A new category in middle grade fiction
I LOVE reading for the CYBILS award. The list of books we read is virtually the entire catalog of everything that's been printed in the year of the award so I end up digging deep into one category of books, this year, it's middle grade fiction. A lot of social issues appear in middle grade fiction-these are books written for kids in upper elementary and middle school and those kids are trying to figure out a lot. Often times books like these end up offering pathways for kids they didn't even know they wanted. So imagine my surprise today (literally, I read these two books today) that two of the books are centered around kids who want to see themselves or people like themselves in the Civil War. Yep, the American Civil War, the one that was fought over states rights or slavery? That ended in 1865? That one. I KNOW. And they're BOTH terrific. The first one is called The Secret Battle of Evan Pao. It's written by Wendy Wan-...