Battle of the Books 2026-2027

Mountain of Fire by Rebecca E. F. Barone (Non-Fiction)
Mountain of Fire is the narrative nonfiction account of the violent volcanic eruption of Mount St.
Helens on May 18, 1980, the story of the people who died, those who survived, and the heroes who
fought to raise an alarm.
For weeks, the ground around Mount St. Helens shuddered like a dynamite keg ready to explode.
There were legends of previous eruptions: violent fire, treacherous floods, and heat that had
scoured the area. But the shaking and swelling was unlike any volcanic activity ever seen before.
Day and night, scientists tried to piece together the mountain's clues--yet nothing could prepare
them for the destruction to come.

Code Name Kingfisher by Liz Kessler (Historical Fiction)
Through the letters and other mementos, Liv learns that her bubbe, given name Mila, had a sister,
Hannie, that no one in Liv's family ever knew about. In 1942, Mila and Hannie are sent away from
their parents to a non-Jewish family so they will survive the war. Twelve-year-old Mila believes
that they will soon be reunited with their parents and go back to their normal lives, but fourteenyear-
old Hannie knows better, and soon gets involved in the Resistance. Hannie takes on more
and more dangerous assignments until a betrayal forces her to decide between running away
with her sister or fully committing to mission. Tragedy strikes, and Mila goes to England on her
own to restart her life from scratch, vowing never to talk about her childhood again.

Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang (Graphic novel)
In this unique and engaging graphic novel, Vietnamese American high schooler Valentina Tran
has always loved giving handmade cards to her widower father and classmates on her
namesake holiday. She is assisted by her "best imaginary friend," Saint V (for Valentine), initially
shown in the illustrations as a classic winged baby surrounded by cartoon hearts. This year her
spirits are crushed when her dad storms off, and a classmate, Jae, trashes her card. Worse,
Grandma reveals that Valentina's father lied about her mother's supposed death and, later, that
their entire family is romantically cursed. Valentina despairs until she meets two cute lion dancers
at a Tt (Lunar New Year) celebration and dates one of them. Is the relationship real? Or will
Valentina give her heart to Saint Valentine to be safe from the pain of love?

Bringing Back Kay-Kay by Dev Kothari (Mystery Fiction)
When her older brother, Karthik--Kay-Kay, the golden child of the family--heads to camp for two
weeks, Lena's parents begin showering her with all the attention she craves. For a time, she's the
golden child and secretly wishes her brother wouldn't come home. But when the scheduled train
arrives and Karthik isn't on it, Lena is stricken with guilt and fear for her beloved Kay-Kay. Her
brother has vanished without a trace, and the police view him as a runaway. Incredulous, Lena
undertakes a search of her own--reading mysterious poems left in his backpack, interrogating
his fellows from the train, retracing his route, and encountering shadowy strangers along the way.
Convinced Kay-Kay is still alive even when the rest of her family has given up, Lena steadily
unearths her brother's secrets as her determination to bring him home leads to a heart-stopping
discovery. Perhaps Kay-Kay isn't a golden child after all?

Louder Than Hunger by John Schu (Realistic Fiction)
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. Jake has read
about kids like him in books--the weird one, the outsider--and would do anything not to be that
kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. 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, Louder than Hunger is a triumph of raw honesty. With a deeply personal afterword for
context, this much-anticipated verse novel is a powerful model for muffling the destructive voices
inside, managing and articulating pain, and embracing self-acceptance, support, and love.

Blood in the Water by Tiffany D Jackson (Thriller)
This summer, beware of sharks...
Brooklyn girl Kaylani McKinnon feels like a fish out of water. She's spending the summer with
family friends in their huge house on Martha's Vineyard, and the vibe is definitely snooty. Still,
there are beautiful beaches, lots of ice cream, and a town full of fascinating Black history. Plus a
few kids her age who seem friendly. Until the shocking death of a popular teenage boy rocks the
community to its core. Was it a drowning? A shark attack? Or the unthinkable--murder? Kaylani is
determined to solve the mystery. But her investigation leads her to uncover shocking secrets that
could change her own life as she knows it... if she survives.

Boy 2.0 by Tracey Babtiste (Science Fiction)
Win "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?

We Are Big Time by Hena Khan (Sports Fiction)
SWISH! Cheer courtside for a Muslim teen in this graphic novel-inspired by a true story-as she
joins an all-girls, hijab-wearing basketball team and learns that she's much more than a score.
Aliya is new to Wisconsin, and everything feels different than Florida. The Islamic school is bigger,
the city is colder, and her new basketball team is... well, they stink. Aliya's still excited to have
teammates (although Noura's not really Aliya's biggest fan) and their new coach really
understands basketball (even if she doesn't know much about being Muslim.) This season should
be a blast...if they could just start to win.

The Last Ember by Lily Berlin Dodd (Fantasy FIction)
Aerimanders are extinct. Or so the government would have you think. Centuries ago, the Kingdom
of Glaucus decreed the destruction of these dangerous, dragon-like creatures whose deadly
flame could level entire cities and upend world orders.
But when twelve-year-old Eva Alexander, a wealthy chemistry student in the city of Porttown,
walks into a fashionable department store and walks out (accidentally) with the world's last
aerimander egg, everything changes. Suddenly, Eva is the target of unwanted attention--
including from the Thieves' Union, a mysterious organization with a rebellious streak and fingers in
every pie in Porttown. The Union orders its youngest member, the orphaned dairy delivery boy
Dusty St. Ichabod, to steal the egg from Eva. Which is far easier said than done.

An Ocean Apart by Jill Tew (Dystopian Fiction)
Eden Lowell has plenty to be frustrated about. In the flooded Marshes of former Miami, each day is
about survival. Even her feelings for her best friend Henry are more complicated than they should
be. Luckily, Eden knows exactly who to blame: the Cruisers, corporate elite who sail the world on
massive ships instead of facing the environmental crimes they've committed on land.
When Eden learns that a Cruiser family is hosting a dating competition for their heir, Theo
Desjardins, she seizes an opportunity. Aided by a political agitator known as the Ringmaster, she'll
infiltrate the competition, break Theo's heart, and then steal his money for the Marshes. A perfect
plan, until she gets to know Theo, who's not only handsome but surprisingly kind.

The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Septys and Steve Sheinkin (Historical Fiction)
Remember, you are bound by the Official Secrets Act...
Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister, Lizzie, share a love of
riddles and puzzles. And now they're living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves
amid one of the greatest secrets of World War II--Britain's eccentric codebreaking factory at
Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley's top minds to crack the Nazi's Enigma cipher, fourteenyear-
old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother.

Bonebag by EM Elliott and David Elliott (Horror FIction)
Trapped in a dark forest with his cold-hearted parents, Bonebag leads a cruel and isolated
existence. However, he feels deep in his bones that things weren't always this way: he has known
happiness before. Why does it feel like it was in a past life? When Bonebag discovers a locket that
burns him to the touch, and a ghostly girl beckons him into the deep woods, he must grapple with
the riddle of where he came from and how he came to be. Only then can he begin to rewrite his
fate.