Here are 100 books that Keep It Together, Keiko Carter fans have personally recommended if you like
Keep It Together, Keiko Carter.
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I’ve always loved books, movies, and shows that feature swoony, satisfying romances. As a middle school teacher and upper middle-grade author, I know it can be tricky to find novels with romance for the middle-grade set. But I also know firsthand that there are many kids who crave these kinds of stories–and that there are major benefits to giving kids a chance to read and hopefully talk about crushes and relationships in all their complexity. I’m always on the lookout for realistic stories with just the right amount of romance to delight middle-grade readers, and these five are some of my favorites.
I just love Brie Hutchens, the brave, vulnerable, and absolutely charming main character of this upper middle-grade gem. Nicole Melleby writes characters who feel achingly real, and I felt so much tenderness toward Brie–and so much investment in her story–that I simply could not put this book down.
This is a poignant and propulsive story about an eighth-grade girl weathering a confusing and adorable crush and figuring out her sexuality against the backdrop of a vividly crafted Catholic school setting. Plus, there are such compelling family dynamics! I don’t think this novel is as well known as some of Melleby’s others, but it definitely should be!
"A nuanced exploration of how to reconcile faith and identity . . . This funny, tender, and heart-wrenching story will have readers calling for an encore." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review Introducing Brie Hutchens: soap opera superfan, aspiring actor, and so-so student. Brie has big plans for eight grade. But when her mom walks in on her accidentally looking at some possibly inappropriate photos of her favorite actress, Brie sees her dream of attending the performing arts high school falling apart. So she blurts out that she's been chosen to crown the Mary statue during her Catholic school's ceremony in May.…
A gay retelling of the classic fairy tale--a scrumptious love story featuring ungrateful stepsiblings, a bake-off, and a fairy godfather.
Cinderelliot is stuck at home taking care of his ungrateful stepsister and stepbrother. When Prince Samuel announces a kingdom-wide competition to join the royal staff as his baker, the stepsiblings…
I’ve always loved books, movies, and shows that feature swoony, satisfying romances. As a middle school teacher and upper middle-grade author, I know it can be tricky to find novels with romance for the middle-grade set. But I also know firsthand that there are many kids who crave these kinds of stories–and that there are major benefits to giving kids a chance to read and hopefully talk about crushes and relationships in all their complexity. I’m always on the lookout for realistic stories with just the right amount of romance to delight middle-grade readers, and these five are some of my favorites.
I love this book because it somehow manages to be a poignant grief story, a delightful friendship story, and a cute (and funny!) tale of first romance all in one book. And all in one book that’s under 250 pages, to boot!
The voice is engaging, the characters are fully realized, and the tone is as cozy and warm as the special desserts the main character learns to bake. It offers an emotional and fun take on an enemies-to-friends-to-crushes tale for the middle-grade crowd.
Seventh grader Freya June Sun has always believed in the Chinese superstitions spoon-fed to her since birth - but ever since her dad's death a year ago, she's become obsessed, believing that her father is sending her messages through signs from the beyond. Like how, on her way to an orchestra concert where she's dreading her viola solo, a pair of lucky red birds appear, a sure indication that Dad wants Freya to stick with the instrument and make him proud.
Then Freya is partnered with Gus Choi, a goofy and super annoying classmate, for a home economics project. To…
I’ve always loved books, movies, and shows that feature swoony, satisfying romances. As a middle school teacher and upper middle-grade author, I know it can be tricky to find novels with romance for the middle-grade set. But I also know firsthand that there are many kids who crave these kinds of stories–and that there are major benefits to giving kids a chance to read and hopefully talk about crushes and relationships in all their complexity. I’m always on the lookout for realistic stories with just the right amount of romance to delight middle-grade readers, and these five are some of my favorites.
This is an immersive and insightful slice-of-life story that drew me right in. I read it on vacation, and it was a perfect tween beach read to get swept up in!
The chapters alternate between the perspectives of two main characters, Lily and Will, who feel equally real and equally endearing. I loved getting inside both their heads and seeing their lives intersect and their feelings for each other grow.
The writing is lovely and smooth, and there’s just a light sprinkling of romance to liven up a relatable and authentic friendship story.
Secrets, rumors, shifting friendships, overbearing parents, and, on top of all that, a first dance—how does anyone survive seventh grade? Told from dual points of view, this novel about two tweens finding their voices and standing up for themselves is for fans of Lisa Yee, Leslie Connor, and Janae Marks.
Lily, Maddie, and Sasha have always been the perfect friendship trio. But this year, everything is changing. Maddie and Sasha made the elite soccer team, and Lily feels that they’re always leaving her behind. And everyone seems to have secrets now: Maddie, and Sasha, and Lily’s sister, and even Lily…
I’m pretty sure I’m about to die in space. And I just turned twelve and a half.
Blast off with the four winners of the StellarKid Project on a trip to the International Space Station and then to the Gateway outpost orbiting the Moon! It’s a dream come true until…
I’ve always loved books, movies, and shows that feature swoony, satisfying romances. As a middle school teacher and upper middle-grade author, I know it can be tricky to find novels with romance for the middle-grade set. But I also know firsthand that there are many kids who crave these kinds of stories–and that there are major benefits to giving kids a chance to read and hopefully talk about crushes and relationships in all their complexity. I’m always on the lookout for realistic stories with just the right amount of romance to delight middle-grade readers, and these five are some of my favorites.
