-
The Key and the Flame
This was my first book by Claire Caterer and it was definitely a fun-filled magical adventure for middle grade readers and it’s definitely left with an open ending for a follow-up story. Eleven-year-old Holly is always being told that she needs to get her head out of the clouds and…
-
The Real Boy
There’s been a lot of chatter about The Real Boy by Anne Ursu in the past few months and I was curious myself to find out what the story was all about. A glittering city called Asteri was saved from the plague by the magic of the island and the…
-
A Corner of White
There were two things that made me want to read this book – the fist was the cover, I love all the bright colors and it looked like something right up my alley. The second was the author’s last name, I’m a little bit of a Sherlock fan and with…
-
In Search of Goliathus Hercules
In Search of Goliathus Hercules honestly scared me a little when I heard about it. A young boy finds out that he can speak with 6-legged insects and soon realizes he is becoming more bug-like by the day. My immediate thought went straight to Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis and I am…
-
Summer Book Discussion Group for Middle School Students (Grades 5-8)
The job of a children’s librarian is never done. Just as I’ve finally caught my breath with a number of programs and projects, the summer planning is looming ahead of me. Each year we offer our rising 5th – 8th graders two different book discussion opportunities. The first is called…
-
Seraphina
I had heard a lot about Seraphina before I picked it up to read. I really enjoyed the cover art with little color bust so much detail in a simple ink drawing. I do have to say that I’m quite particular about the fantasy books I read. They can’t be…
-
Seeing Cinderella
Seeing Cinderella by Jenny Lundquist is fun, entertaining read – perfect for middle school girls, especially those who enjoy their fiction mixed with just a little fairy tale magic. When Callie Anderson, a sixth grader who already has frizzy hair, freckles, and finds that she has to…
-
Starry River of the Sky
Starry River of the Sky is written by Grace Lin and is considered a companion novel to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. In both of these stories, Lin takes the Chinese folklore that she so desperately did not want to hear as a child and creates her own spin…
-
What Came From the Stars
What Came From the Stars by Gary Schmidt is a high-fantasy story about a young boy, Tommy, who finds a magical necklace from another planet in his lunchbox and what ensues can only be explained as chaos. I had a really hard time with this book – I’m not much of…
-
Splendors and Glooms
I’ve seen a number of reviews about this book and they piqued my curiousity because it seemed like from what I read people either really enjoyed the story or were not a fan. I could find very few reviews of the story that were in-between the two extremes. So I was…