Flunked

Flunked by Jen Calonita, 2015 Sourcebooks for Young Readers
 
     Gillian Cobbler lives with her mother, father, and five siblings in a large drafty boot. After Cinderella’s Godmother rips off the glass slipper design (made famous by the princess) all of the kingdom’s orders go her way and Gilly’s father’s shop suffers. To help feed her younger siblings Gilly begins stealing from minor royals.
     When Snow White’s dwarf squad catches Gilly for her third offence it’s off to Fairy Tale Reform School to be taught how to stop her law-breaking ways. Gilly is completely removed from her family for at least three months –and every moment away she worries for their survival.
     At FTRS Gilly meets some fellow students: a fairy locked away for using magic underage and without a license, a young man who seems to hate the royals just as much as Gilly does, and an Ogre with a predilection for jewelry. At Fairy Tale Reform School the teachers are the villains of the fairy tales. The Sea Witch teaches deportment; the Evil Queen teaches psychology and runs therapy sessions; Flora is Cinderella’s step-mother and headmistress; and the Big Bad Wolf – of Little Red Riding Hood fame – teaches history.
     Gilly finds herself making friends as she worries about her family. When the Evil Queen sends her home early, just before the Royal Ball celebrating FTRS’s fifth anniversary all of Gilly’s dreams have come true. But she can’t leave: something about the events leading up to the ball have made Gillian Cobbler suspicious and she is going to figure it out.

     Fairy Tale Reform School’s motto is “Turning villains into heroes” and Gilly, with her friends, is going to make it happen in this introduction for middle-grade readers. Similar stories include Ella Enchanted and the Pennyroyal Academy series.

Bruja Born

Bruja Born by Zoraida Cordova, 2018 Sourcebooks Fire

     After the drama with her sister's powers, Bruja Lula Mortiz is not feeling he powers. In fact, Lula isn't feeling like herself at all. She holds back from her normal life, and even her magic-less boyfriend Maks notices.
     On the way to their last soccer game of the season, Maksim ends their relationship. Lula is devastated and wishes her magic could heal their relationship and bring back his love - not something bruja magic can or should do. The two busses of teen soccer players and cheerleaders are involved in a horrific accident which very few of Lula's classmates survive.
     Lula uses her powers to save Maks despite Death's protests. She convinces her sisters to help. The Mortiz daughters manage to bind Maks to Lula and to heal his wounds, but the spell is unsuccessful and turns Maks into a casimuerto - quasi-dead. Lula and her sisters, Alex and Rose, delve into Bruja lore but the casimuerto isn't well known. The mythology describes a creature like a zombie and when Maks begins to rampage across the city that's what it looks like: the zombie apocalypse.
     Now Lula, Alex, Rose and the rest of their coven are held responsible for the imbalance caused by the girls' spell. Lula must reset the balance because La Muerta is bound from completing her work and the casimuerto infection is spreading across New York City.
     How does one free Death to complete her work? Lula must figure it out or the witch-hunters will solve the problem in a much more permanent way. After the dramatic ordeal involving Alex's magic Lula is afraid to deal with the physical and emotional results of her sister's actions but learns she's the same bruja as before, just with an all-powerful sister at her side.
     This second story of the Brooklyn Brujas follows the eldest Mortiz sister as the girls learn to manage their magic and their lives in the aftermath of tragedy. Lula learns that just because they have the power doesn't mean they should and the consequences nearly destroy her entire world. Bruja Born is aimed at older teen and young adult readers who enjoy their magic with a touch of gruesome reality.

Labyrinth Lost

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova, 2017 Sourcebooks Fire

     The three Mortiz girls are brujas--witches. Alex is the middle and hasn't developed her powers yet. And she's okay with that. Alex hates magic, has hated it since an incident resulted in their father's disappearance. Alex's older sister Lula is a healer, like their mother, and her younger sister Rose has spirit magic. 

     When Alex begins to show signs of her magic she fights it. Her Deathday celebration is the event of the decade designed to help Alex gain better control of her magic. She still fights the magic and it results in the expulsion of her extended family into another dimension. 

     Sending her family away tears a hole in reality allowing monsters from the other side into the human realm. Those monsters are hunting the most powerful witch in decades: Alex Mortiz. Alex cannot handle the consequences and follows with her best friend and the neighborhood outcast. 

     On the other side, Alex learns that her magic isn't the curse she's made it out to be in her mind since her father vanished. The anger she has harbored toward Mr. Ortiz's disappearance has been redirected to her uncontrolled power and the journey through the other side reminds Alex that her unharnessed power is a dangerous and unpredictable part of her. 

     When her traveling companions are endangered by the monsters in the realm Alex learns to harness her gift and her emotions as the only way to get them all out and save her family. Alex and her friends meet fae, escape from hellbeasts, and outwit minor deities. 

     Steeped in Latinx mythology, Labyrinth Lost explores family and community through a lens of self-acceptance. Alex learns to accept herself and tap into her magic--learning there is always a cost for magic. The cost to bring her family home may be more than her magic is able to handle. Teen readers who enjoy supernatural stories and the usual self-discovery arc will enjoy this cultural take on the self-realization and -acceptance. 

