2017 Books for Kids & Teens Holiday Gift Guide

To be included in the books for kids and teens holiday gift guide, please contact us at jenna@theoutspokenyam.com

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The Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mysteries

The game’s afoot in this fast-paced Victorian mystery series!

The Jubilee Problem

The year is 1897. Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James, his lovely young American daughter, must finally unmask the traitor who has crossed swords with them in their three previous adventures. Their secret adversary is now masterminding a well-orchestrated conspiracy to destroy the most glamorous event of the Century: Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Celebration. Lucy’s growing relationship with Detective Constable Jack Kelly will be seriously tested as she and Jack work with Sherlock and Watson to defeat their murderous enemy. If they fail, the Queen and thousands of innocent people will die, and the British Empire will fall into chaos.

The Crown Jewel Mystery

This novella is the prequel to The Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery series. It takes place three days before the opening of The Last Moriarty.

Remember, Remember

A lovely young American actress has a major problem.

It’s a cold morning in 1897 when she awakens outside the British Museum, lying face down on the concrete pavement . She has no memories. She does not even know who she is, although she has a vague recollection of the name Sherlock Holmes. She thinks she may have just killed someone, and she knows someone wants to kill her. As she searches for clues to her true identity, she will learn that she is not the only target. Unless she can defeat her evil adversaries, the people most dear to her will die.

 

Little and Lion  by Brandy Colbert

A stunning novel on love, identity, loss, and redemption.

When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she’s isn’t sure if she’ll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (as well as her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.

But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new…the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel’s disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself–or worse.

 

 

The Original Ginny Moon  by Benjamin Ludwig

Full of great big heart and unexpected humor, Ludwig’s debut introduces the lovable, wholly original Ginny Moon who discovers a new meaning of family on her unconventional journey home.

Ginny Moon is exceptional. Everyone knows it—her friends at school, teammates on the basketball team, and especially her new adoptive parents. They all love her, even if they don’t quite understand her. They want her to feel like she belongs.

What they don’t know is that Ginny has no intention of belonging. She’s found her birth-mother on Facebook, and is determined to get back to her—even if it means going back to a place that was extremely dangerous. Because Ginny left something behind and she’s desperate to get it back, to make things right.

But no one listens. No one understands. So Ginny takes matters into her own hands…

Benjamin Ludwig’s whip-smart, unforgettable novel is an illuminating look at one girl’s journey to find her way home and one of the freshest debuts in years.

 

Erased, Vol. 1  by Kei Sanbe

Twenty-nine-year-old Satoru Fujinuma is floundering through life. Amid his daily drudgery, he finds himself in the grip of an incredible, inexplicable, and uncontrollable phenomenon that rewinds time, a condition that seems to only make his drab life worse. But then, one day, everything changes. A terrible incident forever changes Satoru’s life as he knows it…and with it, comes a “Revival” that sends Satoru eighteen years into the past!
In the body of his boyhood self, Satoru encounters sights he never imagined he would see again–the smile of his mother, alive and well, his old friends, and Kayo Hinazuki, the girl who was kidnapped and murdered when he was a boy the first time around. To return to the present and prevent the tragedy that brought him back to his childhood in the first place, Satoru begins plotting a way to change Hinazuki’s fate…But up against the clock and a faceless evil, does eleven-year-old Satoru even stand a chance?

 

 

All The Feels  by Danika Stone

Readers who understand the power of fandom will devour this funny and emotional novel about nerd culture, struggling with college, and falling in love with your best friend.

College freshman Liv is more than just a fangirl: The Starveil movies are her life. When her favorite character is killed off, Liv Just. Can’t. Deal. She launches an online campaign to bring her hero back to life. Step one: Bribe her best friend, Xander, into helping by making costumes for his steampunk cosplay. Step two: Balance her booming fandom life with school, parental disapproval, and her (nonexistent) love life. Maybe a trip to Dragon Con with Xander would help?

Danika Stone’s All the Feels, chosen by readers like you for Macmillan’s young adult imprint Swoon Reads, is a heartfelt and honest look at life, love and what it means to be a passionate fan.

 

 

We Are The Dinosaurs  by Laurie Berkner

Laurie Berkner, “the queen of children’s music,” (People) pairs the lyrics of her beloved hit with Ben Clanton’s whimsical illustrations in this winning, adorable picture book—a must-have for fans of Laurie, dinosaurs, and all things cute.

We are the dinosaurs
Marching, marching
We are the dinosaurs

Laurie Berkner’s chart-topping, beloved hit “We Are the Dinosaurs” is now a picture book! Featuring an adorable cast of characters and vibrant, playful art by Ben Clanton, We Are the Dinosaurs transports readers back in time to when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

WHADDAYA THINK OF THAT?

 

 

York: The Shadow Cypher by Laura Ruby

From National Book Award finalist and Printz Award winner Laura Ruby comes an epic alternate history series about three kids who try to solve the greatest mystery of the modern world: a puzzle and treasure hunt laid into the very streets and buildings of New York City.

It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher—a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is little more than a tourist attraction.

Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr apartment—until a real estate developer announces that the city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long held by the people of New York. And if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.

 

The Someday Birds by Sally J. Pla

The Someday Birds is a debut middle grade novel perfect for fans of Counting by 7s and Fish in a Tree, filled with humor, heart, and chicken nuggets.

Charlie’s perfectly ordinary life has been unraveling ever since his war journalist father was injured in Afghanistan.

