During the month of May over 93 middle-grade titles have been released. Now of course, we all know that for the past few years YA novels have been all the rage, but enthusiasm continues to build around middle grade, so much so that BEA had its first ever middle-grade buzz panel last year – and the excitement continues to grow!
What older audiences are realizing is that middle-grade books can have all the action, tension, and intrigue of YA books, but with that added splash of invincibility that seem to be unique to the younger protagonists. To celebrate Middle-Grade Monday we are highlighting five May releases worth checking-out:
The Book of Elsewhere: Spellbound by Jacqueline West
With no way into the house’s magical paintings, and its three guardian cats reluctant to help, Olive’s friend Morton is still trapped inside Elsewhere. So when Rutherford, the new oddball kid next door, mentions a grimoire – a spell book – Olive feels a breathless tug of excitement. If she can find the McMartins’ spell book, maybe she can help Morton escape Elsewhere for good. Unless, that is, the book finds Olive first.
The house isn’t the only one keeping secrets anymore. Mystery, magic, corruption, and betrayal abound (plus just enough laughs to take the edge off). You’ll never guess what happens next in this thrilling, chilling second volume in the critically acclaimed series.
The Secret Tree by Natalie Standiford
Minty’s neighborhood is full of mysteries.
There’s the Witch House, a spooky old farmhouse on the other side of the woods from where Minty and her best friend, Paz, live. There’s the Man-Bat, a seven-foot-tall half man, half bat who is rumored to fly through the woods. And there are the Mean Boys, David and Troy, who torment Minty for no reason, and her boy-crazy older sister, Thea, who acts weirder and weirder. One day Minty spots a flash in the woods, and when she chases after it, she discovers a new mystery – a Secret Tree, with a hollow trunk that holds the secrets of everyone in the neighborhood. Secrets like:
I put a curse on my enemy. And it’s working.
I’m betraying my best friend in a terrible way.
No one loves me except my goldfish.
Raymond, a new boy, is also drawn to the Secret Tree, and together he and Minty start watching their neighbors. They have a curse to fix, and mysteries to solve. But first they have to get through some secrets of their own . . . secrets that will end up changing everything.
Summer of Wolves by Polly Carlson-Voiles
Julie of the Wolves meets Hatchet in this middle grade novel that follows orphaned twelve-year-old Nika and her seven-year-old brother Randall as they leave a California foster home to visit a long-lost uncle in the wilderness lake country of Northern Minnesota. A phone call from their uncle sets them on a journey in a small floatplane over the thick green forest canopy, to spend the summer on a wilderness island. Nika, of all people, knows not to get her heart set on anything, but as she follows her uncle in his job studying wolves, Nika stumbles upon a relationship with an orphaned wolf pup that makes her feel — for the first time since her mother died — whole again. Here in these woods, with this wolf, none of the hard things in her past can reach her.
With vivid details about wolf behavior and a deep sense of interconnectedness with nature, this captivating first novel illuminates the intricacies of family while searching for the fine balance between caring for wild animals and leaving them alone.
The Hero’s Guide to Saving your Kingdom, by Christopher Healy 
Prince Liam. Prince Frederic. Prince Duncan. Prince Gustav. You’ve never heard of them, have you? These are the princes who saved Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel, respectively, and yet, thanks to those lousy bards who wrote the tales, you likely know them only as Prince Charming. But all of this is about to change. Rejected by their princesses and cast out of their castles, Liam, Frederic, Duncan, and Gustav stumble upon an evil plot that could endanger each of their kingdoms. Now it’s up to them to triumph over their various shortcomings, take on trolls, bandits, dragons, witches, and other assorted terrors, and become the heroes no one ever thought they could be.
Debut author Christopher Healy takes us on a journey with four imperfect princes and their four improbable princesses, all of whom are trying to become perfect heroes—a fast-paced, funny, and fresh introduction to a world where everything, even our classic fairy tales, is not at all what it seems.
Applewhites at Wit’s End, by Stephanie S. Tolan 
Jake Semple and E.D. Applewhite are back, this time facing a financial meltdown E.D.’s father has called “the end of the world!” Famously creative Randolph Applewhite hatches a plan to save the family from poverty and starvation: They will turn the sixteen acres of their family compound, Wit’s End, into Eureka!, a summer camp for creative children. The plan will demand the all-out efforts of the whole family, including Jake, who has managed to survive his first year in their homeschool. The whole thing seems like a good idea . . . until—in the midst of the ordinary chaos of temperamental artists; talented, intense, headstrong campers; a dead possum; and rampaging goats—anonymous, threatening notes begin mysteriously appearing in the Applewhites’ roadside mailbox. Can E.D., Jake, and the Eureka! campers prevent a head-on collision with disaster?
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