100 Scope Notes
December 30, 2018 by Betsy Bird
The penultimate list! I'm so excited! This year I did a bit better than in 2017 in terms of reading middle grade fiction. Thanks to a system of following starred reviews, the recommendations of readers I trust, blogs, Twitter, Mock Newbery lists, the whole kerschmozzle, here are the 2018 books that I think are great.
November 21, 2018 by Betsy Bird
The Season of Styx Malone By Kekla Magoon Wendy Lamb Books (an imprint of Random House Children’s Books) $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-5247-1595-3 Ages 9-12 On shelves now And it was around this time that I started wondering why more people weren’t talking about The Season of Styx Malone. So let me tell you a little story. […]
November 2, 2018 by Betsy Bird
The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle By Christina Uss Margaret Ferguson Books (an imprint of Holiday House) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-8234-4007-8 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. The term “quirky” has gotten a bad rap recently. I blamed forced quirk. Have you ever read or watched something where the book or movie is just trying too […]
October 11, 2018 by Betsy Bird
Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish By Pablo Cartaya Viking (an imprint of Penguin Random House) $16.99 ISBN: 9781101997260 Ages 9-12 On shelves now The other day a woman contacted me and wondered if I could offer any picture book/middle grade/ YA suggestions for a list of various topics. The list consisted of things like “OCD”, […]
September 13, 2018 by Betsy Bird
Louisiana’s Way Home By Kate DiCamillo Candlewick Press ISBN: 978-0-7636-9463-0 $16.99 Ages 9-12 On shelves October 2nd There once was a book called Raymie Nightingale. Not a big flashy book with glitter on the cover and fonts that look like escaped balloon animals. Just a quiet book set in the late 1970s in Florida, patiently […]
August 23, 2018 by Betsy Bird
The Story Collector By Kristin O’Donnell Tubb Illustrated by Iacopo Bruno Henry Holt & Co. (an imprint of Macmillan) $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-250-14380-8 Ages 9-12 On shelves August 28th From 2007 until about 2012 I had the distinct pleasure of working in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of New York Public Library. It’s one of those […]
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July 13, 2018 by Betsy Bird
Harbor Me By Jacqueline Woodson Nancy Paulsen Books (an imprint of Penguin) $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-399-25252-5 Ages 9-12 On shelves August 28th A good book, whether it’s written for a nine-year-old, a nineteen-year-old, or a ninety-year-old can tilt your perspective, if only momentarily. Consider the concept of the “happy ending” and what it’s supposed to resemble. […]
June 5, 2018 by Betsy Bird
The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge By M.T. Anderson Illustrated by Eugene Yelchin Candlewick Press $24.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-9822-5 Ages 10 and up On shelves September 25th In my job I read a lot of books written for kids and middle schoolers. To guide this reading I take into account a lot of professional reviews from sources […]
May 9, 2018 by Betsy Bird
The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl By Stacy McAnulty Random House Books for Young Readers $16.99 ISBN: 9781524767570 Ages 9-12 On shelves now The world would have us believe that the left brained and right brained amongst us can never see eye-to-eye. Think about it. How many times have you heard a perfectly intelligent person say […]
April 19, 2018 by Betsy Bird
The Parker Inheritance By Varian Johnson Arthur A. Levine Books (an imprint of Scholastic) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-545-94617-9 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. The other day I was asked to come up with ten children’s book equivalents to Claudia Rankine’s book Citizen (which, should anybody ask you, is not for kids). To do this, I wanted […]
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