The Book Search

 Do you think middle grade fiction can be escapist?  I'm starting to think that's what I find so appealing about middle grade fiction-going back to a time when the things that I worried about were my grades at school and who liked who.  But some of these middle grade books tackle big topics-domestic abuse, gender identity, and aging-and they still feel escapist to me.  Here are two you might like to escape into! The first one is called "These Unlucky Stars" by Gillian McDunn.  McDunn wrote a lovely book last year called Caterpillar Summer that was terrific and this new one is also great.  It's about Annie, who feels invisible to her dad and her brother Ray.  They live in a very small town near the mountains of NC that are beautifully described.  Annie believes that all the negative things that happen to her are due to bad luck, because her mom used to blame things on bad luck.  But her mom left the family five years earlier.  Her brother...

There are some amazing new books coming out in the next few weeks.  If you are looking for something awesome to read, these might be up your alley! The first one came out in October and it is called Of a Feather by Dayna Lorentz.  It's a story told in two voices-one is Rufus, a juvenile great horned owl, who is struggling with confidence.  His mother is encouraging him to hunt on his own, but Rufus is afraid.  His sister is mean to him, which doesn't help.  His mother is hit by a car one day and Rufus ends up in a trap meant for a different kind of bird, which brings us to Reenie, the second story teller.  Reenie has been removed from her grandmother's care (Grandma has an abusive boyfriend) and her mom is in a mental health facility so Reenie ends up with a great aunt that she's never met.  Beatrice is a master falconer and keeps a red tailed hawk, Red, that Reenie is finds entrancing.  Beatrice tells Reenie that she would like to trap and work w...