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Babymouse may be a cartoon mouse, but she has experiences that will resonate with her tween audience: like friend drama, boring old school, and the social strata of those same friends and school.

Diego has gotten into trouble because of his temper before. But when he punches out a guy in school who was looking at him funny, he finds himself in juvenile court, facing the possibility of probation, or worse — juvenile jail. It’s only when Diego starts to open up to his probation officer that he begins to understand that the source of his anger is buried in his past — and to move beyond it, he needs to stop running from his personal demons.

Annyrose narrates her adventurous saga of life with a Mexican Robin Hood-like bandit as she tries to find her brother who’s off trying to get rich during the California Gold Rush. Part historical fiction, part tall tale, Annyrose is sure to delight readers of all ages.

Eleven-year-old Rocco is an Italian immigrant who finds himself alone in New York City after he’s sold to a padrone by his poverty-stricken parents. While working as a street musician, he meets the boys of the infamous Bandits’ Roost, who teach him the art of pickpocketing. Rocco embraces his new life of crime—he’s good at it, and it’s more lucrative than banging a triangle on the street corner. But when he meets Meddlin’ Mary, a strong-hearted Irish girl who’s determined to help the horses of New York City, things begin to change. Rocco begins to reexamine his life—and take his future into his own hands.

In 1983 during South Korea’s Fifth Republic, apolitical Kim Hyun Sook seeks refuge in books at college and finds herself hiding in a basement as the youngest member of an underground banned book club. 

Barnaby Grimes is a “tick-tock lad,” a messenger whose specialty is very fast deliveries, which he achieves by taking the most direct route over the rooftops otherwise known as “highstacking.” In Barnaby’s first adventure, his deliveries for the strange Dr. Cadwallader lead to his discovery of a monstrous secret. There are additional books in the series.

This short-story collection features tales of young Latinos in California who face real-life problems big and small, including making the baseball team. While baseball isn’t the focus of every story, the coming-of-age themes are relatable to any tween.

Filled with action, humor, and drama, this anthology compiles short stories, poems, even a play from young adult authors like Jerry Spinelli and Sue Corbett.

Before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947, Black athletes played in the Negro Leagues — on teams coached by Black managers, cheered on by Black fans, and often run by Black owners. Here is the riveting true story of the woman at the center of the Black baseball world: Effa Manley, co-owner and business manager of the Newark Eagles. Elegant yet gutsy, she cultivated a powerhouse team. Yet just as her Eagles reached their pinnacle, so did calls to integrate baseball, a move that would all but extinguish the Negro Leagues. On and off the field, Effa hated to lose. She had devoted her life to Black empowerment — but in the battle for Black baseball, was the game rigged against her? 

During World War II, Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps. Isolated and bored, baseball became a life and soul-saving pastime which successfully brought very different people together. Darkly hued illustrations evoke the difficulty of the time, based on the author’s family story. Spanish version available.

Soon after India Opal and her father, a preacher, move to a small Florida town, Opal meets an ugly stray mutt in the local grocery store, and names him after it. Opal and Winn Dixie build a unique family from an assortment of town residents for a poignant and very funny novel told from Opal’s point of view.

Michelle Robinson was born on the South Side of Chicago. From her modest beginnings, she would become Michelle Obama, the inspiring and powerful First Lady of the United States, when her husband, Barack Obama, was elected the forty-fourth president. They would be the first Black First Family in the White House and serve the country for two terms. In this volume for young people, Michelle Obama shares her views on how all young people can help themselves as well as help others, no matter their status in life. She asks readers to realize that no one is perfect, and that the process of becoming is what matters, as finding yourself is ever evolving. In telling her story with boldness, she asks young readers: Who are you, and what do you want to become? This book is also available in Spanish.

Before he was a household name, Cassius Clay was a kid with struggles like any other. Kwame Alexander and James Patterson join forces to vividly depict his life up to age seventeen in both prose and verse, including his childhood friends, struggles in school, the racism he faced, and his discovery of boxing. Fully authorized by and written in cooperation with the Muhammad Ali estate, and vividly brought to life by Dawud Anyabwile’s dynamic artwork, Becoming Muhammad Ali captures the budding charisma and youthful personality of one of the greatest sports heroes of all time. 

Naomi and her younger brother Owen have lived with their grandmother in a small trailer for many years, ever since they were abandoned by their mother. When Mom Terri Lynn suddenly returns, does she really have the kids’ best interests at heart?

This book captures the voices of the forgotten men, women, and children who worked in the cotton industry in America over the centuries. The voices of the slaves who toiled in the fields in the South, the poor sharecroppers who barely got by, and the girls who gave their lives to the New England mills spring to life through oral histories, archival photos, and an engaging narrative prose style. 

ZJ’s friends Ollie, Darry and Daniel help him cope when his father, a beloved professional football player, suffers severe headaches and memory loss that spell the end of his career.

Anita de la Torre never questioned her freedom living in the Dominican Republic. But by her 12th birthday in 1960, most of her relatives have emigrated to the United States, her Tío Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the government’s secret police terrorize her remaining family because of their suspected opposition of el Trujillo’s dictatorship. Using the strength and courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind. New edition of Julia Alvarez’s 2004 classic. Spanish version available.

Each section of the first in the Pearls Before Swine collections is organized by each of the strip’s characters: Rat, Goat, Zebra, Croc and Pig. Understated humor is evident in the line drawings and minimal language create an accessible, offbeat humor just right for middle schoolers.

The author was only six years old when the Nazis invaded Poland. She and her mother go into hiding with the help of some Gentiles, but their hiding place happens to be next door to the Gestapo headquarters. For the two years they are in hiding, Nelly records her fears, hopes, and dreams through art and in a journal.

Benjamin Franklin’s many talents are presented here in word and image. The organization from Ben’s childhood to the end of his life is enhanced by the use of a scrapbook-like format.

Jenna is happy with her job at Gladstone Shoes, although she doesn’t understand why Mrs. Gladstone hires a man that she caught shoplifting to help around the store. This is a sequel to Bauer’s earlier Rules of the Road (1998), but readers need not read the books in order.

Multiplication facts from 0 to 10 have never been as easy to understand and memorization can actually become fun as with this collection of rhymes. Computer-generated art adds to the presentation in lively style.

Fourteen-year-old English girl Betsy Balcombe and her family have an unusual houseguest: Napoleon Bonaparte, former emperor of France and the most feared man on earth. Once lord and master to eighty-two million souls, now, in 1815, Napoleon is a captive of the British people. Stripped of his empire and robbed of his young family and freedom, he is confined to the forbidding, rat-infested island of St. Helena.

The one bright star in Napoleon’s black sky is Betsy, a blazingly rebellious teenager whose family is reluctantly housing the notorious prisoner. Betsy is the only foreigner Napoleon’s ever met who is not impressed by him — and Napoleon is more than intrigued.

An unexpected alliance is formed. And a remarkable friendship between emperor and girl spawns gossip, and inspires Betsy to hatch a daring and dangerous scheme that could threaten both their lives and shake entire empires to their foundations.

Ernie Barnes was an NFL football player who longed to make art. Finally his dream came true. When Ernie Barnes was growing up in North Carolina in the 1940s, he loved to draw. But in the segregated south, Ernie didn’t know how to make a living as an artist. Ernie grew tall and athletic and became a football star. Still, in his heart Ernie longed to paint. 

Ernie Barnes was one of the most important artists of his time known for his style of elongation and movement. His work has influenced a generation of painters and illustrators and can be found in museums and collections, such as the African American Museum in Philadelphia and the California African American Museum.