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Twelve-year-old Adela “Addie” Ramírez has a big decision to make when her stepfather proposes adoption. Addie loves Alex, the only father figure she’s ever known, but with a new half brother due in a few months and a big school theater performance on her mind, everything suddenly feels like it’s moving too fast. She has a million questions, and the first is about the young man in the photo she found hidden away in her mother’s things.

Addie’s sleuthing takes her to a New Mexico ranch, and her world expands to include the legendary Bravos: Rosie and Pancho, her paternal grandparents and former professional wrestlers; Eva and Maggie, her older identical twin cousins who love to spar in and out of the ring; Uncle Mateo, whose lucha couture and advice are unmatched; and Manny, her biological father, who’s in the midst of a career comeback. As luchadores, the Bravos’s legacy is strong. But being part of a family is so much harder—it’s about showing up, taking off your mask, and working through challenges together.

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or from your favorite independent bookstore!
Books ordered through Women & Children First in Chicago can be personalized and shipped anywhere in the U.S. Please indicate in comments / note box on the order form.

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Books ordered through Women & Children First in Chicago can be personalized and shipped anywhere in the U.S. Please indicate in comments / note box on the order form.

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After one prank too many, trickster god Loki has been banished to live as a kid on Earth. If he can show moral improvement within one month, he can return to Asgard. If he can't? Eternity in a pit of angry snakes. Rude! To keep track of Loki’s progress, King Odin (a bossy poo-poo head) gives him this magical diary in which Loki is forcedto confess the truth, even when that truth is as ugly as a naked mole rat. To make matters worse, Loki has to put up with an eleven-year-old Thor tagging along and making him look bad. Loki is not even allowed to use his awesome godly powers! As Loki suffers the misery of school lunch, discovers the magic of internet videos, and keeps watch for frost giant spies, will he finally learn to tell good from bad, trust from tricks, and friends from enemies? Louie Stowell’s witty text and hysterical drawings will keep readers in stitches from start to finish.

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The Dragon in the Library, The Monster in the Lake and The Wizard in the Wood tell the story of three friends who discover a magical library staffed by wizards - and the odd dragon. They're illustrated by the magnificent Davide Ortu.

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The Dragon in the Library, The Monster in the Lake and The Wizard in the Wood tell the story of three friends who discover a magical library staffed by wizards - and the odd dragon. They're illustrated by the magnificent Davide Ortu.

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Eleven-year-old Aurora Petrequin’s best friend has never spoken a word to her. In fact, Frenchie Livernois doesn’t talk.

Aurora is bouncy, loud and impulsive—“a big old blurter.” Making friends has never come easily. When Frenchie, who is autistic, silently chose Aurora as his person back in third grade, she chose him back. They make a good team, sharing their love of the natural world in coastal Maine.

In the woods, Aurora and Frenchie encounter a piebald deer, a rare creature with a coat like a patchwork quilt. Whenever it appears, Aurora feels compelled to follow.

At school, Aurora looks out for Frenchie, who has been her classmate until this year. One morning, Frenchie doesn’t make it to his classroom. Aurora feels she’s to blame. The entire town begins to search, and everyone wonders: how is it possible that nobody has seen Frenchie?

At the heart of this story is the friendship between hyper-talkative Aurora and nonvocal Frenchie. Conflict arises when Aurora is better able to expand her social abilities and finds new friends. When Frenchie goes missing, Aurora must figure out how to use her voice to help find him, and lift him up when he is found.

Featuring a compelling mystery and a memorable voice, this is a natural next-read after Leslie Connor’s The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle.

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New for 2022

ANYBODY HERE SEEN FRENCHIE?

