Midsummer Middle-Grade Reading

Midsummer Middle-Grade Reading

My favorite childhood memories usually center around reading--the excitement of a new stack of books from the library, the ability to immerse myself in the characters' worlds.

All these decades later, I still feel the same way! On my blog Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb this month, I interviewed some middle grade authors whose books would fit the bill for satisfying midsummer reading. 

Laura Segal Stegman is the author of The Chambered Nautilus, the third in her Summer of L.U.C.K. trilogy. I asked if her three characters--Darby, Justin, and Naz--had changed over the course of the series. "Yes, very much so, and not only because the trilogy spans three summers," she said. "They each come to camp struggling with communicating in various ways. By the end of Summer of L.U.C.K., they've found their voices and formed an enduring friendship with each other and the ghostly Mr. Usher. Ready or Not is told from Justin's point of view as he learns to stand up to a bully, building leadership skills that carry over to The Chambered Nautilus's story. And in the third book, the three kids learn that their close friendship need not take away from their ability to grow separately into who they want to be."

Sarah L. Thomson wrote Two Friends, One Dog, and a Very Unusual Week. I asked about the inspiration for the novel, and she said, "The Pippi Longstocking stories were a favorite when I was growing up. I was a goody two-shoes as a kid (and to be honest, I still kind of am). That’s probably why I loved Pippi so much—a fearless free spirit who’s never even heard of a rule!" She added, "I began to wonder how a Pippi-like character would fare in today’s society, where kids have much less freedom than they did back in 1945, when Astrid Lindgren created Pippi. Rani popped into my head, perched in an armchair aboard a moving van—and Two Friends got its start."

Caroline Palmer's new book is the graphic novel Camp Prodigy. I asked Palmer about whether they began with the text or the illustrations--or worked on both simultaneously. "There was some overlap, but I came up with the story in a good amount of detail before starting to draw it out," they said. "A lot of people have the two processes separated; they’ll write out a script (like a movie!) before drawing anything at all. I find it hard to work that way. After all, comics are a combination of words and art–when words aren’t enough, art can be relied on, and vice versa. All this to say, I like to work out the dialogue and pages simultaneously via thumbnail sketches. I feel like my stories have better pacing that way."

Maggie Rudd is the author of How to Stay Invisible. When I asked about the inspiration for her novel and for her protagonist, Raymond, she said, "I was walking through the woods behind the school where I worked, and I saw a huge fallen tree. The roots were ripped up from the earth and there was a huge hole through the center of the root system. I stuck my head inside to get a better look, and I thought, Wow, someone could live in here. The thought bloomed and blossomed and turned into a book. The character, Raymond, is loosely based off of several students whom I consistently worried about, but he definitely developed into his own person with his own unique personality and problems."

 

Happy summer reading!

 

--Deborah Kalb