Take Charlotte’s Web, Carl Hiassen’s Hoot, and toss in a dash of The Frog Prince, and what do you get? The charming middle grade novel The Hop (Disney Hyperion 2012) by Sharelle Byars Moranville. The story begins with young Tad the toad: “The loamy tunnel had fallen around Tad during the long night of winter and padded him like a brown blanket. But now the earth was stirring. And even three feet down, the...
Maile Meloy’s (pronounced MY-lee like Miley Cyrus) middle-grade novel The Apothecary is a bit like Harry Potter meets the pharmacy meets the Cold War. Instead of wizards and spells you have apothecaries and magical elixirs, and instead of evil Voldemort you have governments bent on nuclear domination. The year is 1952. The place is London. Janie Scott has been forced to move from Los Angeles with her screenwriter parents who have been blacklisted. Soon she...
Who is the sage of the universe? Who can you go to for wisdom when all around you is confusion? Who can you trust? Yoda, of course. Tommy knows it, and his fellow sixth graders know it. Maybe Yoda appears as an origami puppet on the finger of uber-nerd Dwight, maybe Yoda talks in a weird voice that is the worst Yoda impression ever, maybe Dwight isn’t channeling the Force, whatever. The point is,...
Wouldn’t it be awesome to discover you had magical powers? Like Harry Potter—one day living a completely normal, nothing special kind of life, and the next day—poof! Off to Hogwarts. That’s exactly what happens to eleven-year old Abby Carnelia in Abby Carnelia’s One and Only Magical Power, a middle-grade novel by David Pogue (Roaring Brook Press, 2010). It’s another regular old evening helping mom make chef salad for dinner. Abby happens to pull her...
Have you ever wished you were an only child? No annoying brother or sister. Parents all to yourself. Your own room and fantastic presents and giant birthday parties and fancy vacations and maybe even a pony (ok, maybe not the pony) . . . Abigail Iris has four kids in her family, schoolteacher parents that are always on a budget, and the same spring break camping trip to the same campsite with the family crammed in the same tent–year after...
What do you do if you’re the new girl at school and no one smiles at you or talks to you or sits by you at lunch? Well, if you’re Lissy, you make a friend. You make an origami crane to be your new friend at your new school. Author/illustrator Grace Lin uses wonderfully vibrant patterns and colors to tell the story Lissy’s Friends (Viking 2007). As the new girl, Lissy hasn’t made friends yet, so she...
As a girl, I read every Nancy Drew mystery written. A few years later, I graduated to Agatha Christie. Recently I ran across the book Nancy Drew and Clue Crew #1: Sleepover Sleuths (Simon and Schuster, 2006). I was surprised to see the author as Carolyn Keene since the original Carolyn Keene (a pseudonym for Mildred Wert Benson) died in 2002. A google search led me to this Fantastic Fiction link by a UK bookstore that shows...
I’ll be honest. I got this book exclusively based on the teaser quotes on the back cover: “The new C.S. Lewis” and “Hotter than Potter.” Wow! I thought. The first book in The Doppleganger Chronicles, The First Escape (Tyndale Press, 2008) introduces us to the Dopple twins, Saskia and Sadie, who have been abandoned at Isambard Dunstan’s School for Wayward Children. Although their mother said she would return, the twins are now fourteen and she hasn’t...
I first heard about Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me (Random House 2009) from a book editor who said, “There is so much buzz about this book, I think it might win the Newbery.” Set in the 70′s in New York City, the story centers on sixth grade Miranda and her best friend Sal. Miranda (a girl) and Sal (a boy) live in the same apartment complex, both are from single-mom families, and they’ve been best friends...
When you’re a sister sandwiched between two sets of twins, you pretty much get ignored. It’s the twins everyone finds interesting, they’re the novelty–you’re just an extra. At least that’s how Miri feels in The Magic Half (Bloomsbury, 2008). This middle grade novel by Annie Barrows weaves a story of family and friendship with a unique time travel twist (and a surprise ending to boot). When Miri’s family moves to a new house, Miri has no one to...
