Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Spring 2016 Roundup

Yonie Watereye lives in the bayou. The water there is full of guile, a power that changes people and objects. Yonie, 16, makes a living investigating objects affected by guile, but in fact it’s her talking cat, LaRue, who has the power to see guile.

Yonie becomes aware that someone is sending harmful guile-changed objects to certain people, including herself. Her investigation becomes entwined with her hunt for the secrets of her mother’s past and leads her to discover dangers hidden within her own family.

In the suspenseful adventure that follows, Yonie and her furry sidekick face challenges that could end their adventuring forever.

Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter by Beth Fantaskey (9780544582491, March 1, 2016, Ages 10-12)

It’s 1920s Chicago—the guns-and-gangster era of Al Capone—and it’s unusual for a girl to be selling the Tribune on the street corner. But ten-year-old Isabel Feeney is unusual . . . unusually obsessed with being a news reporter. She can’t believe her luck when she stumbles not only into a real-live murder scene, but also into her hero, the famous journalist Maude Collier. The story of how the smart, curious, loyal Isabel fights to defend the honor of her accused friend and latches on to the murder case like a dog on a pant leg makes for a winning, thoroughly entertaining middle grade mystery.

Snow Job by Charles Benoit (9780544318861, March 1, 2016, Ages 12 up)

Tru and Nelle by G. Neri (9780544699601, March 1, 2016, Ages 7-10)

Long before they became famous writers, Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) and Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) were childhood friends in Monroeville, Alabama. This fictionalized account of their time together opens at the beginning of the Great Depression, when Tru is seven and Nelle is six. They love playing pirates, but they like playing Sherlock and Watson-style detectives even more. It’s their pursuit of a case of drugstore theft that lands the daring duo in real trouble. Humor and heartache intermingle in this lively look at two budding writers in the 1930s South.

Far From Fair by Elana Arnold (9780544602274, March 8, 2016, Ages 10-12)

Odette Zyskowski has a list: Things That Aren’t Fair. At the top of the list is her parents’ decision to take the family on the road in an ugly RV they’ve nicknamed the Coach. There’s nothing fair about leaving California and living in the cramped Coach with her par­ents and exasperating younger brother, sharing one stupid cell phone among the four of them. And there’s definitely nothing fair about what they find when they reach Grandma Sissy’s house, hundreds of miles later. Most days it seems as if everything in Odette’s life is far from fair. Is there a way for her to make things right?

With warmth and sensitivity, Elana K. Arnold makes the difficult topics of terminal illness and the right to die accessible to young readers.

 

 

 

Mercy: The Incredible Story of Henry Bergh, Founder of the ASPCA and Friend to Animals by Nancy Furstinger (9780544650312, April 5, 2016, Ages 10-12)

Only 150 years ago, most animals in America were subject to horrific treatment. They needed a champion to protect them from abject cruelty, and that person was Henry Bergh. After witnessing the beating of a horse in the streets of New York and attending a bullfight in Spain, Bergh found his calling. He became an enforcer of animal rights and founded the ASPCA, as well as created many animal cruelty laws. He even expanded his advocacy to children. When Bergh died in 1888, the idea that children and animals should be protected from cruelty was widely accepted: “Mercy to animals means mercy to mankind.”

 

 

 

 

Eddie Red, Doom at Grant’s Tomb by Marcia Wells (9780544582606, April 5, 2016, Ages 10-12)

Eddie Red, the NYPD’s youngest crime-solving hero, smells trouble. Could he be the target of the elusive art thief Lars Heinrich, whose last robbery he ruined? If so, why won’t the police let Eddie help on the case? What are they hiding from him?

In the thrilling third installment of the Eddie Red Undercover series, Eddie will need some luck of the Irish as he races against the clock (and bombs and runaway subway cars) to stop what could be one of the greatest heists in history.

Companion to Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on the Musuem Mile and Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery in Mayan Mexico.

 

 

 

Weekends with Max and His Dad by Linda Urban (9780544598171, April 5, 2016, Ages 6-9)

Max and his dad love their weekends together. Weekends mean pancakes, pizza, spy games, dog-walking, school projects, and surprising neighbors! Every weekend presents a small adventure as Max gets to know his dad’s new neighborhood—and learns some new ways of thinking about home.

Acclaimed author Linda Urban deftly portrays a third-grader’s inner world during a time of transition in this sweet and funny illustrated story that bridges the early reader and middle grade novel.

 

 

 

 

The Art of Not Breathing by Sarah Alexander (9780544633889, April 26, 2016, Ages 14 up)

Since her twin brother, Eddie, drowned five years ago, sixteen-year-old Elsie Main has tried to remember what really happened that fateful day on the beach. One minute Eddie was there, and the next he was gone. Seventeen-year-old Tay McKenzie is a cute and mysterious boy that Elsie meets in her favorite boathouse hangout. When Tay introduces Elsie to the world of freediving, she vows to find the answers she seeks at the bottom of the sea.

 

 

 

The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude (9780544640412, May 3, 2016, Ages 14 up)

Stay on the roads. Don’t enter the woods. Never go out at night. 

