Marvelous Middle Grade Monday: The Year of the Book

Ah, I know a book has a good cover when my kids are pouring over it, asking me, “What is this book about?” All of us had fun picking out the books in the trees on the cover of THE YEAR OF THE BOOK. What have we read, what haven’t we read?

I love it when a book inspires you to read other books. With THE YEAR OF THE BOOK, I loved reading about all my favorites, but also learned about a few more I now have to read: HUSH (Jacqueline Woodson) and MY LOUISIANA SKY (Kimberly Willis Holt).

Here is the synopsis from Amazon:

In Chinese, peng you means friend. But in any language, all Anna knows for certain is that friendship is complicated.

When Anna needs company, she turns to her books. Whether traveling through A Wrinkle in Time, or peering over My Side of the Mountain, books provide what real life cannot—constant companionship and insight into her changing world. Books, however, can’t tell Anna how to find a true friend. She’ll have to discover that on her own. In the tradition of classics like Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books and Eleanor Estes’ One Hundred Dresses, this novel subtly explores what it takes to make friends and what it means to be one.

I knew I had to read this when it was compared to Betsy-Tacy and One Hundred Dresses, but I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d love this in other ways.

I loved the cultural component of this book, that Anna is struggling with her Chinese identity.

I loved that books are Anna’s best friends. That’s exactly how I was as a child.

I loved that she learned that sometimes friendship is complicated, and that people aren’t perfect like characters in books. That's something us bookish types do need to learn sometimes.

And the wonderful way Cheng wove in the titles of all these books (including illustrations of their covers by Abigail Halpin) was just lovely.

Have you read any good middle grades lately?



To check out more Marvelous Middle Grade suggestions, check out Always in the Middle.