Our middle grade book spotlight this week is on books that are some of my favorite reads of 2023!!! These are the books that kept me reading till 3:00 in the morning (we have all been there before), left me speechless and filled with emotions (including some crying on the couch), wanting to talk about it with someone instantly, and then telling everyone else they have to read it! Some of these books are standalone titles while a few start a series; this was such a hard list to make. These books and more can be found by searching the catalog using the search tag #elyse’sfavorites as well as on Libby and Hoopla. Check back next week for a new middle grade book spotlight and if you have any book suggestions, please let us know!!
Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca--A first-generation Indian American, Reha views her school and home lives as vastly different worlds. At home she's required to follow a strict code of conduct and participate in her family's traditions and rituals. At school, her American friends relish 1980s pop culture and view her as a fish out of water. Reha is especially estranged from her mother who only seems to see her mistakes. Then, when Reha learns her mother has leukemia, she not only worries, but also believes she'll need to be the perfect daughter in order to save her.
In the Tunnel by Julie Lee--In October 1952, sixteen-year-old South Korean soldier Myung-gi becomes trapped in an enemy tunnel after an explosion. Expecting to die, Myung-gi reflects on his past, beginning with his family's life before the war. He recalls the family's hope at the end of Japanese imperial rule and subsequent despair at the beginning of rising tensions between the North and South, fueled by the occupying armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. His father, who ran a factory in the northern region, quietly rebels against the restrictions placed upon him, while he secretly makes plans for their family to escape. Before that happens however, he is arrested, and Myung-gi, his mother, and his twelve-year-old sister Yoomee must make the harrowing journey to Busan, South Korea on their own. Determined to rescue his father, Myung-gi joins the army with the hope that they can liberate North Korea and he can be reunited with his father.
The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary Schmidt--Each morning, twelve-year-old Hercules Beal relishes watching the sun rise over the ocean in his Truro, Massachusetts home. The ritual is one of his few happy moments since his parents died in a car accident. Under the care of his older brother Achilles, who left a promising career as a world-traveling journalist to run the family nursery, Hercules begins the sixth grade with a sense of angst. Then his homeroom teacher, the steely ex-Marine Daniel Hupfer, issues him a challenging project: to recreate the twelve labors of his namesake Hercules and share what he's learned. Believing he's no hero, Hercules is surprised when different events in his life seem to issue him challenges that mirror the mythical feats the other Hercules faced. Tackling each one with increasing intention, Hercules makes new friends, learns about himself, and discovers that unlike the mythical hero, he doesn't have to face life's challenges on his own.
Finally Seen by Kelly Yang--When ten-year-old Lina Gao leaves China to live with her parents and sister, after five years apart, she must reckon with her hurt, anger, and curiosity and find a way to get her bearings in this new country--and the almost-new family that comes along with it.
Wrecker by Carl Hiaasen--During the COVID-19 pandemic, fifteen-year-old Valdez Jones VIII is thriving thanks to online school that allows him time to fish off the Key West coast. Going by the name Wrecker, since his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was a ship salvager, he one day sees a boat run aground on a sandbar and becomes suspicious when the men running the boat give him cash to pretend he never saw them. When he begins to see the men all around town and they hire him to be a lookout for them, he worries that he's in over his head and tries to find a way out of his precarious predicament.
Dust by Dusti Bowling--When a boy with a terrible secret moves to town there is a sudden increase in dust storms, and asthmatic Avalyn theorizes the storms are linked to his emotions and tries to help as she struggles to breathe.