Kids Recommendations

Grace and her friends must protect a newly hatched dragon from mysterious evildoers.

When Grace moves to Hong Kong with her mom and new stepdad, her biggest concern is making friends at her fancy new boarding school. But when a mysterious old woman gifts her a dragon egg during a field trip, Grace discovers that the wonderful stories of dragons she heard when she was a young girl might actually be real--especially when the egg hatches overnight.

The dragon has immense powers that Grace has yet to understand. And that puts them both in danger from mysterious forces intent on abusing the dragon's power. And now it's up to Grace and her school friends to uncover the sinister plot threatening the entire city!

"This charming and brilliant novel is superbly plotted and will win over readers . . . Phoebe's voice is dead on and authentic, as are those of her friends. The author's masterful prose and style serve the story instead of merely taking center stage . . . This author and novel are ready for prime time and the big time." --Publishers Weekly, BookLife Prize Critic's Report

Meet Phoebe Katz, a twelve-year-old foster kid from New York City who's been bounced around the system her entire life. Things happen around Phoebe, but it's not like they're her fault But when a statue of Athena comes to life, Phoebe gets the stunning news she's the daughter of Zeus, has a twin brother named Perseus--and was sent away from ancient Greece as a baby to stop a terrible prophecy that predicted she would one day destroy Olympus.

Athena warns Phoebe to stay in hiding, but when the vengeful god Ares kidnaps her beloved social worker, Phoebe has no choice--she has to travel back to ancient Greece and rescue him There, Phoebe and her friends Angie and Damian discover a new prophecy, one that may fix everything. The catch: Phoebe has to collect talismans from six Greek monsters, including the fang from a nine-headed hydra, a talon from the Nemean lion, and a feather from the sphinx. No problem for a girl with the power to call up lightning bolts and change the weather But can Phoebe collect them all and stop the prophecy before she destroys Olympus?

Percy Jackson meets Tristan Strong in this hilarious middle grade “edge-of-your-seat adventure” (James Ponti, New York Times bestselling author of City Spies) that follows a young boy as he journeys across China to seal the underworld shut and save the mortal realm.

Zachary Ying never had many opportunities to learn about his Chinese heritage. His single mom was busy enough making sure they got by, and his schools never taught anything except Western history and myths. So Zack is woefully unprepared when he discovers he was born to host the spirit of the First Emperor of China for a vital mission: sealing the leaking portal to the Chinese underworld before the upcoming Ghost Month blows it wide open.

The mission takes an immediate wrong turn when the First Emperor botches his attempt to possess Zack’s body and binds to Zack’s AR gaming headset instead, leading to a battle where Zack’s mom’s soul gets taken by demons. Now, with one of history’s most infamous tyrants yapping in his headset, Zack must journey across China to heist magical artifacts and defeat figures from history and myth, all while learning to wield the emperor’s incredible water dragon powers.

And if Zack can’t finish the mission in time, the spirits of the underworld will flood into the mortal realm, and he could lose his mom forever.

Experience the action-packed first book in #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson's laugh-out-loud middle-grade fantasy series like never before—now in paperback with all new covers!

AN ANCIENT RIVALRY REAWAKENS.

Everything I'd known about the world was a lie.

On my thirteenth birthday, I, Alcatraz Smedry (yes, I got named after a prison, don’t ask) received my inheritance: a bag of sand. And then I accidentally destroyed my foster parents’ kitchen. It’s not my fault, things just break around me, I swear!

I thought the sand was a joke until evil Librarians came to steal it. You’re probably thinking, “Librarians are nice people who recommend good books,” but that’s just what they want you to think! It turns out they’re actually a secret cult keeping the truth from you—a hidden world filled with magical eyeglasses, talking dinosaurs, and knights with crystal swords!

Or so my Grandpa Smedry claimed when he suddenly showed up to rescue me. So now I have to go with him to invade the local library and get that sand back, before it's used to conquer the world. And Grandpa says how I keep breaking things is actually an amazing talent. There’s no way that can all be true, right?

Will I ever make it back home alive?

"An excellent choice to read aloud to the whole family. Funny, exciting, and briskly paced." —NPR

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Best-selling author Rick Riordan introduces this fantasy adventure by New York Times best-selling author, Roshani Chokshi, inspired by the great epics she grew up on.

Twelve-year-old Aru Shah has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school. While her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales, she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur?

One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again.

But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them.

The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that?

Six kids search for a new place to call home in this middle grade graphic novel debut by comic creators Cait May and Trevor Bream, for fans of Marvel's Runaways and The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag. Another Kind is not your average monster story.

