Morrison Laurie Knihy

Laurie Morrison’s Saint Ivy is a thoughtful middle-grade novel about caring for others and for yourself––and what it truly means to be kind and vulnerable.Thirteen-year-old Ivy Campbell has always been a good She supports her soccer-star brother, bakes with her nana, and puts her friends’ needs before her own. So of course, Ivy is 100 percent supportive when her mom decides to be a gestational surrogate, carrying and giving birth to her friends’ baby.But when Ivy finds out the surrogacy treatment worked and her mom is pregnant—and has been for weeks—she’s shocked that she’s jealous and worried about what others will think. And most of all, she’s ashamed that she isn’t reacting to this news in the right way. The Ivy way. Ivy is determined to prove to herself that she’s just as unselfish as she’s always believed, and she gets the chance to do that when she receives an anonymous email from someone who needs her help.But the more Ivy dives into helping this anonymous person, the further she gets from the people she loves—and from the person who she wants to be.“Feelings, life, and people are allowed to be complicated in beautiful ways in this page-turner.” — Kirkus Reviews“A keenly observed portrait of a girl who goes way overboard on a good thing.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Dive into the paperback of this middle-grade novel about competitive swimming, changing friendships, and finding your place Thirteen-year-old Annabelle struggles in school, no matter how hard she tries. But as soon as she dives into the pool, she's unstoppable. She's the fastest girl on the middle school swim team, and when she's asked to join the high school team over the summer, everything changes. Suddenly, she's got new friends, and a high school boy starts treating her like she's somebody special--and Annabelle thinks she'll finally stand out in a good way. She'll do anything to fit in and help the team make it to the Labor Day Invitational, even if it means blowing off her old friends. But after a prank goes wrong, Annabelle is abandoned by the older boy and can't swim. Who is she without the one thing she's good at? Heartwarming and relatable, Up for Air is a story about where we find our self-worth.

Seventh-grader Bea is the star short stop on her softball team, which is going to the league championship, but her world has just been turned upside down by the news that her father has been suspended from his law practice because he used some of his clients' money to pay bills; worse the news has been spread by another lawyer online, and that lawyer happens to be the father of Bea's almost boyfriend, Xander; now her fielding skills are slipping, and Bea does not know which is more difficult--dealing with either pity or snickering from her schoolmates, learning to throw again, or forgiving her father.

A poignant middle-grade novel about friends-turned-rivals training for a half- marathon—and rethinking what it means to win and what they mean to each other