middle grade Archives - Page 343 of 370

childrenofexile

Children of Exile
by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Author)

Booktalk: For the past twelve years, adults called “Freds” have raised Rosi, her younger brother Bobo, and the other children of their town, saying it is too dangerous for them to stay with their parents, but now they are all being sent back. Since Rosi is the oldest, all the younger kids are looking to her with questions she doesn’t have the answers to. She’d always trusted the Freds completely, but now she’s not so sure.

Snippet: “Have you seen any kids older than us here?” he asked.

I thought about the people I’d seen on my long walk from the plane to the parents’ house. I thought about the people I’d seen at the cinder-block church that morning.

“No,” I said. “I haven’t.”

Edway turned to face me directly.

“It wouldn’t just be a coincidence for no babies to be born in my ginormous family for thirteen years,” he said. “Or in this entire town. Something happened. What was it? What happened to all the kids who were little kids when we were born?”

clarahumble
Clara Humble and the Not-So-Super Powers
by Anna Humphrey (Author) and Lisa Cinar (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Clara Humble may seem like your average fourth-grader who doesn’t look before she leaps, but she has a secret: she thinks she might have superpowers. Which is convenient, because things aren’t going so well for Clara. Students from rival R. R. Reginald are moving into her school for the term, and Clara’s favorite neighbor, Momo, is moving to a faraway retirement home.

Together with her best friend, Bradley, the winsome and overconfident Clara becomes convinced that her knack for making liquids spill, overhearing her parents’ conversations, communicating with her pet chinchilla, and maybe even mind-controlling teachers could be used to put a stop to these injustices.

Snippet: I’d seen the For Sale sign on her lawn from the bus window when we went past. It had that lady with the very white teeth and very big hair on it–the same one who seemed to sell all the houses in our neighborhood. Above her picture there was a sign that read, “Coming soon.” It meant that Momo was about to break her terrible news to me. Under any other circumstances, I would ahve felt like crying. but for a girl who’d just learned that she has the power of mind control (in addition to her power to spill things, move things with her mind, burn out lightbulbs and batteries, wake up at 7:14 exactly, and communicate with chinchillas, a little For Sale sign didn’t seem like much of a match.