• The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert. Set in post WW2 Germany and published first in 1954, The Ark tells the story of and the Lechow family and how they began to rebuild their lives two freezing attic rooms in Mrs. Verduz’s house on Parsley Street.
• At the Seven Stars by John L. Beatty.
• A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus (published in 2021).
• The Alley by Eleanor Estes.
• Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell. This British author was recommended to me when I was in Ireland a couple of years ago, and this book , set partly in Zimbabwe and partly in England, is about a girl who grows up wild and free on a farm with very few rules and very little “civilization”. However, about one third of the way through the book Wilhelmina’s life changes drastically when she is sent to boarding school in England.
• 365 Days to Alaska by Cathy Carr (published in 2021)
• Across the Pond by Joy McCullough (published in 2021)
• The Elephant in the Room by Holly Goldberg Sloan (published in 2021). Sila’s mom has been in Turkey trying to resolve her immigration issues for a whole year, and although Sila’s dad is great, both Sila and her dad miss her mom a lot. Sila makes a couple of new friends, an old man named Gio who lives in an old house with high walls around it and a boy named Mateo, who is autistic and very interesting. Then the new friendships and the advent of an elephant named Veda help Sila to deal with the absence of her mom.
• The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho. “Fleeing war-torn Cambodia in 1980, Dara, her mother, and her older brother find sanctuary in a refugee settlement on the Thailand border, but when fighting erupts, Dara finds herself separated from everyone and everything she loves.”
• The Swallow’s Flight by Hilary McKay. Another World War II book, the story takes place in several different threads with characters, both German and British, who all come together in the final chapters of the book. The characters, two German boys, two British girls, and their families, are all well drawn, quirky, and full of life.

I read a total of 48 middle grade fiction books this year. 35 of those were middle grade realistic fiction. 13 were fantasy or science fiction.

With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.

p. 19

White privilege or black privilege? The privilege of suffering? Booker T. Washington, American educator, orator, and author, has been lauded for his leadership and vision for the Black community after the Civil War and during the days of Reconstruction and Jim Crow. He has also been criticized and even vilified for his “accommodationism” to white power and supremacy. In reading his autobiography, I came to the conclusion that he was both intelligent and wise, choosing to do the work that could be done in the time and cultural milieu in which he was placed. He did much to improve the status and education of Black people in a time and place (late 19th and early 20th centuries in the Deep South, U.S.) when such a movement was not only discouraged but oppressed and disallowed.

Historian C. Van Woodward in 1951 wrote of Washington, “The businessman’s gospel of free enterprise, competition, and laissez faire never had a more loyal exponent.” And indeed, isn’t the basis of today’s Critical Race Theory partly the idea that the structures of business and education must be changed to end discrimination against and oppression of Black people. Isn’t that what Mr. Washington was attempting to do as he encouraged Black citizens to gain skills, build wealth, and create their own businesses and educational institutions, free of the racism embedded in the institutions they were barred from attending, supporting, or owning.

Booker T. Washington is indeed somewhat self-aggrandizing over the course of his autobiography, always talking about the speeches he was asked to make in grand places, the money he was able to induce others to contribute, the numbers of students he taught, the schools he built. And yet, success breeds success. Up From Slavery is partly a sales pitch for more people to contribute time and money to the vision that Washington had for the advancement of his people. And it is a successful sales pitch.

“People called Washington the “Wizard of Tuskegee” because of his highly developed political skills, and his creation of a nationwide political machine based on the black middle class, white philanthropy, and Republican Party support.” I would like to see his detractors do more, considering the time and place in which he worked. And his idea that Black people can and should use the suffering and adversity to which they were subjected to make themselves stronger and more confident applies to all of us who face difficulties in our lives.

In a somewhat Harry Potter-ish premise, Barclay, orphan and apprentice mushroom farmer in the rule-bound village of Dullshire, accidentally breaks the most important rule: never, ever, ever go into the Wild Woods. For in the Wild Woods there are beasts and danger . . . and adventure, with no rules.

