Category: MG Novels

middle grade novels (for 8-12 yo)

cover of Holding on for Dear Life
Posted in MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Holding on for Dear Life

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Holding on for Dear Life (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dusti Bowling was super good and, as an adult, scary for what the kids go through.

Thirteen-year-old Canyon has to win the Junior Bull Riding Championship. It’s the only thing that might make his father get his act back together. Winning the buckle will make Dad pay attention to him and his little sister, Josie, quit drinking, and remember they are still a family. When the aches and pains of bull riding get to Canyon, it’s only playing his violin that helps. But now he wonders if he’s holding on to the wrong thing.

Dusti is an award-winning author with numerous books. Read about her here. Previously, I recommended her debut, Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus.

Another book readers might like is Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry.

For older readers I recommend Suzanne Morgan Williams’ book Bull Rider.

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

Restart

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Restart (Scholastic Press, 2017) by Gordon Korman is a great read!

Eighth grader Chase Ambrose fell off the roof, woke up in the hospital 4 days later, and doesn’t remember ANYTHING from before. Not his name, family, or friends. And definitely not school and who he was. As Chase says, “It’s like I’ve been parachuted into the middle of someone else’s life–someone who looks exactly like me, yet isn’t me.” Finding out who he was before the retrograde amnesia is different depending on who Chase talks to–he’s either a hero or someone to fear. Snippets of his old life return to his memory in bits and pieces. Will he return to who he was before or be someone new?

I missed this when it came out, but am very happy to discover it now. The book is on 49 state lists!

Gordon Korman is an award-winning author. Read the 10 ten questions kids ask and check out his 80 books.

cover of Press 1 for Invasion
Posted in MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Press 1 for Invasion

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Press 1 for Invasion (Aladdin, 2025) by J.A. Dauber is hilarious and deliciously scary. The first line is great: “It’s all my parents’ fault.”

Precocious 10-year-old Matt’s parents won’t let him have a cell phone like the other kids, so, of course, when he sees a cell phone on the sidewalk, he picks it up and keeps it. But it won’t make calls and the only app he can use is the camera. But when Matt takes a picture of Mr. Mackintosh, the school crossing guard, it shows a purple alien with scary teeth, six or seven eye stalks, and tentacles. But Matt’s the only one who can see it. Then the lunch lady, Mrs. MacGillicuddy, reveals that there’s an alien invasion and only he can help save everyone in the world from being eaten.

Matt is definitely funny–the way he thinks and talks–yet he also finds out he hasn’t been a great friend. But the threat of being cooked in an oven changes one’s perspective.

Read about the author here. He’s also written a YA novel, Mayhem and Madness: Chronicles of a Teenaged Supervillain.

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 Olivetti shows a typewriter with flowers coming out of the basket area
Posted in MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Olivetti

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Olivetti (Feiwel and Friends, 2024) by Allie Millington is told in two points of view–a twelve-year-old boy named Ernest and a typewritter named Olivetti. In fact, the opening lines are from Olivetti.

“It’s quite possible you’ve never spoken to a typewriter before. This is not your fault.”

How could one not read on?

Olivetti lives with the Brindle family and has been replaced with a laptop. But when Mrs. Brindle leaves the family, only Olivetti has clues and he breaks the typewriter code by typing back to Ernest. With a newfound friend, the two work together to find Beatrice Brindle, until disaster strikes.

This debut book is unusual and compelling. It’s been on the following lists: School Library Journal Best Books of 2024, Booklist Best Books of 2024, Boston Globe Best Books of 2024, Bookshop Best Books of 2024, and more.

Read about the author here. She now has two other books which you can read about here.

Although I like the cover, I don’t think it would appeal to middle grade boys.