"Through Aurora, we see Frenchie's humanity; in turn, Aurora's patience, perceptiveness, and empathy shine..... funny, heartwarming, and keenly observant... finely crafted plot....a well-earned happy resolution."
- Hornbook

"....elements of suspense and pastoral literature... an engaging story. A strong choice for readers seeking stories with neurodiverse characters or books with heartwarming friendships."
- Booklist

"Connor creates a playground of a coastal Maine town where the quirky locals are accessible and caring. Aurora's buoyant enthusiasm infuses the story with adventurous fun..."
- Kirkus

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Psst! Are you looking for Leslie Connor? The one who writes books? Well, you found me. I'm here with the dogs. (I am almost always with dogs.)

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Isaac and Marco already know sixth grade is going to change their lives. But it won’t change things at home—not without each other’s help.

This year, star basketball player Isaac plans on finally keeping up with his schoolwork. Better grades will surely stop Isaac’s parents from arguing all the time. Meanwhile, straight-A Marco vows on finally winning his father’s approval by earning a spot on the school’s basketball team.

But will their friendship and support for each other be enough to keep the two boys from falling short?

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"Authentically told, and interwoven with hope, strength, and beauty. This book is a gift to the world."

- Sarah Scheerger, author of

Operation Frog Effect

"A beautiful seed of heartbreak and joy!"

- Aida Salazar, author of

The Moon Within and Land of the Cranes

"A song sung for children of immigrants. A corrido in their honor."

-Isabel Quintero, author of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces and Mi Papi Has a Motorcycle

"This debut announces an important new writer on the scene."

- Fred Aceves, author of The Closest I've Come & The New David Espinoza

"Efrén Divided will find its way straight into your heart, even as it is breaking. "

- Matt Mendez, author of Barely Missing Everything and Twitching Heart

"A moving portrayal of the shame, fear, and uncertainty of a family ripped apart."

- Aimée Medina Carr, author of

River of Love

"From the opening pages I found myself completely immersed in a world so different from mine, yet just a neighborhood away."

--Author/Illustrator Steve Bjorkman

Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic, Lecturer at Rutgers, and Newbery Committee member (2014).

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"Authentically told, and interwoven with hope, strength, and beauty. This book is a gift to the world." - Sarah Scheerger, author of Operation Frog Effect "A beautiful seed of heartbreak and joy!" - Aida Salazar, author of The Moon Within and Land of the Cranes "A song sung for children of immigrants.

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Chester Keene takes great comfort in his routines. After school Monday to Thursday is bowling, and Friday, the best of days, is laser tag! But most special of all is when Chester gets secret spy messages from his dad, who is always on covert government assignments, which is why Chester has never met him.

Then, one day at lunch, Chester’s classmate Skye approaches him with a clue. They’ve been tasked with a complex puzzle-solving mission. Chester takes their assignments very seriously, but Skye treats it like a big game. Skye proves to be a useful partner and good company, even if her haphazard, free-wheeling ways are disruptive to Chester’s carefully curated schedule.

As Chester and Skye get closer to their final clue, they discover the key to their spy assignment: they have to stop a heist! But cracking this code might lead to a discovery Chester never saw coming.

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Kekla Magoon is an award-winning author of books for children & young adults. Welcome to her online home.

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One year after a random shooting changed their family forever, Nora and her father are exploring a slot canyon deep in the Arizona desert, hoping it will help them find peace. Nora longs for things to go back to normal, like they were when her mother was still alive, while her father keeps them isolated in fear of other people. But when they reach the bottom of the canyon, the unthinkable happens: A flash flood rips across their path, sweeping away Nora's father and all of their supplies.

Suddenly, Nora finds herself lost and alone in the desert, facing dehydration, deadly snakes, venomous scorpions, and, worst of all, the Beast who has terrorized her dreams for the past year. If Nora is going to save herself and her father, she must conquer her fears, defeat the Beast, and find the courage to live her new life.

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Twelve-year-old Gabe doesn’t know where he belongs anymore. His family is caught up in their own lives and his friends barely have time for him now that they’re stars on the soccer team. In a desperate plea for attention to impress his friends after school, Gabe sets off fireworks in the woods near his house and causes a small forest fire that destroys several acres of land.

