Summer Reading for Middle School: Holly Black

The first in a trilogy, this gritty, fast-paced fantasy is rife with the unexpected. When Cassel Sharpe discovers that his older brothers have used him to carry out their criminal schemes and then stolen his memories, he figures out a way to turn their evil machinations against them.

Sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been visited by faeries since childhood, discovers that she herself is a magical faerie creature with a special destiny.

Seventeen-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City and befriends a group of very unusual characters who live in the city's subway tunnels and soon finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus.

Eleven-year-old Nicholas Vargas's life is turned upside-down when his father remarries and moves him and his new family to Florida; but when an expedition to a nearby lake turns up a little nixie, Nick, his brother Julian, and step-sister Laurie have to figure out a way to stop a horde of rampaging giants.

When the Grace children go to stay at their Great Aunt Lucinda's worn Victorian house, they discover a field guide to fairies and other creatures and begin to have some unusual experiences.