Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
Family Story with Photographs
In Finding Family (Bloomsbury, 2010) by Tonya Bolden we get to see the characters grow and change in this historical middle grade novel set in 1905 Charleston, West Virginia. Author Tonya Bolden was Inspired by old pictures to create the story. Here’s a brief summary:
12-year-old Delana is being raised by a great aunt and her grandpa. Aunt Tilley loves visiting kinfolk by pulling the pictures out of a basket. But Aunt Tilley has been scattered lately and changing stories. Grandpa doesn’t say much and Delana thinks he doesn’t love her, so when Aunt Tilley dies, she wants to go home with various family members, not that she’s brave enough to tell them.
See what else the author has written on her website. As for me, I’m planning to check out some of her nonfiction!
Selling Hope (Feiwel and Friends, 2010) by Kristin O’Donnell Tubb is one of those fascinating stories with characters so real you want to meet them. Here’s an introduction:
One Crazy Summer (Amistad, 2010) by Rita Williams-Garcia is set in 1968 and would be eye-opening for younger readers to learn how blacks, then called Negroes, were treated. Even for me living at that time in a community where I didn’t see much prejudice, it’s rather shocking.
“I was thirteen the first time I saw a police officer up close. He was arresting me for driving without a license. At the time, I didn’t even know what a license was. I wasn’t too clear on what being arrested meant either.” This is another of those great openings which made me definitely want to read on.