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13 Incredible Middle Grade Books Coming Winter 2024

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13 Incredible Middle Grade Books Coming Winter 2024

13 Incredible Middle Grade Books Coming Winter 2024

I’m getting a late start on putting together my lists for this year, but I really wanted to share some of the middle grade books coming out in January and February that really look too good to miss. This list is entirely based on my preferences, and I’m already planning to review many of the books listed here. I hope you enjoy the list– please let me know if you’ve already read any of these titles or are as eager to check them out as I am!

Since I’m late getting this posted, some of the review links are already live, so please feel free to check out my full reviews if any of these books interest you. Stay warm and happy winter reading!

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost anything for you to use but help support my blog when you use them for your shopping.

13 Incredible Middle Grade Books Coming Winter 2024

Courtesy of Cupid by Nashae Jones

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: When Erin discovers her dad is actually the love god, Cupid, she experiments with her own love power… and must face the consequences. An adorable MG rom-com.

Published January 2, 2024 | My Review

The Griffin’s Egg by Cole Poindexter

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: A girl and a goblin work together to save the last griffin’s egg– and a magical world– from destruction. I love stories that feature unexpected pairings, and a girl and a goblin definitely intrigues me!

Published January 15, 2024 | My Review

Shark Teeth by Sherri Winston

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: An older sister desperately tries to hold her family together but can’t help wondering if that’s the best thing for her and her siblings. I loved LOTUS BLOOM AND THE AFRO REVOLUTION, so I couldn’t wait to check this one out.

Published January 16, 2024 | My Review

Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: A girl struggling to adjust to a changing family and friend group moves into a creaky attic bedroom in a new house where she falls ill and can’t seem to get better. I loved Anne Ursu’s MG fantasy novel from last year, and this sounds like a story that will pack equally surprising twists and turns.

Published January 16, 2024 | My Review to Come

Maybe It’s a Sign by E. L. Shen

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: A girl who lost her dad a year ago looks for messages from him all around her. When she faces new choices and doesn’t see signs from her dad, she realizes she’ll have to make her own luck. Sounds like a sweet, poignant story– with deep dish chocolate chip cookies!

Published January 23, 2024 | My Review

Emma and the Love Spell by Meredith Ireland

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: A secret witch tries to use a love spell to save her crush’s marriage and keep them from moving away. I love the magic-with-unexpected-consequences theme, and I can’t wait to read more.

Published January 23, 2024 | My Review to Come

The Girl Who Sang by Estelle Nadel, Sammy Savos, and Bethany Strout

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: A powerful graphic memoir following a Jewish girl and her family who must hide during the Nazi occupation of Poland. This is a heartbreaking story beautifully told.

Published January 23, 2024 | My Review

Waverider (Amulet #9) by Kazu Kibuishi

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: Emily finally understands the power of the amulet. She and her allies must stand together to conquer the shadowy threats against them. The highly anticipated conclusion to a popular series. I’m a newer reader to this series (I’m currently on book three), but I really want to catch up and finish all nine books this year.

Published February 6, 2024 | My Review to Come

Drawing Deena by Hena Khan

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: A Pakistani-American young artist uses her talents to help her mom’s local business and soon realizes she’s turned something that helped her manage her anxiety into a source of it. I’m seeing more and more MG novels exploring characters with anxiety, and I love the resilience and hope in these books.

Published February 6, 2024 | My Review

City Spies: Mission Manhattan (City Spies #5) by James Ponti

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: Charged with protecting a teen scheduled to speak to the United Nations General Assembly, the City Spies head to NYC in the fifth book in the series. Looks like an exciting adventure in the Big Apple.

Published February 6, 2024 | My Review to Come

Sick!: The Twists and Turns Behind Animal Germs by Heather L. Montgomery

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: Find out how scientists study animal diseases and how the animal’s bodies adapt to the germs in this twisty nonfiction book filled with graphic novel-style art.

Published February 20, 2024 | My Review

The Unicorn Legacy: Tangled Magic by Kamilla Benko

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: A young magic apprentice must prove that her sister is not harming unicorns in this gorgeous new series by the author of The Unicorn Quest series. I’m so excited to return to the land of Arden.

