Twelve 2024 Canadian Middle-Grade Releases I Can’t Wait to Read!
Canadian middle-grade books!
Grab your pens (or keyboards) and get ready to add some books to your TBR! I don’t know about you, but I think Canadian fiction needs a lot more love. July 1st was Canada Day, and to celebrate, here are twelve recently released or upcoming Canadian books for kids ages 9-12 from authors such as myself, Mary Averling, Casey Lyall, and Jeff Szpirglas. Perfect for working toward your reading goals (or your child’s) for the second half of 2024!
Ghosts of Gastown by Jessica Renwick
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Twelve-year-old Hope Graves can see the dead. But nobody believes her. Not even her best friend. When Hope and her mom move to the Gastown area of Vancouver, their new home isn't exactly as she imagined. The ancient apartment sits over a weird crystal shop, she misses her dad, and ghosts lurk around every corner. The worst part? The strange boy whose parents own the shop can see spirits too, and he won't stop bugging her about it.
Hope tries to avoid Oliver, but when a ghost appears in her bedroom with a haunting plea, he's the only person she can turn to for help. Trying to banish the spirit only leads them down a twisted path far more dangerous than any ghost. Something is hunting the souls of Gastown, and it's closing in on its next victim.
The Curse of Eelgrass Bog by Mary Averling
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Nothing about Kess Pedrock’s life is normal. Not her home (she lives in her family’s Unnatural History Museum), not her interests (hunting for megafauna fossils and skeletons), and not her best friend (a talking demon’s head in a jar named Shrunken Jim).
But things get even stranger than usual when Kess meets Lilou Starling, the new girl in town. Lilou comes to Kess for help breaking a mysterious curse—and the only clue she has leads straight into the center of Eelgrass Bog.
Everyone knows the bog is full of witches, demons, and possibly worse, but Kess and Lilou are determined not to let that stop them. As they investigate the mystery and uncover long-buried secrets, Kess begins to realize that the curse might hit closer to home than she’d ever expected, and she’ll have to summon all her courage to find a way to break it before it’s too late.
Night of the Living Zed by Basil Sylvester and Kevin Sylvester
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After some lackluster cases involving lost books and a missing pet, Zed and Gabe have finally come across a mystery worth their attention: the secrets of Glyndebourne Manor, haunted home of a late, great opera designer. Every twenty-five years, the manor hosts a challenge:
You have three days and two nights to solve the puzzles in each room before the stroke of midnight.
If you leave, you forfeit the game.
If you solve the puzzles in time, you win a huge pile of money.
Simple enough, thinks Zed. They and Gabe are interested in all things ghoulish. And if they win, they will be able to give their friends Sam and Jo the large wedding they deserve.
There’s only one problem: no one has been able to stay in the house for more than a single night.
Cue a whirlwind of scary ghosts, moving walls and cryptic letters. The two friends are going to need some help. Which means figuring out who the mysterious figure holding a crowbar is! And how to get out of a room with no doors! But thanks to Zed’s fearless enthusiasm and Gabe’s encyclopedic knowledge of theatre, they might be able to survive—maybe even right some past wrongs.
Queenie Jean is in Trouble Again by Christine Read
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When ten-year-old Queenie and her family move from small-town Ontario to a glitzy suburb of Vancouver, she is desperate to fit in and make a best friend for the first time in her life. With her creativity and bubbly personality, Queenie arrives at Western Canada Preparatory School ready to win over her classmates and conquer the world. But even before the first bell rings, she finds herself in trouble.
From always being late to talking out of turn to never being able to focus, Queenie stands out like a sore thumb, especially among the cool girls she wants to impress. Hardest of all, she has a secret. She’s been diagnosed with ADHD, and she hates how different it makes her feel. After she struggling to navigate her new world, dreaming up ill-advised schemes to make the other kids like her, she must face her greatest fear of all: making a speech in front of the whole school that will show everyone her true self.
Coop for Keeps by Larry Verstraete
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For Coop, adjusting to a new home after being adopted by Zach, Emma and their mother, Jess, is not easy. It's hard enough being a lowly dachshund, but it's even harder when your home is a financially unstable guesthouse with smelly strangers drifting in and out. Worse still, the unhappy teenager in charge of Coop is steaming mad much of the time. On top of that, Lucinda, the annoying cat, likes to tease and torment. It's no wonder Coop wishes he could have his old life back.
Enter a murder of crows, a stranger with a mysterious past, two bullies bent on making Zach's life miserable, and a vicious dog with a grudge against Coop. As the risks and challenges mount, Coop's wish only grows stronger. Will he ever find the forever home he so desperately wants?
A follow-up to Coop The Great!
Out of the Valley of Horses by Wendy Orr
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The valley of horses has been a safe haven for Honey and her family for seven peaceful years, but this seemingly perfect valley has also become their prison. Trapped by a mysterious magic, and fearing for her father’s life, Honey is determined to find a way out of the valley of horses.
