A boy named Wyatt is quiet, despite how noisy he usually is, in this story told using opposites.

Superhero Jo Schmo has a problem: There aren’t any crimes to fight in San Francisco! So she and her doggy sidekick Raymond build a time machine and head back to the Gold Rush Days to track down the notorious burping outlaw Wyatt Burp. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing back in the present time. Two mean girls have it in for Jo, and they’re lying in wait for her with a wrecking ball. If Wyatt and his Hole in the Head gang don’t get her, Gertrude and Betty will. Look out, Jo!

Worser by Jennifer Ziegler

William Wyatt Orser, a socially awkward middle schooler, is a wordsmith who, much to his annoyance, acquired the ironically ungrammatical nickname of “Worser” so long ago that few people at school know to call him anything else. Worser grew up with his mom, a professor of rhetoric and an introvert just like him, in a comfortable routine that involved reading aloud in the evenings, criticizing the grammar of others, ignoring the shabby mess of their house, and suffering the bare minimum of social interactions with others. But recently all that has changed. His mom had a stroke that left her nonverbal, and his Aunt Iris has moved in with her cats, art projects, loud music, and even louder clothes. Home for Worser is no longer a refuge from the unsympathetic world at school that it has been all his life.

Eighth grader Wyatt Palmer’s primary goal on the class trip to Washington, D.C. is to avoid embarrassment in front of his dream girl, Suzana. That dream is crushed before they even get off the plane, when his best friend Matt notices two rather suspicious men seated behind them … and decides to steal their mysterious luggage. What do you get when you combine a bunch of hormonal thirteen-year-old boys and a perceived threat against the White House? You get in trouble—not just with the teachers, who are losing patience, but with the mysterious men from Row 11. In this funny, fast-paced adventure in the nation’s capital, Wyatt and his friends, including a fearless Suzana, try to stay out of danger (and out of the doghouse) while chasing down an enormous threat to national security … or so they think.

Earthquake Shock (Disaster Strikes series) by Marlane Kennedy, Illustrator: Erwin Madrid

It had seemed like the perfect California day. But as Joey Flores walked home from the skate park with his friends, the ground began to tremble, and Joey knew they were headed for trouble….The earthquake that followed devastated their neighborhood, collapsing a nearby overpass with Joey and Fiona on one side and Kevin and Dylan on the other. Now Joey and his friends must rescue each other, endure the aftershocks, and find a new way home as the earth cracks beneath their feet.

• Includes Character: Wyatt and Allison
• Ratings: Amazon-4.5  Goodreads-3.9
• 7-10 year olds or 2nd-5th
• Lexile Measure: 730L

 

There’s no doubt about it: Beck Phillips’s life has taken a turn for the weird.  Things are not as bad as the wandering lights Beck sees flickering in the darkened hallways, or the mysteriously buried basement, or even the bizarre new power he seems to have discovered–Beck can make things grow. It seems like a strange gift to have, until he discovers a forbidden conservatory in the woods. What he finds inside will test his newfound power and his courage to their limits.

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