Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

Shady Grove can see ghosts.  But only when her daddy plays his fiddle, but he is dead now.  Her mom is remarried and Shady has an older brother, Jesse, and a younger sister, Honey. Shady has an attraction to Sarah, but then Cedar starts to show her he likes her as well and she doesn't know who to choose.  Shady starts to hear the fiddle in the woods and she tries to find it, but can't. She starts seeing the Shadow Man again in her dreams and then her mom's husband, Jim, is killed.  They think Jesse did it!  She wants to prove he didn't so she starts looking for the fiddle and in the process almost dies herself.  She just wants to talk to Jim's ghost so she can ask him who killed him and prove Jesse's innocence.  But once she starts with the fiddle it won't let you go.  

This definitely needs to be for high school or even older.  LOTS of STRONG language.  It was slow at the start, but picked up toward the middle and then I couldn't put it down to I found out all the secrets!!

Something to Say by Lisa Moore Ramee

Jenae does not really fit in at school and doesn't feel like she has any friends.  Her brother Malcolm is home from college with an injury that he is trying to recover from.  Her parents are divorced, and she lives with her grandpa, Gee.  As she starts school, a new kid enters, Aubrey, who has flaming Cheeto red hair and kind of latches on to her.  She is not thrilled exactly, but at the same time doesn't necessarily want him to go away.  As she struggles with wanting to be friends with Aubrey or not, she is assigned an assignment to give a speech and she has MAJOR anxiety about that, like run away, get sick, skip school anxiety.  She also feels like she can cause things to happen like Malcolm getting hurt, her grandpa having a stroke, or her parents divorce.  

Lots of character development, learning how to be a friend, overcoming fears, and being honest.  Plus the struggle of family dynamics. Good book for 5th and up.  

Running by Natalia Sylvester

Mariana Ruiz's dad is running for president.  She is proud of him, proud of her heritage of Cuban-American, but she doesn't always do what he wants her to do.  Things used to be different, he doesn't seem like himself anymore.  They used to go to the beach to clean up because they wanted to.  Now it seems it is a publicity stunt, but not for her.  As she deals with her dad's campaign, her best friend has to move to Miami Beach because her parents are separating, she is getting portrayed by the media as against her father and her family seems "off".  Mari starts wondering if she wants her dad to win or not.  

This book seemed really slow to me.  I had to make myself finish.  Would I pick it up again.  No, but others may enjoy it as a look into life of a family in politics and it is based on treated sewer water being dumped into aquifers in 2018.  

Shirley and Jamila Save their Summer by Gillian Goerz

Jamila is new to the neighborhood.  As she and her mother are shopping at a garage sale she meets Shirley.  The two realize they have something in common:  their mothers are wanting to send them to summer camps and they do not want to go.  Shirley gets her mom to talk to Jamila's mom and they end up getting what they want:  summer at the local basketball court.  One day a kid, Oliver, shows up and says his gecko was stolen at the public swimming pool, in fact a lot of things have been stolen at the public swimming pool.  Shirley decides to help him solve the mystery and Jamila gets dragged along.  Shirley seems to have a knack to notice things others don't and put them together, almost like a girl Sherlock Holmes.  She also has trouble getting along with people and making friends.  As she and Jamila work together they both discover things about themselves and may just become real friends in the end.  

Seems a little young for middle school, but my kiddos that like graphic novels will enjoy it.  Does have some great life lessons about getting along and looking beyond first impressions.  

Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone

Molly Frost witnesses Olivia get dress coded by the principal and another teacher because she has on a tank top and she refuses to take her sweatshirt from around her waist and put it on.  She is fed up with girls getting in trouble for getting their dress.  Molly starts a podcast called Dress Coded and starts to have different girls from her middle school come on and talk about their experiences like Liza who was wearing the same thing as Molly and Liza got dress coded and Molly did not.  As the podcast continues some high school girls come and tell about when they were dress coded in middle school and how even now it has affected them.  As the book continues the themes of embarrassment, shame, and a good way to change things comes about.

There is a side-story of Molly's brother Danny who is selling vape paraphernalia to middle-schoolers along with his own addiction to it. 

