The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Daniel is a poet who believes in fate, but is feeling trapped by his parents' expectations for his life. Natasha is rational, a science geek, who also loves music. She is not the kind of girl who would fall in love and let it change her life. But Daniel and Natasha are fated to meet and spend an incredible day together. Unfortunately, it is the day Natasha's family, who are undocumented immigrants, are scheduled to be deported to Jamaica. And it is the day that Daniel's Korean parents have scheduled his interview for Yale University. They meet and connect and the entire book takes place in that one day. Fans of romance will love this book--it's compulsively readable and the characters really come alive. And there are first-person snippets from other characters (real and inanimate) that make the book even more charming. Fans of realistic YA fiction (especially The Fault in Our Stars and Eleanor and Park) will love this book. Recommended for 8th grade-up.

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

At first this seemed just like a charming tale about a robot who finds herself on an island where she learns how to adapt to her surroundings, how to care for an abandoned gosling, and how to bring the island creatures together in a community. But later in the book the modern world comes into the story, larger issues come into play. This was an enjoyable book that made me think. I was surprised at how much I liked it. This would make a good read aloud for a middle grade classroom, and would also be good for book club discussions.

Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet

To call this book merely a biography of E.B. White would be to do it an injustice. Each page of this visual masterpiece is a work of art that incorporates original drawings, as well as quotes, letters, and New Yorker cartoons in order to bring to life the man most famous for writing Charlotte's Web. White, who also wrote for the New Yorker and other publications for many years and co-wrote The Elements of Style, wrote copious letters in his lifetime and left behind a lot of information for author/illustrator Melissa Sweet to pull together. It's a sophisticated book that will appeal to some children, but there is much here for readers of any age to enjoy. This work of art should be given to any adult who loves the New Yorker, who has ever referred to Strunk and White's Elements of Style, or who has ever read Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.

Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

Betty is a new girl in school, and she is more than a bully. She is a likely sociopath, who doesn't hesitate to kill a bird with her bare hands or to harm other children. Annabel becomes Betty's first victim, and is navigating how to handle the cruelty she sees and how to make adults believe her, when someone is gravely injured. Annabel knows that Betty is the most likely suspect, but Betty deftly throws the blame on Toby, a shell-shocked World War I veteran who is a fixture in the rural Pennsylvania community of Wolf Hollow. What follows is the complex, ominous, and haunting story of how Annabel tries to do the right thing when it is hard to know what the right thing is. This book will make you angry and sad, but will also inspire dialogue about how important it is to stand up for what's right. This is a book that students, teachers, and adults will all love. I would not be surprised to see this win a major book award for 2017.