Middle Grade Reading for June

Summer is here, and here are some good choices for middle grade summer reading...

Joy McCullough is the author of the new novel in verse Kestrel Takes Flight. When I asked her about how she created her protagonist, a girl named Kestrel, she said: "For me, character creation is about being honest to the circumstances the character is in. So I created a girl who had been raised in an extremely isolated, controlling way, and then I pulled her out of that situation and into a completely different way of life and tried to honestly portray how I thought she would react.

 

Liv Mae Morris's new novel is called The Last Dragon House. I asked her about how she created the world in which the story is set, and she said: "A lot of it is pretty obviously inspired by the real world and real history, particularly labor rights movements in the United States and Europe. The kingdom of Aldea, though, isn’t precisely either of those places; it has its own history, which is why it’s aesthetically and economically similar to the industrial revolution but socially closer to our present." She added, "I’ve always adored Shrek, how it combines historical and fairytale elements with modern attitudes. I think that mix can be both profound and very funny. So that was the angle that I wanted to take. I tried to create a world that feels both grounded in reality and, sometimes, silly and exaggerated—for humor, to make a point, or both at the same time."

 

Florence Migga is the author of the new novel The Summer Scrapbook. I asked her about the dynamic among her three protagonists, Ava, Becca, and Cat, and she said: "There’s a line from an old song that I love, which goes “Take every chance you dare, I’ll still be there when you come back down.” One of my good friends drew me a pretty picture with all the lyrics for that song when I was going off to college, and it and the idea of it has always stuck with me. I see Becca’s, Cat’s, and Ava’s friendship like that — a place to be unconditionally yourself where you are unconditionally loved and accepted, even as you grow and life inevitably changes you."

--By Deborah Kalb. The quotes come from interviews I did for my blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.