diverse mg – Page 2 – Susan Uhlig

SomedayBirdscover The Someday Birds (HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2017) by Sally J. Pla is a moving and amazing story. I would have chosen this book as the Newbery winner if they’d let me.

Charlie likes routine. He’s also fascinated by birds. His younger twin brothers and older sister are not so patient with his routines or interests. With Dad in the hospital and not able to speak due to a brain injury from his time as a war journalist in Afghanistan, Gram is staying with them. None of them like the fact that Charlie speaks too directly about Dad’s condition. But life is about to change drastically for all of them, including a lady who might be a spy, a road trip, and of course for Charlie, birds.

I love how the chapter headings are related to birds in some way. I also love this story being in Charlie’s viewpoint and how he deals with his OCD/sensitivity/autism spectrum issues.

This award-winning book is the author’s debut. Read more about her here and check out her other books on the books tab of her website.

I love learning about history via historical fiction–it just brings it alive. Is It Night or Day? (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2010) by Fern Schumer Chapman is a recent discover for me. The book is inspired by the author’s mother’s experiences, who was one of twelve hundred children rescued from the Holocaust by Americans through the One Thousand Children project.

It’s 1938 and twelve-year-old Edith has to travel alone from Germany to America as the anti-Semitism is getting worse. She’ll be staying with family she’s never met in Chicago. Is that scary or what?

See if the opening lines of this book don’t just grab you: “The first long train trip I ever took in Germany was my last. Now I see that it was a funeral procession. The mourners traveling with me were my father, my mother, and Mina, a Christian girl who lived with my family and was as dear to me as my big sister, Betty. We were burying my childhood.”

The author creates such sympathy in the reader’s heart for Edith. Wow! It’s an unforgettable story and definitely a good read.

Read about Fern Schumer Chapman’s other books here.