Recommending Books for Children and Teens

Amelia's Notebook (Middle-Grade Fiction)

For this entry I rely on the judgment of my daughters, who can't get enough of the AMELIA'S NOTEBOOK series by Marissa Moss.  Each book in the series is designed to look like a journal, handwritten and illustrated by Amelia herself.  She's nine when she "writes" the first of the journals, Amelia's Notebook, and she gets older as the notebooks progress.  I've read a few of these notebooks, and I see their charm.  But that's really beside the point.  Both of my girls, ages 8 and 6, have spent HOURS surrounded by these books, reading and re-reading them.  What higher recommendation is there?  

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Jacob Have I Loved (Middle-Grade Fiction)

How could I have blogged for so long without recommending at least one of Katherine Paterson's books?  It's appalling.  I can't think of anyone better at writing middle-grade novels. 

Paterson is likely best known for the Newbery-winning Bridge to Terabithia, which tells the story of a lonely boy, his new neighbor, their friendship, and the secret kingdom they build together.  But my favorite Paterson novel is Jacob Have I Loved, which also won the Newbery.  (Practically everything the woman writes wins some version of the Newbery.)  The protagonist of JACOB HAVE I LOVED, Sara Louise Bradshaw, is stuck with a twin sister, Caroline, who is both infinitely more beautiful than Louise, and a miraculously talented singer.  Louise is not just jealous of Caroline.  She hates Caroline.  She spends the book working through those feelings and finding an independent place for herself.     

I've read JACOB HAVE I LOVED many times, and I'm guessing I'll read it many more.  It doesn't disappoint.    

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The Graveyard Book (Middle-Grade Fiction)

I found Neil Gaiman's CORALINE (which I recommended in a previous post, and which has now been turned into a fantastic movie) spooky.  I found scenes in his latest work for children, The Graveyard Book, terrifying.  It opens with a man walking through a house in the darkness, with a knife in his hand.  He has just killed the mother and the father in the house, and the older daughter.  He's looking for the baby.  That man and his knife return later in the book, still trying to kill that boy.  I read these scenes and thought, This is a middle-grade book?  Really?

With that said, if you can make it through those scenes, the book is terrific.  (It recently won the Newbery.) The baby is taken in by the ghosts of the neighborhood graveyard.  They protect him as he grows older, and they give him powers of the dead (fading, haunting the dreams of the living, that sort of thing).  He has plenty of adventures inside the graveyard, with witches, ghouls, and werewolves, to name a few.  But he faces more danger outside of it.  

Gaiman's writing is more fluid here than it was in CORALINE, and he's just as wonderfully inventive.  I'm glad to have read THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.  I might read it again, to focus on how it might help with my writing.  But I wouldn't recommend it blindly to all kids reading at this level.  I'd consider the potential for nightmares first.       

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I Lost My Bear (Picture Book)

I Lost My Bear has a plucky protagonist, a lost bear, family members who help with the search only in surprising ways, and full-color artwork by Jules Feiffer.  It can't go wrong, and it doesn't.  Our copy is much worn, and still loved.

To return to my website, click here:  www.juliesternberg.com/books.