In the chaos of the destruction, a coyote named Rill—tired of her family and longing for adventure—finds herself far from home. Already on animal control’s watch for wandering into a backyard and snapping at a child, Rill crawls into a cave, where she nurses her wounds alone.

Gabe and Rill’s paths irrevocably cross when Gabe is tasked with cleaning up the forest through the court's restorative justice program. The damage to the land and both their lives is beyond what the two can imagine. But together, they discover that sometimes it only takes one friend to find the place where you belong.

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2023 Winner NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children

★ "This riveting, many-layered story shines on all levels ....As a story about community, healing, and family-both human and animal-this is one of the best."

More Books by Dayna Lorentz

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Dayna Lorentz, Of a Feather and the Dogs of the Drowned City Trilogy

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Dayna Lorentz is the author of the No Safety in Numbers trilogy, the Dogs of the Drowned City series, and the upcoming Of a Feather.

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Ellis Bailey Johnson has the summertime blues. Instead of hanging out with friends, listening to music, and playing his harmonica, Ellis has to help bring his dad’s latest farfetched, sure-to-fail idea to life: open the world’s first chocolate chip cookie store.

They have six weeks to perfect their recipe, get a run-down A-frame storefront on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard into tip-top shape, and bring in customers. But nothing goes according to plan, especially when family secrets start to surface. Can Ellis bake up a happy ending?

Partially based on Shawn Amos’s own experiences growing up the son of Wally “Famous” Amos, and packed with humor, heart, and fun illustrations, this debut novel sings with the joy of self-discovery, unconditional love, and community.

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Greetings, brothers and sisters,

You have likely arrived here after reading my book, Cookies & Milk. Most people know me as blues musician, The Reverend Shawn Amos. You can learn more about my music life in the other areas of this website. On this page, you'll see photos of my family, friends, and bandmates, plus some of my past work that makes me proud. I've been lucky to meet and work with a lot of very talented people who all taught me how to live a creative life.

I'm the only child of William Morris agent-turned-cookie entrepreneur Wally "Famous" Amos, and singer Shirley "Shirl-ee May" Ellis. I spent my childhood in shadowy nightclubs, on the funky streets of 70s Hollywood, and in my own broken home, watching folks hustle, intently listening to them spin tales. I went to NYU Film School, only to be wooed back west in my senior year to accept a screenwriting gig with A & M Films.

Throughout my twenties, I made music that grappled with my race and identity. I tried on personas, searched for my voice, explored different kinds of music which led me to the blues.

While I was grounded from touring during the Coronavirus Pandemic, I had a lot of time to think-and write. This was beginning of Cookies & Milk. It's a book for my son (also named Ellis), my dad, and me. It's also a book for anyone wanting to discover who they are.

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Shawn Amos: Blues Preacher, Book Author - The Reverend Shawn Amos

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Greetings, brothers and sisters, You have likely arrived here after reading my book, Cookies & Milk . Most people know me as blues musician, The Reverend Shawn Amos. You can learn more about my music life in the other areas of this website.

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Meet Resilience, a Mars rover determined to live up to his name.

Res was built to explore Mars. He was not built to have human emotions. But as he learns new things from the NASA scientists who assemble him, he begins to develop humanlike feelings. Maybe there’s a problem with his programming….

Human emotions or not, launch day comes, and Res blasts off to Mars, accompanied by a friendly drone helicopter named Fly. But Res quickly discovers that Mars is a dangerous place filled with dust storms and giant cliffs. As he navigates Mars’s difficult landscape, Res is tested in ways that go beyond space exploration.

As millions of people back on Earth follow his progress, will Res have the determination, courage, and resilience to succeed…and survive?

