The Book Search

I really love fairy tales and it's such a pleasure to be able to introduce the bigger kids to chapter books that are fairy tales.  The kids are always surprised, thinking that fairy tales are picture books, but their big themes of honor and bravery and kindness make them excellent reading for anyone!  Here are two to look for... The first one is called "Grump: The Mostly True Story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".  It's by Liesl Shurtliff, who has written three other mostly true fairy tales- "Rump: The Mostly True Story of Rumpelstiltskin", "Jack: The Mostly True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Red: the Mostly True Story of Little Red Riding Hood".   The first three were terrific so I was really looking forward to this one and it did not disappoint.  Grump is a dwarf who doesn't fit in.  He really wants to go to the surface in spite of dire warnings of danger.  When he's sent out on his first work mission, he ends up ...

This week, my group voted for the titles in middle grade fiction that we wanted to move on to the next round of voting.  Five titles made it into the next round and while I'm pleased with all of the titles that got through, I AM sworn to secrecy.  All will be revealed VERY SOON.  In the meantime, I am staying FAR, FAR away from realistic fiction at the moment.  I think all of us in the group had read ENOUGH about dead parents, dead siblings, dead best friends to last for awhile. So I'm back to Netgalley and there are some really terrific titles there that aren't out yet but will be soon.  The first one is called "The Goblin's Puzzle" by Andrew S. Chilton.  It's about three kids, a boy and two girls named Alice.  The boy doesn't have a name because he is a slave and who would bother to name a slave.  He leads a slavish existence (no pun intended but he is a slave to some not very nice people) until one day, fate intervenes.  The boy is a big...