Maya and the Robot by Eve L. Ewing
My rating: 5 of 5 stars Friendship, jealousy, loneliness, grief, finding your voice, resilience, and pursuing your interests are all themes tucked neatly into this story about a girl and her new mechanical companion. Maya’s best friends are in a different class this year, and for the first time, Maya is not looking forward to school. On top of that, Zoe is mean to her, and her teacher calls her by her first name instead of by Maya. But then, Maya finds a robot in the stock room while working at the store for Mr. MacMillan. She loves science and engineering, and this is exciting! She finds out that Mr. Mac’s son Christopher built the robot years ago, but Christopher is gone now, and Maya is not sure where he is. Maya gets the robot to work and all is well until sabotage at the science fair! This is a good story with heavy moments tempered with humor and fun. Maya learns that there is more to people than she can see on the outside, that Christopher was shot and killed 10 years ago and Mr. Mac is still really sad, that Zoe is mean because she’s jealous and thinks Maya’s life is perfect, that her teacher calls her the wrong name because she doesn’t know any different and Maya never spoke up to correct her. Highly recommended! View all my reviews
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Dinosaurs Before Dark by Jenny Laird
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Thank you for the review copy from NetGalley and Random House Books for Young Readers. What? Magic Tree House as a graphic novel? Yes, please! This is a really quick read as a graphic novel adaptation for the 7- to 9-year-old crowd. The illustrations are bright, the text is sparse, and they kept my favorite line, “Then everything was still. Absolutely still.” The Magic Tree House books in my library don’t circulate as much as they used to, despite new copies. I hope that this graphic version, and any that follow, will serve as a “gateway book” to the Jack and Annie books. View all my reviews
Ways to Grow Love by Renée Watson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars Thank you for the review copy from NetGalley and Bloomsbury Childrens. All opinions are my own. Ryan is one of my favorite middle-grade characters. In this story, our spirited protagonist heads to church camp with her besties. She is elected the cabin captain, and not everything goes as planned. Amid the skits, pranks, and other adventures of the next 4 days, she has to learn how to love her neighbor, forgive, and ask forgiveness. And by the end, she becomes a big sister. This is a wholesome story where the protagonist is just a little girl doing little girl things. She learns, she grows, she loves her family and they love her. I hope Renee Watson has more books planned for this series because I can’t keep the first one on the shelf, and I suspect this one will follow suit. View all my reviews |