Elza and I love games almost as much as we love reading middle grade books. You’ll find more of these over on Middle Grade Carousel and posting throughout the day on our Twitter account. Follow us and play along! ~CJ
Will you come back?
All posts by C. J. Milbrandt
#amreading Whimsically
The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle is a quirky story that sends Bicycle and a bike with personality on a cross-country road trip. She makes many friends along the way. Un Lun Dun is a fantasy that works very hard to contradict the usual tropes in fantasies with a “chosen one.” Lots of whimsy as Zanna navigates through a world populated by London’s lost and broken things. In Dreamwood, Lucy runs away from boarding school in order to find her father, who’s gone missing. This one’s kind of an alternate history, and the world-building is fascinating.
If-Then Reads
One good book can lead to another! Here are two books that do the natural disaster thing. One young lady faces a devastating earthquake (and its aftermath), and the other chases her fascination for storms.
What are you reading?
Elza and I love games almost as much as we love reading middle grade books. You’ll find more of these over on Middle Grade Carousel and posting throughout the day on our Twitter account. Follow us and play along! ~CJ
#amreading Communities
Three Times Lucky is the first of the Mo & Dale Mysteries, set in the small town of Tupelo Landing. It’s smart and funny. I’m looking forward to picking up the rest of the series. The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street is a neighborhood story. The Vanderbeekers are a big family (five kids), who might lose their home because their grouchy landlord won’t renew their lease. Dragon Slippers reminded me a lot of Dealing with Dragons. Creel is sacrificed to a dragon in the hopes that she’ll be married off to the knight who rescues her. But she befriends the dragon instead.
Is it Christmas already?
Elza and I love games almost as much as we love reading middle grade books. You’ll find more of these over on Middle Grade Carousel and posting throughout the day on our Twitter account. Follow us and play along! ~CJ
#amreading Precariously
Enter the Core wraps up the Max Tilt trilogy. Still following in the footsteps of their ancestor Jules Verne, Max & Co. seek the truth behind Journey to the Center of the Earth. Action-packed adventure with literary tie-ins. Beastkeeper was an odd one. Things are changing and Sarah doesn’t like any of it. Her mother runs away, and her father is getting stranger (and scarier) by the day. When he shuffles her off to her grandmother’s house (a dilapidated tower in the middle of nowhere), it becomes increasingly clear that her family has never been normal. Indeed, they must be cursed. (It’s a contemporary/magical realism fairy tale that never really even tries to be happy.) And then there’s the classic The Voyage of the Frog. Fourteen-year-old David finds himself alone and adrift. A survival story at sea.
If – Then Reads
One good book can lead to another! Both of these stories involve characters whose choices buck traditions that are gender-based.
Do I know you?
Elza and I love games almost as much as we love reading middle grade books. You’ll find more of these over on Middle Grade Carousel and posting throughout the day on our Twitter account. Follow us and play along! ~CJ
Harrow Audio
Pre-order! The audio edition of Harrow (Galleries of Stone, #2) narrated by Travis Baldree is now available for pre-order. Release Date: July 5, 2022.
