EMS & WMS Reading Guide | Summer 2021: 7th Grade eBook Recommendations

After their mama dies, Jack and Birdie find themselves without a place to call home. And when Mama's two brothers each try to provide one--first sweet Uncle Carl, then gruff Uncle Patrick--the results are funny, tender, and tragic. They're also somehow . . . spectacular. With voices and characters that soar off the page, J. M. M. Nuanez's debut novel depicts an unlikely family caught in a situation none of them would have chosen, and the beautiful ways in which they finally come to understand one another.

Snap's town had a witch. At least, that’s how the rumor goes. But in reality, Jacks is just a crocks-wearing, internet-savvy old lady who sells roadkill skeletons online—after doing a little ritual to put their spirits to rest. It’s creepy, sure, but Snap thinks it’s kind of cool, too. They make a deal: Jacks will teach Snap how to take care of the baby opossums that Snap rescued, and Snap will help Jacks with her work. But as Snap starts to get to know Jacks, she realizes that Jacks may in fact have real magic—and a connection with Snap’s family’s past.

Thirteen-year-old Frankie is neurodivergent: she can't stand to be touched, loud noises bother her, she's easily distracted, and hates changes to her routine. It also means that she doesn't have a lot of friends. When Colette, her one friend, vanishes, Frankie is convinced that she left behind clues that only Frankie can decipher. As Frankie and her twin sister try to find Colette before it's too late, she tries to come to grips with what friendship and forgiveness mean.

For years, the Mais and the Nguyens have been at odds, having owned competing, neighboring pho restaurants. Teenagers Bao and Linh, who’ve avoided each other for most of their lives, both suspect that the feud stems from feelings much deeper than friendly competition. But then a chance encounter brings Linh and Bao in the same vicinity despite their best efforts and sparks fly, leading them both to wonder what took so long for them to connect. Can Linh and Bao find love in the midst of feuding families and complicated histories?

Author Gary Paulsen portrays moments from his turbulent childhood as his own original survival story. If not for his summer escape from a shockingly neglectful Chicago upbringing to a North Woods homestead at age five, there never would have been a Hatchet. Without the encouragement of the librarian who handed him his first book at age thirteen, he may never have become a reader. And without his desperate teenage enlistment in the Army, he would not have discovered his true calling as a storyteller.

Inexplicably, eleven-year-old Mars Patel's friend Aurora goes missing, and the only ones who seem overly concerned about it are Mars and his friends. Soon the group discovers other kids have gone missing around the world, and clues seem to point to eccentric tech billionaire, Oliver Pruitt, who also happens to be the founder of an exclusive prep school they are trying to enter. Mars and his friends Toothpick, JP, and Caddie set out on a quest to find their friend and understand the enigmatic Pruitt.

Naomi Shihab Nye shines a spotlight on the things we cast away. With poems about food wrappers, lost mittens, plastic straws, refugee children, trashy talk, the environment, connection, community, responsibility to the planet, politics, immigration, time, junk mail, trash collectors, garbage trucks, all that we carry and all that we discard, this is a rich, engaging, moving, and sometimes humorous collection for readers ages twelve to adult.

Malcolm does not enjoy sports and feels that he does not live up to his father's expectations because of his lack of interest. When he decides to start playing miniature golf, Malcolm discovers a sport that he enjoys, but soon his dad is signing him up for lessons and tournaments. When tension between his parents reaches the breaking point, Malcolm is not sure of anything in his life.

Shuri is a skilled martial artist, a genius, and a princess. But, she's also a teenager. This story follows Shuri as she sets out on a quest to save her homeland of Wakanda. For centuries, the Black Panther has gained his powers through the juices of the Heart-Shaped Herb. But the plants are dying, and no matter what the people of Wakanda do, they can't save them. It's up to Shuri to discover what is killing the Herb, and how she can save it.

Cash, Fitch, and Bird Nelson Thomas are three siblings in seventh grade together in Park, Delaware. In 1986, as the country waits expectantly for the launch of the space shuttle Challenger, they each struggle with their own personal anxieties. The Nelson Thomas children exist in their own orbits, circling a tense and unpredictable household, with little in common except an enthusiastic science teacher named Ms. Salonga. When the fated day finally arrives, it changes all of their lives and brings them together in unexpected ways.

When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni's Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal--return what her grandmother stole in exchange for Halmoni's health--Lily is tempted to agree.

12 year old Jake's middle school is about to be shut down--unless Jake and his friends can figure out how to save it. When Jake spies a bowl of jellybeans at the hotel where his mom works, he eats them. But those weren't just jellybeans, one of the scientists at his mom's conference is developing the world's first ingestible information pills. And THAT'S what Jake ate. Before long, Jake is the smartest kid in the universe. And when word gets out about this new genius, people want him.