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Jasmine Warga is the New York Times-bestselling author of middle grade novels Other Words For Home, The Shape of Thunder, and A Rover's Story. Other Words For Home earned multiple awards, including a John Newbery Honor, a Walter Honor for Young Readers, and a Charlotte Huck Honor. The Shape of Thunder was a School Library Journal and Bank Street best book of the year, a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Children's and YA Book Award, and has been named to several state award reading lists. A Rover's Story, her latest novel, was an instant New York Times bestseller, a Indie Next List and a Junior Library Guild selection, and was named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post. She is also the author of young adult novel, My Heart and Other Black Holes, which has been translated into over twenty different languages. Her next middle grade novel, A STRANGE THING HAPPENED IN CHERRY HALL, will be published on September 10th, 2024. Originally from Cincinnati, she now lives in the Chicago-area with her family in a house filled with books.

I was born on April 24, 1988 at 11:59 PM in Cincinnati, Ohio. This means that I am a Taurus if you are into astrology and star stuff, which I most definitely am. Also, like all other people from Cincinnati, I am inordinately proud of my little Midwestern city and think that Graeter's black raspberry chip ice cream is the most delicious food in the whole world. (I'm really into a baby hippo named Fiona, too. She makes her home at the Cincinnati Zoo.)

Growing up, I loved to read. When I was younger, I read about every book I could get my hands on. Some of my favorites were Charlotte's Web, The Witches, and Anne of Green Gables. I read The Bridge to Terabithia when I was in fourth grade, and it is the first book I remember reading by myself that made me cry. In middle school, we read books by Sharon Draper and Margaret Peterson Haddix, and I fell in love with their stories. I wanted to live in the world of Ella Enchanted, and I couldn't stop thinking about The Giver. In high school, I was introduced to the work of Virginia Woolf and my brain exploded. I also fell hard and fast for the poetry of Adrienne Rich and Anne Sexton. In college, I discovered Zadie Smith and Sandra Cisneros and reading their brilliant writing made my own desire to tell stories feel possible in a way it hadn't before.

I went to college with the intention of getting a degree in something "practical" (because I wanted to make my parents happy), but I ended up graduating with a degree in Art History and History (which if you really think about it was just a roundabout way for me to study the structure of story and how stories are told.) After graduation, I found a job teaching 6th grade science (I know, right?) to a bunch of smart and challenging students in Texas. While teaching, I started to try my hand at writing my own stories. Lots of false starts and messy drafts later, here we are. I feel extremely lucky as all I've ever wanted to do is tell stories.

These days, I live in the Chicago area with my family in a house full of books. My current favorite things are neighborhood walks, buttery popcorn, and flowering trees.

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Jasmine Warga is the New York Times-bestselling author of middle grade novels Other Words For Home, The Shape of Thunder, and A Rover's Story. Other Words For Home earned multiple awards, including a John Newbery Honor, a Walter Honor for Young Readers, and a Charlotte Huck Honor.

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Can five overlooked kids make one big difference?

There's George: the brain

Sara: the loner

Dayara: the tough kid

Nico: the rich kid

And Miguel: the athlete

And they're stuck together when they're forced to complete their school's community service hours. Although they're sure they have nothing in common with one another, some people see them as all the same . . . just five Spanish-speaking kids.

Then they meet someone who truly needs their help, and they must decide whether they are each willing to expose their own secrets to help . . . or if remaining invisible is the only way to survive middle school.

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Christina Diaz Gonzalez, Author of Middle Grade & Young Adult Books

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Christina Diaz Gonzalez is the Edgar® award-winning author of The Red Umbrella, A Thunderous Whisper, the Moving Target duology, Concealed, Invisible, The Bluest Sky + more.

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Gaby Epstein is a comic artist and illustrator based in Austin, TX. Repped by Steven Salpeter of Curtis Brown Ltd.

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Summer Reading with Celia C. Pérez | Author of TUMBLE

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Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good by Louie Stowell | Book trailer

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Susan's Pick: Anybody Here Seen Frenchie?

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Chester Keene Cracks the Code by Kekla Magoon | Official Book Trailer