The Book Search

Some stories are hard to tell.  Here are two that must have started in a place where it was hard to tell these stories.  They are voices we haven't heard very often, but these story tellers told them brilliantly. The first one is called "Maybe He Likes You" by Barbara Dee.  It's about 12 year old Mila who is in 7th grade and lives with her mom and her little sister.  Her dad is more absent than Mila would like.  Mila has a tight group of friends that she hangs with.  They are celebrating her friend Omi's birthday on the playground and have a group hug, when the boys from the basketball team come and ask to join the group hug.  Mila feels really uncomfortable  but tries to be a good sport because her friend Zara likes one of the boys and Mila doesn't want to make a scene.  But then the boys seem to keep wanting to touch her and keep making excuses about how and why it happens.  Mila continues to feel uncomfortable about it and the boys ...

I do love middle grade fiction.  Middle grade fiction has such an amazing array of topics that it's willing to discuss and hash out.  Here are my two new favorites. The first one is just about to be published.  It's called "Roll With It" by Jamie Sumner.  It's about Ellie who is 12.  She lives with her mom and because Ellie has cerebral palsy, she is mostly in a wheelchair.  Ellie's mom is worried about Ellie, but also about her dad (Ellie's grandfather), who is suffering from dementia.  So Ellie's mom decides to quit her job and move in with her parents.  Ellie thinks is on one hand, great.  She loves her grandparents and loves spending time with them.  On the other hand, terrible.  Her grandparents live in a small, single wide trailer.  Their trailer isn't handicapped accessible, which makes things difficult.  Ellie doesn't really have any friends at home, so she's not sorry to leave any of them behind.  She finds...

I LOVE picture books.  I love how the authors and illustrators can use both words and images to tell stories.  I how the pictures can illicit emotional responses in ways that words can not.  I love how engaged my really little kids get with a great picture book.  Here are a couple of new ones to look for. The first one is called "My Footprints" by Bao Phi.  It's about Thuy, who is being teased and laughed at by kids at school.  When Thuy goes home, her two moms try to help her feel better.  Thuy notices different tracks in the snow and decides to create tracks from the strongest possible animal to protect herself from the bullies.  Her moms offer different suggestions, including mythical animals from their own cultural backgrounds.  Together they come up with a brand new animal.  It's a lovely story about coming up with strategies for coping in general and specifically with bullies.  The connections to different cultures is affirm...

I got some terrific new books this week from Netgalley-compelling, adventurous books! The first one is called "The Okay Witch" by Emma Steinkellner.  It's a graphic novel (not my favorite) about a girl named Moth, who is 13 and struggling with all the usual middle school issues-friends, clothes, her mom, teachers.  But on Halloween, Moth discovers that she's actually a witch and her mom is a witch too.  Her mom chose to give up being a witch because her coven had been chased into hiding hundreds of years ago.  Her mom wanted to live life in the real world and not in the utopia that her own mother had created.  Moth is stunned at this revelation and has to decide if she wants to live a magical life or if she wants to live in the magic free zone her mom has created.  Complicating matters are a cute new boy in town and the evil doers that chased Moth's family into hiding in the first place.  It's a really fun, adventurous story and I liked it a lot, eve...

My students love non-fiction books so I'm always on the look out for some great new non fiction.  We are a Montessori school, so books about the history of man are always a big hit.  This latest one is just terrific.  It's called "When We Became Humans" written by William Bright and illustrated by Hannah Bailey.  It's a picture book full of short pieces of text about how humans evolved from hominids.  The vocabulary is rich which may require some assistance for some kids, but over all the book is very accessible, especially to upper elementary students.  The pictures are terrific too-the soft water colors help with understanding some of the concepts.  The short pieces of text will provide a nice introduction to the concepts presented.  There's an excellent time line in the back of the book along with a map that shows human migration patterns.  I think the kids and the teachers are going to love this one. The second one, in my school, is...

Are you sensing a trend here?  Yeah, a little fantasy fiction is a good way to pass the time during a hurricane watch!  A hurricane watch where we had both power and internet access.  It was a LITTLE scary to pull up the weather radar and see a Category 5 hurricane sitting 90 miles from us (sorry Bahamas), so reading scary stories was a good thing for me to do! The first one feels like a folk tale.  It's called Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack.  It's about Anya who is an only child.  She lives with grandmother and her mother.  Her dad has been conscripted by the army and they aren't sure where he is.  The town magistrate is threatening her mother-either pay their taxes right away or move out of their house and out of the town.  Anya really wants to help but she's been seeing weird things as she's out and about doing her chores.  She makes a new friend, Ivan,  who has come to town with his dad and the rest of his family. ...