2024 Gift Guide: For the Tweens & Young Teens (Ages 10-15)
December 13, 2024 § 4 Comments
Welcome to the fifth and final installment of this year’s Gift Guide! I apologize that it has taken me so far into December to finish these round-ups. Putting this Guide together every year is a bit like childbirth. When it’s over, I quickly forget how grueling it was. Then, smack into the middle of the following fall, I think, holy heck, why have I agreed to do this again?! I’m mostly kidding, because I do love the process of reading through fall releases, looking for standouts for different types of readers and different types of gift givers, but the thorough written reviews are in themselves a huge undertaking. I thank you for bearing with me!
Today’s list includes both upper middle-grade titles, a new but rapidly expanding category aimed at the tween reader (ages 10-13), and books on the softer, gentler side of YA (ages 13+), something not so easy to come by in a category only growing edgier in its aim to catch the attention of adult readers as well. To be clear, there is no difference in reading level across YA books; the age distinction is based entirely on how graphic the content is around sex, violence, or drugs, so don’t assume that an older teen wouldn’t like some of these selects, too!
For those of you straddling traditional middle grade (ages 8-12) and upper middle grade (10-13), be sure to check out the previous installment of this year’s Guide, too!
Speaking of older teens, I won’t be doing a list specifically for them this year, but I can direct you to the one my colleagues helped with at the bookstore, because their taste is impeccable. Many of these are being gifted to my own daughter (who just finished and adored the holiday romance, Make My Wish Come True! And, as always, if you keep your eye on my Instagram account, I do occasionally share reviews for older teens alongside all the other books I read and love.
As always, please consider supporting my work at Old Town Books by using the links below to purchase your books from us, either in person or online, though if you have an indie bookstore near you that you love, by all means give them your money! Our communities need its bookstores—places of escape, discovery, and inclusion—arguably now more than ever.
The books below are presented roughly in order from youngest to oldest.
« Read the rest of this entry »2024 Summer Reading Guide: Elementary Readers (ages 7-12)
June 6, 2024 Comments Off on 2024 Summer Reading Guide: Elementary Readers (ages 7-12)
Welcome to the second of three installments of my Summer Reading Guide! This round-up includes a whopping seventeen brand new middle-grade books for a range of readers, from animal lovers to Dog Man aficionados, fantasy seekers to summer camp dreamers, mystery solvers to history buffs, and everything in between. There’s even a touch of elementary-appropriate romance! The list spans a mix of traditional novels and graphic novels, and I’ve included an example of an interior spread where illustration factors into the enjoyment of the story.
Nearly all of these have been published in just the past few weeks or months. THAT SAID, I must encourage you to take a look at my Spring Break Reading Round-Up from earlier in the year, with what will undoubtedly end up being some of my very favorite middle grade of the entire year. If your kiddos haven’t found their way into the likes of The Liars Society, Max in the House of Spies, The First State of Being, or Not Quite a Ghost, consider them musts. Likewise, Katherine Marsh’s Medusa, an action-packed, thought-provoking story about a group of kids descended from Greek Monsters, is being met with such enthusiasm by my readers at the shop (and me!) that I’ve chosen it for Old Town Book’s inaugural Camp Bookworm. If you’re local, encourage your kids to read the book, then join us in person to discuss and meet Katherine Marsh herself (!) on Tuesday, August 27, at 6pm at the bookshop.
Now, a quick word for my fantasy lovers. There are two fantasies on the below list, but there should be more. One of my colleagues with a deep love of fantasy and a great eye for kid lit read and loved two additional fantasies that made it onto our shop’s Summer Reading Guide but are not included here, simply because I haven’t had time to read them yet. They are: Julie Kagawa’s Lightningborn: Storm Dragons, a series starter about a boy who finds a wild baby dragon, believed to be extinct, and becomes the focus of an evil sky pirate’s vengeance; and Ryan Graudin’s The Girl Who Kept the Castle, another series starter about a girl who must save her home from destruction when a not-totally-dead wizard’s inheritance competition goes awry (think Nevermoor meets Howl’s Moving Castle). It should also be said that every single fantasy on last year’s Summer Reading Guide—and there were some fabulous ones—now have sequels out (hello, Greenwild!).
OK, let’s gooooo! As always, the list is organized in ascending order of target ages.
« Read the rest of this entry »Spring Break Recs: New Middle Grade for 8-13
March 14, 2024 Comments Off on Spring Break Recs: New Middle Grade for 8-13
I’m not sure I’ve ever counted down to Spring Break quite as fervently as I have this year. I need a break. My kids need a break. And we all need to get off screens. Cue a device-free week of puzzles, hikes, board games, and lots and lots of reading. At least, that’s my plan. (Happy to accept all ideas for how to convince my teens to go along without pitching a knock-down-drag-out fit.) Seriously, though, and I speak from experience: vacations can do wonders for resetting our children’s relationship with recreational reading.
