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Jan 14, 2025 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Christopher Cyr |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge. In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Marjorie Liu |Soman Chainani |Iacopo Bruno |Annie Matthew
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied. Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Beverly Cleary |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant |Louis Darling
Mbalia takes the legacy of Pullman porters as inspiration for his latest fantasy world rooted in Black lore and traditions in this series opener. Twelve-year-old Jax Freeman is an unwilling transplant to Chicago, sent away from his Raleigh, North Carolina, home by his parents after an incident lands him in the juvenile justice system.
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Sep 17, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Clare Ellen Edge |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant
Empowering encouragement about claiming what makes you distinct. Bernadette Crowley’s family are an esteemed Missoula, Montana, clan of Irish American witches led by powerful and spirited Grandma Orla. But their specialty—using blood for summoning demons—has become more complicated since 13-year-old Ber’s diabetes diagnosis. Because she must prick her finger to check her glucose levels, she’s begun summoning by accident.
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Sep 17, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Soman Chainani |Iacopo Bruno |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant
In beautiful Barbados, the Heartman emerges from folklore to terrorize a small fishing village, but a brave girl has fought the supernatural before and won. It’s been 10 months since the events of Josephine Against the Sea (2021), in which Mariss, an evil sea spirit, set her eyes on Josephine’s dad and turned the lives of father and daughter—and everyone in Fairy Vale—upside down.
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Jun 25, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Patchree Jones |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant |Christopher Cyr
by Patchree Jones ; illustrated by Preeyanne C. Jones ‧A debut with potential that explores friendship and identity. Thirteen-year-olds Sofia and Cara have always been together, so it’s a relief that their families are both moving from Colorado to Los Angeles (their moms have the same employer). The pair have barely settled into their new homes when they’re whisked away to the kingdom of Tropos, a land of clouds.
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Apr 30, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | José Iriarte |James Patterson |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant
When Latin music great Ignacio Ramírez dies, his path to a rewarding afterlife is hindered by unfinished business that demands resolution. Not only is Benny Ramírez the grandson of a famous Cuban American musician, but everyone else in his family has a talent, too: Papi is a well-regarded Hollywood producer, Mami has a gift for languages, older sister Cristina is a star dancer, and younger brother Manny is a promising actor.
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Apr 15, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Mark Cheverton |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant |Rajani LaRocca
An exciting adventure with realistic characterization that will engage readers. In Cheverton’s second middle-grade fantasy novel in the Order of the Stones series, Camp Pontchartrain’s attendees battle a powerful demon and his monstrous army. After 12-year-old Cameron Poole arrives at Camp Pontchartrain in Louisiana, his anxiety kicks in.
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Apr 1, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Aaron Derr |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant |Kwame Alexander
A wonderful narrative for readers who love baseball that also offers valuable lessons to those who don’t. In Derr’s illustrated middle-grade novella, a boy must learn how to become a leader. Eleven-year-old Luis is close friends with the kids on his coed baseball team, the McIntyre Manatees—but that hasn’t always been the case. In this book, he and his friends relive what happened when they first met a year ago, when Luis moved to Ohio from Texas.
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Mar 29, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | John Matthews |Annie Matthew |Kobe Bryant |Stuart Gibbs
In Matthews’ middle-grade novel, a boy discovers on his 12th birthday that he can go back in time and alter the past. One day, after Horace “Ace” Adler wishes for two extra minutes to finish his sixth-grade math final, he feels a sudden blast of freezing air and the classroom briefly becomes a deep-blue, starlit space. When normalcy resumes, the clock has rewound two minutes. The realization that he can time-travel leads Ace to embark on a series of quests.
