AT SOME POINT, every child must navigate his or her own path in life. Some do this fearlessly and with gusto, while others take a more cautious approach. We can see the contrast in two new middle-grade novels set in Virginia, one historical, the other contemporary. Melia Hoyle, the narrator of Louis Bayard's sublime "Lucky Strikes," careens down the road of life like one of the truckers whose big rigs she handily repairs at her family-owned gas station in Walnut Ridge, Va. A true force of nature, Melia doesn't even have patience for the letter "A" at the front of her given name. ("Mama always said I was in too much of a dang hurry to be dragging all those letters after me.") So when Mama dies of "belly trouble," leaving Melia and her two younger siblings alone, Melia sprints headfirst toward a solution: She spruces up a lazy-eyed vagabond who literally rolls off the back of a coal truck and declares him Daddy. It's a "business arrangement," she explains to the down-on-his-luck former actor (and copywriter and hat salesman), Hiram Watts. Hiram gets a roof over his head, and Melia and her siblings evade foster care. Melia is an immediately endearing character, and her wiseacre narration is both droll and affecting. A mechanical genius who can make a pair of squeaky brakes "quiet as a queen's fart" with only a little castor oil, she faces her hardships - including a villainous entrepreneur hellbent on stealing the family station out from under her - with pluck and ingenuity. And the post-Prohibition setting allows Bayard, best known for his adult historical fiction, to endow his narrator with freedoms most contemporary children can only dream of. Melia, a fifth-grade dropout, drives and smokes and prepares the family's meals straight from the shelves of the station's general store. Of course, Melia is still a child. She struggles with the buddings of first romance, as well as the desperate loss of her mother. It is a lucky strike indeed that she and Hiram have plowed into each other, as each helps to soften the other's rough edges. Although it hits a jarringly dark note in its final act, "Lucky Strikes" is a nearperfect novel, rich in voice and emotion. Much like Melia herself, it is brash with bravado, barely concealing an inviting layer of warmth at its core. If Melia hurries through life trucker style, Eugene (Genie) Harris, the 11-year-old protagonist of Jason Reynolds's "As Brave as You," prefers to bob like a raft on the ocean, observing all that goes on around him without making many waves. Genie hopes one day to be a detective, or perhaps a "questionnaire," and so keeps a small notebook that he fills with questions to Google. They run from the mundane ("If I put sugar on peas, will they taste better?") to the profound ("Can you be trapped and safe at the same time?"). When he and his older brother, Ernie, are shipped off to spend a month with their grandparents in rural North Hill, Va., Genie's biggest concern is the lack of Wi-Fi. Predictably, however, the Brooklyn boys unearth much to entertain them. While cool, girl-crazy Ernie befriends a girl named Tess, Genie forms a surprising bond with his Grandpop, who provides plenty of mystery for an aspiring detective. Why, for example, does a now-blind former rifleman spend so much time in his "nunya bidness" room, where he's made an entire "outdoor" oasis, complete with birds and fake grass and even a recorded breeze? As family secrets tiptoe out into the daylight, Genie comes to understand the depth of the pain his African-American Grandpop harbors from his childhood during the Jim Crow era, and discovers answers to questions he never thought to write in his notebook. Reynolds's previous books have been young adult novels (most recently "All American Boys," co-written with Brendan Kiely), and he has perhaps lowered the stakes too much for a younger audience: Genie can come across as a bit naïve, and his adventures - including an attempt to trap a barn swallow and a trip to the flea market to sell peas with Grandma - are rather tame. Still, it is hard not to cheer as, in his quiet way, he forges his own course, navigating the fine fine between fear and cowardice. LISA GRAFF'S most recent novel is "A Clatter of Jars," a companion to her National Book Award-nominated "A Tangle of Knots."