When his father heads from California to Virginia for medical treatment, Charlie reluctantly travels cross-country with his boy-crazy sister, unruly brothers, and a mysterious new family friend. He decides that if he can spot all the birds that he and his father were hoping to see someday along the way, then everything might just turn out okay.

Debut author Sally J. Pla has written a tale that is equal parts madcap road trip, coming-of-age story for an autistic boy who feels he doesn’t understand the world, and an uplifting portrait of a family overcoming a crisis.

 

 

Box Loader: The Adventures of Cargo & R-Cycle

Box Loader: The Adventures of Cargo and R-Cycle is a fun and adventurous picture book for kids young and old. It’s an inspirational book full of life lessons about teamwork, friendship, overcoming challenges, and saving the planet through good stewardship. Come along with our main characters on this epic journey of courage and magical discovery of the human heart.

If you haven’t already, please be sure to visit our website: www.cnoteenterprises.com. Check out our YouTube channel and download the apps Idea Pitch, Box Loader, and Weather Wiggy for free in the App Store and Google Play.

The Building Boy by Ross Montgomery

All at once, it was as if the stars leapt closer.

Grandma grabbed the boy, raising him high above the rooftiles on her head.

She was alive!

The boy’s grandma was a famous architect. Her garden is still full of old building materials. Unwilling to accept she has gone, the boy builds a giant structure from the bricks and girders he finds. And then … Grandma comes to life! The boy is whisked away on an epic adventure across fields, through oceans and atop roofs. But where is Grandma taking him?

Beautiful, thrilling and extremely moving: the extraordinary debut picture book with beautiful illustrations from bestselling illustrator David Lichfield.

The Hazel Wood  by Melissa Albert

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: Her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother’s stories are set. Alice’s only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”

Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother’s tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong.

 

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

Sixteen-year-old Mina is motherless, her magician father is vicious, and her silent heart has never beat with love for anyone―has never beat at all, in fact, but she’d always thought that fact normal. She never guessed that her father cut out her heart and replaced it with one of glass. When she moves to Whitespring Castle and sees its king for the first time, Mina forms a plan: win the king’s heart with her beauty, become queen, and finally know love. The only catch is that she’ll have to become a stepmother.

Fifteen-year-old Lynet looks just like her late mother, and one day she discovers why: a magician created her out of snow in the dead queen’s image, at her father’s order. But despite being the dead queen made flesh, Lynet would rather be like her fierce and regal stepmother, Mina. She gets her wish when her father makes Lynet queen of the southern territories, displacing Mina. Now Mina is starting to look at Lynet with something like hatred, and Lynet must decide what to do―and who to be―to win back the only mother she’s ever known…or else defeat her once and for all.

Entwining the stories of both Lynet and Mina in the past and present, Girls Made of Snow and Glass traces the relationship of two young women doomed to be rivals from the start. Only one can win all, while the other must lose everything―unless both can find a way to reshape themselves and their story.

Dudley and the Toy Keeper‘s Chest  by Patrick Algermissen

This is the story of Dudley the lamb, the only toy ever created by the world’s finest toy mender. Dudley’s nemesis, the evil wooden wolf Silas, has been terrorizing the store where they live. When Silas turns his menacing teeth toward Dudley’s creator, the little lamb must defend his home.

 

Anne Bonnie Volume #1: The Journey Begins  by Yates, Mumme, Miller

Pirates, magic and adventure collide in this action-packed all-ages series from Blue Juice Comics and Tim Yates. The Great Sea is still in chaos after the mysterious disappearance of the Pirate Queen Anne Bonnie, and danger lurks over every crest. Join Ariana aboard a stolen magical pirate ship on her quest to become the world’s greatest pirate. Along the way she’ll make new friends – and enemies – and learn what being a pirate really means. Set sail for adventure in the first 6-issue arc of ANNE BONNIE: THE JOURNEY BEGINS! And when she’s through, the Sea will never be the same again!

 

 

Æther & Empire Volume #1: Eternal Glory  by Horan, Dazo, Yates

At the height of Victoria’s reign, a scientific expedition to Mars has vanished and the daring rescue mission is now a race against time and space. When control is wrested from fellow scientists and given to a heroic crew of Her Majesty s Navy, can the two groups work together to save the men of the first voyage? Jules Verne meets Star Trek in Æther & Empire, a tale of adventure, mystery, and terror from Blue Juice Comics! This volume collects Issues 1-6 of the comic book.

 

 

Before We Go Extinct by Karen Rivers

 

Grief can sometimes feel like being caught in the jaws of a great white shark.

J.C., who goes by the nickname Sharky, has been having a hard time ever since his best friend died in front of him in what might or might not have been an accident. Shell-shocked, Sharky spends countless hours holed up in his room, obsessively watching documentaries about sharks and climate change―and texting his dead friend.

Hoping a change of location will help, Sharky’s mom sends him to visit his dad on a remote island in Canada. There, Sharky meets a girl who just may show him how to live―and love―again.

Cutie Meets Mr. Lizard  by Felicia DI John

Cutie’s Big Adventures, Cutie Meets Mr. lizard is a Cutie Book Series for children, written by Felicia Di John and illustrated by Terence Gaylor.

We meet the adorable rescue dog Cutie, a sweet, curious, adventurous chihuahua who lives in a house in the desert. She is a little dog who thinks she is big. Cutie is never happy when her mom leaves her for school because that means she will be home all alone. So today, Cutie decides to go outdoors by herself to play. She explores the desert around her, makes a new friend, and finds that some animals eat strange things. She is having so much fun that she almost forgets to get back home before her mom arrives.