Recently in Book Mail

Let me just start off with a disclaimer – I don’t get nearly as much book mail as Amanda or Karen. For a lot of reasons, probably, but mainly because I don’t review as many as they do. That said, it is always fun to come home to a package on my doorstep that obviously contains books!

First up is the new Ann Dee Ellis, You May Already be a Winner, out July 11th.

Twelve-year-old Olivia knows that luck is real

That’s why she is counting on luck to bring her a million dollars. Preferably by hot-air-balloon so that she and her little sister, Berkeley, can move away from dumb old Sunny Pines Trailer Park. So that she can go to school and not stay home to watch Berkeley because they can’t afford day care. So that her mom doesn’t have to work all the time and be tired, so tired, too tired to put Berkeley to bed or cook dinner or be a mom at all.

And since Dad isn’t responding to Olivia’s letters, she has to take matters into her own hands. This means entering fourteen sweepstakes a day. This means pretending to be a super-secret spy to make a new friend. And this means somehow planning a circus spectacular, right here in Sunny Pines, so that Berk can have something good to look forward to.

So what if Olivia’s hard work isn’t appreciated. So what if no one is taking care of her the way she is taking care of EVERYTHING. So. What.

Because luck IS real. And Olivia may already be a winner. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Next is debut author Celia C. Perez’s The First Rule of Punk, out August 22nd.

From debut author and longtime zine-maker Celia C. Pérez, The First Rule of Punk is a wry and heartfelt exploration of friendship, finding your place, and learning to rock out like no one’s watching.There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school—you can’t fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle School’s queen bee, violates the school’s dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better as long as she remembers the first rule of punk: be yourself.

The real Malú loves rock music, skateboarding, zines, and Soyrizo (hold the cilantro, please). And when she assembles a group of like-minded misfits at school and starts a band, Malú finally begins to feel at home. She’ll do anything to preserve this, which includes standing up to an anti-punk school administration to fight for her right to express herself!

Black and white illustrations and collage art throughout make The First Rule of Punk a perfect pick for fans of books like Roller Girl and online magazines like Rookie.

Next up is our only YA in a sea of MG, F.C. Yee’s The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, out August 8th.

The struggle to get into a top-tier college consumes sixteen-year-old Genie’s every waking thought. But when she discovers she’s a celestial spirit who’s powerful enough to bash through the gates of heaven with her fists, her perfectionist existence is shattered.

Enter Quentin, a transfer student from China whose tone-deaf assertiveness beguiles Genie to the brink of madness. Quentin nurtures Genie’s bodacious transformation—sometimes gently, sometimes aggressively—as her sleepy suburb in the Bay Area comes under siege from hell-spawn.

This epic YA debut draws from Chinese folklore, features a larger-than-life heroine, and perfectly balances the realities of Genie’s grounded high school life with the absurd supernatural world she finds herself commanding.

And finally, Lights, Camera, Middle School!, first in the Babymouse: Tales from the Locker series, out this Tuesday, July 4th, from Jennifer and Matthew Holm.

It’s a new kind of book for Babymouse! Fans of Dork Diaries, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and James Patterson’s Middle School books, this is going to be epic. . . .For Babymouse, middle school is like a monster movie. You can never be sure who’s a friend and who’s an enemy, and the halls are filled with mean-girl zombies. Instead of brains, the zombies hunger for stuff—the perfect wedge sandals or the right shade of sparkly lip gloss—and they expect everyone to be just like them.

But Babymouse doesn’t want to fit in—she wants to stand out! So she joins the film club to write and direct a sweeping cinematic epic. Will making the film of her dreams turn into a nightmare?

Thanks to Babymouse, middle school gets schooled in this hilarious new series from bestselling authors Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm.

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