Growing Library

Spring is in the air, and lots of things are growing - including the Room 26 family! Signs of spring are very exciting to everyone at Longfellow School. Mrs. Brisbane's class has seen flowers poking out of snow and baby birds hatching, and Just-Joey even brought in tadpoles that are growing into frogs. It also means Family Fun Night is coming up, and all of the students' families are involved in making amazing activities. Humphrey helps in many ways, of course, but he can't stop wondering about his own family.

After the holidays, Humphrey is shocked by a big surprise in Room 26—a new class pet! Humphrey tries to be welcoming, but Og the frog doesn't respond to any of his friendly squeaks or visits (remember, he has a lock-that-doesn't-lock). Plus, the students are so interested in Og, they almost stop paying attention to Humphrey altogether. Humphrey doesn't like the mad-bad-sad feelings he's had since Og came, but luckily he still gets to have adventures with different kids on the weekends. Friendship can be tricky, but Humphrey is an intrepid problem-solver.

For most of her 12 years, Astrid has done everything with her best friend, Nicole. But after Astrid falls in love with roller derby and signs up for derby camp, Nicole decides to go to dance camp instead. And so begins the most difficult summer of Astrid's life as she struggles to keep up with the older girls at camp, hang on to the friend she feels slipping away, and cautiously embark on a new friendship. As the end of summer nears and her first roller derby bout (and junior high!) draws closer, Astrid realizes that maybe she is strong enough to be a roller girl.

In the 1890s Conor and his family live on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. Conor spends his days studying the science of flight with his tutor and exploring the castle with the king's daughter, Princess Isabella. But the boy's idyllic life changes forever the day he discovers a deadly conspiracy against the king.

Soon to be a Netflix animated film starring Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Alessia Cara, Terry Crews, Martin Short, Jane Krakowski, Séan Cullen, and Ricky Gervais! Convinced they'd be better off raising themselves, the Willoughby children hatch a sneaky plan to send their selfish parents on vacation. The siblings then embark on their own high-flying adventure to find the true meaning of family. The Willoughbys is a turn to the hilarious from the award-winning author of The Giver and Number the Stars that will have children and parents laughing.

The girl doesn't remember a thing about her life, but the intricate tattoo on her arm is proof that she's from the Dragonfly Territories and that she's protected by the king. Which means a reward for Piper if she can get the girl home. The one sure way to the Territories is the 401, a great old beauty of a train. But a ticket costs more coin than Piper could make in a year. And stowing away is a difficult prospect - everyone knows that getting past the peculiar green-eyed boy who stands guard is nearly impossible.

Eleven-year-old P. T. Wilkie may be the greatest storyteller alive. But he knows one thing for a fact: The Wonderland Motel is the best place a kid could ever live! All-you-can-eat poolside ice cream! A snack machine in the living room! A frog slide! A giant rampaging alligator! (Okay, that last one may or may not be made up.) There's only one thing the Wonderland doesn't have, though: customers. And if the Wonderland doesn't get them soon, P. T. and his friend Gloria may have to say good-bye to their motel.

Grace and Ellie have been best friends since second grade. Ellie's always right in the center of everything - and Grace is usually happy to be Ellie's sidekick. But this time, it's Grace who suddenly has everyone's attention when she accidentally starts a new fad at school. It's a fad that has first her class, then her grade, and then the entire school collecting and trading and even fighting over...buttons? A fad that might also get her in major trouble and could even be the end of Grace and Ellie's friendship. Because Ellie's not used to being one-upped by anybody.

When the Brighton Bears suit up on game day, 12-year-old Tommy Gallagher is the toughest kid on the football field. And the bravest. After all, his father Patrick is a Boston firefighter - one of Boston's bravest. Tommy's dad taught him everything he knows about football - and life. Yet even Tommy isn't strong enough for what happens when the sirens ring and, for the first time, they're racing away from the fire. "First man in; last man out" had always been his dad's motto, yet he never said anything about leaving in an ambulance.

