MIDDLE GRADE FICTION

Newbery award-winning author Richard Peck called Grandma Dowdel an “American tall-tale in a Lane Bryant dress.” In 1958, A Season Of Gifts (Dial, $16.99), Bob Barnhart and family move next door to Mrs. Dowdel, and quickly learn that she “doesn’t neighbor.” The shotgun-wielding octogenarian is always ready with a hilarious solution to any problem, especially for a preacher’s kid in a town swarming with bullies. Bob’s family learns that there are many ways of giving gifts. Ages 10-14. Jewell Stoddard

During the Depression, ten-year-old Annie’s family moves from their apartment to a real house in the idyllic-sounding neighborhood of Strawberry Hill (Little, Brown, $15.99) Annie is disappointed to discover that there are no strawberries, but there is anti-Semitism and poverty, and the dynamics of friendship among girls can be difficult.  This beautifully written story by Children’s Poet Laureate Mary Ann Hoberman is a good old-fashioned friendship tale with charming illustrations by Wendy Anderson Halperin.  Ages 8-11.  Dara La Porte

Sherri Smith’s Ida Mae Jones eschews the easy life when she signs up to be a Flygirl (Putnam, $16.99) in the WWII Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), a government program in which female pilots flew supplies to non-combat zones. But Ida has a secret. This exciting narrative traces Ida’s ascent as she stretches the truth about who she is in order to do what she loves. Ages 13-16. Malaika Robinson