The Book Search

Are you looking for something new in middle grade fiction?  Well, have I got a couple of titles for you!  These are new releases and are DEFINITELY worth looking for! The first one is called "The Adventurers Guild" by Zack Loran Clark and Nick Eliopulos.  It's about a group of kids who live in a town called Freestone.  Freestone has an annual event called Guildculling where children who are of a certain age are called to join their professions.  For many of lower class children, there isn't too much of a choice, but members of higher societal families have greater opportunities for choices.  But there are always some surprises, and there are some very big surprises at this particular Guildculling.  I don't want to give too much away because each layer of this well written book has excellent suspense and interesting plot twists.  There is some wonderful political drama, some great opportunities for talking about class expectations and racism, as ...

I've been doing some reading on things that I've been seeing on some lists but haven't had a chance to read and wow, now that I've read them, I'm a little sorry I waited so long, but oh well, better late than never. The first one I actually read this summer and somehow forgot to blog about it.  It's called Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan.  It's kind of a genre defying book because it starts off as a fairy tale and then has three parts of what appear to be unrelated historical fiction and then finishes as both a fairy tale and modern fiction.  It sounds a bit confusing but I assure, the story is anything but.  It starts with a boy named Otto who is wandering around in a forest and gets lost.  He is approached by three sisters who have quite a fantastic story.  They leave him back at home, a bit confused, but with a harmonica to remind him of his quest.  Then we go to Freidrich in Germany in the late 1930s.  Then to Ivy in California in 1941 and finally to...