New realistic middle grade fiction

 Now that I'm done with the CYBILS for the year, I can dig back into the realistic fiction pile.  Here are two of my latest favorites!

Weirdly Walter by Julia Walton is a terrific new book.  It came out in October and I read it over the winter holidays and I wondered why it had taken so long (oh, yeah, I remember-I was reading for the CYBILS award-107 middle grade fantasy books, that's right).  Walter was such a charming and heartwarming read-I think you're going to love it.  Walter is a fifth grader who has always lived with his dad, a musician.  They've traveled around quite a bit and Walter is used to being the new kid at school.  But this is different.  His dad has left him for the first time, with Walter's grandfather, and there's no end in sight for when Walter will go back on the road with his dad.  Walter adores his dad and records some of his dad's wisdom in his journal.  But he's also kind of mad at his dad, that there was no conversation about their separation or why Walter was not welcome on this leg of the trip.  Walter is a resilient guy and his new school is a performing arts school, which is right up Walter's alley.  In fact, he makes a big splash the first few minutes he's on campus, when he's left alone in the front office and decides to the morning announcements as an alien from another planet, to rave reviews.  He makes some wonderfully supportive friends so when the school bully notices him, they rally around Walter.  This book has big themes of family and love and support as well as finding your own voice, even when that's hard.  It also has a story line of making mistakes (even really big ones) and finding the courage to make them right.  I loved this book and I loved Walter's character as well as the supporting characters.  Don't miss this one.  It's a treat.  

I just finished "Safe Harbor" by Padma Venkatraman and thought it was great!  It's about Geetha, middle schooler who is moving with her mom from their native India to the Northeastern US (she says Narragansett Bay).  They're leaving India because her parents have divorced and Geetha hasn't heard from her dad since he left.  She and her mom have been living with her grandparents but now they are mostly on their own.  School is really different-the kids there make fun of her accent and bully her relentlessly.  Geetha doesn't tell anyone but she finds that she's getting more and more angry, both with the girls at school and with her mom.  She makes friends with a boy in her neighborhood and they find that they have a love of nature and the ocean in common.   When they're out for a walk one day, they find a baby seal that  is tangled up in some trash.  They call the local wildlife rescue and the baby is taken to rescue center for help.  Geetha feels really connected to the baby seal so she visits it often and comes up with a plan to try to clean up the ocean in her neighborhood and by finding her voice there, she also finds her voice with the bullies at school, which also helps.  This is a wonderful, hopeful book about a girl trying to find her place (and succeeding!) and lots of kids will see themselves reflected in the pages.  There are themes of finding your voice, making big changes, the love of family, finding true friends, as well as ocean conservation.  I think the kids are going to love this one.  I know I did.