Real Mermaids Don't Sell Sea Shells

Real Mermaids Don't Sell Sea Shells by Helene Boudreau, 2014 Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

     Jade and her friends have, once again, saved mer-kind and it's time for some fun in the sun. Her parents have, thanks to Mr. Charmichael, gotten the official paperwork to get married - for real. To get away from the gossips in their small town they decided to enjoy their new freedom to get married in the Caribbean.
     Jade and her best friend go along to help out with the last minute details of wedding planning - only to find that nothing is going according to plan! Their reservations are taken y famous celebrities, the catering fell through, the venue was taken, and their officiant has vanished. With Cori and Jade's help, the happy couple rush to recreate their dream wedding before their vacation is over and the rest of their guests arrive.
     As they're making plans and the girls explore the island Jade runs across a strange sight: someone dumping a body from the porthole of a passing cruise ship. With everything that's happened in the last couple of months, Cori thinks Jade's mermaid senses are over-reacting. But when their new acquaintance goes missing it doesn't hurt to check things out.
     Jade's parents enjoy their pre-wedding honeymoon while the girls discover there's more to the local scene than the tourists see. With their relationships with the boys back home on questionable ground, Jade and Cori are stoked to meet new friends and possibly solve a mystery or two, because things can't keep from getting fishy for this mermaid and her friends.
     In this new setting, Jade learns to trust her instincts and that different cultures have different rules. The fourth installment in Jade's story takes readers along as once again Jade steps out of her comfort zone and learns it's always best to be yourself. Real Mermaids Don't Sell Sea Shells is intended for middle grade and young teen readers.

Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels

Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels by Helene Boudreau, 2013 Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

     Jade Baxter and her best friend have managed to save the tide pool where mers can transition into human form. Cori is officially dating Luke's brother, Trey, and Jade is officially dating Luke. The friends are enjoying typical high school exploits and looking forward to the Fall Formal.
     Except, Jade is terrified of the dance: she's got two left fins. The formal becomes the smaller of her problems when the Mer Council orders all Webbed Ones back into the ocean. Jade finally got her mom back and she certainly isn't willing to let her boyfriend go back into the ocean.
     The friends are busy with their school work: Cori has an internship, Luke and Trey have work and water polo, and Jade has joined the underwater hockey team. To top it all off, Selena has been enrolled as a foreign exchange student at her school - and Jade is not keen on playing tour guide to the mer-girl.
     Jade tries to prepare for Mer-mageddon all while trying to prevent the building underwater war and trying to find the perfect dress for the dance. When they can't keep the Webbed Ones out of the water Cori, Trey, Jade, and their human adult supervision take to the water. Following the "call" back to the Mer Council leads Jade to new secrets and challenges. If the fourteen-year-old can prevent civil war in the mer-world, finding a good dress and learning to dance should be a cake walk.
     The Real Mermaid series is aimed at middle grade and younger teen readers. The girls experience budding romantic relationships with all the emotional ups and downs in a clean romance. This is the third of four novels featuring Jade and her friends.

Spelled

Spelled by Betsy Schow, 2015 Sourcebooks Fire

     Generations ago Dorothea had an ancestress who irked two elemental sorceress sisters. In return the sisters cursed Dorothea's line, but they were young and inexperienced witches: instead of cursing the girl who challenged their plans, one of her descendents would inherit the curse and destroy Story with flames. Until the curse manifests and burns itself out Dorothea is locked inside the Emerald Palace.
     Tired of being locked inside her home and each moment of her day being dictated and scheduled, Dorothea begins to act out. The princess has been trained as a spoiled, materialistic brat. Her parents announce an engagement Between Dorothea and Prince Kato and it drives her to make a reckless wish. As Dorothea herself tells the reader - A badly worded wish is worse than any curse.
     When the rules and laws of magic begin to deteriorate and unravel Dorothea ventures out with Prince Kato and the kitchenmaid Rexi to find a solution. For a girl who had never left the palace Dorothea discovers that sometimes fate is something she makes for herself and her subjects.
     Set in the land of stories and centering on the Princess of the Emerald City Spelled is filled with fairy tale language, unexpected romance, and not one, but two evil witches bent on seeking revenge. Readers will enjoy Dorothea's sarcasm and spunk while following her about Story.

Real Mermaids Don't Hold Their Breath

Real Mermaids Don't Hold Their Breath by Helene Boudreau, 2012 Jabberwocky

     A month after her fourteenth birthday Jade is still reeling from her mermaid-ness, the knowledge that her mother didn't drown in the lake last year and is a mermaid too, and the kiss from mer-boy Luke at her best friend's party earlier in the summer.
     Jade deals with the struggles of being fourteen--does Luke really like her, or was he just playing with her emotions; will her father allow her to date him if Luke does like Jade; and what is going on with her mom?
     Jade and her dad have been searching for her mother since Jade helped her to escape the freshwater prison where she was trapped in mermaid form. When she finds her mom in a tidal pool about to be bulldozed Jade does everything in her power to protect the pool and release her mother.
     Jade is a normal teen dealing with the usual woes while she is anything but a normal teen, living between the human world and the mer-world. Her tensions rise from the conflict between who she knows she is and who she is learning she is. It is a universal adolescent problem and relates to pre-teen readers.

Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings

Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings by Helene Boudreau, 2010 Jabberwocky

     School is almost out and that means pool parties and other summer adventures, but first Jade has to make it to the end of the year. When she has her first period and her father suggests Epsom salts as a cure for cramps no one expects Jade to come out of the bath with a fish's tail.
     It turns out Jade's mother, who mysteriously drowned last summer, was a mermaid and Jade has inherited the mermaid gene. But if she was a mermaid, how did she drown?
     With all the chaos of discovering her tail, finding out her mom has been held prisoner for the last year, and a new attraction to a familiar face, Jade's relationship with her best friend seems to crumble. Can Jade keep it all together in time for everything to get back together?
     With the exception of her tail, Jade is just like any other teen--trying to fit in while dealing with the changes life brings--and like other teens she learns to adapt to the changes. Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings is aimed at younger teens, fans of the paranormal in reality will enjoy the book.