The valley of horses is the only true place Honey remembers since her family stumbled upon it in their converted ice cream truck while escaping from the rest of the world, and the illnesses that was spreading there. Honey’s parents, her brother Rumi, and her NanNan become self-sufficient, living off the land and sharing the valley with mystical horses who seem to have a wisdom of their own. But there is a magic in the valley that prevents Honey and her family from ever leaving. When Honey suspects her father has become ill, Honey knows she must find a way to escape the valley to find help from a world she only knows about through stories.
Plague Thieves by Caroline Fernandez
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“Steal. Trade. Survive.”
That's what Father tells Rose and Lem moments before he dies of the Great Plague.
Orphaned and homeless in London 1665, all Rose and Lem have left are their wits, each other, and three bottles of Thieves Oil ― a medicinal blend Father created that can protect people from the sickness.
But then Lem goes missing, and Rose is left to fend for herself. As words of Thieves Oil spread to London’s most desperate scavengers, Rose must band together with her fellow street orphans, steal the essentials to survive, and protect herself and her newfound friends against both the Plague and a world filled with dangers.
Waking the Dead and Other Fun Activities by Casey Lyall
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Twelve-year-old Kimmy Jones wants to excel at the unique (and secret) aspect of her family’s funeral home business. Under the watchful eye of Grandma Bev, Kimmy learns how to raise the recently deceased, request their last wish, and break the connection to send them on. But when Grandma unexpectedly dies herself, Kimmy can’t reach her spirit, and nothing seems like it’s ever going to be right again.
Then a boy dies under mysterious circumstances on the night of a meteor shower. With no witnesses, Kimmy’s the only one who can get answers about what happened. So she breaks into the hospital morgue, and for the first time in months, her power works. She Wakes the boy up. Except then Kimmy can’t break the connection and so he stays Awake. Even worse, the boy has no memory of what happened to him. As Kimmy works to unravel the mystery, she discovers secrets about her heritage and learns about a witch who has been wreaking havoc for centuries.
Polestar by Rae Knightly
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The Interstellar Alliance is crumbling. The Exostar is still missing, the robots have disappeared with the Star Squadron, leaving the Alliance unprotected, and the remaining planets are bickering amongst themselves, accusing each other of having stolen the coveted diamond.
Navigating this treacherous terrain, Trin must decide whether or not to trust a new ally. But the way through the stars is fraught with danger, and the cunning Remnant Supreme Leader is weaving a sinister plot that is slowly closing in around her. Can Trin escape the clutches of her archenemy, return the Exostar to its rightful place, and find out who her true friends really are?
The answer may lie on Civicus-1, the most corrupt planet in the Interstellar Alliance.
Izzy Wong’s Nose for News by Marty Chan
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Izzy Wong's got a new podcast―and this time she's going to uncover the whole story.
A sixth-grade student with a purpose, Izzy wants to start her own hit investigative podcast. When the girls' washroom at her school mysteriously floods, she's finally got the perfect subject. It doesn't take long to figure out that a student did it on purpose―but who? Izzy sets out on an investigation to find the culprit and interviews anyone who might know anything, including teachers, students and even the principal. But when she runs into difficulty finding the truth and is presented with a juicy lead that may or may not be gossip―but brings in lots of new listeners―Izzy finds herself in hot water. Will her podcast get shut down before she has a chance to find the perpetrator?
Pages of Doom by Jeff Szpirglas
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Middle grader Tanya has managed to stop famed horror writer Joel Southland from stealing people's nightmares for his books.
The malevolent, sentient ink that had been the source of all his powers and successes now belongs to Tanya. But the ink―which feeds on nightmares―is growing hungrier and hungrier. It urges Tanya to plunder the dreams of others so it can feed.
Among Tanya's struggles to outwit the ink are eleven other creepy tales representing the dreams and nightmares of other characters in the book. From tales of dentists who are actually giant alien insects in disguise to a kid spotting a tombstone with his own name and death date, these stories are sure to thrill and chill.
Cave-In by Pam Withers
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Hudson Greer and his caving partner, Jett, are determined to become teen legends who discover a long-sought passageway that connects two giant cave systems in their little mountain town. But they're haunted by the history of a giant sinkhole that opened up and swallowed the town's fully-packed church, steeple and all. Dozens were killed, including Hudson’ s grandfather. Hudson knows it's in danger of happening again; he just doesn't know when or where.
Can his caving instincts and science knowledge predict or prevent the next disaster? Are the shoddy logging practices of the town's main employer tempting fate? And who's on whose side when business and political shenanigans mix with evaded environmental codes?
Nothing less than the lives of the townspeople are at stake — and it's up to Hudson to separate myth from fact, and get key players working together, before it's too late.