2023 middle grade fiction

Tag: 2023 middle grade fiction

September 22, 2023 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh

If you think the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, the famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, and Brooklyn at that same time makes for an awkward tri-narrative, you are wrong. And if you also think that it would be highly difficult to weave three such perspectives together, there you are correct, but it can be done. The Lost Year proves as much.

July 20, 2023 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: Jawbreaker by Christina Wyman

I dare you to read even two chapters and not be engulfed in the narrative. Smart and savvy, Jawbreaker is the novel you wish you had read as a kid and are grateful that kids get to read today.

June 22, 2023 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: The Carrefour Curse by Dianne K. Salerni

Honestly, the book starts with someone vomiting frogs and only picks up from there. I don’t know what more you could want.

Review of the Day: The Probability of Everything by Sarah Everett

May 24, 2023 by Betsy Bird

Sarah Everett wrestles with an outsized and ambitious bit of plotting, all the while keeping her cards close to her chest. Here’s some advice: Hand this to kids that like their books with a bit of a twist. And do NOT skip to the ending and read that first.

Review of the Day: Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow

April 28, 2023 by Betsy Bird

This is for the kid who likes their humor to be complicated, their writing to be scintillating, and to never, ever, know what an author is going to do next.

Review of the Day: The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers, ill. Shawn Harris

April 8, 2023 by Betsy Bird

Though you may not be the biggest fan of books populated by furry woodland creatures, read The Eyes and the Impossible and you will find a thoroughly well-written, occasionally touching, funny, strange little book that sticks both its landing and in your memory. It might even turn you around on the whole animal fiction thing.

Review of the Day: Hands by Torrey Maldonado

March 2, 2023 by Betsy Bird

Torrey taps into a kind of writing we've been in dire need of for a very long time. And with his authentic voice and whole heaping helpfuls of heart, his latest book Hands is one that your kids are NOT going to want to miss.