WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
These sequels are sure to get kids fired up about reading this summer. In a starred review, PW wrote that Annie Barrows’s Ivy & Bean, available this month in paperback, “brims with sprightly dialogue” and is “just right for kids moving on from beginning readers.” Also due out this month is the third installment starring this duo, Ivy & Bean Break the Fossil Record, illus. by Sophie Blackall, which finds the friends striving to break a world record by becoming the youngest people ever to unearth a dinosaur. (Chronicle, Ivy and Bean, $5.95 paper ISBN 978-1-4169-3837-8; Fossil Record, $14.95 ISBN 978-0-8118-5683-6; July)
Having defeated the delusional demigod Philonecron in The Shadow Thieves (“Entertaining in the most pleasingly frenetic of ways,” wrote PW), Charlotte and Zee have been living very ordinary lives. But when Philonecron shows up again with Poseidon on his side and a thirst for revenge, the two girls must face off against the gods of Greek mythology in Anne Ursu’s The Siren Song, the second installment in her Cronus Chronicles. (Atheneum, $16.99 448p ages 8-12 ISBN 978-1-4169-0589-9; July)
PW called Elizabeth Haydon’s The Floating Island “both warm and thrilling.” The sequel, The Thief Queen’s Daughter, illus. by Jason Chan, finds Ven on another quest, this time by the order of King Vandemere. Ven and his friends must enter the mysterious Gated City to uncover the history behind an exotic artifact, but quickly find themselves the target of the powerful Thief Queen. (Tor/Starscape, $17.95 320p ages 10-14 ISBN 978-0-765-30868-9; July)
As he did in Skeleton Man, Joseph Bruchac pulls from Native American mythology as the basis for Bearwalker. Twelve-year-old Barron, a member of the Mohawk Bear Clan, is on a school camping trip in the Adirondacks when he comes face to face with the Bearwalker, a monster he thought existed only in legends. (HarperCollins, $15.99 224p ages 10-up ISBN 978-0-06-112309-2; July)
In a starred review of Louise Rennison’s Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, PW wrote that “readers can only hope this heroine will keep them laughing all the way through high school.” Georgia returns once more in Love Is a Many Trousered Thing, the series’ eighth installment. Georgia thinks her romance life might have finally obtained a level of simplicity, but the return of Robbie, the original “Sex God,” causes more than a little confusion. (HarperTeen, $16.99 288p ages 12-up ISBN 978-0-06-085387-7; July)
Secret Sacrament (a fantasy with “enough drama to keep readers glued to their seats,” wrote PW) told the story of Gabriel. Time of the Eagle by Sherryl Jordan centers on his daughter, Avala, who like her father longs to be a healer. But her destiny is greater: she is the chosen one who must withstand challenges of strength and spirit to bring about the Time of the Eagle and spread freedom across her land. (HarperCollins/Eos, $16.99 480p ages 14-up ISBN 978-0-06-059555-5; July)
Knife Edge, the follow-up to Malorie Blackman’s Naughts & Crosses, finds Sephy, a member of the ruling dark-skinned Crosses, pregnant with the baby of Callum, a now-dead, white-skinned naught. Seeking revenge for his brother’s death, Jude plots to kill Sephy, but when he finds himself in terrible danger, she may be the only one who can save him. (S&S, $16.99 368p ages 14-up ISBN 978-1-4169-0018-4; July)
Picture Book Reprints
If I Were a Lion Sarah Weeks, illus. by Heather M. Solomon. Aladdin, $6.99 ISBN 978-1-4169-3837-8. When a little girl is accused of being “wild” and forced to have a time-out, she imagines how truly wild beasts would respond to her mother’s requests. “The punchy verse and wealth of visual detail will stand up to repeat readings,” wrote PW. Ages 3-7. (July)
Brand-new Pencils, Brand-new Books Diane deGroat. HarperTrophy, $6.99 ISBN 978-0-06-072616-4. In a prequel to deGroat’s Gilbert and Friends series, the young opossum make it through his first day of first grade. Ages 4-8. (July)
Clorinda Robert Kinerk, illus. by Steven Kellogg. Aladdin, $6.99 ISBN 978-1-4169-3964-1. After mistakenly ending up at the ballet, Clorinda (a cow) decides she wants to dance. She makes her way to New York City, where she is given a big break in what PW called an “invariably cheerful” tale. Ages 4-8. (July)
Mr. George Baker Amy Hest, illus. by Jon J Muth. Candlewick, $6.99 ISBN 978-0-7636-3308-0. PW wrote that “Hest and Muth eloquently capture a friendship between two neighbors,” a first grader and an old jazz musician, “in the span of a morning wait for the school bus.... An upbeat, hopeful tale that speaks compellingly to intergenerational friendship.” Ages 5-8. (July)
The Cat Who Liked Potato Soup Terry Farish, illus. by Barry Root. Candlewick, $6.99 ISBN 978-0-7636-3297-7. When circumstances force an old man and his cat to separate for a short time, it becomes obvious that the two creatures share a deep, if unspoken, bond. Ages 6-up. (July)
Fiction Reprints
Moon Runner Carolyn Marsden. Candlewick, $5.99 ISBN 978-0-7636-3304-2. When fourth-grader Mina discovers that she has a talent for running, she’s thrilled until she is forced to race against one of her best friends. Ages 8-12. (July)
El Lector William Durbin. Yearling, $5.50 ISBN 978-0-553-48786-2. “Durbin makes Depression-era Florida come alive with poetic details, in this novel starring 13-year-old Bella, who longs to tell stories with the same exuberance as her grandfather,” PW said. Ages 9-12. (July)
The Beast Walter Dean Myers. Scholastic, $6.99 ISBN 978-0-439-36842-1. PW wrote, “Myers sketches a provocative picture of an intelligent, likable 16-year-old straddling two worlds: his neighborhood on 145th Street in Harlem and the privileged world of Wallingford, the boarding school where he is spending his senior year.” Ages 14-17. (July)
Raiders Night Robert Lipsyte. HarperTeen, $6.99 ISBN 978-0-06-059948-5. When co-captain Matt witnesses a disturbing crime at his football camp, he has to decide whether he will betray his team by going to the authorities. In a starred review, PW wrote, “Lipsyte’s latest sports drama is a riveting and chilling look inside contemporary high school football.... where racism, drug use, misogyny and bullying are shrugged off so long as the team wins.” Ages 14-up. (July)