It isn’t easy to find middle-grade rom-coms, but this book checks all the boxes!
I love the concept–an intensely driven eighth grader who scorns the idea of romance and finds out she’s a Cupid–and Nashae Jones delivers with a laugh-out-loud enemies-to-crushes tale. A bit of magic and plenty of hilarious shenanigans make this one a winner.
In this funny and romantic story sprinkled with a dash of magic, a thirteen-year-old girl uses her newfound ability to make people fall in love to sabotage her rival.
Erin Johnson’s thirteenth birthday unfolds like any other day, from her mom’s quirky and embarrassing choice of outfit to racing her nemesis, Trevor Jin, to the best seat in class—front row, center. But her gifts this year include something very out of the ordinary: magical powers.
Erin discovers her mysterious father is actually the love god Cupid and she’s inherited his knack for romance. It’s not the most useful ability for…
I am a half-Mexican author who grew up in a tiny Alabama town, where I spent my summers playing with sticks in the woods and exploring such distinguished careers as Forest Bandit, Wayward Orphan, and Woodland Fairy Princess. After college, I ran away to New Zealand for seven months and only pretended to be a character from Lord of the Rings on special occasions. Nowadays, I live and work in South Carolina with my clingy (and, unfortunately, non-magical) cat.
McLemore’s prose is basically poetry, and this YA novel is a gorgeous combination of magical realism and Latine folklore. It is a modern fairy tale about forbidden romance, poisonous jealousy, family secrets, and the power of truth.
I fell in love with the lush atmosphere, complex characters, and exquisite storytelling. This one stayed with me for a long time after I’d closed the book.
From the author of The Weight of Feathers comes a young adult novel about a girl hiding the truth, a boy with secrets from his past, and four sisters who could ruin them both.
Recipient of a Stonewall Honor and longlisted for the National Book Award, McLemore delivers a second stunning and utterly romantic novel, again tinged with magic.
To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known…
I believe that books have saved my life. When I was a child, I was often depressed and anxious, and I instinctively found refuge in reading. I sought books acknowledging that the world can be a painful and difficult place but showed that it was also filled with happiness, love, and joy as long as you knew where to look. My passion for reading has stayed with me, I host the You’re Booked podcast where I talk to iconic authors about the books that have brought them comfort and joy. And whenever I feel anxious, I still reach for a book–because reading heals my heart.
I fell in love with Ash and her best friend Edi before I was halfway down the first page. I can see why other readers have compared this book to Nora Ephron’s novels. It’s funny, heart-filled, sexy, and sweet, but never twee. I could totally relate to Ash, who grieves unconventionally and tries to be the best friend, mother, and human in the world while secretly rebelling and acting up.
Most of all, I adored how this book focuses on family and how we build our families through love. It’s a book I haven’t stopped talking about since I read it, and I think I will read it every year.
“Catherine Newman sees the heartbreak and comedy of life with wisdom and unflinching compassion. The way she finds the extraordinary in the everyday is nothing short of poetry. She’s a writer’s writer—and a human’s human.”—New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center
“A riotously funny and fiercely loyal love letter to female friendship. The story of Edi and Ash proves that a best friend is a gift from the gods. Newman turns her prodigious talents toward finding joy even in the friendship’s final days. I laughed while crying, and was left revived. Newman is a comic masterhand and a dazzling philosopher…
For those who enjoy fantasy adventure, the Faerie Tales from the White Forest series offers a new twist on the traditional faerie tales so loved by young readers.
From devastating curses to death-defying quests, Brigitta and her growing collective of misfit friends face greater and greater challenges when destiny calls…
Ever since I was a little guy, I've been told that I complicate things unnecessarily. I overthink and over-communicate, and often, my feelings are outsized to the situation. These are not things I do on purpose, but involuntary, like a sneeze or the way you reflexively clench with cuteness aggression when you see a grizzly bear’s little ears, even though you know it can hurt and eat and kill you. I love to find books with narrators who seemingly share this affliction. It makes me feel less alone, but more importantly, I love to see how other people's Rube Goldberg machines function.
Nobody can make you aware of the inherent terror of a cornfield quite like a Hoosier. Having grown up in rural Indiana, What Stalks Among Us poked anxieties in me that I wasn't even aware I had.
In Hollowells’s murderous maze, I found myself rooting for and strongly identifying with the main character as she struggled to wrangle her thoughts, communicate her needs, or muster appropriate reactions to the chaos around her. I was rapt to see if the characters could not only survive but also learn how to overcome the very real hangups that sometimes keep us from being there for each other.
Horror is my jam, and this book deeply satisfied that urge I get sometimes to read something that makes it hard to sleep.
From Sarah Hollowell, author of A Dark and Starless Forest, comes a spine-tingling, deliriously creepy YA speculative thriller about two best friends trapped in a corn maze with corpses that look just like them.