If you have middle-grade readers, then they are in for a treat, because the start to 2024 has been one of the strongest I can remember. At the risk of jinxing our luck, it finally seems publishers have gotten the memo that today’s readers are looking for more action and less heaviness, shorter page counts and bigger servings of humor. There are some big crowd pleasers here. There are also some quieter, thoughtful reads that don’t sacrifice good pacing. Below, you’ll find mystery, thriller, horror, realistic contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and even a touch of sci fi. My word, all that and it isn’t but three months into the year! I wouldn’t be surprised if next year’s Newbery winner was in this list.
Let’s dig in. (And PSST: if you’re local and want to drop by Old Town Books, we have signed copies of several of these titles while supplies last. You can see me while you’re at it, as I’ll be there all day on Saturday, March 16 for our Books in Bloom event!)
« Read the rest of this entry »2023 Gift Guide: Young Adult Books for 12 & Up
December 8, 2023 Comments Off on 2023 Gift Guide: Young Adult Books for 12 & Up
We’re closing in on the finish line, with only two posts left! Today is my Young Adult roundup, with terrific fiction and non-fiction titles for teens (excluding graphic novels, which were included here). It’s a killer list, with a wide range of topics and styles (though it’s still me, so plenty of prickly protagonists and social justice themes, and also I can’t help it if not a lot of boy protagonists are being written so don’t come at me). It also has a fair bit more 12+ titles (versus 14+) than in years past, and that’s by design. With the young adult category growing increasingly more mature (due to it being consumed by more and more adults), middle schoolers especially are at a loss for age-appropriate recommendations. Of course, I’ve also got great ideas here for high schoolers, too (yes, and adults).
My only regrets are that I didn’t get to read Pascale Lacelle’s Curious Tides (14+), a buzzy new dark academia thriller that has been getting rave reviews and that my co-workers loved (think Ninth House with less violence), and Brandy Colbert’s The Blackwoods (14+), a character-driven novel about the price of fame, with a multi-generational window into Black Hollywood (another one that my co-workers loved). Had I had time to read these two books, I feel certain they’d be on this list. Also, for your dragon fantasy lovers, there’s a new story in Christopher Paolinni’s Eragon world; it’s Murtagh (and we have signed copies at Old Town Books!).
If you’re looking for more ideas for young teens, there are some fantastic recommendations from earlier this year on my Summer Reading Guide.
Most of the books below are new this fall, with the exception of three. We Deserve Monuments came out in late December of last year, but I haven’t sung its praises on the blog before and that needs to change. The others are Star Splitter and Warrior Girl Unearthed, which came out this past May and, again, are too good not to include.
As always, please shop the Gift Guide at Old Town Books or at a favorite indie near you!
Titles presented in order of target ages.
« Read the rest of this entry »Gift Guide 2021: Middle-Grade Picks for Ages 7-14
November 30, 2021 § 2 Comments
(A reminder that all the books in my Gift Guide are available for purchase at Old Town Books here in Alexandria, VA, or on their website. Put KIDS21 in the Notes to get free gift wrapping and $5 shipping on orders over $25; one order per address, please. Thank you for supporting this wonderful indie bookstore where I assist with the buying!)
Last week, I recapped my favorite graphic novels of the year. This week, I’m talking about middle-grade reads that are so good, your reader won’t even notice they’re not graphic novels. (Wink wink.)
It has been another incredible year for middle-grade fiction and non-fiction, and while I’ve likely missed a few gems, I am thrilled with the ones I’ve discovered. Of the slew I read, these rose to the top and have great gift appeal. The stories have tremendous heart, raise thoughtful questions, and immerse readers in compelling worlds and rich settings. If you’ve been hanging around here, you’ll recognize a few titles from earlier in the year, but a number of these were just published.
I’m not including sequels here—like the newest title in our beloved Vanderbeekers series, or the third in the wonderful Front Desk series—in case the recipient has not read the earlier titles. And, though it’s increasingly difficult given the direction middle-grade stories are trending, I have stayed away from some of the heaviest reads of the year, including the brilliant The Shape of Thunder.
The list runs from younger to older, so please note the age range for each. My age ranges reflect both the sophistication of the writing and the maturity of the subject matter.
« Read the rest of this entry »The Secret to Picking Read-Aloud Chapter Books
May 13, 2021 Comments Off on The Secret to Picking Read-Aloud Chapter Books
How do you choose the chapter books you read to your kids? Maybe you consider whether the subject matter will appeal to them. Maybe you focus on what kind of characters they’ll identify with. Maybe you know they’ll be more likely to sit still for a funny story than one with long descriptive passages. Maybe you reach for a book because it’s one your child has asked you to read, or one you think you should read, or one by an author your child loves.
