MADreads

Amal is the smartest student in her Pakistani village with the best grades, highest scores, and a desire to become a teacher. Her family is in crisis after the birth of a fifth daughter and Amal struggles to care for her younger sisters, complete homework, and help around the house while her mother recovers. Well aware of how she's treated differently because she's a girl, Amal wants another kind of life for herself. She misses school and her classmates and especially her best friend, Omar.

Are you looking for a great summer ghost story for middle grades? I highly recommend The Girl in the Lake. Celeste, her younger brother Owen, and their cousins Daisy and Capri are invited to spend several weeks at their grandparents' lake home where the water is murky, the weather is stormy and tensions are high. Without giving too much away, there's a haunted house, a family mystery, a spooky lake and enough summer thunderstorms to send anyone hiding under the covers.

Izumi lives in northern California with her single mother and behaves the same way so many high school seniors do: she hangs out with friends, they obsess over love interests, pancakes, style, and their present and future potential. Izzy, as she's known to her friends, has never met her father and doesn't even know his full name. She knows he's Japanese and went to Harvard with her mother but not much more. After some internet sleuthing to find likely candidates an exciting truth is uncovered: Izzy's dad is the Crown Prince of Japan.  

Yes, something fishy is going on at the Paris apartment when Jess arrives to stay with her brother Ben. There's no way that Ben can afford to stay at the lavish building on his salary as a journalist. And how do the two young students on the fourth floor pay rent? And why do the inhabitants of the penthouse apartment insist the other residents attend their fancy wine parties? It doesn't add up. Not to mention, Ben is missing. Jess spoke with him on the phone before her arrival and now he's nowhere to be found.