Middle Grade fiction standouts 2026
How lucky I am to get to read some of these amazing new books that are just coming out? Wait till you read these! The first one is a novel in verse and it's historical fiction. It's called "A Year without Home" and it's written by V. T. Bidania and according to the author's notes, is a story about her family's experience as they traveled from their home in Laos, to a refugee camp in Thailand, to a second refugee camp in Thailand and then to the US. The story is told by Gao Sheng, who is the oldest child in her family and as a girl, she is not considered as important as her brother, Yia. She is expected to be hard working, dutiful, and well behaved and she tries hard to fill that role. Her home in Laos contains most of her immediate family-her grandmother, her aunts and uncles, her parents and siblings and they have most everything they need. Her father is an officer in the Laotian military and when the Laotian government falls to th...