Bubba and Squirt come from a long line of magicians so when Bubba tries to dig to China using Grandpa Joe’s shovel, he opens up a portal to other countries. In the first book of this series, Bubba and Squirt’s Big Dig to China, the siblings go to China where solve a mystery for the ghost of an emperor. In their next trip, Bubba and Squirt’s Mayan Adventure, they help archeologists in Belize catch an [...]
In addition to being extremely strict, Melony Yoshima’s immigrant parents are overly protective. They say they want to keep her safe from the Amanjaku, an evil spirit that preys on children. Melony thinks that is just an old Japanese folktale and doesn’t believe them. Frustrated with her boring and overly controlled life, Melony makes a wish on her twelfth birthday for excitement, adventure, and freedom. She also wants a smart phone, which is just as [...]
It's Autism Awareness Month and if you’re looking for a great MG book with neurodiverse characters, try Frankie and Amelia by Cammie McGovern. The story is told from the point of view of Frankie, a large Maine Coon cat. After being separated from his first family, Frankie learns to find food and shelter. But he doesn’t like fending for himself so, when he gets a chance to live with humans again, he takes it, [...]
12-year-old Mac has been raised by his mother and grandfather to stand up for the truth. When his 6th grade class are given copies of Jane Yolan’s The Devil’s Arithmetic for a literacy unit, he’s shocked to see some words are blacked out. He and his friends, Denis and Marci, buy a copy at the bookstore to find out what has been censored. When they discover the word "breast" has been blacked out, they're [...]
Happy Book Birthday to Drawing Outside the Lines! In 1883, after a journey from Oakland, California to Brooklyn, New York on the Transcontinental Railroad, eleven-year-old Julia Morgan (known as Dudu to her family) got to walk on the newly completed Brooklyn Bridge. She was awestruck by that engineering marvel which was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time. Her mother tolerated Julia’s obsession with structures and construction techniques when she was a [...]
Happy book birthday to MONSTER CLUB by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel! Almost everyone calls Eric "Doodle" because he doodles a lot. And he's so good at it that he got into Mark Twain Middle School for the Gifted and Talented. His favorite thing to draw is Brickman, a fighting monster he designed for the game he and his best friend, Yoo-Hoo created. They, along with three other friends play it during lunchtime. They [...]
Eleven-year-old Zack Einstein and his family have moved to Vista Point so his parents can open a bed-and-breakfast. They want a fresh start in a new place because a few months before, the youngest Einstein was killed in an accident. Zack blames himself. If only he had stopped his little sister Susan from chasing after the kitten, she wouldn’t have been hit by a car. Zack can’t forget that fateful day and his role in [...]
In 1913, thousands of Mexicans, including 12-year-old Petra Luna, her six-year-old sister, one-year-old brother, and her grandmother cross the Rio Grande into Texas to escape the violent civil war in Mexico. They stay in an overcrowded refugee camp with little food and a smallpox outbreak. When the revolutionists take back the Mexican border town, the refugees are given the option to go back to Mexico or get a job in the United States. Petra [...]
Aurora can be a bit too much; too much talking, too much activity, and too much volume. Frenchie, on the other hand, doesn’t talk at all. Aurora likes that about Frenchie. She doesn’t have to worry about interrupting him, like she tends to do to everyone else. After Frenchie and his mother Gracia move in next door, he and Aurora become best friends. They spend hours hiking through the Maine countryside with Frenchie silently bird [...]
What a coincidence that I just finished reading Dream, Annie, Dream in which the University of Kansas Jayhawks win the NCAA championships in 1988, and the Jayhawks soared through March Madness to win again this year! Seventh-grader Annie and her dad are big fans of the Jayhawks, partly because her dad is a math professor at the University of Kansas and partly because Annie loves to play basketball. Even though she’s barely five feet tall [...]
