LIGHTS, CAMERA, DISASTER!

Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books  2018

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

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"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

CAPTAIN'S LOG: SNOWBOUND

Charlesbridge Publishers  2018

 When school gets cancelled due to a snowstorm and our main character can't give his report on Ernest Shackleton, our intrepid Captain begins chronicling his own adventures.

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What people are saying about CAPTAIN'S LOG

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"Entertaining--informative--utterly delightful!" -Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW

OLLIE & THE SCIENCE
OF TREASURE HUNTING

Dial Books 2014

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

MOXIE & THE ART

OF RULE BREAKING

Dial Books 2013

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 nominee

• 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

NOTES FROM

AN ACCIDENTAL
BAND GEEK

Dial Books 2011

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

• A 2012 Scholastic Book Fairs featured title

• Boston Author’s Club 2012 Highly Recommended title

What people are saying about NOTES

“Marching-band kids everywhere will enjoy this believable celebration of a life-changing, musical rite of passage.”-Kirkus 

THE TOTAL TRAGEDY OF

A GIRL NAMED HAMLET

Dial Books 2010

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

• A 2010 Scholastic Book Fairs Featured Title

• Starred Review, Library Media Connection magazine

• Featured in Girls’ Life and Disney’s Family Fun magazine

• 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

“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

MODELS DON'T EAT

CHOCOLATE COOKIES

Dial Books 2009

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:

“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

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