22 Most-Anticipated Middle Grade Books Coming Spring 2024
How are there so many great books coming out in just three months? It’s wild. I love it, but I wish I had time to read them all. Since I’m so late getting this posted, I’ve read a few of these already, and they’ve been excellent! I can’t wait to read the rest of them. The list includes a mix of contemporary and fantasy novels, graphic books, and mystery. Here are my 20 most-anticipated middle grade books coming spring 2024.
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22 Most-Anticipated Middle Grade Books Coming Spring 2024
What You Need to Know: A girl’s complex relationship with her alcoholic mom and the value of her support system. Sensitive, beautiful, and packed with emotional depth.
What You Need to Know: A book about grief, saying goodbye, living life outside the box, and embracing adventure. Fabulous characters. Poignant and fun.
What You Need to Know: A girl hears music everywhere in a land where music and magic are forbidden. Sounds like a sweeping fantasy exploring the impact of colonialism.
What You Need to Know: A secret island ruled by a pirate king. A dangerous island-eating monster. A desperate boy in need of a miracle. By the author of The Storm Keeper’s Island series.
What You Need to Know: A novel in verse and fictionalized account of the author’s personal experiences with disordered eating. Looks haunting and powerful.
Published March 19, 2024 | My Review to Come
The Deadlands: Survival (The Deadlands #3) by Skye Melki-Wegner
What You Need to Know: The thrilling finale of a trilogy I couldn’t get enough of. An unlikely alliance of dinosaurs must save their herds from the Carrion Kingdom’s powerful weapons.
What You Need to Know: Tired of being second-favorite, these two girls plot to get their parents’ attention and affection in this goofy, heartfelt story.
What You Need to Know: A boy moves to a new apartment where a series of robberies occur. He and his new friend vow to find the culprits. An energetic, fun mystery.
What You Need to Know: A girl spending the summer with her estranged grandma and dealing with big feelings about her identity and mom’s depression. Deep, wise, and lovely.
What You Need to Know: A boy who saved the world once already must find the Tree of Life to wake his sister from a coma. Looks like a wild adventure from a great author.
What You Need to Know: A girl with an elderly best friend in cognitive decline. I’m expecting all the storytelling power Lowry never fails to deliver in this sweet, loving story.
What You Need to Know: The third installment in the series promises more unicorn magic, challenges to family bonds, and the power of true friendship. I can’t wait!
What You Need to Know: A girl discovers a magical library where each book is literally a portal to an adventure. Part mystery, part adventure, part exploration of identity. I’m in!
What You Need to Know: A child and their father visit the B&B her grandmother never opened and face deadly puzzles and strange messages. Looks super imaginative and packed with family drama– my favorite!
What You Need to Know: A girl sets out to rescue her mother from powerful alchemists and save her world in the sequel to one of my favorite MG books from 2023.
Published May 14, 2024 | My Review to Come
The Mine Wars: The Bloody Fight for Workers’ Rights in the West Virginia Coalfields
What You Need to Know: The gripping true story of the largest labor uprising in American history and how it led to protection for workers. Seems pretty relevant to me!
Published May 14, 2024 | My Review to Come
What most-anticipated middle grade books coming spring 2024 did I miss?
I am not as good at keeping up with middle grade fiction as I am with young adult fiction, so there are always titles that didn’t make my radar or somehow got missed.
What upcoming MG titles are you looking forward to? Have you read any of the books on my list? Let me know in the comments!
I’ve seen this Mid-Year Book Freak Out post a lot lately, and I love the idea. So, even though I don’t usually do tag posts, I’m jumping in. The closest thing I’ve really ever done before that I remember is the end of the year recap post, and I forgot to do that for last year.
How many books have you read so far this year?
Oof. I normally use Goodreads to track this, but my GR shelves are a mess right now. I’ve been reading and squirrelling away reviews of backlist titles. Forgetting to update my Currently Reading shelf, which appears on the sidebar of my blog. I’ve also been meaning to go through my TBR and remove books that I don’t actually want to or intend to read anymore. Yeah, that hasn’t happened yet, either.
Anyway, looking over my 2022 Reading List and counting up the books that I’ve read (even if the review hasn’t posted yet) my best guess is 107 books read so far this year. Which is a lot for me. Yay!
