Middle School Reads!

 by Atia Abawi Genre: Realistic Fiction Tareq is living a happy life with his close knit family in Syria, but that life comes to an end the day that his mother and siblings are killed in a bombing.  Now his dad and his one remaining sister make the difficult choice to leave the only home they know in hopes of making a better life for themselves.  As refugees they have long days of travel from Syria to Turkey to Greece with the ultimate hope of making it to Germany.  Their journey will be full of tragedy, but ultimately courage and bravery will need to prevail if Tareq is able to get the happy ending that he deserves.

 by Mike Jung Genre:  Realistic Fiction Matt and Eric are best friends.  They love band, comics, and hanging out with each other.  On the first day of school, they learn that the marching band has been invited to perform at the World of Amazement band competition in the spring.  Matt has recently decided to switch from piccolo to drums so that kids will stop picking on him and so he can spend more time with Eric in the percussion section.  When he and Eric learn that their favorite comic creator, Jonah Burns, will be attending the DefenderCon just blocks from the World of Amazement on the same day they will be there, a plan is hatched to ensure that they get to have a grand adventure.  However, in the process of their planning, they must deal with a bully who is determined to ruin their master scheme.