Back YHBA Middle Grade Nominees (2024-2025) | Book List

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  YHBA Middle Grade Nominees (2024-2025)  
Air: A Novel

Monica Roe
Format: Hardcover

An action-packed, empowering middle grade novel about a girl who has to speak up when her wheelchair motocross dreams get turned upside down.Twelve-year-old Emmie is working to raise money for a tricked-out wheelchair to get serious about WCMX, when a mishap on a poorly designed ramp at school...
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The Clackity (Blight Harbor)

Lora Senf - Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Format: Paperback

Reminiscent of Doll Bones and Small Spaces, this "delightfully eerie" (Erin A. Craig, New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows) middle grade novel tells the story of a girl who must rescue her aunt by entering a world of ghosts, witches, and monsters to play...
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The Golden Hour

Niki Smith - Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover

Struggling with anxiety after witnessing a harrowing instance of gun violence, Manuel Soto copes through photography, using his cell-phone camera to find anchors that keep him grounded. His days are a lonely, latchkey monotony until he's teamed with his classmates, Sebastian and Caysha,...
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Grounded for All Eternity

Darcy Marks - Aladdin
Format: Hardcover

A group of kids from hell come to Earth on one of the craziest nights of the year - Halloween - in this snarky, witty middle grade adventure about teamwork, friendship, shattering expectations, and understanding the world (or otherworld) around us.Mal and his friends are just your regular...
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In the Key of Us

Mariama J. Lockington
Format: Hardcover

From the author of the critically acclaimed novel For Black Girls Like Me, Mariama J. Lockington, comes a coming-of-age story surrounding the losses that threaten to break us and the friendships that make us whole again. Thirteen-year-old Andi feels stranded after the loss of her mother,...
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Invisible: A Graphic Novel

CHRISTINA DIAZ GONZALEZ - Graphix
Format: Paperback

For fans of Twins and Allergic, a must-have graphic novel about five very different students who are forced together by their school to complete community service... and may just have more in common than they thought.Can five overlooked kids make one big difference?There's George: the brainSara:...
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The Last Beekeeper

Pablo Cartaya - HarperCollins
Format: Hardcover

Facing a world dually altered by climate change and those who profit from it, Yolanda Cicern will have to fight to save the last known beehive from extinction in this stirring new adventure by award-winning author Pablo Cartaya.In a future shaken by climate disasters, Yolanda Cicern knows...
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Lines of Courage

Jennifer A. Nielsen - Scholastic Press
Format: Hardcover

Jennifer A. Nielsen, award-winning author of A Night Divided and Rescue, artfully weaves together the stories of five kids living through World War I, each of whom holds the key to the others' futures... if they are lucky -- and brave -- enough to find each other.World War I stretches...
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The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine

Katherine Marsh - Roaring Brook Press
Format: Hardcover

From the author of Nowhere Boy - called "a resistance novel for our times" by The New York Times - comes a brilliant middle-grade survival story that traces a harrowing family secret back to the Holodomor, a terrible famine that devastated Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s.Thirteen-year-old...
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Maizy Chen's Last Chance

Lisa Yee - Random House Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover


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The Marvellers

Dhonielle Clayton
Format: Hardcover

New York Times-bestselling author Dhonielle Clayton makes her middle-grade debut with a fantasy adventure set in a global magic school in the sky, perfect for fans of Rick Riordan, Soman Chainani, and Philip Pullman. "The Marvellers deserves the highest compliment I can give a book:...
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Plotting the Stars 1: Moongarden

Michelle Barry - Pixel Ink
Format: Hardcover

"Moongarden blooms with heart and adventure. A stellar update of The Secret Garden, woven with a little science fiction, a lot of magic, a vibrant heroine, and a plucky robot sidekick to rival R2-D2." - Victoria Aveyard, New York Times bestselling author of Red QueenThe Secret...
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Queen of the Tiles

Hanna Alkaf
Format: Hardcover

They Wish They Were Us meets The Queen's Gambit in the world of competitive Scrabble when a teen girl is forced to investigate the mysterious death of her best friend a year after the fact when her Instagram comes back to life with cryptic posts and messages.CATALYST 13 points noun:...
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The Second Chance of Benjamin Waterfalls

James Bird - Feiwel & Friends
Format: Hardcover

A middle-grade novel by James Bird about a boy sent to his Ojibwe family to straighten out his life.Benjamin Waterfalls comes from a broken home, and the quickest fix he's found for his life is to fill that emptiness with stuff he steals and then sells. But he's been caught one too many...
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Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting (Rick Riordan Presents)

Roseanne A Brown - Rick Riordan Presents
Format: Hardcover

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents best-selling YA author Roseanne A. Brown's middle grade debut about a pre-teen vampire slayer with a strong helping of Ghanaian folklore.For most kids, catching fireflies is a fun summer activity. For twelve-year-old Serwa Boateng, it's...
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Shot Clock

Caron Butler - ‎Katherine Tegen Books
Format: Hardcover

Former NBA All-Star Caron Butler and acclaimed author Justin A. Reynolds tip off the first book in a new middle grade series about a young boy trying to make his mark on an AAU basketball team coached by a former NBA star in his hometown. Perfect for fans of The Crossover and the Track...
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Swim Team

Johnnie Christmas - HarperAlley
Format: Hardcover

"Combines wonderful characters and history to create a story that will make you want to dive right in!" JERRY CRAFT, author of the Newbery Medal-winning New KidA splashy, contemporary middle grade graphic novel from bestselling comics creator Johnnie Christmas!Bree can't wait...
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Tumble

Celia C Pérez - ‎Kokila
Format: Hardcover

From the award-winning author of The First Rule of Punk, a dazzling novel about a young girl who collects the missing pieces of her origin story from the family of legendary luchadores she's never met. Twelve-year-old Adela "Addie" Ramírez has a big decision to make when...
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What About Will

Ellen Hopkins - G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover

Twelve-year-old Trace Reynolds has always looked up to his brother, mostly because Will, who's five years older, has never looked down on him. It was Will who taught Trace to ride a bike, would watch sports on TV with him, and cheer him on at Little League. But when Will was knocked...
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When the World Was Ours

Liz Kessler - Aladdin
Format: Hardcover

Three friends. One memory. Vienna. 1936. Three young friends - Leo, Elsa, and Max - spend a perfect day together, unaware that around them Europe is descending into a growing darkness and that they will soon be cruelly ripped apart from one another. With their lives taking them across...
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