The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate

 

All three friends from The One and Only Ivan have new homes: Ivan and Ruby are settled into a real zoo, and Bob the mutt is making a home with one of the zookeepers and his family. This time Bob tells the story, including how his search for food brought him to the mall where he met Ivan the gorilla and Ruby the elephant. When a hurricane hits, Bob and Ruby prove their bravery first rescuing Ivan and then one of the young gorillas, then when Bob is suddenly reunited with his sister, Boss, he helps the animals in the shelter survive the storm surge and then finds Boss' pup, stranded on the roof of a car.

Class Act by Jerry Craft

 

Jordan Banks is back for eighth grade at Riverdale Academy, but he's afraid this year may be as hard as his first year. Unlike his friends he hasn't grown an inch. His friends have their own problems. too. Drew feels like he has to work twice as hard to be just as good. He sure has to travel twice as far and he doesn't want to just rely on his basketball skills. Liam wants to be friends with Drew and Jordan, but its hard when their homes and families are so different. And then there's Andy, who's still being a jerk to Drew. The teachers attempt to do the right thing, but their attempts to promote diversity and make the kids of color feel like they belong backfire. Can Jordan keep all his friends together? It's going to take a group effort from his parents and grandfather; just like Jerry Craft makes this book a group effort, drawing on inspiration from other graphic novelists....see if you can spot the tributes.

Nuts to You by Lynne Rae Perkins

 

For some reason, I'm being drawn to books about squirrels this Fall. In this book, that I somehow missed when it first came out, two squirrel friends TsTs and Chai witness a horrible thing: their friend Jed is carried away by a hawk and then mysteriously dropped from the sky. But some squirrels aren't as silly as you might think. TsTs knows where Jed is. She saw him fall "just past the unnatural shape." Which unnatural shape? Above the trees in their grove there are three "unnatural shapes": the "silver egg" (a water tower?), the "tall frozen spiderweb" (an electrical tower), and "the great beak that sometimes sings but never opens" (a church Steeple). "The spiderweb," TsTs reports to Chai, "but not the closest one, the one after that." And so two brave squirrels set out to follow the "buzzpath" (the electrical wires) to rescue their friend. And normally I'd leave the story there for you to read for yourself, but when TsTs and Chai miraculously do find Jed, an even greater adventure begins. Humans are using chain saws to thin the forest around the "buzzpath" and the three friends plus an orphan red squirrel have no time to waste to get back the grove and warn their families to get out of the way of the destruction.

Inkling by Kenneth Oppel

 

When mom dies, the Rylance family struggles to find a new routine. Ethan needs a new friend. Sarah really wants a puppy. Mr. Rylance is overwhelmed with sadness and can't find a way to begin drawing his next graphic novel. Then one night their cat Rickman is prowling the art studio and witnesses something amazing: a small blob of ink escapes from one of Mr. Rylance's sketchbooks. Ethan finds the blob and names him Inkling. Inklng will gladly help out....if he gets enough to eat. But is it a good thing to let the ink do the work for you or is there trouble ahead?

Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker

 

Ware is looking forward to a perfect summer dreaming of knights in the middle ages living alone with his grandmother who everyone calls "Big Deal." But when his grandmother falls and breaks her hip, Ware's freedom is yanked away, and his mother has signed him up for another summer of normal kid activities at the neighborhood Rec Center. On his first day, he discovers an overgrown abandoned shell of a church where a girl named Jolene is attempting to start a garden and he can begin turning the remaining walls of the church into his castle. After several days, the two begin to work together to transform the space and begin to learn about each other's lives. 

Clean Getaway by Nic Stone

 

Grandma calls him Scoob, after the cartoon dog. Scoob writes:

How to Go on an Unplanned Road Trip with Your Grandma:

Grab a Suitcase: Prepacked from the big spring break trip that got CANCELLED.

Fasten Your Seatbelt: G'ma's never conventional, so this trip won't be either.

Use the Green Book: G'ma's most treasured possession. It holds history, memories, and most important, the way home.

What Not to Bring:

A Cell Phone: Avoid contact with Dad at all costs. Even when G'ma starts acting stranger than usual.

Although Scoob is black, his grandmother is white. His grandparents fell in love and married in the early 1960s when it was actually illegal for them to marry in the South because she was white and he was black. It was also difficult to travel safely and Scoob learns about how a road trip from Georgia to Mexico went bad for his grandparents in the 1960s. Along the way, Scoob sees how life in the United States has and sometimes hasn't changed over the past fifty years. Secrets emerge that help Scoob understand his dad and himself.

The Time of Green Magic by Hilary McKay

 

When Abi's dad and Louis and Max's mom get married, they need a new house for their new blended family. They fall in love with the weird old ivy-covered house. Abi loves having her own space to do what she loves best: read books. Then she begins noticing strange things happening: the salty spray that remains on her skin after reading the true life sailing adventure, Kon Tiki. And Louis begins seeing a mysterious (and growing) cat-like creature climb through his window at night. Can Abi and Max figure out where Iffen came from and how to send it back before Louis gets hurt?

The Kalamazoo Pipe Band is Coming to Three Rivers

 Is this how Janis Joplin felt the first time they billed them as Big Brother and the Holding Company WITH Janis Joplin? 

The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead

 

Bea will never forget that day. Her parents sat on the couch on either side of her for their very first "family meeting." From their sad looks she was afraid that maybe her cat, Red, was sick, maybe dying. Her dad put his arm around her and said some big things were going to change. He said they were getting divorced. Her parents explained that dad was moving into another apartment and that Bea would alternate between the two apartments. Then they gave her a green spiral notebook and a green pen. Green was her favorite color. Inside her parents had started a list of "Things That Will Not Change":

1. Mom loves you more than anything, always.

2. Dad loves you more than anything, always.

3. Mom and Dad love each other, but in a different way.

4. You will always have a home with each of us.

5. Your homes will never be far apart.

We are still a family, but in a different way.

When Dad tells Bea that he and his boyfriend, Jesse, are getting married, Bea is excited because (1) she thinks Jesse is great, and (2) Jesse has a daughter, Sonia, and now Bea will have the thing she's always wanted: a sister. But Bea sometime struggles to understand how emotions work, and Sonia's emotions about her new family are complicated. And even though the List of Things That Will Not Change grows longer, Bea discovers that making a new family is full of changes and uncertainty.

Voyage of the Frostheart by Jamie Littler

 

Ash is an orphan boy who lives in the last outpost of a snow-covered land where the technology of the past has been lost and giant leviathans prowl under the ice waiting for foolish humans to stray too far from their safe towers. Ash knows little about his parents who were lost on a pathfinding voyage. But he knows they were song weavers and the Fira people mistrust song weavers because they can understand the songs of the leviathan: "Human. Catch. Kill." When Ash hears it, he instinctively sings back. Even though his song may be the only thing that can tame the leviathan, the Fira exile Ash to live in the care of another outcast, Tobu, a yeti. So when the adventurous crew of the Frostheart, a pathfinding sleigh arrive to trade with the Fira, Ash begs to go with them. The sleigh is captained by a walrus with a peg leg, and Ash quickly befriends the endlessly talkative navigator, Lunah, and eventually the dark stranger, Shaard. Accompanied by Tobu, Ash imagines he might be seeing lands where his parents may have been, and each member of the crew encourages him to develop his singing skills. With leviathans at every turn, can Ash harness his skill to protect the ship? And when the advice of Tobu and Shaard are in conflict, who should he trust? The characters and drawings remind me a bit of the How to Train Your Dragon books.