Friendship, Family, and Finding Your Place: Hilarious & Heartfelt Stories

Aimee Lucido is a software engineer and diversity advocate at Uber and a graduate of Hamline's MFAC program. Women in technology is a subject close to her heart, and she brings this passion to the page. In her spare time, she does musical improv and writes crossword puzzles. She is the author of Emmy in the Key of Code (Versify).  In this innovative middle grade novel, coding and music take center stage as new girl Emmy tries to find her place in a new school. In a new city, at a new school, twelve-year-old Emmy has never felt more out of tune. Things start to look up when she takes her first coding class, unexpectedly connecting with the material—and Abigail, a new friend—through a shared language: music. But when Emmy gets bad news about their computer teacher, and finds out Abigail isn’t being entirely honest about their friendship, she feels like her new life is screeching to a halt. Despite these obstacles, Emmy is determined to prove one thing: that, for the first time ever, she isn’t a wrong note, but a musician in the world's most beautiful symphony.

Maulik Pancholy is an award-winning actor whose career has spanned hit television shows (30 Rock, Whitney), animated favorites (Phineas and Ferb, Sanjay and Craig), the Broadway stage, and films. He served on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and he is the cofounder of the anti-bullying campaign Act to Change. The Best At It (Balzer + Bray), is Maulik Pancholy’s funny and heartfelt middle grade debut novel about a gay Indian American boy coming into his own. As Rahul Kapoor heads into seventh grade in a small town in Indiana, the start of middle school makes him feel increasingly anxious. Then his favorite person in the whole world, his grandfather, Bhai, gives him some well-meaning advice: Find one thing you’re really good at and become the BEST at it. While Rahul is not quite sure what that special thing is, he is convinced that once he finds it, bullies will stop torturing him at school and things will change. But what if he discovers he isn’t the best at anything? Funny, charming, and incredibly touching, this is a story about friendship, family, and the courage it takes to live your truth. In a starred review Kirkus highlighted how “The protagonist’s devastatingly honest voice pulls readers deeply into a fast-paced journey [...] heartbreakingly authentic.”

Stacy DeKeyser is the author of The Brixen Witch, which received two starred reviews and was a Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Pick, and its sequel, One Witch at a Time, as well as the young adult novel Jump the Cracks and two nonfiction books for young readers. She is the author of The Rhino in Right Field (Margaret K. McElderry Books). Nick wants to change his life. For twelve years, he’s done what his hard-working, immigrant parents want him to do. Now he’s looking for his own American dream and he thinks he’s found it. The local baseball team is having a batboy contest, and Nick wants to win. But the contest is on a Saturday—the day Nick has to work in his father’s shop. There’s one other tiny—well, not so tiny—problem. A 2,000-pound rhinoceros named Tank. Nick and his friends play ball in the city zoo—and Tank lives just beyond the right-field fence. Nick’s experience getting the ball out of Tank’s pen has left him frozen with fear whenever a fly ball comes his way. How’s a lousy fielder going to win the contest? Nick will need to keep his eye on the ball in this fast, funny story about a game that can throw you some curveballs—just like life!