Sharon M. Draper presents “storytelling at its finest” (School Library Journal, starred review) in this New York Times bestselling Depression-era novel about a young girl who must learn to be brave in the face of violent prejudice when the Ku Klux Klan reappears in her segregated southern town. Stella lives in the segregated South—in Bumblebee, North Carolina, to be exact about it. Some stores she can go into. Some stores she can’t. Some folks are right pleasant. Others are a lot less so. To Stella, it sort of evens out, and heck, the Klan hasn’t bothered them for years. But one late night, later than she should ever be up, much less wandering around outside, Stella and her little brother see something they’re never supposed to see, something that is the first flicker of change to come, unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. As Stella’s community—her world—is upended, she decides to fight fire with fire. And she learns that ashes don’t necessarily signify an end.

Readers of Kate DiCamillo and Sheila Turnage will love Moonpenny Island, a middle grade novel of friendship and secrets by the beloved and acclaimed Tricia Springstubb. Moonpenny is a tiny island in a great lake. When the summer people leave and the ferries stop running, just the tried-and-true islanders are left behind. Flor and her best, her perfect friend, Sylvie, are the only eleven-year-olds for miles and miles—and Flor couldn’t be happier. But come the end of summer, unthinkable things begin to happen. Sylvie is suddenly, mysteriously, whisked away to school on the mainland. Flor’s mother leaves to take care of Flor’s sick grandmother and doesn’t come back. Her big sister has a secret, and Flor fears it’s a dangerous one. Meanwhile, a geologist and his peculiar daughter arrive to excavate prehistoric trilobites, one of the first creatures to develop sight. Soon Flor is helping them. As her own ability to see her life on this little lump of limestone evolves, she faces truths about those she loves—and about herself—she never imagined.

A teen’s suspicious death, a shocking police cover-up and a mother’s search for the truth. In 1990, on a November night that hit –28 degrees Celsius, seventeen-year-old Neil Stonechild disappeared only blocks from his mother’s home. His frozen body was found three days later, eight kilometres from where he was last seen in downtown Saskatoon. The police investigation was cursory — no one seemed to wonder about the abrasions on his wrists or the scrapes on his face, or the fact that he was missing a shoe. Neil was drunk and out walking, the police believed, and had died by misadventure. His mother, Stella Bignell, tried her best to push for answers, but no one in authority wanted to listen to a native woman whose sons had often been in trouble with the law. But Stella did not give up, and neither did the only witness, sixteen-year-old Jason Roy, who had seen Neil, beaten and bleeding, in the back of a Saskatoon police cruiser the night he disappeared. Starlight Tour recounts their struggle for justice in the face of indifferent officials, destroyed police files and institutionalized racism. In the decade following Neil’s death, rumours persisted that police sometimes drove natives beyond the edge of town and abandoned them. But it was only in January 2000, when two more men were found frozen to death, that the truth about Neil Stonechild’ s fate began to emerge. A third man, Darrell Night, survived his “starlight tour,” and lived to tell the tale. And soon one of the country’s most prominent aboriginal lawyers, Donald Worme, was on the case. With exclusive co-operation from the Stonechild family, Worme, and other key players, and information not yet revealed in the press coverage, Starlight Tour is an engrossing and damning portrait of rogue cops, racism, obstruction of justice and justice denied, not only to a boy and his mother but to the entire country’s native community.

Another powerful story in the Logan Family Saga and companion to Mildred D. Taylor's Newbery Award-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. A day of conflict and tragedy. Jeremy Simms watches from the porch of the general store as the weekly bus from Jackson comes through his town. His neighbor Stacey Logan and Stacey's brothers and sister are there to see their grandmother off on a trip. Jeremy's friend Josias Williams is taking the bus to his new job. But Josias and the Logans are black, and in Mississippi in the 1930s, black people can't ride the bus if that means there won't be enough room for white people to ride. When several white passengers arrive at the last minute, the driver sends Josias and Stacey's grandmother off the bus. Then comes a terrifying moment that unites all the townspeople in a nightmare that will change their lives forever. “Well written and thought provoking, this book will haunt readers and generate much discussion.”—School Library Journal

Twelve-year-old Ben Ripley leaves his public middle school to attend the CIA's highly secretive Espionage Academy, which everyone is told is an elite science school.

When Gerald was a child he was fascinated by fire. But fire is dangerous and tragedy strikes. The one bright light in Gerald's life is his little half sister, Angel, whom he struggles to protect from her abusive father. Gerald finds success on the Hazelwood Tigers basketball team, and Angel develops her talents as a dancer, despite the trouble that still haunts them.

Six-year-old Sarah Marie, her mother, and her little sister travel down south to visit Grandmama in the summer of 1956. Now that Sarah Marie can read, she notices Grandmama's town is filled with signs and rules that she's never understood before. Wil