Middle Grade Fiction for the End of the Year

 

Middle Grade Fiction for the End of the Year

 

It’s the holiday season, so what better time to look for some new middle grade novels? On my other blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, I’ve recently interviewed a variety of middle grade authors.

 

Here are some samples:

 

In her new novel, The Dubious Pranks of Shaindy Goodman, author Mari Lowe features an Orthodox Jewish sixth grader and her classmates. Asked what she hoped readers would take away from the novel, Lowe said, “I always love it when readers gain a deeper understanding of my community from my stories, so that’s a given! But I really did write this one for those adolescent girls who are working out their place in the world.”

 

Author Jen Malia is writing a series called The Infinity Rainbow Club. “I wanted to write a chapter book series that featured a lot of different neurodivergent characters to show a full range of brain differences,” she said. “At least one in five kids are neurodivergent, but it's hard to find positive representations of neurodivergence in books for young readers. In the series, the Infinity Rainbow Club is a place where stims and different communication styles are accepted and celebrated.”

 

And neurodiversity also features in Kate Foster’s new novel, All the Small Wonderful Things. Foster said of the book: “I hope it goes beyond proving that autistic people are not broken, just different, and that sometimes taking a moment to think, to consider, and then make the smallest changes, can make the most enormous impact on a person’s day, and even life.”

 

So much to read! Happy holidays!

 

--Deborah Kalb