Middle Grade Monday: Time to Roll by Jamie Sumner

Image: Simon & Schuster

Time to Roll by Jamie Sumner. Roll with It #2. 224 p. Atheneum Books for Young Readers/ Simon & Schuster, April, 2023.

Middle Grade Monday features Time to Roll by Jamie Sumner. I finally got to this sequel to Roll with It, which I loved!

It's the summer and Ellie's mom married her gym teacher. Yay! They are off on a month-long honeymoon in an RV and since Ellie's grandparents now live in a home, Ellie's dad steps up to spend the month in the trailer with his wife and sons. Boo! Ellie feels so weird around him because he treats her weirdly, plus, he's always on his phone!

Coralee decides to enter the Miss Boots and Bows pageant and Ellie and Bert go along for the ride. The pageant organizer takes one look at Ellie and wants her to sign up as well. Oddly, so does Coralee. Ellie doesn't think this is a good idea, but borrows the entrance fee from her grandmother. As expected, the pageant organizer treats Ellie as a commodity and tensions arise between the girls. 

As in the first book, Ellie's voice is unique and entertaining. This book continues exploring themes of disability awareness and rolls friendship issues, father-daughter issues and elder care issues seamlessly. Now, on to Rolling On, which released in October. Happy reading!

Teen Tuesday: The First Thing About You by Chaz Hayden

Image: Candlewick Press

The First Thing About You by Chaz Hayden. 368 p. Candlewick Press, September, 2022. 9781536223115. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

The Daily Book Talk/ Take Two: Happy Tuesday! Argh! I was in the middle of writing my Teen Tuesday post early this morning and accidentally closed the page in my school's learning platform, which doesn't have an autosave feature!

Teen Tuesday features a hilarious and heartwarming debut, The First Thing About You by Chaz Hayden. Fifteen-year-old Harris has moved from California to New Jersey because his father got a better job. He's hoping to use this opportunity to start living "a real teenage life," which includes finding a girlfriend. However, Harris has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which means he's wheelchair bound and totally reliant on others for eating, bathing and doing school work. It's kind of hard to get people to look past the "kid in the wheelchair" to see Harris for who he is. He also has a theory about colors. His go-to conversation starter is, "What's your favorite color?" The answer gives Harris an idea about possible compatibility. The first person to reach out to him is Zander, whose favorite color is yellow. Yellow and blue mix well. When he's paired with Nory in Physics class, she assumes that he's not smart because of the wheel chair. Additionally, she won't tell him her favorite color. He's disappointed because she's smart and pretty.

While he and his mother interview nurses to hire, she attends school with him, trying to keep the fact that she's his mom on the down-low. She's actually pretty cool and Harris appreciates the fact that she shoulders most of the burden for his care and is a fierce advocate for him with the school. He has an IEP and the school is not prepared to accommodate him. After the first nurse that was hired failed epically (and hilariously), Harris' mom reluctantly hires Miranda, a nursing student. She is a former student of the high school and has a reputation for making bad choices. Still, she works well with Harris and he's happy.

Teen readers will be immediately captivated by Harris' wry narration. The author also has SMA and explores themes of friendship and belonging authentically. Harris is a memorable character, bright, irreverent and introspective and The First Thing About You is a smashing debut. I'm looking forward to reading more from Mr. Hayden.

I always look up the availability of my daily book talks in our library cooperative for my students. This morning, I discovered that The First Thing About You is available as an e-audiobook! I'm eager to reread this with my ears! Happy reading!

Middle Grade Monday and Audiobook Review: Out of My Heart by Sharon M. Draper

Image: Simon & Schuster

Out of My Heart by Sharon M. Draper. Unabridged audiobook, ~7 hours. Read by Sisi Aisha Johnson. Simon & Schuster Audio, November, 2021. (Review of e-audiobook borrowed from the public library.)

Happy Monday! I hope you had a cozy weekend. It has been chilly here in northern NJ and this weekend's much needed rain made staying indoors easy. We got the remnants of Hurricane Ian. Not a ton of rain, but very high winds. My neighbor had a huge tree fall. Thankfully it fell away from his house. 

Middle Grade Monday features Out of My Heart by Sharon M. Draper. This sequel to Out of My Mind has Melody contemplating her summer. Her classmates are all heading to a variety of camps and Melody wonders if there's one that would accept her. With the help of the librarian and her public library, Melody finds a camp that caters to kids with special needs. Fans of the first book will not be disappointed. Melody is just as spunky and funny. Readers will cheer as she finds her courage, makes friends and maybe even finds her first crush?

Fact Friday: Her Own Two Feet: a Rwandan girl's brave fight to walk by Meredith Davis and Rebecca Uwitonze

Image: Scholastic

Her Own Two Feet: a Rwandan girl's brave fight to walk by Meredith Davis and Rebecca Uwitonze. 199 p. Scholastic Focus/ Scholastic Inc., October, 2019. 9781338356373. (Review of finished copy courtesy of publisher.)

Fact Friday features Her Own Two Feet: a Rwandan girl's brave fight to walk by Meredith Davis and Rebecca Uwitonze.  Maybe you're feeling a bit sorry for yourself now that we've spent three weeks in virtual school and remaining isolated from friends. At least we're all in this together; fighting for a common cause - to flatten the curve. Reading this book sure did put things into perspective for me. 

