JFIC Stand Alone Books

"Twists, turns, and surprises await four friends as they form their new chess club and make it through middle school."--

5 stars

Eleven-year-old Chester and his classmate Skye, tasked with a complex puzzle-solving mission, discover the key to their spy assignment is to stop a heist, but cracking the code could mean finding out things are not always what they seem.

4.3 stars

A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.

"Viktor Valentine can't think of a better way to end his summer vacation than playing All the Vampires Everywhere, his favorite video game, with his best friend, Damon. Yet his parents, who make cringey jokes and call him dorky nicknames, seem set on ruining his plans. Viktor knows he can't really compete with Damon's 'cool' friends--so their epic video game playing is the best Viktor can do to come close to being cool in Damon's eyes. But then Viktor...

4 stars

"Quinn Knight, a new sixth grader at Hill Springs Middle School in Central Texas, has always been a little different. Not only is she an astrophotographer who battles chronic migraine headaches, she's recently discovered that the stars--those in the Pleiades constellation, to be exact--are trying to tell her something. Someone is threatening Quinn's older sister, eighth-grade social butterfly Vivica, and Quinn realizes the clever constellation is...

Through letters he writes in his journal, thirteen-year-old Amos finds a confidant in a queer historical figure from the Civil War.

4 stars

When they are separated at sea, mouse siblings Clarice and Charles Sebastian, who were taught to be careful, must now need to be bold if they are to survive--and keep their promise to find one another again.

4.8 stars

Feeling most alive when he's playing the blues with his grandfather, Clayton is devastated when his grandfather dies and his mother forbids him from playing music, losses that compel him to run away and join bluesmen on the road.

5 stars

Told in two voices, sixth-grade cousins Hannah and Cal learn a lot about family when circumstances throw them together under one roof and Hannah's love of order clashes with Cal's chaotic behavior.

"A young boy, his great-uncle, and a friendly gorilla from the London Zoo uncover a Nazi plot in wartime Britain"--