Three Times Lucky, by Sheila Turnage (2012), tells a middle-grade whodunit with the unforgettable Southern voice of a rising sixth-grader, Mo. Mo lives with the eccentric proprietors of the town diner, Lana and the Colonel. No matter that the Colonel has amnesia and...
Sal Vidon, able narrator, is somehow calm when outrageous things are happening. And plenty of outrageous things do happen in this book, so the result is hilarious. Carlos Hernandez’ middle grade novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe focuses on out-of-this-world...
Louisiana’s Way Home, a middle-grade historical novel by Kate DiCamillo, took ahold of my heart somehow. I read it a couple of days ago, and it’s still hanging around in my mind. I think it’s the amazing combination of the quirky characters, the awful...
Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos, a review Published in 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux Genre: Middle grade historical Not till I got to the end of this book did I realize how autobiographical it was. It features a 12-year-old boy, Jack, in the most bizarre...