Western Middle School for the Arts Library: Kentucky Bluegrass Award Nominees 6-8

Siblings Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie find themselves at Bletchley Park, the home of WWII codebreakers working to decrypt the Nazi's Enigma cipher, where the they struggle to unravel a mystery surrounding their mother's disappearance against the backdrop of the Battle of Britain and Hitler's feared invasion.

in “Coal” Keegan has just landed in his latest foster home, with a big, noisy, slightly nosy family named the McKays. They seem eager to welcome Coal, but he’s wary of trusting them. So, he doesn’t tell them that he went for a walk with chalk in his pocket to cover a nearby street with his art. He doesn’t tell them that a neighbor found Coal drawing, pulled a gun on him, and fired it. He doesn’t tell them the police chased him. And he definitely doesn’t tell them that when everything went down, Coal somehow turned invisible.

But he did.

Now he has to figure out how. Is he a superhero? Some kind of mutant? A science experiment? Is that why he has no family of his own? As Coal searches for answers and slowly learns to control his invisibility, he turns to the McKay kids and friends both new and old for help. But they soon discover they’re not the only ones looking for a Black boy with superpowers, and the situation is far stranger—and more dangerous—than they ever could have expected.

Neurodivergent Maudie is ready to spend an amazing summer with her dad, but will she find the courage to tell him a terrible secret about life with her mom and new stepdad?

The day that Christopher saved a drowning baby griffin from a hidden lake would change his life forever. It's the day he learned about the Archipelago--a cluster of unmapped islands where magical creatures of every kind have thrived for thousands of years, until now. And it's the day he met Mal--a girl on the run, in desperate need of his help. Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure, racing from island to island, searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying in order to save both of their worlds.

A visit to a private amusement park is the trip of a lifetime for a group of teen influencers, until they learn that getting off the island alive is not part of the plan.

In 1937 rural Kentucky, Cora Mae starts a school newspaper to rally support for the Rural Electrification Act, but the town's resistance to change is not easy to overcome.

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, thirteen-year-old Matthew discovers a shocking secret about his great-grandmother's past as he learns about her life during the Holodomor famine in Soviet Ukraine.

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears? A fictionalized account of the author's experiences and emotions living in residential treatment facilities as a young teen with an eating disorder.

Pedro Martin has grown up in the U.S. hearing stories about his legendary abuelito, but during a family road trip to Mexico, he connects with his grandfather and learns more about his own Mexican identity in this comic memoir.

Thirteen-year-old new girl Anna Hunt decides to make an investigative podcast about how fellow classmate Rachel Riley went from being the most popular girl in school to the most hated.