Display: Dear Diary

Pippa Morgan's Diary
By Annie Kelsey

When Pippa tells a small lie to impress her best friend, she is entered into the school talent show even though she cannot sing at all.

Tales From a Not-So-Happily Ever After
By Rachel Renee Russell

A bump on the head suffered during gym class causes middle school drama queen Nikki Maxwell to have a crazy dream where all of her acquaintances assume the roles of familiar fairy tale characters.

Amelia's Notebook
By Marissa Moss

The hand-lettered contents of a nine-year-old girl's notebook, in which she records her thoughts and feelings about moving, starting school, and dealing with her older sister as well as keeping her old best friend and making a new one.

Early Sunday Morning: The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows
By Barry Denenberg

In her diary, twelve-year-old Amber describes moving to Hawaii in 1941 and experiencing the horror of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The Journal of Biddy Owens, The Negro Leagues
By Walter Dean Myers

Teenager Biddy Owens' 1948 journal about working for the Birmingham Black Barons includes the games and the players, racism the team faces from New Orleans to Chicago, and his family's resistance to his becoming a professional baseball player.

Mary, Queen of Scots, Queen Without a Country
By Kathryn Lasky

Mary, the young Scottish queen, is sent a diary from her mother in which she records her experiences living at the court of France's King Henry II as she awaits her marriage to Henry's son, Francis.

Lady Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South
By Laurence Yep

In 531 A.D., a fifteen-year-old princess of the Hsien tribe in southern China keeps a diary which describes her role as liaison between her own people and the local Chinese colonists, in times of both peace and war.

Blood Diaries: Tales of a 6th-Grade Vampire
By Marissa Moss

Middle school is tough enough for normal humans, but when you're a vampire, it's even more challenging. Edgar rises to the occasion with wit, humor, and some help from his friends.

Secret at Mystic Lake
By Carolyn Keene

To celebrate her birthday, George is taking Nancy and Bess on a bike tour around Mystic Lake, but when their tour guide disappears and unknown adversaries steal their supplies and slash their tires, Nancy begins looking for clues.

Harriet the Spy
By Louise Fitzhugh

Eleven-year-old Harriet keeps notes on her classmates and neighbors in a secret notebook, but when some of the students read the notebook, they seek revenge.

Hatched
By Bruce Coville

Gerald the griffin isn't brave enough or fierce enough to fit in with the other griffins of the Enchanted Realm. When he runs away to the human world. he finds himself up to his beak in trouble, friendship, and fun!

Comments

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...

Review: Faker

Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...

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