🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Unusual and gripping, this made-for-teens story is the start of a new series by one of my favorite (adult mystery) authors. In this new genre, we meet Hannah Armstrong, a strangely-gifted fourteen-year-old, who has the ability to hear other’s thoughts, in the form of “whispers”, which are often chaotically…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A sweet and endearing middle-grade story about love and longing, as seen from the POV of a sensitive bear, a motherly fox, and a competent but grumpy cat. Set in an imagined post-crisis New York City, the story teems with witches, and magic-competents - some good, and some as…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A truly magical (and incredibly original) middle-grade book that this reader found thoroughly enchanting. With humor, pathos, and a highly relatable heroine, this book also contains a potential triggering happening and its follow-on effects (portrayed very sensitively) that younger readers may need help in understanding. To that end, there…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟➕ An absolute delight, this middle-grade story is voiced for us by eleven-year old Tig herself, weaving a first person narrative that so rings with authenticity, poignancy and most of all, charm, it is impossible for the reader not to fall completely under her spell. Heartlessly abandoned by her alcoholic…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A beautiful and gentle story, introducing a child to feelings or emotions, personified as charming little grey creatures, each with their own distinct outlook and presence. Here, amongst so many others, we meet: Nostalgia, who loves to revisit Christmas baubles and decorations, seeing out comfort from the stories they…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 When Big Bear has to leave on a trip, it’s clear that being apart from Little Bear could be hard on them both. Faced with that situation, this sweet and loving book shows us solace, in all its many forms. Little Bear learns that his interactions with the world…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Otto is a lonely otter - one who is too shy and timid to join in with the other otters at play time in the water, and who is not feeling loved. With Valentines Day approaching, Otto knows he will be alone again, on the outside and watching everyone…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A gorgeously illustrated tribute to diversity, this sweet book is as beautiful to look at as it is thoughtfully messaged. Not to mention funny, playful, and oh so charming. When Weasel, a little boy who notices everything in his neighborhood of Lilypod Lane, identifies a strange house with an…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 One of my very favorites when young, this middle-grade series deserves a re-read, and this reader is certainly up for the challenge. A twenty-six book series, begun in 1946 by author Walter R Brooks (and marvelously illustrated by Kurt Wiese), most of these books are currently out of print,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫A funny and touching middle-grade read about being twelve years old, struggling with the indelicate symptoms of a chronic and life-altering illness, and falling for your first crush, at precisely the age where “everything about being a human feels overwhelmingly embarrassing”. Our first person narrator, Alison (Al), lives with her…