Showing posts with label middle grade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label middle grade. Show all posts

Monday, January 23, 2023

Middle Grade Monday: Diper Överlöde (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #17) by Jeff Kinney

Diper Överlöde (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #17) by Jeff Kinney. 224 p. Amulet Books/ Abrams Books, October, 2022. 9781419762949. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Happy Monday! Middle Grade Monday features Diper Överlöde (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #17) by Jeff Kinney. Roderick wants to make his band, Diper Överlöde big and he thinks that by winning the upcoming Battle of the Bands will do it as it also launched the career of his favorite band. Greg isn't all that interested in being Roderick's roadie, but on the off-chance he does become famous, Greg wants in. Fans of the series will not be disappointed. There's a wait list for it. 

Monday, January 10, 2022

Middle Grade Monday and Arc Review: The Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P. Dobbs

The Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P. Dobbs. 288 p. Sourcebooks, September, 2021. 9781728234654. (Review of arc courtesy of the author.)

Happy Monday! I hope you enjoyed your weekend! We had a snow day here on Friday, so the weekend felt luxuriously long. Students have a scheduled long weekend next weekend for MLK's birthday. Teachers have a PD day.

Middle Grade Monday features The Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P. Dobbs. This historical fiction set in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution is based, in part on the author's family history.

Twelve-year-old Petra Luna gathers wood to sell in her village each day. She doesn't go to school. Neither she nor her father nor Abuelita read, but she longs to. Her mother died giving birth to her brother and her father has been conscripted by the Federales, who are brutally hunting down and quashing the revolutionaries. She promised her father that she would look after her grandmother, younger sister and baby brother until they could be reunited, but now the Federales have burned their village to the ground the the family are refugees heading north to the border and the U.S. How can she shepherd her remaining family across the desert on foot, with little money and scant knowledge of life outside of her village?

Readers will instantly root for the resilient Petra and become immersed in her dangerous trek. Though the Mexican Revolution happened over a hundred years ago, the continued plight of refugees all over the world makes this a timely novel to read today. There is an immediacy in Ms. Dobbs' writing, so much so that I often had to put the book down to take a break from the emotion that it evoked.

The Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna is the author's debut. I recommend it highly-for fans of historical fiction and for any reader wishing to become more empathetic. Happy reading!