I loved how the book was written in different forms:  podcast script, text messages, letters, and just regular writing.  Great character development and reality of what does go on in school and how girls feel. 

Muse Squad: The Cassandra Curse by Chantel Acevedo

Callie Martinez-Silva is a normal girl living in Miami, Florida.  She has all the typical problems: friends who change, fitting in, school work, etc.  Add to that  her parents are divorced, her dad, who lives in NY now, just told her he and his new wife are having a baby, and  she starts noticing weird things are happening around her.  Callie finds out she is Muse, like one of the nine from Greek mythology.  Her Aunt Annie was also a Muse.  One day as she crawls under her bed to think she is whisked away to London to the V and A Museum where she discovers her identity and meets the three junior muses, AKA the Muse Squad.  The squad is assigned a Fated One (one who can change the world) who just happens to be a student from Callie's school.  Maya is really smart, but socially awkward.  As Callie and the Muse Squad  try to  protect Maya from the The Cassandra Curse and the Sirens they learn that things are not always what they seem and you can't always trust who you think you can.

Great character development, themes of trust, honesty, and forgiveness are woven throughout.  Highly recommend.  It reminded me of Aru Shah series.

  

Faith: Taking Flight by Julie Murphy

Faith is a normal 17 year old who lives with her grandma as both her parents died when she was young.  The summer before her senior year both her best friends head off for the summer so she starts playing a game online and gets recruited to "awaken" her superhero power.  As she starts her senior year she has not told anyone about her gift to be able to fly.  She is involved in the school newspaper and Johnny, the editor, seems to be interested in her, but the big kicker is her favorite TV show comes to town to film.  The Grove is a show she has a fandom site for and she ends up meeting one of the shows main characters, Dakota.  Fangirling ensues, and wait for it...does Dakota like her?  As Faith deals with a grandmother who seems to be forgetting things, trying to decide does she like girls or boys, her superpower of flying and how to balance it all she starts to notice things are just not right in her small town and she takes it upon herself to start figuring out what. 

I normally love Murphy's books, but this one just didn't do it for me. 

An Education in Ruin by Alexis Bass

If you enjoy unreliable narrators, then this book might be for you.  I have trouble deciding if Collins is unreliable or just been lied to so much she doesn't know what's true.  There are also LOTS of secrets in this book, which don't really come out until the very end, and even then you are left wondering.  

Collins is headed to boarding school.  Her aunt has tasked her with finding some dirt on two boys, brothers, in order to break up their married mom with her dad.  Aunt Rose claims that the mom is using Collins dad for his money.  As Collins tries to befriend the boys and make  Jasper fall in love with her so she can break his heart, she finds out that what secrets the boys possess are not what her aunt had in mind.  

The book is broken into sections by months and at the end of each section there is a hint of what happens in March.  The ending seemed to end with a good closure.  I would recommend this for 7th and up.  

The Lost City (Omte #1) by Amanda Hocking

Disclaimer:  I have not read any of the other Trylle books.

Ulla was abandoned as a baby at an inn and then ends up being a nanny for a family with 6 kids. She wonders who her family is, who her mom who abandoned her is.  The family she works for has a connection to the royal family and is able to get her an internship in Mimirin, where she can  work for them and in her free time research her family.  She does not have a lot to go on, just a name Orra, a story about the woman and the night she left her the man who raised her told her, and papers she has gathered.  As she begins her travel she is supposed to drop off  Hanna at her paternal grandparents  house, but Hanna stows away and ends up with Ulla in Mimirin.  As Ulla begins her internship, Hanna befriends a strange girl, Eliana, who apparently has amnesia.  Hanna, Ulla, and Dagny (the roommate) try to help Eliana remember who she is and where she came from more and more strangeness occurs.  Ulla has her blood tested for genetics and  she finds out one parent is Omte, but the other they have no idea, and it has some similarity to Eliana's blood.  As things wrap up in this first book it gets pretty intense and surprisingly makes me want to read the next book. 

I think this a great book for people who love fantasy other world type books (troll world) and like a series.  I think this book would be fine for strong readers in 6th grade and up.  No cussing, sex, or violence (really).