Tag: diverse

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 Internment
Posted in So Many Good Books, YA Novels

Internment

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Internment (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Hachette, 2019) by Samira Ahmed might be even more of an important read than it was when it first came out. Or perhaps I should say, this powerful book continues to be important.

Here are two of the lines on the first page that really give you a sense of what’s coming. “Most of the town is at the book burning, so I should be safe. Or, at least, safer.” Scary? Yes!

In a horrible near future story, 17-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim Americans. Her boyfriend is on the outside. She, her new friends, and boyfriend, fight for their freedom.

This novel was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards for Young Adult Fiction Best Books 2019, chosen as a Semifinalist Best Fiction for Young Adults 2019-2020, on the Georgia Peach Book Award List 2020-2021, on the Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards List sponsored by the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association, was nominated for the Lincoln Award 2021, and the Winner of the Pennsylvania State Literacy Association’s Keystone to Reading Secondary Book Award for 2020-2021.

Read about this bestselling author here. Samira writes young adult, middle grade, comics, and is in and has edited anthologies. Read more here.

cover of Tornado Brain
Posted in MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Tornado Brain

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Tornado Brain (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2020) by Cat Patrick was an insightful story of neurodivergency with themes of friendship, hurt, and forgiveness. It’s a really good read full of voice.

Frankie is 13 and fascinated by tornadoes, tornado facts, and tornado shows. In fact that’s how she met her best friend Colette back in kindergarten–during an actual tornado. Colette, Frankie’s former friend, is now missing.

Because Frankie has several neurological conditions (attention deficit disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, and sensory processing disorder–labels the psychologist gave her), she doesn’t react the “right way” or say the “right things” about Colette’s disappearance. Yet, she believes she has the clues to figure out where Colette is. With the help of her older twin sister, Frankie uses her mixed up tornado brain to solve the mystery.

Each chapter has a tornado myth or fact at the beginning. Also, her family has an unusual living situation, which is fine with Frankie as long as you don’t change her routine. I especially recommend this story to anyone trying to understand someone on the “spectrum.”

The book was a 2022-2023 Truman Readers Book Award Nominee, 2021 Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, 2021 Texas Lone Star Reading List Pick, 2021 Washington State Book Award for Young Readers Finalist, and a Junior Library Guild Pick.

Paper Heart is a companion book with Frankie’s twin, Tess, as the main character. Chronologically it follows Tornado Brain. See all of the author’s middle grade books here.

You can check out Cat’s young adult books here and learn more about her here.