94 books like Drew Leclair Gets a Clue

Sal Vidon just misses his mom.

It’s a timeless story of a kid healing, but with a twist where Sal can pull things out of alternate dimensions.

He navigates the weirdness of his abilities with a grace and humor that is as refreshing as it is endearing. It’s hard not to root for this troublemaker with a heart of gold.

Not to mention, the book has a seriously great main character counterpart to Sal in Gabi Real. 

I instantly became of fan of Mira, a STEM-loving pre-teen who is dealing with a lot: her best friend moving away, a very sick cat she adores, and her father’s depression after losing his job. At first, she thinks her big brain has to be the key to unlocking how to solve her troubles, but over the course of the chapters, she realizes that opening her heart to new friends and modeling true perseverance goes a lot farther. This book has so much sweetness and humor, but it's not fluff. Every page feels like a real kid dealing with real stuff and trying to use whatever she can to help her family through a really tough time. 

Most space adventures for middle grade readers are totally sci-fi fantasies, but this one is so realistic and well-researched, it’s like a genre of its own. The main character, Fin, is 12 years old and he’s surrounded by other brilliant kids who are part of the StellarKid Project for young inventors. They all have the opportunity to go to space with NASA, but someone is trying to sabotage them. It takes a lot of brain power for the kids to save themselves when everything goes wrong in orbit, but even more than that, it takes teamwork, which requires each of them to face their fears. I felt like I was holding my breath for the entire second half of the book, so you know I was into it.

An orphan who lives in the ceiling of New York's Natural History Museum, an oddball detective, a society of secret sleuths, and a race to find a stolen rare jewel to prove one's innocence, The Curious League is a love letter to classic middle-grade detective stories.

Truly madcap, this book will have kids in stitches and is a perfect read-aloud. It's also a series, so readers can jump right into book 2.

It’s obvious from the first page that Barbara Carroll Roberts has spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours in stuffy gyms. Her know-how of the AAU circuit and the politics of competitive middle school basketball seep into the story in a way that will be recognized by current players.

I loved that aspect of the story, but even more, I loved the way this book honors the range of real-life issues affecting a player off the court, whether it’s the financial constraints due to being raised by a single parent or how differently a family tree project resonates when your dad is a sperm donor. Readers will find it impossible not to root for Nikki.

I finished this novel in a day, simply because of its incredible portrayal of emotion. Clues to the Universe follows Ro and Benji, two kids who couldn’t be more different. And yet, through circumstances of loss (and a class partnership), they find solace in a new friendship. Although it’s set firmly on the ground—based in the 1980s, on the heels of the Space Race—this book would appeal to the dreamers everywhere, the scientists and artists alike. Ro and Benji have a great dynamic, and while they lost their dads in very different ways, the grief is shared. A truly wonderful read!   

I love everything written by Jack Gantos, but the Joey Pizga series is so fun.

With his unnamed diagnosis (most likely ADHD), Joey is often wild and impulsive and gets into all sorts of trouble.

My son has moaned that I bring home too many books about kids having a hard time, and Joey Pizga is a kid who has struggles, but his difficulties are balanced by the funny and shocking situations into which he gets himself. And he wants so much to be better!

As the title suggests, this book asks readers to think about how to tell when action is required to bring justice to a situation. Mila finds herself on the receiving end of unwanted attention from boys in her class, but her friends tell her she’s overreacting. What’s a hug or a touch from a boy? It’s all just playful flirting, right? But it doesn’t feel playful or fun to Mila. In the end, Mila sets the record straight and makes her feelings heard. The ending features a restorative circle, which is an in-school version of the restorative justice process Gabe goes through in my own book.

Foster dreams of having her own cooking show one day but is hampered by a secret she’s never told anyone. When she and her mama have to skip town quickly to escape her mama’s crazy, Elvis-impersonating boyfriend, they end up in Culpepper. A tiny, little podunk place too small to be called a town. Foster wows the local, severely grumpy, cafe owner with her delectable baking skills and works out a deal to supply him with cupcakes and more. She also strikes up an unlikely friendship with a reclusive woman who gives Foster the courage to face her secret. This book was lovely from start to finish.

Nico’s mother vanished when she was four, and a chance discovery begins a search to uncover the truth of her disappearance. Reading it, I couldn’t believe this was the author’s first novel. Nico’s “voice” is amazingly real, continually pulling me along to the bittersweet conclusion, where she discovers what really happened to her mother. There was never a misstep in this book—everything worked perfectly, including the relationship between Nico and her dad, which was one of the most moving father-daughter relationships I’ve ever encountered in a YA novel. Her interweaving of Kurt Cobain’s life and music into the story of a girl searching for her mother was brilliant, and the writing is sublime. I lost track of the times when I read an image and thought, “Yes, this is exactly what that’s like!”, followed by “I so wish I’d written that.” Save Me, Kurt Cobain is a must-read.