How’s the summer treating you? Taking a mostly-break from my blog has definitely been revitalizing for me. For one thing, it’s freed me for a bit of gardening. I am entirely a novice gardener. So, small things feel monumental: tomatoes …
Category: chapter/middle grade
simply smashing: fiction imports for a wide age span
Today, three short chapter books to suit a variety of readers coming to us from Sweden and the UK. These books were all a joy for me to read, and I am hardly the target audience! So think outside the …
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50 more chapter books, 100-ish pages or less
As I mentioned last week, here is a sequel to my list from a couple years ago featuring about 50 books that are 100-ish pages or less. Today’s list features 50 more, most of which are part of a series so …
a second batch of fantasy!
Earlier this year I decided to devote some time to reading a bit more fantasy, looking for gems to recommend. In January, I posted one batch of titles which you can find here. Over the past months I’ve tackled quite a …
butlers, betrayals, and the gentlemanly game of cricket
Gary Schmidt wrote a couple of my favorite ever middle-grade novels, The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now, both richly human, honest, painful, and redemptive stories that get my highest recommendation for ages 13 and up — which is not …
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fancy some fantasy?
One of my goals for Orange Marmalade in 2019 is to delve a bit into fantasy — which sounds very dwarf-like, this delving. Partly in order to keep expanding my own reading menu; partly because I recognize that for many …
a Dickensian tale of golems and chimney sweeps
Presenting another piece of middle-grade fiction that I couldn’t put down 🙂 Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster, by Jonathan Auxier published in 2018 by Amulet Books 344 pages + Author’s and Historical Notes Masterful storyteller Jonathan …
love, loss, and one little donkey
Saving Winslow, by Sharon Creech published in 2018 by Joanna Cotler Books, Harper Collins 165 pages Louie knelt beside the basket. A small gray head with black eyes and feathery eyelashes and sticking-up ears emerged. Attached to the head was …
a happy, vintage, read-aloud find
The Curious Lobster, written by Richard W. Hatch, illustrated by Marion Freeman Wakeman originally published in two volumes in 1935 and 1939; this edition 2018 by New York Review Books 392 pages I love when I stumble across a classic …
an out-of-the-box fantasy!
Selznickian became an adjective of choice for me in 2007 when Brian Selznick created his genre-busting novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, weaving together word and image in a way that had not been done before. Since then, he has …