Those are the rules in Rowan’s Glen, a remote farming community in the Missouri Ozarks where Ivy Templeton’s family has lived for centuries. It’s an old-fashioned way of life, full of superstition and traditions, and sixteen-year-old Ivy loves it. The other kids at school may think the Glen kids are weird, but Ivy doesn’t care—she has her cousin Heather as her best friend. The two girls share everything with each other—or so Ivy thinks. When Heather goes missing after a May Day celebration, Ivy discovers that both her best friend and her beloved hometown are as full of secrets as the woods that surround them.

We Will Not Be Silent by Russell Freedman (9780544223790, May 3, 2016, Ages 10-12)

It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas (9780544612310, May 3, 2016, Ages 10-12)

Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake (9780544596320, May 3, 2016)

Sam Bennett falls for Hadley St. Clair before he knows her last name. When Sam finds out she is thatSt. Clair, daughter of the man who destroyed Sam’s family, he has a choice: follow his heart or tell the truth about the scandal that links their families. Funny and passionate, Suffer Love is a story about first love, family dysfunction, and the fickle hand of fate.

Grayling’s Song by Karen Cushman (9780544301801, June 7, 2016, Ages 10-12)

It’s time for Grayling to be a hero. Her mother, a “wise woman”—a sort of witch—has been turned into a tree by evil forces. Tangles and toadstools! Lacking confidence after years of being called “Feeble Wits” by her mother, Grayling heads off dubiously into the wilds in search of help, where she finds a weather witch, an aromatic enchantress, a cheese soothsayer, a slyly foolish apprentice, and a shape-shifting mouse named Pook! A fast-paced and funny coming-of-age odyssey from a Newbery medalist.

How It Ends by Catherine Lo (9780544540064, June 7, 2016, Ages 14 up)

There are two sides to every story.

It’s friends-at-first-sight for Jessie and Annie, proving the old adage that opposites attract. Shy, anxious Jessie would give anything to have Annie’s beauty and confidence. And Annie thinks Jessie has the perfect life, with her close-knit family and killer grades. They’re BFFs . . . until suddenly they’re not. Told through alternating points of view, How It Ends is the story of a friendship from first meeting to breakup, set against a tumultuous sophomore year of bullying, boys, and backstabbing.

Catherine Lo makes her debut with an honest, nuanced tale about the intricacies of female friendship.

My Brilliant Idea (And How It Caused My Downfall) by Stuart David (9780544699618, June 7, 2016, Ages 12 up)

Meet fifteen-year-old Jack “The Jackdaw” Dawson, a young man with a serious plan. Daydreaming in class one day, Jack gets an idea he knows can’t fail: an app that stops you from daydreaming in class. (Ahem . . . ) Fame, glory, and tons of money seem just around the corner. But Jack runs into some trouble, and suddenly this sure thing doesn’t seem quite so sure.

Ricocheting from the absurd to the profound in his first book for teens, Stuart David uses his extraordinary intelligence and wit to tell the story of a boy trying to scheme his way out from under the weight of his parents’ expectations. Readers will root for The Jackdaw from beginning to end.

Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost by Kjartan Poskitt, illustrated by Wes Hargis (9780544506725, July 5, 2016, Ages 7-10)

Meet Agatha Parrot, the irresistible star—and narrator—of the first in a series of very funny illustrated novels!

Fans of Judy Moody and Clementine will relish the energy and exuberance of Agatha Parrot—creator of clever plans, ghost catcher, and loyal friend!

 

 

 

Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch (9780544390997, July 5, 2016, Ages 12 up)

Seventeen-year-old Cardinal has escaped the virus that ravaged his town, leaving its victims alive but without their memories. He chooses to remain in the quarantined zone, caring for a group of orphaned kids in a mountain camp with the help of the former brutal school bully, now transformed by the virus into his best friend. But then a strong-willed and mysterious young woman appears, and the closed-off world Cardinal has created begins to crumble.

A thrilling, fast-paced work of speculative fiction for teens, from a bestselling author, Black River Falls is an unforgettable story about survival, identity, and family.

 

 

 

 

Mirage by Tracy Clark (9780544517905, July 5, Ages 14 up)

Seventeen-year-old Ryan Poitier Sharpe is a gutsy, outgoing girl who spends her summer days hurling herself out of planes at her parents’ skydiving center in the Mojave Desert. Fiercely independent and willing to take risks, she challenges those around her to live life fully. But after a brush with death, Ryan is severely altered—she’s not the same thrill-seeking girl she once was and seems to be teetering on the edge of psychosis. As her relationships crumble and her life unravels, Ryan must fight the girl she’s become—or lose herself forever—in this eerie and atmospheric thriller.
Wax by Gina Damico (9780544633155, August 2, 2016)

Paraffin, Vermont, is home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory. There, seventeen-year-old Poppy finds something dark and unsettling: a room filled with dozens of startlingly lifelike wax sculptures. Later, she’s shocked when one of the figures—a teenage boy who doesn’t seem to know what he is—jumps naked and screaming out of the trunk of her car. Poppy wants to return him to the factory, but before she can, a fire destroys the mysterious workshop.

With the help of the wax boy, who answers to the name Dud, Poppy tries to find out who was behind the fire. Along the way, she discovers that some of the townspeople are starting to look a little . . . waxy. Can they extinguish the evil plot?