Folklore in Fantasy: 12 Middle Grade Titles

A twelve-year-old Chinese American boy must learn to embrace his heritage and accept his beloved older brother's spirit companion--a mystical fox named Kai--to solve the mystery of Jamie's death.

Jade is starting eighth grade in a new city--Atlanta. She just wants to go back to Chicago, where her friends are. Where her Abuela lives. There, Jade meets Itztli, an elderly storyteller who exists between dreams and reality. In the golden afternoons when Itztli appears, he steps out of the forest as a lithe, agile jaguar. But when he speaks to Jade, he is a wise old man who makes intricate works of art and tells her ancestral stories of Mexico....

To prevent the Mayan gods from battling each other and destroying the world, thirteen-year-old Zane must unravel an ancient prophecy, stop an evil god, and discover how the physical disability that makes him reliant on a cane also connects him to his father and his ancestry.

After her home is attacked by shapeshifting vampires, twelve-year-old Serwa Boateng is sent to live with her aunt and cousin in Maryland, but the aspiring vampire hunter discovers that middle school is harder than it appears on television, especially when she has to avoid detention and turn her classmates into warriors before they become vampire food.

"Uprooted from his home in Los Angeles and sent to live with his cantankerous grandparents in New Mexico, twelve-year-old Jorge struggles with loneliness until he meets a new friend who happens to be a chupacabra"--

After his augmented reality gaming headset is possessed by the spirit of the First Emperor of China, twelve-year-old Chinese American Zack Ying is compelled to travel across China to steal an ancient artifact, fight figures from Chinese history and myth, and seal a portal to prevent malicious spirits from destroying the human realm.