August 8, 2023
In MaryAnn Butterfield’s middle-grade book, 12-year old Michael Kim struggles to cope with a bullying classmate.
Fellow student Chuck continually bullies Michael, derisively calling him “Chung King.” The latter gives Michael’s mom a chuckle: the Kims are Korean, not Chinese. “I was laughing because he’s teasing you with a Chinese name,” she explains to Michael […]
June 20, 2023
A boy is named captain of his baseball team and learns to navigate a variety of personalities and problems in the children’s chapter book Baseball Buddies: Building a Team.
Luis, 11, is joining a new baseball team in a new town. Most everyone seems nice enough. But when Luis is named team captain, he faces […]
June 20, 2023
Freckles Find a Forever Home is a sweet, short children’s picture book about a bunny adopted by a loving family.
Freckles begins life on a bunny farm in Houston, “stuffed in cages” with many other bunnies. Then a young woman brings him home as a present to her mother for Mother’s Day. There he gets […]
May 30, 2023
In Book 4 of David Horn’s delightful Eudora Space Kid series, third-grader Eudora orchestrates a double date to help the captain of the ship ask out her school teacher.
In the cafeteria of the space ship AstroLiner Athena, Eudora spots Captain Jax looking despondent and joins him, hoping to cheer him up. The captain reveals […]
May 2, 2023
In Caryn Rivadeneira’s middle grade book, when a boy named Fred is sick at home and misses an author’s visit to his school, he returns to find that the writer has mistakenly inscribed “To Frank” on his copy.
Classmate Luisa —who likes to call herself Princesa Maria Luisa Octavia— sits next to Fred and regularly […]
February 28, 2023
In book three of David Horn’s Eudora Space Kid series, third-grader Eudora uses her computer know-how to play a prank on her “perfect-at-everything” older sister, followed by more of her technological hijinks.
Eudora is peeved when, in a school play aboard her home, the AstroLiner Athena, she gets cast in the lowly part of playing […]
October 3, 2022
In Ballard’s third book in the Tales by Moons-light series, a ten-year-old girl who feels imprisoned by overprotective parents longs for adventure.
On a wildlife safari trip her mother won, Elvia sneaks away, is chased by a lion, and escapes into an outhouse. There, she’s pulled through a space-time tunnel and lands on a distant […]
September 5, 2022
In Cicek Bricault’s middle-grade novel, a twelve-year-old girl desperate to become popular hides her unique ability, fearful of seeming like a freak.
KyRose dreams of joining her school’s in-crowd, which means making friends with Georgia, the “popular and ruthless” soccer captain. One day in gym class, KyRose makes a good play, and Georgia pushes her […]
February 7, 2022
Reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz but with a modern-day component, Ellen Dee Davidson’s Wind involves a natural disaster that sets a young girl on an imaginative course of discovery. Along the way she also learns the importance of family, friendships, and overcoming fears.
Offering an enticing blend of fantasy, mythology, and earth mysticism, this […]
February 7, 2022
In the first volume of Dave Maruszewski’s middle-grade book, three young squires pursue a half man/half beast who threatens to destroy a town—and then some.
Learning that a priest in another town is worried about “odd happenings,” a king assigns his charges Raven, Ravai, and Romda, to investigate. When the trio arrive, the priest is […]