2 out of 5 stars
Liyana’s father moves their family from America back to his home in Jerusalem. Tensions are high between the Arab and Jewish peoples, but Liyana befriends a Jewish boy. Her family don’t know how to react. They believe in peace, but can they accept someone so different from themselves after all the years of hatred that surround them?
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The Forest Yet to Come (Wolfstongue Saga, 3)
by Sam Thompson
3 out of 5 stars
Sally and her brother Faolon don’t know where they came from. They were found as orphans and raised in The Land, a settlement enclosed in walls where mysterious “shapes” assist in healing and growing food. When the fox trickster Reynard arrives in The Land, he is curious about the “shapes” and tricks Sally into helping him by promising to lead her to answers about her past.
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Boy underground
by Isabelle Marinov
Hugo has autism and he is obsessed with maps. His classmates make fun of him, and even his old friends from elementary won’t hang out with him anymore since they entered middle school. All they care about is looking cool. So when Hugo hears about “cataphiles” who love to explore the catacombs beneath Paris, he knows that that is where he will find his true friends. He prepares to go exploring in the underground, but it’s illegal to go down there because it’s so dangerous. Hugo memorizes the maps of the underground, and prepares for a solo expedition anyway. His former friends, Alex and Julie, see him sneaking underground through a basement entrance, and they follow him. Can Hugo find his way through the maze of tunnels and get them all out?
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Midnight Magic (Midnight Magic, #2)
by Avi
4 out of 5 stars
Fabrizio is a servant to the magician Mangus, who is called to the king’s castle to consult on a grave matter. The princess has been seeing apparitions of a ghost that she claims must be her murdered brother. The king believes in ghosts, but Mangus insists that there is no such thing. The king begs Mangus to use his magic to banish the ghost, but Mangus explains that his magic is only illusions and tricks. The evil Count Scarazoni has his own political reasons for wishing that the ghost be banished or proven to be a hoax. Mangus must investigate the apparitions, and he relies on his loyal servant Fabrizio to help him. Fabrizio can go anywhere in the castle, talk to servants, and sneak around secret passageways to find out if the ghost is real or not.
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Wonder (Wonder, #1)
by R.J. Palacio
Auggie starts school for the first time, worried that the other children will treat him differently because of his appearance. He has had many surgeries to correct birth defects, but his face is scarred and he just looks different from other people. The principal has asked a few of the kids in his class to befriend him, but Auggie wonders if they even like him at all. As Auggie navigates his first year of middle school, his family are also struggling to adjust. His parents worry about Auggie, and his big sister Via has mixed feelings. Together this family discover new ways to connect as Auggie and his sister grow up.
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A Wish in the Dark
by Christina Soontornvat (Goodreads Author)
5 out of 5 stars
Pong was born in prison, and he escapes with a tattoo that marks him as a criminal. A kindly monk takes him and covers the mark with bracelets. Each bracelet represents a blessing. Pong hides in plain sight, joining the monks in their prayers and charitable deeds.
Nok, the daughter of the prison warden, is determined to prove herself by tracking down the escaped prisoner and bringing him to justice. However, she begins to realize that justice and the law might not always agree.
Skyriders
by Polly Holyoke (Goodreads Author)
In a land where human riders can communicate telepathically with their pegasus steeds, one man has made a special study of how the ancient peoples fought off a scourge of monsters called chimerae. When the chimerae return, he entrusts a book full of his research to his niece, Kie. She and her stysteed, N’Rah, must take the book to the capital city and somehow convince the emperor to use these ancient battle techniques. Kie has been practicing using special weapons that her uncle taught her about, and she is hoping to demonstrate how effective they are against the monsters.
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The Tail of Emily Windsnap (Emily Windsnap, #1)
by Liz Kessler, Sarah Gibb (Illustrator)
Emily has never been in the water. Her mother is afraid of the water, so she has kept Emily out of any swim classes or pool parties. But finally, Emily is allowed to go to a swim class at school! She is swimming well for the first few seconds, until her feet start to fuse together, cramping up. She gets out of the pool before anyone notices, but then decides to experiment on her own by going swimming in the ocean. She discovers that she can transform into a mermaid, and there is a whole community of mermaids living in secret far out to sea. But why is her mother so afraid of the water? And where is Emily’s father? He left them when Emily was a baby, but is there a deeper secret behind his leaving?
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The Ogress and the Orphans
by Kelly Barnhill (Goodreads Author)
When an ogress moves in just outside of town, the townspeople begin to blame her for everything that has gone wrong for years, even before she arrived! Their bad luck had all started years before when the Library had burned down. Thank goodness for their wonderful Mayor who is working to restore the town and get rid of the Ogress. But there are a few children in the orphanage who begin to wonder if the Mayor is really so wonderful and if the Ogress is really so evil. Anthea is good at problem-solving. Bartleby is a philosopher who asks the hard questions, and his sister Cass is quiet but brave. These three children look at their crumbling town and decide to finally do something to help.
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The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, #1)
by Rick Riordan (Goodreads Author)
Carter and Sadie are brother and sister, but they rarely see each other, since Sadie lives with their grandparents while Carter and his dad travel the globe researching ancient artifacts. On one of their rare visits, their dad takes them to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone. They discover that their dad has connections with Ancient Egypt and he is working to release the Egyptian gods that he believes are trapped in the Rosetta Stone. It turns out that the ancient legends of magic are real, and the Egyptian gods are breaking free. A secret society called the House of Life is determined to incarcerate the gods again, and Carter and Sadie are caught in the middle.
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Luminous Libro 