Book Reviews
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The Challenging Riddle Book for Kids: Fun Brain-Busters for Ages 9-12
What’s challenging, fun, and sure to give your brain a workout? This riddle book for kids ages 9-12!
Riddle me this―can you solve these super hard word puzzles? You sure can! Featuring nearly 200 brain benders, this riddle book for kids ages 9-12 is the ultimate option for clever children who love thinking outside the box.
This big riddle book for kids ages 9-12 will test the limits of your imagination. Start things off with handy tips and simple warm-up riddles that will help you twist your thinking and get creative. What’s the difference between a bird and a fly? Tie your brain in knots and find out inside!
Boost your brainpower with this riddle book for kids ages 9-12:
Tons of tough riddles―Build your problem-solving abilities and stretch your creative thinking skills as you unravel all kinds of perplexing puzzles.
Learn about history’s biggest puzzlers―Try your hand at some of the world’s most famous riddles, like the Riddle of the Sphinx or Bilbo’s riddle from The Hobbit, while also learning fun facts about their history.
Easy to use―Tips, hints, and an organized answer key in the back of this riddle book for kids ages 9-12 make it easy to get solving with your friends and family anytime.
Unravel the mind-blowing mysteries inside the best riddle book for kids ages 9-12, written by author Danielle Hall.
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The Three Wishes (Choose Your Own Adventure)
Embark on an enchanted journey with The Three Wishes, where some of your biggest ideas come true (with mixed results). Your zany Aunt Louise gives you a special gold charm that has been in your family for more than 300 years. Each new owner of the charm gets to make three wishes. You get right to work after lunch. Will your wishes lead you to the Secret Cat Club or to a mermaid cove? Perhaps you become a stegosaurus? Or maybe learn to fly? Will you become a millionaire overnight by discovering a buried chest of old coins? Some of your choices lead you to, ahem, more than you bargained for. Be careful to choose wisely!
For readers 9-12 from author Shannon Gilligan and illustrator Norm Grock.
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Best Hidden Pictures Puzzles EVER
Calling all junior detectives and super seekers! This engaging 144-page puzzle book celebrates the very best of Highlights Hidden Pictures puzzles. Kids will love searching for 1,500+ hidden objects in a variety of innovative seek-and-find puzzles, including full-color, photo and classic black-and-white scenes.
With over 20 different types of hidden Picture Puzzles, as well as fun and silly facts about these unique creations, there’s something for everyone in this “best of” collection. Created for puzzle-loving kids ages 6 to 106, this search-and-find book is bursting with classic puzzles, photo puzzles, inverted puzzles, two-player puzzles, and more, all woven together to provide hours of puzzling fun for seek-and-find fans.
For readers 8 and up from Highlights.
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Art Club (A Graphic Novel)
Inspired by the author’s own childhood, this contemporary graphic novel follows an aspiring young artist on a mission to prove that the arts are worth fighting for.
Dale Donavan has repeatedly heard the same lecture: Art will get you nowhere. A kid with a creative streak, Dale wants nothing more than to doodle, play video games, and create comics forever—maybe even as a full-time job one day. But between his grandfather pushing him to focus on his studies and a school with zero interest in funding arts programs, Dale feels like his future has already been decided for him.
That is, until he comes up with the perfect plan: What if he starts an after-school art club, gathers a team of creative students like himself, and proves all the naysayers—his stubborn vice principal in particular—wrong?
This might just work, but if the club isn’t financially successful by the end of the semester, the school will shut them down. This may be Dale’s only chance to show the adults in his life that a career as an artist is not just a dream but a possibility!
For readers 8-12 from author Rashad Doucet.
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The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the Forest, Xan, is kind. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon. Xan rescues the children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.
One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. As Luna’s thirteenth birthday approaches, her magic begins to emerge—with dangerous consequences. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Deadly birds with uncertain intentions flock nearby. A volcano, quiet for centuries, rumbles just beneath the earth’s surface. And the woman with the Tiger’s heart is on the prowl . . .
For readers 8 and up from award-winning author Kelly Barnhill.