Best friends and high school seniors Sadie and Logan make their first mistake when they ditch their end-of-year field trip to the amusement park in favor of exploring some old, forgotten backroads. The last thing they expect to come across is a giant, abandoned corn maze.
But with a whole day of playing hooking unspooling before them, they make their second mistake. Or perhaps their third?…
I’m a Canadian kids’ author, and I’ve written a few books about kids longing for absent parents. There’s nothing more compelling and powerful for me than a book about a young person searching for a significant adult. It wasn’t part of my growing-up experience, but I know it is the truth for so many kids who would identify with the kids in these novels. There are so many excellent MG novels on this topic that it was hard for me to narrow it down to these five books. I love cheering on kids who struggle, and Opal, Chirp, David, Lucky, and Parvana are among my favorite book kids.
I think this book perfectly captures middle school life, as experienced by eleven-year-old David, a creative kid struggling to find his way. The story has hilarious, laugh-out-loud moments and also subtly poignant bits as we find out that David’s mom has left the family and gone to live off-grid on a farm in Maine.
I cheered David on as he becomes famous through his YouTube talk-show videos (featuring his hamster), gets stronger, makes new friends, and even finds hope as he learns to reconcile missing his mom. I had lots of flashbacks to my own painful middle school days while reading, which is always a treat—especially since it was a long time ago.
Fans of James Patterson's Middle School series will root for David as he goes from feeling as insignificant as a hamster to becoming an Internet superstar. Perfect for back to school--no matter what that looks like!
Eleven-year-old David Greenberg dreams of becoming a YouTube sensation and spends all of his time making hilarious Top 6½ Lists and Talk Time videos. But before he can get famous, he has to figure out a way to deal with:
6. Middle school (much scarier than it sounds!) 5. His best friend gone girl-crazy 4. A runaway mom who has no phone! 3. The…
I grew up in rural Southern Maryland, watching the bats wheel overhead at night. There were bugs under every rock, snakes winding their way through the small creek at the bottom of our backyard, and frogs that would suddenly jump up onto the glass window in the laundry room and scare the ever-living daylights out of you. I kept pet rats and caught jars full of fireflies. I live in a city now, on the opposite end of the continent, but my heart lives back home in the woods. This list is for the kids & kids at heart who love the creepy critters, the creechies who get a bad rap.
I wish I was a bug so I could live in this world. Knetzger’s book is a gorgeously illustrated graphic chapter book that clearly loves the natural world and refuses to talk down to young readers. The bugs in question are beautifully drawn, cartoony versions of themselves—Rhino-B and Stag-B live in a colorful world filled with both realistic bug facts and a quietly fantastic reality where different bugs coexist harmoniously.
A case in point: the boys regularly visit their friend and librarian, Dome Spider, who often makes comments about eating "meat" but never actually tries to eat the pair. The stakes in their world are not quite naturally realistic, but the emotions are always resonant. The boys experience a range of days—beautiful ones, sad ones, days they fight, and everything in between.
I’d love to give this book to an early reader to teach them that empathy should extend to…
Join two bug friends as they learn about the science of the world around them and the meaning of friendship in this early graphic novel series perfect for fans of Narwhal and Jelly!
Rhino-B is a brash, but sweet guy. Stag-B is a calm and scholarly adventurer. Together these two young beetles make up the Bug Boys, best friends who spend their time exploring the world of Bug Village and beyond, as well as their own -- sometimes confusing and complicated -- thoughts and feelings.
In their first adventure, the Bug Boys travel through spooky caves, work with a spider…
Floretta- the story of an old woman who discovers life beautifully anew thru the helping hands of a child. The chakra colors of dawn and twilight are woven through the pages as the cycle of life is magically composed. The subject of “heaven,” has the potential to open discussions with…
I identify as agender and grew up in Oklahoma, one of the worst places to be trans or LGBTQ because of the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation that’s flying through the Oklahoma state legislature. Writing Ugliest, a book about teen activists fighting these laws, reminded me how important standing up for what’s right is and what powerful activists teens can be when they get together. This list has other books celebrating the strength of teens protesting and pushing against societal wrongs. Although some terrible things happen in these books—just like in the real world—reading them reminds us that fighting back is worth it.
This uplifting book made me hope for the future despite the challenges to human rights and fairness we constantly face. I love how Jasmine and Chelsea won’t accept being treated as second-rate just because they’re girls and figure out how to stand up for themselves within the school’s parameters with a blog.
The book includes the fierce essays and poems they post. The attention they get is good, then bad, and when they’re shut down by the administration, it’s so inspiring to see them take things to the next level. It’s such a powerful reminder that young people have the power to change things when they band together. It’s also a great story about how even good friendships are complicated, and everyone has to work for them.
A stirring and unputdownable read about what it means to be a woman today. Perfect for fans of Moxie and The Hate U Give.
'This stunning book is the story I've been waiting for my whole life; where girls rise up to claim their space with joy and power. I resolve to give a copy to every teenager I know!' Laurie Halse Anderson, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of SPEAK and SHOUT
'An extraordinary story of two indomitable spirits, the power of friendship, and what leadership looks like in the hands of young people today, Watch Us Rise…
