“I’m a baseball player,” 12-year-old Timothy “Pumpsie” Strickland declares. “Baseball is my life.” In Andrea Williams’ new middle-grade novel, Inside the Park, Pumpsie must overcome his fears and think fast to save the day when sinister forces threaten his beloved team, the Nashville Wildcats.
In Kerry Madden-Lunsford’s middle-grade novel, Werewolf Hamlet, something terrible is happening to Angus Gettlefinger’s 17-year-old brother, Liam. He’s turning into a monster, and Angus doesn’t know why. Madden-Lunsford will discuss Werewolf Hamlet at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 20 and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 24.
“I am Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Novis. … I am the candidate most likely to violate the Official Secrets Act. And I will be convicted of treason when I do.” Lizzie is half of the talented brother/sister team at the center of The Bletchley Riddle, a World War II novel for middle-grade readers by an equally talented team: award-winning writers Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin.
“It was real. A TV show that could literally alter the fabric of reality to change one’s life.” This is the premise of Peng Shepherd’s novel All This and More. Shepherd will discuss All This and More at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea, the funny and thought-provoking sequel to TJ Klune’s bestselling 2020 fantasy novel The House in the Cerulean Sea, provides another chapter in the inspiring story of the mostly unflappable Arthur Parnassus, his sweetheart Linus Baker, and the extraordinary magical children in their care. Klune will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.
Chattanooga author Natalie Lloyd’s latest tale of heartbreak and hope for middle school readers is The Witching Wind. Roxie Darling and Grayson Patch become friends as incoming sixth graders at Camelot Middle School in fictional Silas County, Tennessee. And, as is always the case in a Natalie Lloyd book, fantastical adventures are soon afoot.
