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In her novel The Empty Place, Olivia Cole explores the themes of identity, truth, family dynamics, and self-discovery. To do this, Cole creates her protagonist Henrietta Lightfoot. Henry is an indoor girl, an earthworm whose father, Joseph, is a butterfly—always fluttering off to some new adventure. To Joseph, adventure is outdoors, where one can wander and discover new places. He shares these places with his YouTube followers who tag along with him on his adventures when his own daughter will not. Instead, Henry prefers the safety of home, “her cluttered desk, dotted with dried hot glue” (44), and the familiarity of her friend Ibtihay UmarRead More →

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A typical adventure/survival story for middle grade readers, Off the Map by Meika Hashimoto will reaffirm the value of keeping one’s head in a stressful situation. Hashimoto tells the story of Marlo, her dog Cheerio, and her best friend Amos. Marlo has been abandoned, first by her dad and then by her best friend Amos; consequently, she feels unlovable and confused by why Amos left her stranded in the lunchroom at the end of the school year. When Marlo’s mother, a river guide in Alaska, suggests a canoe trip on the Yukon River, Marlo is super excited to escape into the wilderness to use herRead More →

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With every detention and expulsion and with every scorch mark and emotionally scarred staff member, the legend of twelve-year-old Lavina Lucas continues to grow. Mostly abandoned by her parents who often travel for their work, Vin has not received guidance on how to use and control her magic, and she yearns to figure it out. After all, the Treaty of 1695 does say that “magic must be controlled” (4), and the purpose of magecraft education is to teach discipline, restraint, and control. Because of her infractions, Vin’s latest emotional outburst at Strictland School of Magic has landed her into the last resort for delinquents. SuchRead More →

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Players of Dungeons and Dragons (D and D) will likely enjoy Garth Nix’s recent novel for middle grade readers: We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord. Set in an alternative version of Canberra, Australia, in 1975, Nix’s novel features the Basalt siblings: Eila and Kim, who are friends with the Chance siblings: Bennie and Madir. On one of their excursions wading in a nearby lake, they encounter a peculiar object just beneath the surface. Resembling a “cut-off head with long hair” (10) or maybe an abandoned cannonball, the muddy object captivates Eila.  When Kim tries to wrestle the now glowing orb away from his ten-year-oldRead More →

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Fans of the Nevermoor series will likely fall in love with Steven Banbury’s debut novel for middle grade readers, The Pumpkin Princess and the Forever Night. Banbury’s magical novel opens as an orphan is attempting yet another escape from the orphanage. Pursued by the orphanage’s two hounds, Watcher and Curfew, our protagonist, logical and unafraid, plots and schemes as she flees. Desperate not to just run away, but to run to something keeps her dedicated to her escape plan as she seeks to find “the happiness she has always read about in books and wants so badly for herself” (13).  Fearlessly looking for a home,Read More →

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With a name like Grimsbane, a person is bound to find connections to death, destruction, woe, and gloom. And readers will find all that in Joan Reardon’s The Grimsbane Family Witch Hunters. Set in Witchless, Indiana, this novel for middle grade readers features Anna and Billy Grimsbane, twin siblings who are about to turn thirteen. Billy is a “nerd extraordinaire” and a lover of scones. He is also organized, intelligent, and fearless. Anna, on the other hand, is more impulsive. She is also naturally agile, protective, and loyal. Both are eager to enter the family business, although for very different reasons. A family of witchRead More →

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With her novel When We Flew Away, Alice Hoffman writes an emotionally stirring prequel to The Diary of Anne Frank. In this poignant piece, Hoffman reminds readers of the power of hope even when evil walks in the world. Even when it seems impossible to have hope, Anne Frank shows us that it is possible to be brave, to have dreams, and to live on in the words we have written or the record we leave behind. Set in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from 1940-1942, Hoffman’s book begins with Otto and Edith Frank wondering if their escape from Germany to the Netherlands with their two girls wasRead More →

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With their graphic novel Pearl, Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie bring readers a historical fiction account of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent response from the United States. In this version, Amy Hakata lives in Hawaii in 1941. However, when a family member in Japan grows ill and her parents are unable to travel, Amy flies to a country she has never visited. Once in Hiroshima, she sits with her sick Sōsobo. Here, only the food tastes familiar, but as Amy gets to know her grandmother, she learns of Grandma’s legacy as a pearl diver. However, everything changes in an instant, andRead More →

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In her novel Kareem Between, Shifa Saltagi Safadi shares a story about the experiences of seventh grader Kareem, who loves football and dreams of being the first Syrian American NFL player. Seeing his name on an American jersey would spell perfection for him, but first he has to earn a position on the middle school team. Set in Indiana from 2016-2017, Kareem feels invisible since he doesn’t make the football roster and his best friend Adam has moved away. To find comfort, Kareem escapes to the library where the smell of paper and ink and books surrounds him. A lover of words, Kareem uses NFLRead More →