by Carolyn | Adventure, Fantasy, Imagination, Magical Realism, Middle School, Middle-grade, Recommendations
When your daughter hands you a book and tells you it’s the best book she’s read in a while, you read it! A Time of Green Magic by Hilary McKay is a fantastical story set in the real world with compelling characters and vivid writing. The Story Living in a...
by Carolyn | Juvenile Fiction, Middle School, Middle-grade, Recommendations
Roll With It by Jamie Sumner is a heartfelt book full of quirky characters. It touches on so many issues: living with a disability, dementia, complex friendships, standing out, and family. But if I were to pinpoint one theme it would be that accepting help and...
by Carolyn | Adventure, Fantasy, Older Elementary, Picture Books, Read Alouds, Recommendations
I read lots of picture books that retell or mash up fairy tale, but it’s wonderful to find a fairy tale that feels brand new. The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess by Tom Gauld combines a classic style with more modern sensibilities (read: no wolves or...
by Carolyn | Adventure, Fantasy, Imagination, Juvenile Fiction, Middle-grade, Older Elementary, Read Alouds, Recommendations
If you love fairytales, I have a wonderful book for you. Otto Tattercoat and the Forest of Lost Things by Matilda Woods is a beautiful fairytale about friendship that touches on complex moral themes. The Story When Otto’s mother disappears in their new, freezing...
by Carolyn | Books about Books, Historical Fiction, Middle School, Middle-grade, Read Alouds, Recommendations
Did you ever wonder what kind of adventures Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy would have gotten up to if they hadn’t found their way into Narnia? What about the other millions (yes, millions) of children evacuated to the British countryside during World War II? And...
by Carolyn | Boys, Chapter Books, For fun, Gifts, Girls, Middle-grade, Picture Books, Read Alouds, Reading, Recommendations, Resources, Young Adult
Here’s a round-up of bookish gifts for every bookworm kid, tween, and teen on your list this year. (And maybe a few for the adults as well.) If you’re reading this in 2021, we’ve all heard supply chain and shipping may be issues this year, so make...
by Carolyn | Animal books, Education, Nature, Older Elementary, Preschool, Read Alouds, Recommendations
Certain books just ask to be read aloud. Often, they possess a conversational quality or a certain voice you can “hear” in your mind. Beside the Pond by James Witmer, the newest in his Big Old Garden series, is one of those books. Witmer’s writing...
by Carolyn | Adventure, Boys, Historical Fiction, Middle School, Middle-grade, Read Alouds, Recommendations
If you think your kids wouldn’t enjoy a western, you just might be wrong. When we visited Colorado this summer, I chose an audiobook themed to our location. The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson by Glenn McCarty with illustrations by Joe Sutphin is a...
by Carolyn | Adventure, Character Training, Cultural Diversity, Fantasy, Highschool, Recommendations, Young Adult
The Sunlit Lands Series by Matt Mikalatos is my top pick for kids who have grown up reading The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wingfeather Saga, and The Green Ember Series and are now ready to dive into young adult. These books contain the same kind of deeply true and...
by Carolyn | Autobiography, Cultural Diversity, Juvenile Fiction, Recommendations, Young Adult
When a book quotes Tolkien in the title and Dostoyevsky on one of the first pages, I pay attention. Everything Sad is Untrue: A True Story by Daniel Nayeri has won more awards than I can list here and seven starred reviews, and for good reason. It is a stunningly...
