Emma Wunsch and Gail Donovan at Belmont Books

A princess and a self-described social justice advocate compete against and boycott each other until they discover they may be able to help each other if they could just get along.

It is the first day of school for Princess Miranda, and she does not want to be there. It smells like hard-boiled eggs (ugh), the principal is too loud, and everyone is whispering about her. Maude, however, loves going to school because she wants to “make sure things are equal for all people,” and the only way to do that is to be with “the People.” When Princess Miranda rejects Maude’s offer of a hard-boiled egg and then refuses the stinky handkerchief Maude extends after a sneeze, Maude thinks the princess is rude. When Maude draws a mean picture of her, Princess Miranda has had enough. She doesn’t invite Maude to her royal birthday party, which leads Maude to start a birthday boycott. This series opener is a short and sweet chapter book, decorated with von Innerebner’s child-friendly illustrations as well as the drawings that Maude makes in her journal. Wunsch weaves in lessons of empathy and withholding judgment in an accessible, nonpreachy way. She ably captures and expresses feelings of misunderstanding and loneliness, all while creating laugh-out-loud scenes in which the girls ramp up the competition. Miranda is depicted on the cover with brown skin and straight, dark brown hair; Maude has pale skin and a tousled mop of light brown hair.

This unlikely combination of royalty and social justice delivers fun, learning, and laughs.

Emma Wunsch is the author of The Movie Version, a young adult novel. She lives in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Visit her online at emmawunsch.com.

Finch has trouble paying attention in school. He’s just too busy dreaming about uncovering a dinosaur fossil and naming a new species after himself–until he digs up a note in the fifth-grade class garden with the word HELP on it. He is determined to come to the aid of the mystery note-writer. But when the quest turns out to be harder than expected, Finch risks losing two things that he really wants–his best friend Noah, and a field trip to Dinosaur State Park.

Acclaimed author Gail Donovan gets inside the hearts and minds of fifth graders on this journey told with unexpected humor and impressive insight.

Gail Donovan is the author of the middle-grade novels The Waffler, What’s Bugging Bailey Blecker?, and In Memory of Gorfman T. Frog, which was named a New York Public Library Best Books for Children. She is also the author of Rainbow Fish & Friends, a picture book series based on the bestselling books of Marcus Pfister. Donovan, who was born and raised in Connecticut, lives in Maine with her husband and two daughters, where, in addition to writing children’s books, she is a library assistant at the Portland Public Library.