What’s behind the “ nunya bidness door”? And is that a gun sticking out from Grandpop’s waistband? Reynolds’ middle-grade debut meanders like the best kind of summer vacation but never loses sense of its throughline. And he and Ernie will have to do chores, like picking peas and scooping dog poop. Then, he breaks the model truck that’s one of the only things Grandma still has of his deceased uncle. Next, there’s no Internet, so the questions he keeps track of in his notebook (over 400 so far) will have to go un-Googled. 9-12)Įleven-year-old Brooklynite Genie has “worry issues,” so when he and his older brother, Ernie, are sent to Virginia to spend a month with their estranged grandparents while their parents “try to figure it all out,” he goes into overdrive.įirst, he discovers that Grandpop is blind. Realistic characters, humor and a charming setting make this a great choice for collections of all sizes. But will her secret plan to make Aaron feel at home backfire? Lord’s sophomore effort about a Maine island girl with a big heart who pays a bit too much attention to her superstitions and doesn’t always make the best decisions will not disappoint fans of her Newbery Honor–winning Rules. Tess fears that if Aaron doesn’t acclimate, her family-lobsterman dad, teacher mother and Monopoly-mad little sister-will have to move away from everything she loves. Eleven-year-old Tess Brooks hopes her family’s child will be like Anne of Green Gables…but, despite his red hair, 13-year-old Aaron is a sullen, quiet boy who misses the mother he was taken from seven years previously.

Reverend Beal suggested a win/win proposition: Island families could take in foster children. When the Hamiltons and their five children moved off Bethsaida Island, the state of Maine said the school had too few children to make it viable and gave the residents until summer to come up with a solution.

Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord