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December 9, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

12/9/2020

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Click

Miller, Kayla

2019, HMH Books for Young Readers

Fiction

Grades 3 - 7; GN360L

Ebook available through Libby/Overdrive and Axis360

A debut graphic novel about friendship and finding where you "click" in school.

Olive wants to get in on the act . . .
. . . Any act!

Olive “clicks” with everyone in the fifth grade—until one day she doesn’t. When a school variety show leaves Olive stranded without an act to join, she begins to panic, wondering why all her friends have already formed their own groups . . . without her. With the performance drawing closer by the minute, will Olive be able to find her own place in the show before the curtain comes up?

Read a review by Gennifer King:

click_by_kayla_miller.pdf
File Size: 314 kb
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November 11, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

11/11/2020

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Fever Year: the Killer Flu of 1918

Brown, Don

2019, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Nonfiction

Grades 6 - 12; Lexile GN1020L

Ebook available through Libby/Overdrive

From the Sibert Honor–winning creator behind The Unwanted and Drowned City comes one of the darkest episodes in American history: the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918. This nonfiction graphic novel explores the causes, effects, and lessons learned from a major epidemic in our past, and is the perfect tool for engaging readers of all ages, especially teens and tweens learning from home.
 
New Year’s Day, 1918. America has declared war on Germany and is gathering troops to fight. But there’s something coming that is deadlier than any war.
 
When people begin to fall ill, most Americans don’t suspect influenza. The flu is known to be dangerous to the very old, young, or frail. But the Spanish flu is exceptionally violent. Soon, thousands of people succumb. Then tens of thousands . . . hundreds of thousands and more. Graves can’t be dug quickly enough.
 
What made the influenza of 1918 so exceptionally deadly—and what can modern science help us understand about this tragic episode in history? With a journalist’s discerning eye for facts and an artist’s instinct for true emotion, Sibert Honor recipient Don Brown sets out to answer these questions and more in Fever Year.

Read a review by Ann Reeves:

fever_year.pdf
File Size: 329 kb
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November 4, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

11/4/2020

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Anti/hero

Quinn, Kate Karyus & Demitria Lunetta
Gil, Maca - illustrator

2020, DC Comics

Fiction

Grades 3 - 7

Print copy at library

Piper Pájaro and Sloane MacBrute are two 13-year-old girls with very different lives but very similar secrets. Popular, outgoing Piper is strong. Like, ripping-the-doors-off-cars strong. She longs to be a superhero, even if she tends to leave massive messes in her wake. Snarky Sloane, on the other hand, is super smart. Like, evil-genius-smart. To help her family, she has to put those smarts to use for her villainous grandfather.

When a mission to steal an experimental technological device brings the two girls face to face with each other, the device sparks, and the two girls switch bodies! Now they must live in each other's shoes as they figure out a way to switch back.

Read a review by Gennifer King:

antihero_review.pdf
File Size: 308 kb
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October 7, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

10/7/2020

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Trespassers

Bard, Breena

2020, Graphix

Fiction

Grades 3 - 7; Lexile GN390L

Print copy at library

Gabby Woods loves a mystery, but is breaking into an abandoned lake house going too far to uncover the truth?

Gabby Woods is looking forward to another summer vacation at her family's lake house, even though she would rather bury herself in a mystery novel than make new friends. But soon Gabby meets Paige, a snarky kid from Chicago, and they get caught up in a local mystery: the sudden disappearance of a glamorous couple and the extravagant lake house they left behind. To gather clues about the missing couple, Paige coaxes Gabby into trespassing. Though Gabby knows it's wrong, each sneaky visit to the abandoned lake house uncovers new mysteries. With suspicions mounting about foul play, Gabby must decide what she's willing to risk to uncover the truth, or if solving this mystery -- and keeping her friendship with Paige -- are more trouble than they're worth.

Read a review by Gennifer King:

trespassers_by_brenna_bard.pdf
File Size: 608 kb
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September 9, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

9/9/2020

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New Kid

Craft, Jerry

2019, Harper

Fiction

Grades 3 - 7; Lexile GN320L

Print copy at library; ebook and audiobook available through Libby/Overdrive and Axis360

A graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real.

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.

As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?

Read a review by Gennifer King:

new_kid_by_jerry_craft.pdf
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July 15, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

7/15/2020

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The Terrible Two

Barnett, Mac and Jory John
​Kevin Cornell - illustrator

2015, Amulet Books

Fiction

Grades 3 - 7; Lexile 620L

Ebook available through Libby/Overdrive and Axis360

Miles Murphy is not happy to be moving to Yawnee Valley, a sleepy town that’s famous for one thing and one thing only: cows. In his old school, everyone knew him as the town’s best prankster, but Miles quickly discovers that Yawnee Valley already has a prankster, and a great one. If Miles is going to take the title from this mystery kid, he is going to have to raise his game.
 
It’s prankster against prankster in an epic war of trickery, until the two finally decide to join forces and pull off the biggest prank ever seen: a prank so huge that it would make the members of the International Order of Disorder proud.
 
In The Terrible Two, bestselling authors and friends Mac Barnett and Jory John have created a series that has its roots in classic middle-grade literature yet feels fresh and new at the same time.
 ​

Read a review by Debra Blunier:

the_terrible_two.pdf
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July 1, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

7/1/2020

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This Side of Wild: Mutts, Mares, and Laughing Dinosaurs

Paulsen, Gary

2015, Simon & Schuster

Nonfiction

Grades 5 - 6; Lexile 1150L ​

Audiobook available through Libby/Overdrive and Axis360

In the National Book Award longlist book This Side of Wild, Newbery Honor–winning author Gary Paulsen shares surprising true stories about his relationship with animals, highlighting their compassion, intellect, intuition, and sense of adventure.

Gary Paulsen is an adventurer who competed in two Iditarods, survived the Minnesota wilderness, and climbed the Bighorns. None of this would have been possible without his truest companions: his animals. Sled dogs rescued him in Alaska, a sickened poodle guarded his well-being, and a horse led him across a desert. Through his interactions with dogs, horses, birds, and more, Gary has been struck with the belief that animals know more than we may fathom.

His understanding and admiration of animals is well known, and in This Side of Wild, which has taken a lifetime to write, he proves the ways in which they have taught him to be a better person.

Read a review by Debra Blunier:

this_side_of_wild.pdf
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May 27, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

5/27/2020

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Brown Girl Dreaming

Woodson, Jacqueline

2014, Nancy Paulsen Books

Nonfiction/Biography

Grades 5-8; Lexile 900L

Print copy at library; ebook available through Libby/Overdrive and Axis360

Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse.
​
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

Read a review by Gennifer King:

brown_girl_dreaming.pdf
File Size: 611 kb
File Type: pdf
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May 20, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

5/20/2020

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The Bubble Wrap Boy

Earle, Phil

2015, Random House

Fiction

Grades 4 - 6; Lexile 790L

Ebook available on Axis 360

Charlie Han’s troubles are much bigger than he is. At school he’s branded an outsider, a loser—the tiny kid from the Chinese takeout. His only ally is Sinus Sedgely, a kid with a lower-level reputation than Charlie himself. Life at home isn’t much better. His dad is more skilled with a wok than he is with words, and his mom is suffocating the life out of Charlie, worried about his every move. But when a new passion leads Charlie to the mother of all confrontations, he finds his real mom has been hiding a massive secret. A secret that, while shocking, might actually lead Charlie to feeling ten feet tall.

Read a review by Katie Kruger:

bubble_wrap_boy.pdf
File Size: 193 kb
File Type: pdf
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May 13, 2020 | Middle Grade Review

5/13/2020

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The War that Saved My Life

Bradley, Kimberly Brubaker

2015, Dial Books for Young Readers​

Nonfiction

Grades 4 - 7; Lexile 580L

Print copy and audiobook at library; ebook and audiobook on Libby/Overdrive; audiobook on Axis360

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him.
 
So begins a new adventure for Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan—and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?

Read a review by Debra Blunier:

the_war_that_saved_my_life.pdf
File Size: 204 kb
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  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact Us
    • Library Board
    • Library Policies
    • Staff & Employment
    • Friends of the Library
    • Donations
    • Library Newsletter
  • At The Library
    • Program Calendar
    • Children
    • Teens
    • Adults
    • Get a Library Card
    • Loan Periods and Fines
    • Access Your Account
    • Library of Things
  • Find Books & More
    • Search Catalog
    • Wowbrary: Latest Additions
    • Interlibrary Loans
    • Ebooks & Audiobooks
    • Online Music and Movies
    • Digital Magazines & Newspapers
    • E-Sequels
    • Staff Book Reviews
  • Services
    • Outreach
    • Porch Pickup
    • Free Services
    • Copy, Print, & Fax
    • Educational Materials Request
    • Talking Books
    • Explore More Illinois
    • Online Classes
  • Research
    • COVID-19 Resources
    • Genealogy & Local History
    • Eureka Pumpkin Festival
    • City & County Resources
    • State & Federal Resources
    • Tax Form Information