Here are some of the highlights on my Mid-Year Book Freak Out…
What you need to know: A gender-flipped retelling of sleeping beauty where the prince waits for a kiss to wake him, and two fierce, determined treasure hunters will stop at nothing to break his curse. Features a M/F romance and a F/F romance. I LOVED this book. I can’t wait for the sequel, and I will probably read/buy anything that Leslie Vedder writes.
What you need to know: A girl from 1942 America is transported to a magical Kiev (spelling from the book) of the past where she must help a prince save his legendary father. I love this series so far. The characters are great and the world building is a really cool blend of history and magic.
What you need to know: Two girls investigate the murder of a thirteen-year-old girl. Suspects are among wealthy, powerful people. Called a “spiritual successor” to SADIE, which I loved. Every book by Summers that I’ve read has been powerful and gripping. I’m really excited for this one.
What you need to know: I liked the tenacity of Alosa, the pirate captain and daughter of the pirate king. The lore of sirens and their descendants had a creepy rapey thing going that I didn’t feel like was ever really challenged as wrong. I also found myself wishing some of the pirate behavior was called out as wrong, too, at least in the narrative, even if the characters themselves didn’t converse about it. I really enjoyed other elements of the plot, and I liked the book enough to read the sequel. But I was disappointed by those elements.
What you need to know: When another street kid steals her lunar mirror, Rooney chases him through a portal to a world where missing children have been banished to darkness. I loved the spooky storytelling and all the characters. There’s a lot of emotional layering, too. I’m not sure what I expected, but I wouldn’t have predicted that this would be one of my favorite books this year.
What you need to know: An icy planet. A race run with sleds and wolves. A girl whose only chance for survival depends on the race. I couldn’t put it down. Fantastic characters. Intense, action-packed story. It’s been months since I read this story, and I’m still thinking about the characters and some of the key moments.
Luca from BAD THINGS HAPPEN HERE. I felt all of her emotions. Got completely swept away in her desperation and grief. Her confusion. She’s probably not the most easily likeable character, but I love even that about her.
What you need to know: An island with a history of unsolved murders. A girl whose best friend and sister were both murdered on the island will stop at nothing to find out why.
What you need to know: Romance between a saxophone player and mellophone player in the midst of a marching competition. Tragic story about “finding first love and what happens when it’s over too soon.” Um, yeah, I absolutely sobbed through the sad part of this one. I’m still not over it, and I love Ashley Schumacher’s books.
What you need to know: An injury ends Luca’s dreams of dancing professionally and means he must start over: New school. New friends. New crush on the (reportedly) straight star athlete. There’s a lot of grief in this book, and that part totally gutted me, especially as a former dancer myself. But all the parts about figuring out new relationships and love and healing were amazing and so perfect. I loved them.
What you need to know: A magic river kept a girl’s family safe in WWII Hungary. Now she must decide whether to finally take her chance to escape to safety or fight for revolution. Oh. My. Gosh. The writing in this book left me aching. The magic. And the revolution. And the characters. I love it.
What books do you need to read by the end of the year?
Well, lots of them! I missed a few from my winter and spring anticipated lists, so I definitely want to get to those before the year is out:
I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
One for All by Lillie Lainoff
See You Yesterday by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Favorite book to movie adaptation you’ve seen this year?
I am terrible at keeping up with book to movie adaptations. If I haven’t read the book yet, I won’t watch it. On top of that, I’m not great at keeping up with movies, either. There are lots of book to movie or TV shows on my list, though. I’ve been thinking about doing a book vs. movie post when I do watch them to compare. A few on my list for those posts are:
Howl’s Moving Castle
Heartstopper
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Favorite post you’ve written so far this year?
Hmmm. I’m not really sure what my favorite post might be. Probably a list post. My most recent list post is a summer reading list of backlist titles I’m hoping to read. These have been on my reading list for too long, and what better time to read them than the summer?
What are your favorite books you’ve read this year?
What books have you read this year that you are NOT done talking about? Are you looking forward to reading anything specific in the second half of the year?
If you created a Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag post, link it in the comments so I can check it out and see what your favorites are!
