Great Middle Grade Reads discussion

April has arrived, but before we saunter into a new month, take a look back at your reading from March. What were your best finds? What middle grade books can you recommend to the group?

I'm still reading in alphabetical order (I mean, why not?), and I was able to fit in a handful of books between editing and typesetting. My favorites were definitely Jed Greenleaf by Kieran Larwood, in which different varieties of elemental magic (steel, fire, bone, etc.) crop up in people who are then trained to use them. And The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead & Wendy Maas is a small town story about a cat and a little free library. Charming in its own right, but they really had me at ... ghosts! The mystery really pulls you in.



How about you?

My favorite middle grade March read was The Last Rhee Witch, a fantastic supernatural mystery (based in Korean mythology) with thriller-style suspense. The others worth mention are The Graveyard Gift, Exit Nowhere, and The Secret of Moonrise Manor, a rare middle grade murder mystery.

My favorite read in March was John David Anderson's DIVE. I gave the ARC to one of my 8th grade students, and she enjoyed it as well! It's a slightly older middle grade read, and I will definitely purchase it for my 6-8 library.