*Starred Review* Reynolds' first foray into middle-grade fiction follows the path of other stellar writers like Christopher Paul Curtis and Rita Williams-Garcia, who have brought their young protagonists home to meet the family. Our narrator is 11-year-old Genie, a worrier from Brooklyn who's headed, along with his older brother, Ernie, to his grandparents' home in backwoods Virginia. There's culture shock aplenty (no Internet, no TV), plus the more visceral earthquake of learning Grandpop is blind. And the aftershocks keep coming: Grandpop carries a gun. Genie's notebook of questions a wonderful literary technique opens wide this thoroughly realistic narrator's world of concerns and brings readers closer to him. The story's richness comes in part from its evocative descriptions of place, with every sense invited to the party. Readers don't just see the dog poop that covers the yard; they feel the weight of it as the brothers shovel it into the woods and can smell it all over the boys. But it is the intricate lacing of relationships that makes this so remarkable. There are second-, even third-generation problems being worked out between fathers and sons. A Jim Crow history has had a hand in shaping the issues, but there are also personal trials, hurt, and despair that hinder resolution. Yet through his inquisitive young protagonist, Reynolds movingly shows that although sometimes love hides, it still abides. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Reynolds comes off the one-two punch of the 2015 award winners The Boy in the Black Suit and All American Boys as a newly branded kidlit superstar.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2016 Booklist

Reynolds (The Boy in the Black Suit, rev. 3/15; with Brendan Kiely, All American Boys, rev. 11/15) delivers an emotionally resonant middle-grade story of an African American family working to overcome its tumultuous past in hopes of a better future. Not-quite-teenager Genie Harris has a notebook full of questions, ranging from the superficial ("Why are swallows called swallows? did people used to eat them?") to the introspective ("Why am I so stupid?"). But there is no question as to why he and his older brother Ernie find themselves far from their Brooklyn home with their Grandma and Grandpop in rural Virginia: their parents are "maybe/possibly/probably divorcing" and are "figuring it out" in Jamaica. Warmly told in the third person, the novel follows Genie through a series of tragicomic blunders (breaking a family heirloom; the inadvertent poisoning of Grandpop's pet bird); minor triumphs (finding a neighbor with internet access!); and many heartfelt discussions with Grandpop, who is blind and fiercely independent, that often lead to startling familial revelations (his great-grandfather's suicide; his uncle Wood's untimely death during Desert Storm). Long-standing feelings of guilt, anger, and resentment reach a boiling point -- and history appears to repeat itself -- when Grandpop forces Ernie to shoot a gun, with unfortunate results. Genie musters up enough courage to ask his grandfather if he will ever let go of his tragic history; Grandpop's response of "maybe" feels like a victory. A novel in the tradition of Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham -- 1963 (rev. 3/96), with deft dialogue, Northern/Southern roots, and affecting depth. patrick gall (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Eleven-year-old Brooklynite Genie has "worry issues," so when he and his older brother, Ernie, are sent to Virginia to spend a month with their estranged grandparents while their parents "try to figure it all out," he goes into overdrive.First, he discovers that Grandpop is blind. Next, there's no Internet, so the questions he keeps track of in his notebook (over 400 so far) will have to go un-Googled. Then, he breaks the model truck that's one of the only things Grandma still has of his deceased uncle. And he and Ernie will have to do chores, like picking peas and scooping dog poop. What's behind the "nunya bidness door"? And is that a gun sticking out from Grandpop's waistband? Reynolds' middle-grade debut meanders like the best kind of summer vacation but never loses sense of its throughline. The richly voiced third-person narrative, tightly focused through Genie's point of view, introduces both brothers and readers to this rural African-American community and allows them to relax and explore even as it delves into the many mysteries that so bedevil Genie, ranging from "Grits? What exactly are they?" to, heartbreakingly, "Why am I so stupid?" Reynolds gives his readers uncommonly well-developed, complex characters, especially the completely believable Genie and Grandpop, whose stubborn self-sufficiency belies his vulnerability and whose flawed love both Genie and readers will cherish.This pitch-perfect contemporary novel gently explores the past's repercussions on the present. (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Gr 5-8-When 11-year-old worrywart Genie and his big brother, Ernie, leave Brooklyn and go to their grandparents' home in rural Virginia, it seems as though they have been dropped on another planet. The city boys are introduced to another way of life and to their blind grandfather, who goes to extreme lengths to conceal his disability. A rich and rewarding coming-of-age story about family and courage, told with laugh-out-loud humor and a great deal of heart. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Reynolds (All American Boys) aims for a younger audience with the story of Genie and Ernie, two Brooklyn boys spending a month with their grandparents in North Hill, Va., while their parents try to mend a frayed marriage. Eleven-year-old Genie is most concerned about the lack of Internet access: how will he look up answers to the questions that constantly come to him? Ernie, nearly 14, is happy enough when he meets Tess, a neighbor who gives them the lowdown on North Hill, but neither brother has any idea that their stay will involve picking peas in the hot sun and, for Genie, keeping secrets-both his and those of his blind grandfather. Genie's efforts to fix his mistakes (including accidentally killing one of his grandfather's beloved birds), his realization that the Web doesn't have all the answers, and Grandpop's struggle with guilt and forgiveness after he pushes Ernie to participate in a dangerous family tradition create a multifaceted story that skillfully blends light and dark elements while showing children and adults interacting believably and imperfectly. Ages 10-up. Agent: Elena Giovanazzo, Pippin Properties. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.