Whatever your criteria, it’s likely you’re thinking more about the audience than about yourself.
What if I told you your audience doesn’t matter?
OK, that’s not entirely true. Of course, your audience matters. Especially with younger children, there will always be ages and maturity levels to consider. But do you know what matters more than all the things I listed above? What matters the most?
The secret to picking a chapter book your kids will want to hear night after night is to pick one you will enjoy reading.
Your enthusiasm for what you’re reading influences your children’s enjoyment more than anything else. When you’re into a story, your eyes light up. Your voice is more dynamic. You are infinitely more likely to make that story enticing. Suddenly, the dishes in the sink or your buzzing phone fade into the background. Suddenly, there is nothing more important, nothing more exciting, than the mutual experience of immersing yourselves in a fictional world.
It’s tremendously liberating. Don’t enjoy fantasy? Don’t read it. Bored to tears by the likes of Magic Tree House? Save ‘em for your kids to read on their own. By reading aloud to your children, especially after they are reading on their own, you are giving them a precious gift. You’re choosing to prioritize reading in the home. I’m giving you permission to enjoy it as much as your kids do. Heck, I’m telling you your enjoyment will nearly guarantee their enjoyment—and, consequently, all the benefits that come with it.
For me, it always, always comes back to the writing. I’m a sucker for good writing. I love the way beautiful language rolls off the tongue. I love the drama of a perfectly placed sentence. I love smart, funny dialogue. Most of all, I love writing that’s tight. (Ironic, I know, since succinctness is clearly not my own specialty.) If a paragraph starts to drift or ramble, if the pacing of a story wanes, then my attention breaks. I’m no longer present. My heart’s not in it. The magic is broken…for a spell.
In that vein, I enjoyed every moment of Elana K. Arnold’s The House That Wasn’t There (Ages 8-12, younger if reading aloud), which I just finished reading to my ten-year-old daughter. Yes, the story itself has plenty to recommend it—who wouldn’t love middle-school realism with a few teleporting cats thrown in for good measure? But what struck me the entire time I was reading it was how good the writing is. Every sentence is an absolute pleasure to read out loud. It’s tight. It flows beautifully. It filled us with that same warm fuzzies as previous favorites like this, this, and this.
« Read the rest of this entry »2019 Gift Guide: Middle-Grade Fiction for Ages 8-14
December 15, 2019 § 2 Comments
The category of middle-grade fiction is rapidly broadening. On the one side are novels accessible to 8-12 year olds, while on the other are heavier, more mature stories aimed at the 10-14 crowd. As always, I’ve indicated age ranges after each title. Those with kids on the older end: don’t be in a hurry to move your kids to young-adult fiction. There’s still plenty of richness for the taking here.
The first five novels are new to this bog; the others are ones I’ve reviewed earlier in the year but couldn’t resist repeating, because they have mad gift potential. Or maybe it’s just that I’m madly in love with all of them. 2019: what a year. (And I can’t wait to see you in 2020. This wraps my Gift Guide, and I wish all of you a very Happy Holidays.)
Summer Reading Beckons (Middle-Grade Round Up)
May 24, 2019 Comments Off on Summer Reading Beckons (Middle-Grade Round Up)
As I’m limping over the finish line that is May, I’m dreaming of summer. Of days at the pool, nights in the backyard, and lots of opportunities for lazing around with our noses in a book. Should you (or your children) be itching for a distraction from making lunches or dressing for another concert, let me help you plot a summer reading list, beginning with my favorite middle-grade reads of late. (Link to my last round up is here; or go back and check out this and this.) First up is a book which should go straight to the top of your list: it’s fresh, funny, and eerily timely.
« Read the rest of this entry »Survival Skills
February 16, 2017 § 6 Comments
When my daughter was five, we were sitting at the dinner table discussing our days. “I almost forgot,” Emily said. “The craziest thing happened to me today!”
“Oh yeah? What was that?” we all asked.
Emily leaned in conspiratorially, as if getting ready to impart significant information. “I didn’t have a single sip of water all day. BUT I STILL SURVIVED! Can you believe it?”
It was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing, not wanting to diminish her stone-sober revelation. And yet, I haven’t stopped thinking about her words since. Clearly, whether at school or from a book or in conversation, Emily had absorbed something about “what every living creature needs to survive.” But she had only internalized half the story. What must it be like to make sense of the world through bits and pieces, to rarely grasp the full picture, to live your life in a perpetual loop of uncertainty and astonishment (as if you could accidentally “off” yourself at any moment)? « Read the rest of this entry »
What to Read to Your Kids 