I heard Linda Sue Park speak at the Kansas City, KS SCBWI conference a few weeks ago. A Long Walk to Water is a great example of how great children’s literature changes lives. Beyond a moving story (about which I knew almost nothing–and I consider myself well-versed in current events), Linda Sue Park’s novel does an incredible job weaving together two separate story strands. Here’s her book trailer:
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, Yoda’s advice works. Is Origami Yoda real? Read The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and find out!
P.S. Directions for making your own Origami Yoda are included.
Great book! Truly LOL in spots. High schooler, middle schooler, spouse, and I all had fun with this book. Secretly the adults might have enjoyed it the most because we’re the furthest from the traumas of middle school 
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 earlobes at the exact second she looks at a hard-boiled egg, and—poof! She discovers she has a magical power.
What is it? Super-strength? Super-speed? Invisibility? Not eggs-actly. Abby Carnelia’s one and only magical power is . . . she can make an egg spin.
Yep, that’s it. That’s her magical power. She can make an egg spin. Only if it’s hard-boiled. Only if she’s looking at it. Only if she’s tugging on her earlobes at the same time.
Huh?! What kind of a super power is that? Ok, so Abby thinks it’s pretty weird too. “Confused and just a little bit freaked out,” Abby says nothing to her family. They think she’s learned some really cool magic trick, and Abby’s not about to let them in on the secret.
Abby enrolls in a summer camp for kids who want to learn magic. Maybe, just maybe, there will be other kids like her, kids that have real magic.
Sure enough, Abby discovers other kids with special, albeit completely useless, magical powers. There’s Ricky who can fog up windows . . . but only when he counts backwards by two’s . . . in Spanish. There’s Eliza who can levitate. Ok, so she rise a quarter-inch above the floor and only when she thinks about buffalos walking backwards wearing diapers. Still, it’s something.
Abby will do just about anything to find out about her magical powers. Unfortunately, others will do just about anything as well.
