The Girl in the Wall by Daphne Benedis-Grab

What’s behind the “ nunya bidness door”? And is that a gun sticking out from Grandpop’s waistband? Reynolds’ middle-grade debut meanders like the best kind of summer vacation but never loses sense of its throughline. And he and Ernie will have to do chores, like picking peas and scooping dog poop.

Then, he breaks the model truck that’s one of the only things Grandma still has of his deceased uncle. Next, there’s no Internet, so the questions he keeps track of in his notebook (over 400 so far) will have to go un-Googled. The main characters, other than Jack, present White names signal ethnic diversity in the supporting cast.Įleven-year-old Brooklynite Genie has “worry issues,” so when he and his older brother, Ernie, are sent to Virginia to spend a month with their estranged grandparents while their parents “try to figure it all out,” he goes into overdrive.įirst, he discovers that Grandpop is blind.

The author links these diverging storylines in just the right places to drive the twists and turns, bolstering an underlying anti-bullying theme. Jack, who has a Vietnamese American father and White mother, experiences anti-Asian racism, and Henry’s father’s restaurant closed due to the pandemic, leaving the household financially insecure. Set after the Covid-19 lockdowns, the novel also addresses repercussions from the pandemic. There is an empathetic element that adds to this light thriller: Each student’s secret also offers a brief look into a common adolescent dilemma. In a setup similar to Benedis-Grab’s I Know Your Secret (2021), the four seemingly different middle schoolers must work together to recover the stolen backpack and thwart Sasha’s blackmail attempts. Through alternating narratives from each student’s perspective, readers learn they each have a hidden and plausible motive-and Sasha knows their secrets, too. Captured on video entering school early without permission, the four suspects must remain there until one of them confesses.

One of Us Is Lying for the middle-grade set.įour seventh graders-eager school paper reporter Nora, passionate artist Jack, talented dance team member Maddie, and perennial joker Henry-are placed in in-school suspension à la The Breakfast Club after the backpack belonging to Sasha, the PTA president’s daughter, is stolen.

The Girl in the Wall by Daphne Benedis-Grab