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Nora and the Mermaid’s Monster
Underneath a magical dome of fog in a hidden little town, a mysterious disappearance can only be solved by twelve-year-old Nora Happerdance. Alice in Wonderland meets Hugo Cabret meets Nancy Drew in this whimsical romp through the land of Croswald.
Nora has lived all her life in the same little half-bedroom above the starlit streets of Belzebuthe, next door to her best friend, Evie. Fishing for stars, fighting for space from her six brothers, and exploring farther than they should… But Featherly, a mystical mermaid, interrupts everything when she comes to town. Just when things get interesting, the mermaid disappears.
One big mystery.
Five likely suspects.
Two unlikely detectives.Will Nora and Evie find Featherly in time? Just who is the mermaid’s monster and how can they be stopped?
A cozy mystery for young readers and those young at heart.
For readers 9-13 from author D.E. Night.
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The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl
A lightning strike gave her a superpower…but even a super genius can’t solve the problem of middle school. This smart and funny novel is perfect for fans of The Fourteenth Goldfish, Rain Reign, and Counting by Sevens.
A lightning strike forever altered Lucy Callahan’s life. She doesn’t remember it, but the lightning strike gave her genius-level math skills, and she’s been homeschooled ever since. Now, at 12 years old, she’s technically ready for college. She just has to pass 1 more test—middle school!
Lucy’s grandma insists: Go to middle school for 1 year. Make 1 friend. Join 1 activity. And read 1 book (that’s not a math textbook!). Lucy’s not sure what a girl who does calculus homework for fun can possibly learn in 7th grade. She has everything she needs at home, where nobody can make fun of her rigid routines or her superpowered brain. The equation of Lucy’s life has already been solved. Unless there’s been a miscalculation?
A celebration of friendship, Stacy McAnulty’s smart and thoughtful middle-grade debut reminds us all to get out of our comfort zones and embrace what makes us different.
By author Stacy McAnulty for readers 9-12.
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Beyond the Bright Sea
The moving story of an orphan, determined to know her own history, who discovers the true meaning of family.
Twelve-year-old Crow has lived her entire life on a tiny, isolated piece of the starkly beautiful Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. Abandoned and set adrift in a small boat when she was just hours old, Crow’s only companions are Osh, the man who rescued and raised her, and Miss Maggie, their fierce and affectionate neighbor across the sandbar.
Crow has always been curious about the world around her, but it isn’t until the night a mysterious fire appears across the water that the unspoken question of her own history forms in her heart. Soon, an unstoppable chain of events is triggered, leading Crow down a path of discovery and danger.
For readers 10-12 from author Lauren Wolk.
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An Elephant in the Garden: Inspired by a True Story
Lizzie and Karl’s mother is a zookeeper; the family has become attached to an orphaned elephant named Marlene, who will be destroyed as a precautionary measure so she and the other animals don’t run wild should the zoo be hit by bombs. The family persuades the zoo director to let Marlene stay in their garden instead. When the city is bombed, the family flees with thousands of others, but how can they walk the same route when they have an elephant in tow, and keep themselves safe? Along the way, they meet Peter, a Canadian navigator who risks his own capture to save the family.
As Michael Morpurgo writes in an author’s note, An Elephant in the Garden is inspired by historical truths, and by his admiration for elephants, “the noblest and wisest and most sensitive of all creatures.” Here is a story that brings together an unlikely group of survivors whose faith in kindness and love proves the best weapon of all.
For readers 10 and up from author Michael Morpurgo.
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Alone
Perfect for fans of Hatchet and the I Survived series, this harrowing middle-grade debut novel-in-verse from a Pushcart Prize–nominated poet tells the story of a young girl who wakes up one day to find herself utterly alone in her small Colorado town.
When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she wakes up in a nightmare. She’s alone—left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned.
With no one to rely on, no power, and no working phone lines or internet access, Maddie slowly learns to survive on her own. Her only companions are a Rottweiler named George and all the books she can read. After a rough start, Maddie learns to trust her own ingenuity and invents clever ways to survive in a place that has been deserted and forgotten.
As months pass, she escapes natural disasters, looters, and wild animals. But Maddie’s most formidable enemy is the crushing loneliness she faces every day. Can Maddie’s stubborn will to survive carry her through the most frightening experience of her life?
For readers 10 and up from author Megan E. Freeman.
