Diana Harmon Asher

If middle school were a race, Joseph Friedman wouldn’t even be in last place—he’d be on the sidelines. With an overactive mind and phobias of everything from hard-boiled eggs to gargoyles, he struggles to understand his classes, let alone his fellow classmates. So he spends most of his time avoiding school bully Charlie Kastner and hiding out in the Resource Room, a safe place for misfit kids like him. But then, on the first day of seventh grade, two important things happen. First, his Resource Room teacher encourages (i.e., practically forces) him to join the school track team, and second, he meets Heather, a crazy-fast runner who isn’t going to be pushed around by Charlie Kastner or anybody else. With a new friend and a new team, Joseph finds himself off the sidelines and in the race (quite literally) for the first time. Is he a good runner? Well, no, he’s terrible. But the funny thing about running is, once you’re in the race, anything can happen.

A shy actress steps into the spotlight in this charming middle-grade novel Shira Gordon is painfully shy. She rarely speaks and blushes at everything. And yet, when she’s alone in her room, she’ll sing and dance, dreaming she were different. So when her best friend forces her to audition for their school’s production of The Music Man, she’s mostly hoping the play will get canceled. . . but a tiny part of her hopes she’ll get in. And she does. As a member of the barbershop quartet. Playing a dude with a mustache is not exactly her dream role, but Shira is surprised by how much she loves rehearsing with her quirky new friends. When her teacher asks her to understudy the lead role, Marian the Librarian, she reluctantly accepts. It’s not easy to understudy Monica Manley, an eighth-grade diva who will not be upstaged. And things get even more complicated when a mysterious prankster starts playing tricks on Monica and Shira’s crush joins the cast. But something keeps Shira going, and it might just be Marian herself. Sure, Marian is a leading lady, but she’s also misunderstood, lonely . . . and shy. And if a star can be shy, then maybe, just maybe, a shy person can be a star.

Things aren’t going well for Evie Lefkowitz. Since her father passed away, she’s successfully helped her mother fend off every unappealing suitor. But now her mother seems thrilled about an upcoming date— with the assistant principal at Evie’s middle school. Things couldn’t get much worse… Until her mother volunteers Evie as a tutor for Joey Ceraco, a boy Evie hasn’t spoken to since their kindergarten playdates—a boy who, along with his best friend Tommy Halliday, is known as trouble. Evie’s friends—Spencer and Rachel—couldn’t be more different from Joey and Tommy, and Evie’s identity as “the cantor’s daughter” at Temple Shir Shalom has kept her very far from trouble. But a questionable science project makes them all look beyond labels and reluctantly come together in a daring after-school rescue that could get them all lifetime detention. And maybe getting in a little trouble is what it takes for Evie to become the person she’s meant to be.