Boy have there been some great new middle grade books out in September 2025. Here are two of my favorites.
The first one is called Three Blue Hearts and it's by Lynne Kelly. This is Lynne's fourth book and although I loved her others, I think this one might be my favorite. It's about Max, who lives in the shadow of his dad, who is a local politician. Max wants his dad to be proud of him, but Max likes different things than his dad-his dad likes sports and being the center of attention and Max likes animals and small groups. So Max decides to go spend the summer with his mom on a small island where she is doing some scientific research and after a particularly embarrassing viral video event, decides to change his name to Milo so no one will recognize him. There is a big storm the first night Max and his mom are there and in the morning, he decides to go for a walk on the beach and finds an octopus stranded on the shore. He wants to rescue the octopus but doesn't really know what to do. Luckily, there's another boy out for a walk on the beach and tells Max that there is a veterinarian right next to his house. The two boys take the octopus to the vet and they are able to save and Max bonds with octopus and makes friends with Emmett, who has a Youtube show called "Stuff I Found on the Beach" and Ollie, who is the daughter of the veterinarian. The story has big themes of friendship and loyalty and supporting your friends but also recognizing who someone really is instead of trying to make them into something else. It has lots of information about octopuses and chimpanzees and oceans. I really liked the characters in this story and I think kids are going to love reading!
The second one is a sequel and I don't usually read more than one book in a series because there are so many other things to be read! However, I LOOOOVVED the first one, so I knew, if there was another one, I was totally going to read it and it did NOT disappoint. It's called The Poisoned King by Katherine Rundell (the first, completely amazing one is called Impossible Creatures and if you haven't read it, you should drop what you're doing and go to the library or bookstore immediately). "The Poisoned King" picks up the story some time after the end of Impossible Creatures and some of the characters return, but there is a new main character who is just wonderful. The story opens with Christopher, who is summoned by a jacculus, a tiny but fierce dragon named Jacques, who tells Christopher that there is an urgent need for him to be in the Glimouria Archipelago, a place where magic and magical creatures exist. Christopher's grandfather is a Gatekeeper and Christopher will also be a Gatekeeper. Jaques tells Christopher that dragons are dying and that Christopher has to come and save them. Christopher leaves immediately and is met by an old friend, Naravirala, a sphinx. Naravirala has also been recruited by Jacques to help the dragons and Naravirala tells him about a girl that Christopher is meant to help and so they set off. At the same time, a girl named Anya is in big trouble. She and her dad (the crown prince) have been living a life of scientific study and research on magical plants and animals of the kingdom. They have lived far from the castle and Anya loves being outside and is especially fond of the gagana, big, black, talking birds that weren't always nice and have a fairly strong odor. But someone was trying to steal a gagana egg and Anya was determined not to let that happen. After this altercation, Anya and her father are summoned to the castle where Anya is expected to behave like a princess and wear beautiful clothes and take lessons in things she's not really interested in. She does, only to please her father, but when her grandfather is poisoned and her father is accused of the murder, she flees, believing that her uncle has poisoned her grandfather and intends to kill her too, so he can take the throne. As with "Impossible Creatures", part of what makes this story great is the path the solution and the characters along the way. There are themes of family and loyalty, of love, of respect, of revenge and finding justice, there's also deep respect for science and research in a world of magical creatures. The other part about this book that's great is the illustrations. It's a chapter book so there aren't a lot of illustrations (in the e-book that I got as an advanced readers copy) but what I saw was stunning-the images reminded me of NC Wyeth's work, which I suppose was purposeful since Wyeth is famous for his illustrations of fairy tales and this is definitely a fairy tale. I can't wait to put this one into someone's hands!
Here's a little interview with Katherine about "The Poisoned King".
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