May We Suggest? This post contains recommendations from a CPL librarian. To get your own customized recommendation, just fill out the May We Suggest form — you can expect results within 10 days. All suggestions can be found on the May We Suggest blog or by liking May We Suggest on facebook.

Michigan Chapter Books

Hidden by Helen Frost

Years after Darra Monson's father stole a minivan with Wren Abbott hiding in the back, the girls come face to face at summer camp and together they try to work through what happened to them and the impact it had on their lives.

Willow Run by Patricia Reilly Giff

During World War II, after moving with her parents to Willow Run, Michigan, when her father gets a job in the B-24 bomber-building factory, eleven-year-old Meggie learns about different kinds of bravery from all of the people around her.

Having earned a scholarship to a private girls' high school, self-proclaimed psychic investigator Gilda Joyce investigates the circumstances surrounding the drowning death of a student whose ghost supposedly haunts the campus.

Truth and salsa by Linda Lowery

Having moved temporarily from Michigan to live with her grandmother in Mexico, twelve-year-old Hayley tries to sort out her feelings about her parents' separation while also helping some townsmen who have run into trouble while working in the United States.

In Michigan in the mid-1950s, Lewis Barnavelt is convinced that the series of accidents he and his uncle are experiencing are the result of a curse by a mysterious, hooded figure that may be part of his uncle's past.

Kyle's island by Sally Derby

Kyle, almost thirteen, spends much of the summer yearning to explore a nearby island, striving to be a good brother, fishing with an elderly neighbor, and fuming at his parents over their separation that is forcing his mother to sell the family's cabin on a Michigan lake.

The locked garden by Gloria Whelan

After their mother dies of typhoid, Verna and her younger sister Carlie move with their father, a psychiatrist, and stern Aunt Maude to an asylum for the mentally ill in early-twentieth-century Michigan, where new ideas in the treatment of mental illness are being proposed, but old prejudices still hold sway.

The mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis

Deza Malone, the smartest girl in her class in Gary, Indiana, accompanies her mother and older brother on a trip to find her father, an African American man who left to find work after the Great Depression hit. They end up in a Hooverville outside of Flint, Michigan, and her brother attempts to be a performer while Deza and her mother search for a home.

With its cookie cutter houses, welcoming committees, and all-town competitions, Normal, Michigan, seems like a perfect fit for nine-year-old new resident Molly, the only non-magical person in her family.

Cupcake cousins by Kate Hannigan

During a family vacation at Lake Michigan, nine-year-old cousins Willow and Delia, desperate to avoid being flower girls in their aunt's wedding, try to demonstrate that they would do better as chefs for the reception.

The turtle of Oman : a novel by Naomi Shihab Nye

When Aref, a third-grader who lives in Muscat, Oman, refuses to pack his suitcase and prepare to move to Michigan, his mother asks for help from his grandfather, his Siddi, who takes Aref around the country, storing up memories he can carry with him to a new home.

In 1895, twelve-year-old Stan decides to find his long-lost father in the logging camps of Michigan, documenting in his scrapbook his travels and encounters with troublesome relatives, his mother's suitors, lumberjacks, and more.

Brianna Justice is the president of her Detroit middle school's sixth grade, but she is finding the position a real headache--beside the normal troubles of being in a new school, and the sudden coldness of her old friends, there is a class trip to Washington, D.C. coming up and she needs to figure out how to raise the rest of the money so that the class can go.

In 1970s Florida, eleven-year-old Violet's world is upturned by the arrival of a girl from Detroit who seems bent on stealing Violet's best friends.

The Tiger troubles by David A. Kelly

"When Mike and Kate visit Detroit, someone is blackmailing the Tigers' famous slugger, Tony Maloney"--.

The batboy by Mike Lupica

Even though his mother feels baseball ruined her marriage to his father, she allows fourteen-year-old Brian to become a bat boy for the Detroit Tigers, who have just drafted his favorite player back onto the team.

The Danger Box by Blue Balliett

In small-town Michigan, twelve-year-old Zoomy and his new friend Lorrol investigate the journal found inside a mysterious box and find family secrets and a more valuable treasure, while a dangerous stranger watches and waits.