Welcome to Litsy!

Amari gets an unexpected nomination to participate in a summer program at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, the same secret organization she learns her older brother was a part of before he mysteriously disappeared. There she learns she has undiscovered powers and continues to face people that think she doesn‘t belong because of her background and abilities. This is an action packed beginning to the series.

#MiddleGrade #TRS2022 #audiobook

Callie is ready for a fresh start when her family moves to Scotland, and she convinces her parents to let her be homeschooled. They agree if she joins a social activity, so she joins a twitching, or birdwatching, club that meets at the local library. At the same time she finds and reads the childhood journal of the woman that previously lived in the castle and starts making a few friends. This was a delightful #MiddleGrade read!

#TRS2022

This story is told from two points of view and both are action packed. Brandon goes to work with his dad on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and Reshmina meets American soldiers in a village in Afghanistan on September 11, 2019. I appreciated the weaving together of the two stories for a broader perspective, but I was slightly more invested in Brandon‘s story.

#MiddleGrade #TRS2022 #audiobook

This is a different survival story than most I‘ve read. After telling both parents she‘s staying with the other and actually staying alone in an empty apartment, Maddie wakes up to find everyone in her town gone due to an emergency evacuation. After a few days, the electricity is turned off and she, with a neighbor‘s Rottweiler, learns to survive by scavenging throughout town. She uses the library for physical and mental survival strategies. ⬇️

I thoroughly enjoyed the world building in this story. It‘s set in an alternate ancient Egypt with the gods actively involved in choosing a shadow, or personal body guard, for the prince. There‘s also lots of solar powered technology. The story is focused on one of the shadow candidates, a boy named Ash, and his close friends. It was action packed and fun, but it also read very much as the introduction to a series.

#MiddleGrade #TRS2022

I always see great reviews of Jennifer Nielsen‘s books, but for some reason it takes me a long time to get around to reading them. This is another great and action packed historical fiction about the French resistance and the use of codes during WWII.

#MiddleGrade #TRS2022 #audiobook #WWII

I enjoyed this book and the stories of the two main characters, but I‘m not so sure about it holding the attention of my JH readers. Set mostly in a town in Maine with a private girls‘ school during the 1960s and the Vietnam War, it deals a lot with personal secrets, societal expectations/changes of the time, and grief.

#YA #TRS2022 #audiobook #Maine

My students tend to like April Henry‘s books, so I‘ve read several although they‘re not my preferred genre. I don‘t know that this one will be one of their favorites, but I enjoyed more than some others. An incredibly popular fantasy author who‘s hit writer‘s block on his final book (Game of Thrones 🧐 🤷‍♀️) is kidnapped with the plan to force him to write. One of his teenage fans is the only one who might actually realize he‘s in danger. #YA

I finished the rest of this incredibly heartwarming story this morning so I could drop books off at the library. I loved the road trip aspect, the discussion of cars, and the family dynamic that developed. The two cousins provide great opportunities as well as support for the main character. The end was a little too perfectly wrapped up for me, but it works in a middle grade story.

#MiddleGrade #TRS2022

I‘m really enjoying this story of a boy spending his summer traveling with some extended family to repair and restore classic Ford cars. This section made me smile because I‘ve actually played this game on drives with some of my family, except we stuck to just identifying semis.

#TRS2022 #MiddleGrade #RoadTrip