Holiday House Summer Reading 2021

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

★ “Charlie’s struggles are authentic and raw while Maldonado’s bright prose makes for a page-turner. . . . An overdue and welcome ingénue.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard. But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend, Amelia. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, everything is perfect until she learns one thing—he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her?

Because it’s time people did.

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Houdini and Me by Dan Gutman

“Magic is at the heart of Dan Gutman’s new middle grade novel . . . even non-New Yorkers will come away with a feel for the neighborhood and its charms.”
—The New York Times

Eleven-year-old Harry Mancini is NOT Harry Houdini. But Harry DOES live in Houdini’s old New York City home. What is he supposed to do, then, when someone starts texting him claiming that they’re Houdini, communicating from beyond the grave? Respond, of course. When Houdini asks for help in coming back to life, it seems like an amazing chance . . . or could it be Houdini’s greatest trick of all?

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The Guest Book
A new podcast from Holiday House & Pixel+Ink

Listen to Holiday House Editor Elizabeth Law and Author Dan Gutman Now On:

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The Great Peach Experiment 1: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie by Erin Soderberg Downing

“Both bittersweet and uplifting; simply sparkles with life.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Mix together a used food truck, a road trip that doesn’t exactly go as planned, and a lot of pie, and you have the recipe for this sweet middle grade series starter brimming with humor, heart, and a family you’ll fall in love with.

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Trillium Sisters 1: The Triplets Get Charmed and Trillium Sisters 2: Bestie DayBy Elly Kramer and Laura Brown

The Trillium triplets are flying into action!

Three sisters discover that they and their pets have superpowers they can use to protect the world around them in a fantastical new chapter book series about family, friendship, and environmental responsibility.

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Buy Trillium Sisters 2

Mysteries on Zoo Lane 2: Animal at Large by two-time Newbery Honor winner Patricia Reilly Giff

Tori loves living on Zoo Lane with her family. Who else gets to live at a zoo? And with her cousin Sumiko visiting from Tokyo soon, this is shaping up to be the best summer ever! But when rumors of a missing animal start to spread, Tori wants to help . . . except she doesn’t know which creature is on the loose. An ostrich? A little frog? Tori is on the case.

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Black Sand Beach #1: Are You Afraid of the Light? and Black Sand Beach #2: Do You Remember the Summer Before? By Richard Fairgray

“Creepy, bizarre, and compelling.”—Kirkus Reviews

Twelve-year-old Dash and his best friend Lily are spending the summer at Black Sand Beach. But nothing is as it seems from the beginning. The beach house is a shack, and Dash’s weird relatives are there. But more alarming is the zombie ram that crashes through the front yard. And the ghosts that call out to Dash from the lighthouse . . . .

Explore this mysterious beach with Dash and his friends. Each book in the dynamic series contains full-color, graphic-novel panels on every page and multiple connected stories.

Buy Black Sand Beach #1

Buy Black Sand Beach #2

The Postman from Space: Biker Bandits By Guillaume Perrault

“Whimsical planets populated by quirky characters are created with pastel and earth tones delineated by rounded linework. Fanciful and fun.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Bob strikes back! Join a determined postman on his route across the galaxy in this follow-up to The Postman from Space. This hilarious graphic novel follows Bob to several new planets (and a few old favorites) as he does his best to deliver the mail and train a new mail-carrier, and ends up facing down the infamous outer-space Biker Bandits!

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My Tiny Life by Ruby T. Hummingbird By Paul Meisel

★ “Accurate natural history simply and charismatically presented.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

Tiny but mighty! A ruby-throated hummingbird tells his own life story in this funny, bright, informative entry to the critically acclaimed Nature Diary science series. Children will love poring over the bright, highly detailed illustrations and pondering ideas about nature.

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Beatrice Bly’s Rules for Spies 1: The Missing Hamster By Sue Fliess

“Expressive cartoon artwork depicts a contemporary school setting with a diverse population. . . . Readers will be eager to see more of this spunky, confident, daring character.”
—Kirkus Reviews

A young spy in training has to put her sneaky skills to the test when the class pet goes missing in this picture book series starter. Clever and determined, Beatrice Bly will win over young sleuths, teaching them problem solving and deduction skills as they scramble to figure out the case alongside her.

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