Rex Zero and the End of the World
by Tim Wynne Jones

Rex is facing a difficult summer, moving to a new town where he doesn't know any kids and won't likely meet many potential friends until school starts in September. It's also 1962, and there's a lot of tall about bomb shelters. The Cold War is on and Canadians are well aware of the threats around the world. At the local park Rex encounters two mysteries: a seemingly crazy man asserting that the world is about to end, and a dark creature that others think is a missing zoo animal.

Feathers
by Jacqueline Woodson
2007

Frannie's sixth grade class changes when "Jesus boy" comes from across the highway and becomes the only white boy in her class. Frannie's been fixated on the idea of hope after reading an Emily Dickinson poem in class, and somehow Jesus boy gets tied into this ideal. Maintaining this hope sometimes is difficult as Frannie reflects on the way that girls treat her deaf brother, and as she thinks about her mother's miscarriages.

Woodson's writing is fine as always, although not a whole lot happens in this skinnyish chapter book. It's kind of a peculiar scene, on the one side of a 1970s Brooklyn highway, but the author sets it well. While the school is all black kids, a range of social classes are represented and the growing consciousness of the kids about this fact is well represented. There is also significant musing on religious themes, but that's not surprising with a character de facto named Jesus boy. A nice book but not so tightly gripping as Woodson's more prominent work.

Night Journeys
by Avi

Peter Yorke is orphaned; he and his inheritance, a horse named Jumper are adopted by the town's Justice of the Peace. This man, a Quaker, solemn in demeanor to the point of near silence, governs Peter's life. Peter longs for excitement and soon finds some: word is, indentured servants have run away and the landowner is offering a weighty reward for their return. Peter begs to be involved, not understanding his master's reluctance to participate. After getting his way, Peter manages to bungle his role in the pursuit. Despite his mistakes, Peter soon finds himself the first to find a runaway. He's surprised to learn that it's a girl younger than he is; this new development causes him to question his role in the pursuit.

Room One
by Andrew Clements
illustrations by Chris Blair
2006

Ted Hammond is the only sixth grader in Plattsford, Nebraska. His class meets in Room One; the only room that's used in his school. There are nine students in his class, and one teacher for every grade. With the teacher focused on preparing the eighth graders for high school and keeping the fourth graders in line, Ted gets to focus on what he likes for most of the school day.

Ted loves to read mysteries. He closes the book at exactly the middle point, writes down what he knows, and predicts who did it. Most of the time, Ted is right.

As he delivers everyone in Plattsford's newspapers, Ted thinks he knows everyone in the farm town of 108. But one morning, he sees a girl's face in the window of an abandoned house. Ted knows he has found a mystery; and he believes that he is just the person to solve the case.

This is a nice, fairly quick mystery that should appeal to many middle grade readers. While the one room school house is not a familiar experience for most readers, Clements sets the scene well and presents a likable, relatable character in Ted.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret
by Brian Selznick
2007

Hugo Cabret lives alone in a secret apartment in the Paris train station, keeping the clocks running while his uncle, the drunk/the station's clock maintainer, is missing. Hugo has inherited his family's fascination with machines and spends his free time trying to reconstruct an automaton, hoping to discover a secret message. His plans are complicated after he is caught shoplifting by a toy salesman at the station. Hugo soon finds himself in a web of more secrets, surprisingly connected to his own secrets.

This is a fat, dense novel, but the page layouts are well done, with lots of white space helping the story breathe. The illustrations are two page spreads, quite different from a paneled graphic novel/comic look. Several sequences suggest motion effectively and help pull the reader through the book. This is a book that needs to be seen to be appreciated, but I imagine that most kid readers seeing this book would be interested enough to make a go of it.

The Mysterious Benedict Society
by Trenton Lee Stewart, with illustrations by Carson Ellis
2007

Four gifted children, each with distinct talents but with a shared uncommon love of truth, are united after a series of tests administered by the very unusual Mr. Benedict and his assistants. Reynie Muldoon sees Mr. Benedict's opportunity as a chance to live with people who will appreciate his interest in learning. Kate Weatherall is a utility bucket toting acrobat eager for adventure. Sticky Washington has run away from his parents, whose only interest seems to be capitalizing on his incredible memory to profit from game show winnings. Constance Contraire, is a loud, obnoxious poet; but Mr. Benedict insists that she will play an important role in the team's mission. Their mission: to infiltrate the evil Mr. Curtain's island fortress and stop his plan of brainwashing the masses.

Reminiscent in many ways of Brainboy and the Deathmaster (Seidler), the story is sort of unwieldy and overlong, yet is satisfying overall. The tone in places recalls A Series of Unfortunate Events but the presence of an extra couple major characters lengthens the book considerably. The minor characters are less memorable, however, than in the Snicket books. Carson Ellis's illustrations for each chapter break up the almost 500 pages helpfully and nicely. I anticipate that this book will intimidate many kids, and Stewart's choices to expand rather than constrict the scope of the book does reduce the kid appeal. Those kids who are willing to take the challenge offered by The Mysterious Benedict Society will likely enjoy it.

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life
by Wendy Mass
2006

Almost teenaged Jeremy Fink receives an unlikely package one day...a complicated lock box from his dead father, engraved with "the meaning of life" across the top. Along with his neighbor and best friend Lizzie, Jeremy sets off to find the set of keys that will open the box and reveal the answer to the mysteries that Jeremy has discovered.

Jeremy's quest and the quirks of the characters carry the story through some overly weighty philosophical bits regarding life, how to live it, and what it means. The book echoes other recent works, such as The Schwa was Here (Schusterman), and not so recent works in its plot device of "wealthy old guy teaches kid a lesson". The quest itself is reminiscient of Ed Kennedy's situation in I am the Messenger (Zusak) but this story for younger readers comes across as more heavy handed and more serious without probing similar issues at a comparable level of depth.