middle grade Archives - Page 329 of 329

K-9 (Knightley and Son)
by Rohan Gavin (Author)

Booktalk: London’s Youngest detective is back . . . Darkus Knightley, tweed-wearing, megabrained, fiercely logical thirteen-year-old investigator of the weird, was just getting used to having his private-eye dad back in his life. Then Alan Knightley went off radar again, leaving Darkus with the family mutt, a traumatized ex-police dog, as his only partner in crime-solving.

Now a mysterious canine conspiracy is howling for the attention of Knightley & Son. Shadowy trained hounds are attacking policemen at the full moon. Family pets are being mauled by a beast at a top London tourist spot. And two curiously alert canines seem to be watching Darkus’s house. No one is using the word “werewolf”-yet-but it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out that someone or something sinister is messing with the minds of London’s dog population. Will our intrepid father-son duo make it to the next full moon?

Snippet:
Downstairs, Tilly was eating a large bowl of cereal while Clive watched in silence from the opposite end of the kitchen table.

“Well . . . ? Who is he?” demanded Clive flatly. “This mysterious character on the two-wheeled bottle rocket.”

Jackie raised her eyebrows and continued emptying the dishwasher.

“A friend,” Tilly replied.

Six Traits Mini Lesson

Trait: Word Choice “Show, don’t tell” is the advice given to many writers, but you actually need to do both. A story needs to show and to tell. It’s a question of when. This passage begins a new scene. To let the readers know where the scene takes place, the story in this mentor text tells them with a single word:

Downstairs,

Then it tells us the character’s names and shows us what they are doing:

Tilly was eating a large bowl of cereal while Clive watched in silence

The sentence ends with more telling by adding another setting detail.

from the opposite end of the kitchen table.

Notice how the sentence alternates between showing and telling? Nouns TELL (setting details, character names) and verbs SHOW (actions and emotions).

Space: The Whole Whizz-Bang Story
by Glenn Murphy (Author)

Booktalk: What is a black hole? How do we know that stars and galaxies are billions of years old? What is the difference between stars and planets? Find the answers to these and other space-related questions in this funny and informative book.

Snippet:
Hang on a Minute — What Is the Universe?

That is a very, very good question. One that most people don’t bother to ask.

The Universe is all there is.
Literally.

EVERYTHING. All of it.
It contains everything from vast galaxies, stars, black holes, planets, moons, oceans, rivers, lakes, land masses . . . plus every single life-form that lives on (or in) them.

Six Traits Mini Lesson

Trait: Voice Use this nonfiction middle grade book as a mentor text for voice. No stuffy lists of facts here! This is not a classroom lecture. The informal tone makes it feel like a conversation.

Trait: Organization The conversational tone is also seen in the way the information in the book is organized. How? The book is organized like a conversation. A question (in bold) is followed by an answer. And that answer leads to the next question. The next page of the book begins like this:

Snippet:
All there is? Like, EVERYTHING?

Yep. Everything. The word ‘universe’ comes from the Greek, meaning ‘all together’ or ‘turned into one’.

It’s Nonfiction Monday!