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Inspired by the author’s childhood experience as a refugee — fleeing Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon and immigrating to Alabama — this coming-of-age novel told in verse offers a child’s-eye view of family and immigration.

Twelve-year old Mai is reluctant to travel with her grandmother from California to Vietnam to learn more about her roots and to help Ba, who is going back to find out what really happened to her husband during the Vietnam War. Mai struggles to understand the language and culture of her family’s heritage in this poignant, often funny novel of being part of two cultures.

When North Vietnamese soldiers destroy the village of 12-year-old Kia, they almost destroy her family too, because her father disappears and the rest of them flee to a refugee camp. Eventually, Kia, her brother, and her grandfather immigrate to America, where she is overwhelmed by her new life, isolated by culture and language. [ALA Booklist review]

Twelve-year-old Jamie Dexter and her brother, TJ, have grown up with the Army: their dad is a colonel. TJ has enlisted and is heading off to war in Vietnam. But then TJ, a photographer, begins to send her rolls of film to develop that gradually reveal the horrors of what he’s seen. The novel invites young people to reflect on the many shades of gray that Jamie confronts. [ALA Booklist review]

Intellectually gifted but socially aloof from her seventh-grade peers, Emma-Jean is nonetheless happy with her life. She has positive relationships with several adults, a number of interests to pursue, and the memory of her late father to inspire her. Her life changes after a chance encounter with a classmate leads her to become a problem-solver without realizing the ripple effect that her actions will have. Readers will be intrigued by Emma-Jean’s insightful observations and her adult-level vocabulary.

During a summer vacation at his aunt’s house, Johnny is made responsible for taking care of his older cousin Remember, who has autism. Remember is a gawky awkward kid with some pretty strange habits, like repeating back almost everything Johnny says and spending hours glued to the weather channel. Johnny’s premonitions of disaster appear at first to come to fruition, but when the two boys save a bully from drowning, salvage the pizzeria guy’s romance, and share girl troubles, Johnny ends up having the summer of his life.

Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone, a teenager with Asperger’s, is mathematically gifted and socially hopeless, raised in a working-class home by parents who can barely cope with their child’s quirks. In this story, Christopher sets out to solve the mysterious death of a neighborhood dog.

Ben’s decision to join the military affects his entire family members, including his brother, who has autism and who announces that he, too, wishes to enlist.

Young inventor, Frank Einstein and his friend Watson along with his walking, talking robots Klink and Klank, are back. This time, Frank has invented the ‘evoblaster’ which allows the user to evolve into other forms and then back again. Real science combines with laugh-out-loud humor in the latest installment.

“Ezra looks like any other sixth grader with faded jeans, turned around cap and a mess of chestnut curls. You see, my brother is like any other eleven-year-old except when he isn’t.” This story follows 14-year-old Jenny as she describes her day-to-day life with her younger autistic brother, Ezra. Ezra can be both her best friend as well as her biggest obstacle to living a normal life, and Jenny often finds herself stuck worrying about her younger brother. Through taking care of Ezra and a very special school project, Jenny ends up learning about her own character and strengths, and a way to shine despite everything else.

When their parents steal a monkey from the zoo to help them pick pockets, our heroes rush into action and return the wily animal using disguises, inventions, and old-fashioned shoe leather. They also learn what a monkey can do in 11 minutes! This is the first book in a new, funny series.

Two very different high school students discover a mutual appreciation for writing songs for the guitar. Tripp Broody has lost a lot; his father died and his best friend moved away and he doesn’t really connect with people. In contrast, Lyla Marks is perfect. She gets good grades, her teachers love her, and she plays the cello beautifully. Forced to share a music practice room on alternating days at school, they start a pen-pal-like exchange daily that leads to a musical collaboration that promises to change both of their lives forever. Many chapters are structured as Tripp’s and Lyla’s notes, giving readers a unique vantage point into their burgeoning friendship.