Rebeka Uwitonze was born with club feet. Her feet were so twisted that doctors feared she would never walk and the people in her village told her parents to abandon her by the side of the road. As she grew, villagers avoided her, spat on her and called her cursed. Her parents did not abandon her and did everything they could to support Rebeka. She was loved. But she was also growing and was becoming too heavy for her mother to carry. Rebeka's condition was fixable at birth -in a developed country like the U.S. In Rwanda, her parents lived far from a hospital and were too poor to afford that kind of care. 

When Rebeka was nine, she was sponsored by an American doctor to travel to the U.S. to be evaluated for surgery to repair her feet. She lived in Austen, Texas with the Davis family, who took care of her while she endured many painful surgeries. She missed her family. She spoke almost no English; but she was resilient. Her parents' motto, "Amahirwe aza rimwe," "chance comes once," became her mantra. Her photo-filled story touches the heartstrings. Her Own Two Feet was just the right story I needed at this time. I am in awe of Rebeka and you will be too. Read it.

Middle Grade Monday and arc review: Roll with It by Jamie Sumner

Image: Simon &  Schuster

Roll with It by Jamie Sumner. 256 p. Atheneum Books for Young Readers/ Simon & Schuster, October1, 2019. 9781534442559. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

For most of her life, it has just been Ellie and her mother living in Nashville, dealing with wheelchairs, cerebral palsy and IEPs. Her mom successfully advocated for an aide for Ellie, but she occasionally finds a way to escape. Ellie is not your typical sunshine and roses kid in a wheel chair. She has an edge and a dream. She loves to cook and bake and aspires to be a celebrity chef. Life is pretty good in Nashville; but then Ellie's grandad's Alzheimer's disease begins to worsen, Ellie's mom decides to move the family to Oklahoma. This means living in a trailer where Ellie can't navigate without help. It also means attending a school that is not quite equipped to handle Ellie's special needs as well as being the new kid - in a wheelchair. 

Well, I swallowed this one whole. I loved the voice from page one. Terrific writing. Great characters. Realistic issues. Kids are going to adore this, especially if they enjoyed Out of My Mind! Impressive debut! Looking forward to Ms. Sumner's sophomore novel.

Middle Grade Monday and Arc Review: Mascot by Antony John

Mascot by Antony John. 330 p. Harper/ HarperCollins Publishers, September 11, 2018.9780062835642. (Review from arc courtesy of publisher.)

Happy Monday from Boston, TMS Readers! I'm here to attend a two-day library conference. On the way up yesterday, I stopped at one of my favorite places in the entire world, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art! There are three galleries, one devoted to the art of Eric Carle and two rotating exhibit spaces. Paddington Bear turns 60 this year, so the exhibit had lots of art from all the Paddington books and other fun facts. And the other room had art from Leo and Diane Dillon - who won back to back Caldecott Awards. 

Middle Grade Monday features Mascot by Antony John. I will tell you right off that I just loved this book! It's one of my favorites of 2018 - great opening lines, great voice, memorable characters, brilliantly funny dialog, cringeworthy moments, surprises and a tear or two.* 

Seventh grader Noah Savino has an attitude problem. It stinks. It's understandable though, because Noah is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a car accident that killed his father. Last spring, he was playing catcher on his Little League team; this fall, his teammates barely talk to him, except for Logan, who seems to relish humiliating Noah. He's trying to negotiate seventh grade, PE and missing his dad and it's pretty hard. Before you turn away saying, I don't want a sad book, let me say that I laughed through most of it. Noah is funny both intentionally and not. So is the new kid. His name is Ruben Spencer Hardesty, who makes an impressive entrance to class on his first day. 

Now, I will throw you a bit of a curveball and say that Mascot is not yet published. Sorry! It's coming September 11, so you don't have to wait too long! In the meanwhile, you can try his dystopian, Elemental or his YA realistic fiction, Five Flavors of Dumb. 

Mascot will be a book with wide appeal. Great for fans of baseball, sad books, humorous books, books with a possibility of romance, school stories, friendship stories. Really, any sort of reader should love this one. It won't sit on the shelf!

*Most of this review appeared on my TMS Reads group page and copied here instead of me writing a more formal review. I did want to add that John got the medical stuff spot on. Many of you may know that I am a stickler for that. I thought he did a fantastic job conveying the frustration, grief and anger that any person recovering from a catastrophic injury would experience. 

Fact Friday: Ugly by Robert Hoge

Ugly by Robert Hoge. 208 p. Penguin Young Readers Group, September, 2016. 9780425287750. (Own.)

Fact Friday features Ugly by Robert Hoge. Fans of the book Wonder absolutely must read this memoir. Robert Hoge greets readers on the back cover thusly, "I'm the ugliest person you've never met." He relates the story of his birth as the fifth child to his family in Australia in 1972. He was born with mangled legs and a tumor the size of a tennis ball in the middle of his face. His mother could not/ would not even look at him. Her doctors advised her to leave him at the hospital and forget about him. His four older siblings would not have that. They demanded that their baby brother be brought home and cared for. Hoge is a compelling narrator of his story.

Observant readers may feel that this feels a bit familiar. I did review this during the summer. The above review went on the morning announcements for my students.