Published February 27, 2024 | My Review

Finally Heard (Finally Seen #2) by Kelly Yang

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

My thoughts: In the sequel to FINALLY SEEN, Lina sets out to go viral on social media but quickly feels overwhelmed by the flood of accounts, pressure to compete with her classmates, and pressure to keep up with new emojis, apps, and ways to interact. This couldn’t be more timely.

Published February 27, 2024 | My Review to Come

What’s on your winter reading list?

Do you have big reading plans for the rest of the winter season? What books are at the top of your reading list?

If you follow middle grade books, are any of my top picks on your reading list?

Review: Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce

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Dungeons and Drama
Kristy Boyce
Delacorte Press
Published January 9, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Dungeons and Drama

When it comes to romance, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to play games. A fun YA romcom full of fake dating hijinks!

Musical lover Riley has big aspirations to become a director on Broadway. Crucial to this plan is to bring back her high school’s spring musical, but when Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she’s grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop.

Riley can’t waste her time working when she has a musical to save, so she convinces Nathan—a nerdy teen employee—to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous.

But Riley didn’t realize that meant joining Nathan’s Dungeons & Dragons game…or that role-playing would be so fun. Soon, Riley starts to think that flirting with Nathan doesn’t require as much acting as she would’ve thought…

My Review

Okay, I stayed up way too late reading this book, so if this review sounds a bit wacky, can we agree to blame Kristy Boyce for writing such a great book? Ha. Honestly, though, I had such a great time reading this book.

At the very beginning, I wasn’t sold. Riley has just gotten in trouble for taking her mom’s car without permission (and without having a driver’s license) and driving hours away to see a touring company perform a musical. Her parents are shocked, and she’s in big trouble, but Riley doesn’t seem to get why it’s that big a problem. I worried that she was going to be a shallow character that would be hard for me to connect with.

Instead, as I turned pages from one chapter to the next, I couldn’t help connecting with Riley. I laughed along with her as she jumped into the Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I loved her passion for bringing back her high school musical program. Even in her fake relationship with Nathan, Riley couldn’t help thinking about how her behavior would affect Nathan and his goal to get the other girl’s attention.

If you’re a fan of the fake dating trope, I definitely think you’d enjoy this book. It’s got plenty of silliness, loads of theater moments, and so many sweet, swoony exchanges as Riley’s feelings for Nathan start to change.

As a D&D girl myself, I love seeing the game on the page, and I loved the way that players with different approaches to the game made an appearance in the book. Seriously, this book was such a fun read. Fans of Serena Kaylor or Eric Smith will enjoy this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Riley’s best friend is Japanese American. One of the boys in her D&D group is gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None..

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of DUNGEONS AND DRAMA in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Courtesy of Cupid by Nashae Jones

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Courtesy of Cupid
Nashae Jones
Aladdin
Published January 2, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Courtesy of Cupid

In this middle grade rom-com sprinkled with a dash of magic, a girl uses her newfound ability to make people fall in love to sabotage her rival.

Erin Johnson’s thirteenth birthday unfolds like any other day, from her mom’s quirky and embarrassing choice of outfit to racing her nemesis, Trevor Jin, to the best seat in class—front row, center. But her gifts this year include something very out of the magical powers.

Erin discovers her mysterious father is actually the love god Cupid, and she’s inherited his knack for romance. It’s not the most useful ability for an overachiever with lofty academic and extracurricular goals…or is it? Erin desperately wants to be elected president of the Multicultural Leadership Club, and as usual, Trevor is her fiercest competition. He’s never backed down from a challenge before, but if Erin makes him fall in love with her, maybe he’d drop out of the race and let her win.

With her magical pedigree, wrapping Trevor around her finger is a snap, and having him around all the time is a small price to pay for victory. But without their cutthroat rivalry bringing out the worst in each other, Erin realizes Trevor may not be as bad as she thought, and suddenly, her first foray into love gets a lot more complicated…

My Review

I feel like this book is what would happen if you took the first Percy Jackson book and made it a romantic comedy. (Okay, there’s no special camp or anything, but hopefully, the idea still makes sense.)

The characters in the book are great in terms of being very different from one another and easy to keep track of because of that. I didn’t get anyone mixed up, even though there are a lot of named side characters, and I’m prone to mixups. I also really liked the relationship between Trevor and Erin. The rivalry made sense from Erin’s perspective, but knowing what was happening on Trevor’s side made sense, too.

