GPLD Winter Favorites Middle Grade 22-23

With her best friend moving away, Rica Baptista needs a pet so she won't get lonely, but her parents are against it until an act of kindness and courage proves she is ready for the pet of her dreams.

"Kira Parker lives above The Purrfect Cup, the cat café that her family owns and runs. Every day is a new adventure with her cat friends! Except lately, The King County Dog Show seems to be the only thing the regulars can talk about! Kira doesn't get why everyone is so excited. After all, her cat friends are much smarter and more talented than those dogs. Then Kira has a great idea -- she's going to train the cats, and enter them in the competition....

With her eighth birthday coming up, Marya claims she is having an epic henna party, so now she must convince her family to make it happen and work to pull it off, but everything Marya does seems to end in disaster.

"When his friend RJ bets that Miles will wipe out at the ice rink, he is determined to prove him wrong."--

Nina is prepared to show her new friends, who moved to Wisconsin, how to have fun in the snow. And then Nina notices a strange car at her neighbors' house while they're out of town. Clearly, it's time to be a Snow Spy and identify the MP (mystery person) -- edited from jacket flap by cataloger.

"A charming early chapter book series that explores Vietnamese culture and identity through the eyes of the Nguyen siblings, with elements of the supernatural, spirituality, and social justice woven in. Organized and introspective nine-year-old Anne Nguyen misses her Grandma Nội, a lot. But even though Grandma Nội passed away, it doesn't mean she's disappeared. When Anne and her younger siblings Jacob and Liz are given gifts passed on to them...

In an alternate San Antonio, there have been no known cases of vampirism since a group of masked vampire hunters called the Vanquishers wiped out the last horde of the undead twenty years ago, but twelve-year-old Malika "Boog" Wilson's parents are not taking any chances, especially when Boog's new classmate Aaron goes missing.

What was the pandemic of the century like at the start? This swift, gripping novel captures not only the uncertainty and panic when COVID first emerged in Wuhan, but also how a community banded together. Weaving in the tastes and sounds of the historic city, Wuhan's comforting and distinctive cuisine comes to life as the reader follows 13-year-old Mei who, through her love for cooking, makes a difference in her community. Written by an award-winning...

Fourteen-year-old Andrea Hernandez-Baldoquin hails from a family of spies working for the factory, an international organization dedicated to protecting people of color. Andrea has dreamed about getting her first solo mission, but she never imagined that she would have to straighten her hair and go undercover as a white girl to befriend the estranged son of a dangerous white supremacist. In order to gain the boy's trust, Andrea finds herself doing...

After twelve-year-old Lebanese-American Shad Hadid discovers he is an Alchemist, he receives an invitation to the Alexandria Academy where he discovers not everything is as it seems and shadowy figures are lurking around every corner.