Twelve-year-old Trace Reynolds has always looked up to his brother, mostly because Will, who's five years older, has never looked down on him. It was Will who taught Trace to ride a bike, would watch sports on TV with him, and cheer him on at Little League. But when Will was knocked out cold during a football game, resulting in a brain injury - everything changed. Now, 17 months later, their family is still living under the weight of "the incident" that left Will with a facial tic, depression, and an anger he cannot always control, culminating in their parents' divorce.

When Natalie’s science teacher suggests that she enter an egg drop competition, she thinks it could be the perfect solution to all of her problems. With the prize money, she can fly her botanist mother to see the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchids—flowers with the resilience to survive against impossible odds. Her mother has been suffering from depression, and Natalie is positive that the flowers’ magic will inspire her mom to fall in love with life again.

The bookwandering community is at risk when an extreme group of Librarians take over the British Underlibrary. Tilly and Oskar believe that an elusive group of bookwanderers called the Archivists may be the key to restoring balance and Tilly thinks she's discovered their whereabouts: the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Join best friends Tilly and Oskar as they embark on another magical bookwandering adventure, this time to the United States!

Cracker is one of the U.S. Army's most valuable weapons: a German shepherd trained to sniff out bombs, traps, and the enemy. Rick is headed to Vietnam to prove to everyone who didn't think he was cut out for war that they were wrong. When Cracker is paired with Rick, she isn't so sure about this new owner. He's going to have to prove himself to her before she's going to prove herself to him. They need to be friends before they can be a team, and they have to be a team if they want to get home alive.

When Louisiana Elefante's granny wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her that the day of reckoning has arrived and they have to leave home immediately, Louisiana isn't overly worried. But this time, things are different. This time, Granny intends for them never to return. Separated from her best friends, Raymie and Beverly, Louisiana struggles to oppose the winds of fate (and Granny) and find a way home. But as Louisiana's life becomes entwined with the lives of the people of a small Georgia town she starts to worry that she is destined only for good-byes.

Sketcher, adventurer, disguiser, and sneaker Ollister B. Pembrick roamed all of Skree with a sketchbook and pen, searching behind every tree stump and under every stone, in every river and on every hill, to discover and document the endless living wonders of the Maker's world. He risked life and limb—quite literally—to compile sketches and details of the creatures of Skree, usually from the cover of a hollow log, a hedge, or a pile of leaves.

Jeremiah is the world’s biggest baseball fan. He really loves baseball and he knows just about everything there is to know about his favorite sport. So when he’s told he can’t play baseball following an operation on his heart, Jeremiah decides he’ll do the next best thing and become a coach. Hillcrest, where Jeremiah and his father Walt have just moved, is a town known for its championship baseball team. But Jeremiah finds the town caught up in a scandal and about ready to give up on baseball.

When you think about the beginning of the American story, what comes to mind? Three ships in 1492, or perhaps buckled hats and shoes stepping off of the Mayflower, ready to start a new country. But the truth is, Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the Colonists didn't arrive to a vast, empty land ready to be developed. They arrived to find people and communities living in harmony with the land they had inhabited for thousands of years, and they quickly disrupted everything they saw.

In the tradition of Out of My Mind, Wonder, and Mockingbird, this is an intensely moving middle grade novel about being an outsider, coping with loss, and discovering the true meaning of family. Willow Chance is a 12-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by sevens. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life...until now.

Scarlett McCain is a shoot-first ask-questions-later kind of outlaw. She scrapes by on bank heists, her wits - and never looking back. She’s on the run from her latest crime when she comes across Albert Browne. He is the sole survivor of a horrific accident, and against her better judgement, Scarlett agrees to guide him to safety.

Bell has spent his whole life—all eleven years of it—on Mars. But he's still just a regular kid—he loves cats and any kind of cake, and is curious about the secrets the adults in the US colony are keeping. Like, why don't they have contact with anyone on the other Mars colonies? Why are they so isolated? When a virus breaks out and the grown-ups all fall ill, Bell and the other children are the only ones who can help. It's up to Bell—a regular kid in a very different world—to uncover the truth and save his family...and possibly unite an entire planet.