Middle Grade Books by Liana Gardner
Middle Grade readers are near and dear to Liana Gardner's heart. The journey of self-discovery, learning who you are and who you want to be, is a difficult one fraught with emotional peaks and valleys. Casting behind childhood and looking toward adulthood, and yet being caught somewhere in the middle, trying to expand horizons and gain confidence in self. Liana's work in the Middle Grade arena touches on these areas, as well as the types of situations encountered by this wonderful group. Fitting in, standing out, relationships, bullies, divorce, loss, and more will be found between the pages, overlaid with humor, and sometimes a smidge of magic.
Dennis Alexander: Washington Academy Middle School promises to be another in the long line of boring schools he has been expelled from.
Rhonda Snodgrass: Although trained from childhood in survival tactics, she tries to stay off the radar of the “cool” kids who think she’s weird.
7th grade turns out to be anything but normal when teachers announce the students’ bloodless revolution succeeded and they are now in charge. After conducting a secret-ballot vote on policy, the 7th graders emerge to find the school evacuated and the FBI lurking outside with the task of unearthing a treasure of national importance.
The students’ mission is clear—discover the treasure before the FBI locks down the building. Dennis and Rhonda lead the revolt and must work together to follow century-old clues left by a crazy Revolutionary War buff.
To stay one step ahead of the FBI, they must delve into history and amass an arsenal to defend their school … because this is WAR!
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I have great power.
That’s what she told me. The old fortune-teller at the school carnival.
I thought I was doing the right thing … with the magic journal she gave me. But nothing could prepare me for what happened next.
Or, for what I unleashed.
At a school carnival, a mysterious fortune-teller gives twelve-year-old Angela Ashby a journal and warns her to use it wisely. Nothing prepares Angela for the journal’s power—when she pours her heart onto its pages her desires come true.
She tests the journal by conjuring a gnome, a unicorn, and a farting fairy and then uses it to stop the school bullies in their tracks. But the unintended consequences alienate her best friend and puts her favorite teacher in danger of losing her job.
After she shares her deepest desire of all—that her parents get back together—her adversary steals the journal, and Angela fears she will use it to bring mayhem to the entire school if she doesn’t get it back.
Rain Falling on Embers is the first book in the Falling on Embers Series.
How do you survive the worst thing that can ever happen?
When thirteen-year-old Katie McCabe’s dad gets sick and is hospitalized, she’s sent to live with her uncle in a strange town. But within days of arriving, her dad unexpectedly dies.
Struggling with her new reality, Katie is lost. She doesn't fit in at her new home and never will.
It only gets worse when Katie begins to have run-ins with the son of the man who owns the town—a dangerous man with ties to her family’s past.
And then one day, she is attacked from behind. Blindfolded and slung across the back of a horse, Katie is taken up into the hills. Dumped in the middle of nowhere in an oncoming storm, she is left to find her way home. But first she has to survive.
The Secret of the Red Key is the first book in the The Homeless Myths Series and is the current work in progress.
Five homeless kids struggle to survive the streets of Los Angeles and wind up as key players in a battle against mythological creatures to break a curse that will restore a fallen star and give humanity a second chance.