Tag: MMGM

cover of The Hotel Balzaar
Posted in MG Novels, So Many Good Books

The Hotel Balzaar

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

The Hotel Balzaar (Candlewick Press, 2024) by Kate DiCamillo is a sweet story of stories within a story. It’s beautifully illustrated by Júlia Sardà.

Marta and her mother live in a hotel where Marta must be as quiet and invisible as a small mouse while her mother works. Marta obeys until a countess with a parrot arrives and invites her to visit. The stories the countess tells don’t seem connected and Marta is not sure they are even true, but they give her hope.

Part of The Norendy Tales, this book is aimed at ages 7-10, but I think older readers will enjoy as well. The first book in the collection is The Puppets of Spelhorst and coming in September is a third, Lost Evangeline. The books stand alone but share a world.

Kate is a two-time Newbery winner who writes picture books, early chapter books, and middle grade novels. Read more about this award winning author here.

Júlia is an author as well as an illustrator–read about her here and see samples of her work here.

Posted in MG Novels, So Many Good Books

The Witching Wind

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

The Witching Wind (Scholastic Press, 2024) by Natalie Lloyd is a novel full of magic and hope.

Grayson, going to yet another foster home, doesn’t mind because soon her older sister Beanie will come and take her away.

Roxie, was excited about starting sixth grade, until she made everyone laugh at her at the pool. But she’ll go on a singing tour with her gran and can forget about the whole embarrassing event.

Unfortunately, both Beanie and Granny are missing, and the two new friends think the Witching Wind stole them. Together they must find the truth.

The personalities of these girls shine in this dual point-of-view novel. I also love the way Grayson’s disability is dealt with.

Read about this New York Times Bestselling Author here and check out all her books here.

I previously recommended Natalie’s Over the Moon and A Snicker of Magic. I need to catch up on more of her books.

cover of Light-and-Air
Posted in Award Winners, MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Light and Air

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Light and Air (Holiday House, 2024) by Mindy Nichols Wendell is fascinating historical novel from 1935 about a disease we don’t worry about much–tuberculosis.

First, Halle’s mother comes down with TB and even though Halle doesn’t have it, classmates are shunning her. When she gets it too, she joins her mother at J. N. Adam Tuberculosis Hospital in upstate New York–although they are in separate buildings and can’t see each other. There Halle makes friends and risks sneaking out to see her mother. But when her mother has a lung hemorrhage, could it be Halle’s fault?

This book is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and is the author’s debut novel.

Read about Mindy here. And here’s a link to the inspiration for the book.

cover of Tree. Table. Book.
Posted in MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Tree. Table. Book.

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Tree. Table. Book. (Clarion Books, 2024) by Lois Lowry is such a sweet book of loss and hope.

Eleven-year-old Sophie’s best friend is her eighty-eight-year-old neighbor also named Sophie. Young Sophie’s worrying her best friend is increasingly forgetful and comes up with a plan to keep the old woman from being taken from her own home and put in assisted living.

I love the connection between the two Sophies and how the aide the younger offers reveals stories of the older one’s past.

Lois is an award-winning author and two times Newbery winner. Read about her many books here and learn more about her here.

cover of Drawing Deena
Posted in MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Drawing Deena

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

I love books that introduce me to cultures other than my own, and especially when they show a character growing as in Drawing Deena (Salaam Reads/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024) by Hena Khan. This story is a good reminder of how people are also so much the same.

Thirteen-year-old Deena is stressed. It starts out with a visit to the dentist–enough to stress many of us–then she finds out she needs an expensive night guard. And money is definitely a stressor in her family. She’d love to go on a school art field trip to see her favorite artist and take art classes to make her art better, but her parents, especially her mom, don’t think art is that important. Maybe Deena can show the value of her art by helping her mother with selling her Pakistani clothes. Maybe if the business is doing better, her parents will fight less. And maybe Deena won’t feel so anxious and so sick in the mornings.

This book deals so well with the fears and growing pains of being a middle school kid. Through the story Deena gets help and learns to be open and honest with her parents about her worries and what is important to her.

Bonus material in this story is Deena’s reaction to Van Gogh, the Immersive Experience. I recently attended this too, and along with Deena wish I could have seen one original Van Gogh.

Hena is an award-winning author of picture books and middle grade fiction. Read more about her here and check out her many other books here. (She’s one prolific writer!)