Blacks – Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

War Games (Scholastic Press, 2025) by Alan Gratz is more fictional than his usual historicals, but it is good nevertheless.

Thirteen-year-old gymnast Evie is in Berlin for the 1936 Olympic games and is determined to bring home a gold medal to help her displaced “Okie” family. But a mysterious note to help her “take home the gold” and tell no one, leads her on an adventure where she experiences what Hitler doesn’t want the Olympians to see.

Make sure you read the author’s note at the end.

Check out the bestselling author here and discover his other novels here. Alan also writes graphic novels and short fiction.

My previous recommendations of books by Alan include: Ban this Book and Allies.

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Westfallen (Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024) by Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares is not quite time travel, perhaps time communication, but in the same exact place.

79 years apart, six kids meet via an old radio. The 2023 kids (Henry, Frances, and Lukas) unwittingly tell the 1944 kids (Alice, Artie, and Lawrence) some things that change the past and their future–today is not the American the modern three know, but now a country called Westfallen. With men in uniforms with swastika armbands. The six have to work together to change the past and present. But they destroyed the radio…

This is the first book in a planned trilogy of alternate history.

Ann is the bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, plus others. Read more about her books here, and about her here.

Ben, her brother, also has other books–check them out here. Read about him here.