Because this is a middle grade romance, the love parts of it stay in the land of very sweet. Characters hug or hold hands. There’s lots of blushing and hearts going pitter-patter, which just felt adorable.

The wrapup might have happened just a tad too simply, but on the whole, I felt like the book was very true to its rom-com flavor and definitely ended with lots of grins and good feelings. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I’m looking forward to the next book by this author.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
Erin is Black. Trevor is Korean American. Bruno and Ben, twins who are Erin’s close friends, are Latine. Ben and Bruno have two moms. Two minor characters, both men, commit to a romantic relationship.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Obvious attraction between characters culminates in holding hands or hugging, or, in one instance, a marriage proposal.

Spiritual Content
Erin learns her dad is a god, specifically Cupid. No commentary on the existence of other gods or how Cupid’s existence fits into any larger pantheon.

Violent Content
Ben makes mean comments to his brother and does some manipulative things to try to hurt him or Erin. Erin tries to use her Cupid power to control others and faces consequences for it.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays

I’m sharing this post as a part of a weekly round-up of middle-grade posts called Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays. Check out other blogs posting about middle-grade books today on Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays at Always in the Middle with Greg Pattridge.

Review: Diary of a Confused Feminist by Kate Weston

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Diary of a Confused Feminist
Kate Weston
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published January 2, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Diary of a Confused Feminist

Kat wants to do GOOD FEMINISM, although she’s not always sure what that means. She also wants to be a writer, get together with Hot Josh (is this a feminist ambition?), win at her coursework and not make a TOTAL EMBARRASSMENT of herself at all times.

But the path to true feminism is filled with mortifying incidents, and when everything at school starts to get a bit too much, Kat knows she’s lost her way, and the only way forward is to ask for help . . .

Join Kat, AKA the Confused Feminist, as she navigates EVERYTHING from menstrual cups and mental health to Instagram likes and #TimesUp in her HILARIOUS, OUTRAGEOUS, and VERY EMBARRASSING diary.

My Review

I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard at a book since FINDING AUDREY by Sophie Kinsella. Seriously, this absolutely cracked me up. Kat is full of frank questions and sometimes irreverent observations. Her exploration of what feminism means and how to be a feminist felt so genuine and organic. She asks a lot of reasonable questions about her body, her period, and sex in pretty straightforward, often funny, ways.

The book is written in diary entries, as the title suggests, and I loved that, too, because it made this a pretty quick read. The scenes are generally pretty short and there’s a fair amount of white space on the pages.

I also enjoyed Kat’s relationships with her parents and brother. It’s always funny reading parents in YA novels as an actual parent. I think I may more attention to those characters than I would have as a teen, and I definitely appreciate it when they read like fully developed characters and believable parents. In this book, they’re not perfect parents by any means, but it’s clear that despite Kat wanting her privacy and rolling her eyes plenty, she loves her family members and has good relationships with them.

Not only did I laugh an absolute ton reading this book, but I cried quite a bit, too. Kat wrestles with some hard things, and one scene in particular broke my heart for her. I think the combination of the humor and the heart make this an incredible story (and a debut! Amazing!) and one that a lot of readers are going to connect with.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Two characters describe difficult experiences with anxiety. One character is gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used pretty frequently. Also uses some crude language for body parts.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Kissing between two boys. A girl accidentally walks in on a couple having sex in a bathroom and describes their disorganized state of undress.

Spiritual Content
A couple of jokes about how God must be a man because women endure so many biological trials.

Violent Content
A girl at school bullies Kat and says some very harsh things to her. It’s pretty cruel and upsetting.

Drug Content
Kat and her friends attend two parties where teens drink. At the second one, Kat mentions there being a cloud of marijuana smoke.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog.

Review: The Librarian’s Ruse by Thirzah

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

The Librarian’s Ruse
Thirzah
The Pearl
Published July 30, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Librarian’s Ruse

Amelia’s peaceful life as a librarian is cut short when she and her older brother Leon are sent on an errand to Eldnaire, the capital city of the vicious Vilnarian Empire. After witnessing a crime carried out in the woods, Amelia and Leon enter the capital only to be faced with an impossible choice: tell the truth and risk imprisonment, or lie and face far worse if they’re caught.