Life is miserable for sixth-grader Lerner Chanse at her new school, where the MPOOE (Most Powerful Ones on Earth) Club ruthlessly rules over the SLUGs (Sorry Losers Under Ground). Then Lerner accidentally discovers that her pet worm Fip eats paper — with startling results. When he eats a word, that item simply disappears from the world, forever. Now that Lerner knows about Fip’s magic, she has some extraordinary powers of her own. Lerner soon discovers that extraordinary power brings extraordinary responsibility.

When her father begins a long-distance romance with a Washington, D.C. zookeeper, twelve-year-old Frankie sends fabricated e-mail letters to the zookeeper in an attempt to end the relationship in this story about family, friendship, and growing up.

It all begins when Alexander H. Gory Jr. passes around a notebook in which he reveals a tantalizing secret: he has proof that their teacher, Mrs. Penrose, is a vampire. Soon the entire class is speculating and adding their opinions to the notebook until … it lands in Mrs. Penrose’s hands. It turns out that Mrs. Penrose has been keeping a secret: she is expecting a baby. But since the notebook is encouraging her students to write and improving their spelling and grammar, Mrs. Penrose allows it to continue circulating. The notebook becomes a terrific place for jokes, poems, stories and the correspondence between the students and their favorite author. 

Move over, Captain Underpants, a couple of new pranksters are in town. Narrated by fifth-grader Wilbur and featuring his third-grade brother, Orville, this funny story follows the antics of two boys with overactive imaginations and a comfortable sibling relationship. They manage to make even their daily chores a fun adventure, with games like Snarf Attack, where the goal is to make an opponent laugh so hard at dinner that milk comes out of his or her nose.

Rose Howard is obsessed with homonyms. She gave her dog Rain a name with two homonyms (Reign, Rein). Not everyone understands Rose’s obsessions, her rules, and the other things that make her different — not her teachers, not other kids, and not her single father. When a storm hits their rural town, rivers overflow, the roads are flooded, and Rain goes missing. Now Rose has to find her dog, even if it means leaving her routines and safe places to search. Though Rose’s story is often heartbreaking, her matter-of-fact narration provides moments of humor. Readers will empathize with Rose, who finds strength and empowerment through her unique way of looking at the world.

Oscar knows he’s different. He can’t remember where he comes from, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of magical herbs and their uses, and he just does not understand human interaction. As the apprentice to Caleb, the last magician in the magic-steeped Barrow, Oscar’s job is to collect the herbs, prepare the charms and tinctures, do his chores, and avoid trouble. That changes when a mysterious destructive force arrives and it is up to Oscar and his friend Callie to protect the Barrow and its inhabitants.

Rip and Red are best friends whose fifth-grade year is nothing like what they expected. They have a crazy new tattooed teacher named Mr. Acevedo, who doesn’t believe in tests or homework and who likes off-the-wall projects. Easy-going Rip is knocked completely out of his comfort zone. And for Red, who has autism and really needs things to be exactly a certain way, the changes are even more of a struggle. But together these two make a great duo who know how to help each other ― and find ways to make a difference ― in the classroom and on the court.

Kiara has Asperger’s syndrome, and it’s hard for her to make friends. She wishes she could be like her hero Rogue — a misunderstood X-Men mutant who used to hurt anyone she touched until she learned how to control her special power. When Chad moves in across the street, Kiara hopes that, for once, she’ll be able to make friendship stick. When she learns his secret, she’s so determined to keep Chad as a friend that she agrees not to tell. But being a true friend is complicated and it might be just the thing that leads Kiara to find her own special power. The story celebrates everyone’s ability to discover and use whatever it is that makes them different.

Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a surprising, new sort-of friend, and Kristi, the next-door friend she’s always wished for, it’s her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal? (2007 Newbery Honor Book)

Willow Chance is a 12-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. Willow is also an outsider, a girl possibly somewhere on the autism/Asperger’s spectrum (although that is never stated). Suddenly Willow’s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. This story is about her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse and fully believable surrogate family.

Ted and Kat watched their cousin Salim board the London Eye, but after half an hour it landed and everyone trooped off — except Salim. Ted and his older sister, Kat, become sleuthing partners and follow a trail of clues across London in a desperate bid to find their cousin. Ultimately it comes down to Ted, whose brain works in its own very unique way, to find the key to the mystery.