Category: Award Winners

cover of The Lost Year
Posted in Award Winners, MG Novels, So Many Good Books

The Lost Year

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

The Lost Year (Roaring Brook Press, 2023) by Katherine Marsh is a really good historical about the Holodomor (the Ukraine famine tragedy in the 1930s), and is also set at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic. With Ukraine and Russia and immigration being in the news, this book is very timely. The story is told in multiple points of view.

It’s the pandemic and thirteen-year-old Matthew’s reporter father is in France and can’t come home. All Matthew can do is online school, help Mom with his great grandmother, and not see his friends or go anywhere. When Mom takes away his Switch, she makes him help GG sort out the boxes in her room. It’s not easy going, since GG periodically tells him to “get out,” but as he starts learning family history, secrets are revealed.

We meet three cousins: Nadiya, Mila, and Helen.

This book was inspired by Marsh’s own family history and is a National Book Award Finalist, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the 21st Century, Winner of the Jane Addams, Golden Kite and New York Historical Society Awards and on 28 state lists. I hope you get to read it.

Here’s a video about Katherine’s family. Read about the author here and see her other books here. I’ve read two of her books before and see others I need to read.

cover of Afia in the Land of Wonders
Posted in Award Winners, MG Novels, So Many Good Books, YA Novels

Afia in the Land of Wonders

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

It’s Marvelous Middle Grade Monday!

I loved Afia in the Land of Wonders (Scholastic Press, 2025) written and illustrated by Mia Araujo. It’s such an intriguing and well done fantasy set in Western Africa (not tribe specific). Isn’t that cover gorgeous? (And what you can’t tell is the gold is embossed.)

Afia’s beloved twin has always been happy to work with their family in the crystal business, but Afia wants more. She wants to explore outside of Dafra. Have adventures. In disobedience to her family she leaves them and gets much more adventure than she wants.

The writing and the illustrations are beautiful. I didn’t want to stop reading, but the ending is very satisfying.

This book is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and a Barnes & Noble Children’s & YA Book Awards Finalist for 2025. The main character is 16 but very approachable for the middle grade audience.

This illustrated novel was the author’s debut. I hope she is working on further books! Read more about Mia here and see her paintings and drawings.

cover of Elsetime
Posted in Award Winners, MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Elsetime

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Elsetime (Everything with Words, 2020) by Eve McDonnell is a fascinating historical set in two time periods (1864 and 1928) with time travel, and was inspired by the 1928 Great Flood of London.

First we meet orphaned Glory, an eleven-year-old looking for a job, who is dressing up to look older. She’s been expelled from school because of her wooden hand–it would be a waste to educate her. But not only is she determined to get a job, she plans to own an emporium someday. Meanwhile, she and her older sister must earn enough to keep the landlord at bay.

Then the story switches to Needle, also eleven, whose father is missing. A mudlark who digs up lost treasures at the river’s edge, Needle senses the story behind each piece. He takes his found bits and pieces and makes beautiful things to sell so he and his mother can survive.

What connects them? A crow named Magpie and a list of who will die in the flood.

The novel has won awards: Winner Children’s Book Award (pre-publication) Wells Festival of Literature 2017,  Book of the Year 2020: Halfway Up Books, and  Children’s Book of the Year 2020: Bridge Street Books.

Read about this Irish author here and check out her other books here. Eve is also an artist!

cover of Wonderland
Posted in Award Winners, MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Wonderland

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Mnday

Wonderland (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018) by Barbara O’Connor is a sweet story I’m glad I found. It’s told in three viewpoints, including a dog’s!

It’s the summer between fourth and fifth grade and Mavis Jeeter’s mother is moving them again. Mavis wants to have a best friend. How can she do that if they don’t stay anywhere long enough? She wants this new home in Alabama to be permanent. She’s decided that Mom’s employer’s daughter will be her new best friend and tells her so.

Ten-year-old Rose Tully doesn’t fit in with the others in Magnolia Estates. But then this strange new girl, Mavis, arrives makes her believe she can have a friend, besides Mr. Duffy, the gateguard.

Then there’s Henry, a dog on the run.

See the awards for this book here.

Last year I recommended Barbara’s book Wish. Here’s a link to this bestselling author’s FAQ.

cover of Nightingale
Posted in Award Winners, MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Nightingale

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Nightingale (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2022) by Deva Fagan was a fun fantasy–there’s a magic sword, flying, an evil factory owner, workers literally ghosting, princes, a giant robot, a possibly war on the horizon, and a hero or two.

12-year-old Lark is an orphan just trying to earn enough money to get her mother’s locket back from mean Mrs. Starvenger. During an attempted theft she accidentally touches a magicked sword and becomes the fabled hero Nightingale expected to save Gallant from an ancient evil. 13-year-old Prince Jasper was the one who awakened the sword, but unfortunately the sword has a mind of it’s own and won’t go back. But Lark can’t be a hero, can’t she?

The book is a 2022 Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year and has been put on a several state lists. Read more here.

Read about the author here and check out her other books on her site.