Tucked away in a government facility nicknamed the Playroom, six not-quite-human kids learn to control their strange and unpredictable abilities. Life is good--or safe, at least--hidden from the prying eyes of a judgmental world.

That is, until a security breach forces them out of their home and into the path of the Collector, a mysterious being with leech-like powers.

Can the group band together to thwart the Collector's devious plan, or will they wind up the newest addition to his collection?

An ALSC Graphic Novel Reading List Title

A boy discovers his destiny could totally stink in this riotously funny fantasy-adventure

Risk-averse Greg Belmont is content with being ordinary. He's got a friend--that's right, just one--at his fancy prep school, and a pretty cool dad (even if he is obsessed with organic soaps that smell like a mix of salted pork and Icelandic bog). The problem is, Greg isn't ordinary . . . he's actually an honest-to-goodness, fantastical Dwarf!

He discovers the truth the day his dad brings home a gross new tea--one that awakens bizarre abilities in Greg. Then a murderous Bro-Troll kidnaps his dad and Greg is whisked away to the Underground, where Dwarves have lived for centuries right beneath the streets of Chicago.

With the help of some awesome new friends and a talking ax, Greg learns all about the history of the Dwarves, which has been marked with tales of epic failure since the dawn of time. However, the return of the magic they once wielded means big changes are afoot, escalating tensions with the Dwarves' sworn enemy: the Elves.

Brimming with humor and action, Chris Rylander's The Legend of Greg turns dwarf lore on its head, delivering an adventure readers won't be able to resist.

A young girl, a winged horse, and a war of epic proportions make for an adventurous start to an exciting new trilogy.

When Pegasus crashes onto a Manhattan roof during a terrible storm, Emily’s life changes forever. Suddenly allied with a winged horse she’d always thought was mythical, Emily is thrust into the center of a fierce battle between the Roman gods and a terrifying race of multiarmed stone warriors called the Nirads. Emily must team up with a thief named Paelen, the goddess Diana, and a boy named Joel in order to return Pegasus to Olympus and rescue the gods from a certain death.
Along the way, Emily and her companions will fight monsters, run from a government agency that is prepared to dissect Pegasus, and even fly above the Manhattan skyline—all as part of a quest to save Olympus before time runs out.

"Ben may only be pretending to be the 'Chosen One'—but I’ve definitely chosen this one as my favorite new fantasy series.”
—Max Brallier, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Last Kids on Earth series

How far would you go to play the hero? One seventh grader gets way more than he bargained for when he is swept into the fantasy quest of his gaming dreams in this funny illustrated series full of adventure and twists.

It’s not so easy being the Chosen One (or in Ben Whitlock’s case, pretending to be the Chosen One). Sure, when you’ve been mistaken for a long-prophesied hero by a teenage girl/mysterious assassin and transported to a fantasy realm you're supposedly destined to save, you don’t have to worry about things like math homework. But when flying narwhals are trying to blast you into oblivion (gulp) and a bunch of old mystics in flip-flops want you to enter something called the Gullet of Eternal Torment (double gulp), suddenly a C in algebra doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

Back in the real world, Ben preferred to escape into fictional adventures and role-playing games. But the more he learns about his true quest, the more he realizes that being a hero goes way beyond rolling a few dice. . . .

See that girl, the one with the bright red hair, overstuffed backpack, and aura of grumpiness? That's Charlotte Mielswetzski. And something extra-ordinary is about to happen to her.

Oh, it's not the very cute kitten that appears out of nowhere and demands to go home with her. It's not the sudden arrival of her cousin Zee, who believes he's the cause of a mysterious sickness that has struck his friends back in England. It's not her creepy English teacher Mr. Metos, who takes his mythology lessons just a little too seriously. And it's not the white-faced, yellow-eyed men in tuxedoes, who follow Charlotte everywhere.

What's so extraordinary is not any one of these things....It's all of them. And when Charlotte's friends start to get sick one by one, Charlotte and Zee set out to find a cure. Their quest leads them to a not-so-mythical Underworld, where they face rhyme-loving Harpies, gods with personnel problems, and ghosts with a thirst for blood.

Charlotte and Zee learn that in a world overrun by Nightmares, Pain, and Death, the really dangerous character is a guy named Phil. And then they discover that the fate of every person -- living and dead -- is in their young hands.

In her dazzling debut for young readers, Anne Ursu weaves a tale of myth and adventure, danger and magic that will keep readers engrossed until the very last secret is revealed.