In 80 Days or Die, close on the heels of Bk1, Max (and his cousin Alex) search for the ingredients of a medicine that could save the life of a friend. But in order to do so, they’ll have to recreate the journey that inspired their ancestor Jules Verne’s famous story, Around the World in Eighty Days. It’s not just a race against time. It’s a race against rivals. The 100-Year-Old Secret introduces Americans Xena and Xander Holmes, descendants of Sherlock Holmes, who tackle one of the great detective’s unsolved cases while visiting England. (I’d say it’s geared for lower middle grade readers.) And Snapdragon is a graphic novel about a girl who meets the town which, who can’t really be a witch. Probably.

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Herbert is the Lost and Founder at a big hotel in a seaside town that’s lovely in summertime. But in winter, the locals of Eerie-on-Sea trade tales of their very own cryptid. But when a girl who was apparently once turned in as a lost item at Herbert’s office returns to find out the truth of her past, strange things begin happening all over town. And the Malamander is at the heart of the mystery. The Abduction picks up right where the first book in the Theodore Boone series left off. Thanks to regular references to what’s come before, I’d recommend reading this series in order. Fire the Depths kicks off the Max Tilt trilogy. Young Max is a descendant of Jules Verne, and he uses clues from the attic & from Verne’s books in order to chase down a treasure that could save his family from financial ruin. Turns out, there was some fact to the fiction.

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All’s Faire in Middle School is a graphic novel. Imogene, who goes by Impy, has always been homeschooled, but this year, she’ll be attending the local middle school. Fitting in proves to be a challenge, in part because Impy’s family work at the Ren Faire. So while she can juggle and sword fight and insult passersby with Elizabethan flourish, Squire Impy doesn’t understand the rules of middle school, where cliques rule the day instead of queens. Being the new kid is harder than slaying dragons. Booked is a novel in verse about a boy who loves soccer, hates reading the dictionary, and hopes to impress the prettiest girl in his class. All while navigating his parents’ separation. Ungifted is a lot of fun! Thanks to a chance mix-up, Donovan (wreaker of havoc & troublemaker extraordinaire) finds himself transferred into an elite school for super geniuses. It’s a nice place, so he floats along, partly because he doesn’t want the superintendent to find him (due to past havoc & attendant trouble), partly because he kind of likes the kids in his class.

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