One deception leads to a dozen more, and before she can put an end to the lies, she and Leon are swept up into Vilnaria’s high society. Amelia finds an unlikely ally in Vilnaria’s handsome new ruler, Emperor Kyvir. But as the secrets and scandals continue to pile up and danger closes in on all sides, Amelia must decide once and for all what matters: the truth…or her life?

My Review

Apart from the gorgeous cover, I think my favorite thing about this book is the fact that it centers around a relationship between a brother and sister. I really don’t see that often enough in young adult fiction, and this book absolutely made me wish for more of it. I liked the banter between Amelia and her brother and the way they approached situations completely differently.

While I really appreciated how short this book is– it’s about 130 pages– I found myself wishing for a touch more world-building here and there. I felt like I had to fill in a lot of blanks as a reader, which mostly worked okay, since I’ve read a lot of fantasy. It did make the story feel a little more generic, though, when based on the other elements, I think it could have been really unique.

On the whole, though, I enjoyed the relationships between the characters. I also appreciated that the book’s protagonist is a librarian. That is always fun!

If you’re looking for a quick fantasy read, especially one that centers on sibling relationships, check out THE LIBRARIAN’S RUSE.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Though there aren’t a lot of character descriptions listed, the story references several different cultures and the path toward rebuilding trust between them.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
References to thieves and people having been murdered. Amelia fears imprisonment or execution when she and her brother impersonate someone.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THE LIBRARIAN’S RUSE in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Keeper of the Lost Cities: The Graphic Novel Part 1 by Shannon Messenger, Celina Frenn, and Gabriella Chianello

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Graphic Novel or Adaptation, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , ,

Keeper of the Lost Cities: The Graphic Novel Part 1
Shannon Messenger
Adapted by Celina Frenn
Illustrated by Gabriella Chianello
Aladdin Books
Published November 7, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Keeper of the Lost Cities: The Graphic Novel Part 1

The first book in the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling Keeper of the Lost Cities series is being reimagined as a graphic novel with the first half of the epic novel adapted to this new format with beautiful artwork!

Twelve-year-old Sophie Foster has never quite fit into her life. She’s skipped multiple grades and doesn’t really connect with the older kids at school, but she’s not comfortable with her family, either. The reason? Sophie’s a Telepath, someone who can read minds. No one knows her secret—at least, that’s what she thinks…

But the day Sophie meets Fitz, a mysterious (and adorable) boy, she learns she’s not alone. He’s a Telepath, too, and it turns out the reason she has never felt at home is that, well…she isn’t. Fitz opens Sophie’s eyes to a shocking truth, and she is forced to leave behind her family for a new life in a place that is vastly different from what she has ever known.

This stunning graphic novel retelling of the first half of the thrilling first novel comes to life with all the adventure and epic worldbuilding the Keeper of the Lost Cities series is known for.

My Review

This is my first foray into the Keeper of the Lost Cities series, which is maybe a weird place to begin. On the other hand, I had no preconceived ideas about the story going into the book and also no familiarity with the original. I had no trouble following the story and making sense of what was happening, so I don’t think readers would need to have read the prose novels in order to follow this adaptation.

Some elements of the story felt a little bit dated, which only makes sense. After all, the original book came out in 2012. It definitely has that portal fantasy feel of some of the other big books that came out around that time, and yet, I think the themes are super relatable anyway: friendship, feeling alone in a new place, learning you have abilities or history you never knew about.

I liked the relationships between Sophie and the other characters. As I read, I kept trying to figure out who was on her side and who was secretly working against her. I definitely have some theories, but I have no idea if I’m right or not at this point.

The only thing that I kept getting stuck on is the fact that the illustrations of Sophie make her look so much older than twelve. I kept thinking she was fifteen or sixteen from the images of her in the panels and then remembering that wasn’t right. So that threw me off a little bit. The illustrations are beautiful, though, and definitely anchor the story in the fantasy setting.

I think readers looking for an engaging portal fantasy will enjoy this series opener. I think fans of THE STONEKEEPER by Kazu Kibuishi will enjoy it.

Content Notes for Keeper of the Lost Cities: The Graphic Novel Part 1

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Maybe some attraction between Sophie and a boy character. Just some blushing here and there.

Spiritual Content
A hidden world contains people with magic powers.

Violent Content
Magic can cause some pretty serious destruction when not properly used. A man tries to kidnap Sophie.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL PART 1 in exchange for my honest review.