Author Erin Dionne
Words • Ideas • Inspiration
Novels for Tweens
Books that are perfect for tween readers. Order yours here.
A cool girl who's secretly a major geek has to figure out how to be true to herself in this relatable, funny, feminist novel from Erin Dionne.
Sarah Anne loves lacrosse, and the MK Nightshade series that everyone was obsessed over in grade school. The problem is that she's still obsessed, which is way too nerdy for a popular kid like her. So she hides her geekiness with a set of rules meant to keep her geek and jock selves separate. Except when she's offered a spot in a Nightshade fandom contest, where the winner gets to see the new movie premiere in LA. No one seems to think Sarah Anne can win, since she's up against a pair of guys in high school--but the more she's called a fake fan, the more determined she is to wipe the floor with her competition. As long as none of her friends or anyone at school knows what she's doing.Can she keep her geek identity a secret, win the contest, and manage to keep her friends even though she's been living a lie? Sarah Anne is going to have to make some choices about what's truly important to her and which rules she's going to break to stay true to herself.
Hester Greene loves making movies. With her camera in hand, she can focus, make decisions, and have the control she lacks in life, where her executive function disorder (think extreme ADHD plus anxiety) sabotages her every move. But middle school is not a movie, and if her last-ditch attempt to save her language-arts grade--and her chance to pass eighth grade, period--doesn't work, Hess could lose her friends, her year, even her camera. It will take more than a cool training montage to get her life together, but by thinking outside the frame, she just might craft a whole new ending. Written partially in script form, with STOP/PAUSE/PLAY/REWIND moments throughout, this laugh-out-loud story will speak to any budding filmmaker, or unintentional troublemaker, in every act of their lives.
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• A Junior Library Guild selection
What people are saying about LIGHTS, CAMERA, DISASTER:
"Through Hester’s thoughtful first-person narration, structured with “fast forward,” “pause,” and “resume play” asides, Dionne creates a flawed, lovable, sympathetic character who, thanks to her support network, is ultimately able to become “the director of [her] own story.” -Kirkus Reviews
Thirteen-year-old Ollie Truong wants a vacation. After getting involved with one of the biggest art heists in American history, he deserves a little down time—plus, he needs to get out of town so the FBI can wrap up its investigation. But his trip to Wilderness Scout Camp on the Boston Harbor islands is anything but relaxing: the discovery of ancient pirate treasure leads to a high stakes game of hide-n-seek.
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• Silver Falchion Award finalist
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What people are saying about OLLIE:
“A well-choreographed romp starring an engaging protagonist who richly deserves his turn in the spotlight.” – Kirkus Reviews
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*Note: Only available in e-book editions
Thirteen-year-old Moxie Fleece is in big trouble. She has two weeks to find something that Boston’s most powerful gangster, Sully Cupcakes, wants—or Sully will take his anger out on her family. It’s a race against the clock as Moxie and her best friend, Ollie, try to follow decades-old clues to solve one of Boston’s biggest mysteries: the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist.
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• A 2014 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award finalist, Juvenile category
• Selected for 2014 Dedham, MA Dedham Reads Together town reads program
• Selected for 2014 Groton, MA town reads program
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What people are saying about MOXIE:
“Teens will like Moxie and Ollie for their believable adolescent responses and admire them for their sophisticated Internet skills and geocaching expertise…” - Booklist
In order for 13-year-old French horn obsessed Elsie Wyatt to qualify for the prestigious summer music camp of her dreams, she must expand her musical horizons and lower her orchestral standards and join–gasp!–the marching band. Band is NOT orchestra: they march, they chant, they…cluck? Surviving marching band is going to be way harder than Elsie thought.
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A 2012 Texas Lone Star List title
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A 2012 Scholastic Book Fairs featured title
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Boston Author’s Club 2012 Highly Recommended title
What people are saying about NOTES FROM AN ACCIDENTAL BAND GEEK
“Marching-band kids everywhere will enjoy this believable celebration of a life-changing, musical rite of passage.”-Kirkus Reviews
Hamlet Kennedy just wants to be your average, happy, vanilla eighth grader. But with Shakespearean scholar parents who dress in Elizabethan regalia and generally go about in public as if it were the sixteenth century, that’s not terribly easy. It gets worse when they decide that Hamlet’s genius seven year- old sister will attend middle school with her— and even worse when the Shakespeare project is announced and her sister is named the new math tutor.
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2013 American Library Association Popular Paperback
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A 2010 Scholastic Book Fairs Featured Title
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Starred Review, Library Media Connection magazine
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Featured in Girls’ Life and Disney’s Family Fun magazine
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Appears on Texas Library Association’s Lone Star List, recommended title in 2011 Kansas National Education Association Reading Circle, Keystone State Reading Association 2011 title, Massachusetts Children’s Book Award list 2013-14
What people are saying about TOTAL TRAGEDY OF A GIRL NAMED HAMLET
“I totally, untragically LOVE Hamlet. She deals with the insanity of her life in a way that is hilarious and painful and made me cry big, goofy, happy tears. Huzzah for Hamlet Kennedy!”
–Lauren Myracle, author of TTYL and Thirteen
Thirteen-year-old Celeste Harris is no string bean, but comfy sweatpants and a daily chocolate cookie suit her just fine. Her under-the-radar lifestyle could have continued too, if her aunt hadn’t entered her in the HuskyPeach Modeling Challenge. To get out of it, she’s forced to launch Operation Skinny Celeste—because, after all, a thin girl can’t be a fat model! What Celeste never imagined was that losing weight would help her gain a backbone . . . or that all she needed to shine was a spotlight.
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• 2010 ALA Popular Paperback nominee.
• A 2009 Scholastic Book Fairs Featured title
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What people are saying about MODELS DON'T EAT CHOCOLATE COOKIES:
“The wry, funny tone makes this book a pleasurable read, and teens of all body types will enjoy Celeste's original voice.” --School Library Journal
