggle for him not to end up the same way. Violence makes Fresno wallow in tears, as if a huge onion were buried beneath the city. Making an effort to walk a straight line despite constant temptations and frustrations, Eddie searches for answers — and discovers that his closest friends may actually be his worst enemies.

Greg Heffley thinks kids who don’t celebrate Christmas have it much better; they don’t have to behave between Thanksgiving and the time Santa comes! Greg’s concerns about his conduct, his family’s traditions, and possible trouble at school make for a memorable tale.

When 12-year-old Edie wants to connect to her Native American heritage, she learns that her parents have kept much of her family history secret.

Tally is smart, compassionate, and she has a superpower: autism. Inspired by young coauthor Libby Scott’s own experiences with autism, this is an honest and moving middle-school story of friends, family, and finding one’s place.

LaLa learns the stories of her Awful Grandmother and weaves them into a colorful family history. The “caramelo,” a striped shawl begun by her Great-Grandmother, symbolizes their traditions.

When Aunt Tiger Lil comes to Chinatown, she and Lily, her niece and namesake, prepare for the New Year’s celebration, solve the mystery of a stolen pearl necklace, and help a sweatshop worker. Humor is used in this lively mystery with likable characters in an authentic setting.

This classic poem, which may not be familiar to kids today, is given a contemporary update by illustrator Joe Morse, who moves the setting to the inner city. Contrast this version with other illustrated versions of the poem and examine how the illustrations and text work together to affect meaning.

Isabel, an enslaved 13-year old, and her younger sister are set to be freed but instead are sold to a ruthless Loyalist at the start of the Revolutionary War. Life in New York City during the time comes vividly alive as do the complexities of the war

Challenger Deep is a stand-alone novel by Neal Shusterman, author of The Unwind Dystology. It deals frankly with issues surrounding teenage mental illness. Caden, the narrator, experiences paranoid and delusional thinking and is hospitalized. A character attempts suicide. Violence in the book is mostly imaginary and centered on a fantastical ship on which the captain and his parrot want to kill each other. Language is mild, with an instance or two each of “hell,” “damn,” “bastard,” and “ass.” Sexual content is limited to hand-holding and one night of cuddling in bed. Caden’s parents are mildly intoxicated in one scene. Caden takes a “cocktail” of prescribed medications, and the regimen helps him heal.