by Naseem Jamnia

This book is about a girl and her friends who find a mysterious glade in their dreams while at a camp where someone went missing in the past. Their friendships are tested as they protect each other from the force in the glade that wants to come back to the real world. I think this book was interesting because it had so many surprises like dreams that led characters to a mystical world.  It was also very fun to read because the conflict tested the friends in a very suspenseful way.  It took a while to get into the book – about 50 pages or so before it really got moving. Once you got into it, the author did a great job  making the book interesting to read and fun to spend time finishing. The plot  was very good with twists and turns. If readers can stick with it, they won’t regret it!

Reviewed by Rosalee B, 7th grader at Komachin Middle School

by G. F. Miller

Sofia Santini and Holden Thomas meet in the eighth grade year of middle school,. Sofia is desperate to catch the attention of her school crush Mark Chen, a popular guy within the school. Holden agrees to help out but only  in return for letting him add the transformation to his YouTube channel. Somewhere along the way both Sofia and Holden catch feelings for each other rather than making Mark Chen have feelings for Sofia. This wonderful romance novel captures the sweet love and romance of middle school teenagers. This book will capture the mind of true romance novel readers, or even those who are looking for love. The well-developed writing between the constant waiting for love and the anticipation of it happening really kept me on my toes and wanting to turn to the next page.What I thoroughly enjoyed throughout the book was the drawn out mystery of the true feelings between the two main characters Sofia and Holden. Honestly? It’s hard to find something that I disliked about the book!  If I’m being honest I wasn’t the biggest fan of how long it took for the two main characters to finally fall for each other! But that’s just a patience problem.

Reviewed by Bailey M., 8th grader at Komachin Middle School

by Margarita Engle

The story is written in short verse- easy to read and detailed with nature and historical references in the last few years in Cuba. It is  a short romantic story of two young Cubans struggling to fit in at school and finding themselves with nature, wildlife, and the naturalization process of real events in CA.  A romantic story of two adolescents trying to find safety and cultural identity. The poems contain realistic nature facts and past Hispanic historical events stretching back to the 1400s. This book is best for older teens who might have more connections to understanding the historical events.There is a lot of history to take in with this short novel.  It is easy to read because of the verse style. I did not like the open ending because there was no closure.

The book was read & reviewed in Spanish by Mabel T., Komachin Middle School staff

by Sam Hepburn

James lives with his recently widowed mother and their new Homebot who is designed to do many tasks in the home. James’ mom is thrilled with the new addition to their home since both humans are sad about the recent loss of James’ dad. James does NOT like the homebot who tries to micromanage James. In addition, James’ school is about to become part of a trial bringing in Schoolbots to train with the human teachers. They quickly start to take over the school and begin to replace them. Like with the Homebot, some people like the Schoolbots and others do not. Unsurprisingly, teachers begin to be transferred away from the school and the robots take over their jobs. While the graphic novel is told in humorous, light images, the subject matter is much heavier under the comic disguise – much like the “friendly” looking robots. There are serious topics under the surface – Artificial intelligence and its place with human beings. How much do we turn over to machines without losing the human interaction we all need? Book two appears to have James homeschooled by Schoolbot and monitored at home with his family Homebot – because we know how well it went to have students taught at home with computers…I went into this book thinking it would be a light, funny story about a homework machine, and closed it feeling a bit disquiet. While the story shows both the positive and negative sides of technology helping in our homes and schools, the human cost rings loud and clear. I’m interested to see where the second book goes.  I think this is a positive addition to a middle school graphic novel collection as we forge forward with A.I. more and more in our lives. How we interact with and integrate technology is going to be a huge issue in the future.

by Jamie Sumner

What happens AFTER a school shooting to those who survived? This is the bittersweet story of a girl dealing with survivor’s guilt and traumatic memories from a day that no one ever thinks will happen in their school. 6th grader Bea is now wheelchair bound and too afraid to go back to school. The people around her want to change things so that events like this won’t happen again, but Bea just wants to forget & pretend it didn’t happen. But it did and learning to face her memories are a big part of the story. The past unravels with flashbacks to help the reader understand the horrific event in a middle school appropriate way. Told in verse, the lines are both haunting and accessible. The story is sad and hopeful-ish. This book might have triggers for some students. It’s an important book, sadly, in this day and age.

by Devillers, Julia

This fun, lighthearted story of a summer romance at a local amusement park will have readers chuckling along at the character wearing the giant, sweaty moose costume and her fellow amusement part co-workers. Coco and her family are trying to save their family owned theme park. Cute boy, Henry, is just trying to survive a summer without soccer and make a little money to pay back his business-obsessed dad. The two find that summer won’t be so bad with new friends. I enjoyed this sweet story of boy meets girl/moose. It had plenty of humor, moose puns galore, & lots of heart. The story is told in alternating points of view. Perfect for both male & female readers. I enjoyed this light read this summer!

 by Lisa Grush with Rebecca Stefoff

For the first several decades of the space race, women and minorities were not allowed to train to become astronauts, partially because of the severe restrictions on education that were part of the prerequisites, and partially just because of bias and prejudice. By the 1980’s, women were finally brought into NASA to train to become astronauts. Sally Ride, Judy Resnick, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Renna Seddon were the first women selected to prove that women had as much intelligence, grit, and rights as men to travel off planet. This book shares their story as they dreamed as children, braved the eventual application process, and finally trained for their turn to fly. Readers get to see this renaissance period of NASA’s growth and change, ending with the tragedy to the Challenger in 1986 and its aftermath. Color photographs are included in the center of the book, putting faces to the names. Also included are a timeline from 1943 to 1987 highlighting the lives of the 6 women and their connections to the space program, mini bios of them, and source information for the book. I appreciated the look at NASA from beyond the first group of primarily white men that has been so frequently written about with this female-centered chunk of history. A nice addition to a library’s collective biography collection and to a more diverse space collection.