Barclay somehow manages to bond with a Beast and thereby gets himself run out out of Dullshire and forced into the company of the Lore Keepers, those who live in the Woods and have bonded (on purpose) with the magical and deadly Beasts who live there. All Barclay wants is to get rid of his beast-bonding Mark and go back to Dullshire. However, it isn’t a simple matter to remove a Mark or get rid of a Beast, and Barclay must ask for help from the very people he most wants to avoid, the Lore Keepers.

The world-building in this novel is well done. The book could have used a map showing the six regions of Wilderlands and the Elsewheres, including Dullshire and Humdrum. A list of some of the most important Beasts and their characteristics is included as an appendix in the back of the book. I was engaged enough in the story itself that I didn’t miss either the nonexistent map or the list of Beasts until I finished the book. Maybe a sequel will include other helps and appendices.

I do indeed think there will be a sequel. The story leaves some questions unanswered. Two characters sort of disappear near the end of the story, maybe dead, maybe trapped somewhere, but we’re not told what happened to them. Viola, another main character, has a fraught relationship with her father that is mostly left unexplored. The villain of the piece is defeated, but still alive and left in the custody of a less than trustworthy guardian. So my guess is that there is more Wilderlore to come. (Ah, yes, I see that Book 2 in the series is due out in February of 2022, with books 3 and 4 scheduled for successive years.)

Author Joy McCullough once lived in a castle in Scotland with her older sister and their parents. Now, she’s written her second middle grade novel about a twelve year old girl named Callie, short for Calliope, whose American parents inherit a Scottish castle. They take the entire family, the parents, Callie, and her little brother Jax, to Scotland to renovate the castle and live there. And Callie is both excited and thankful to start a new life, away from San Francisco, where her erstwhile friends have deserted her because of a disagreement over what it means to grow up. Callie is ready to reinvent herself.

The problem is that Callie, even if she calls herself Calliope, is still the same bookish and somewhat awkward person she was back in California. And it seems as if friendships will be no easier in Scotland than they were back home. So Callie begs to be homeschooled, a plan her parents agree to, on one condition: Callie must participate in some sort of social activity.

Almost by accident, Callie chooses birding, or as they call it in Scotland, twitching. The story of how Callie becomes a dedicated twitcher, makes friends, and learns to be comfortable with her own identity and decisions, is a good coming of age/friendship story set in a very modern day Scotland, despite the castle part. As her parents settle in and remake the castle into a tourist attraction, Callie also settles and comes to terms with her own opinions and interests and abilities. She learns that standing up to bullies and irresponsible and foolish so-called friends has its costs, but resisting peer pressure and standing up for what is right also has its rewards.

Letters from the former owner of the castle to her mum, written during the evacuation of children to the country during World War II, are interspersed throughout the narrative, but I don’t really think the letters add much to the novel. Pippa, the letter writer, has an experience that somewhat parallels Calllie’s, and Pippa finds strength and solace in bird watching, too. But there’s not enough of Pippa’s story for her character to become fully realized, so it’s really Callie’s story that the reader wants to follow.

Across the Pond is a great book for Anglophiles, or Scotophiles (is that a word?), for anyone who’s ever dreamed of living in a castle, and for all of us who feel like misfits from time to time. The birding (twitching) details and the Scottish words and insults that are sprinkled throughout the story makes it even more fun to read.

With elements from two Shakespeare plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado About Nothing, Ms. LaRocca weaves a story about baseball and friendship and teamwork. The chapters in this middle grade novel are told in alternating voices, switching from twelve-year old Trish, who’s a winner in both baseball and math, to her teammate Ben, who feels like a loser in both baseball and math. The two of them begin as adversaries, and they end up finding that they have much in common.

Much Ado About Baseball is a puzzle book, similar to:

• The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin.
• The Potato Chip Puzzles by Eric Berlin.
• The Puzzler’s Mansion by Eric Berlin.
• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
• The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman, reviewed at Semicolon.
• The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, reviewed at Semicolon.
• Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein, reviewed at Semicolon.

These books all incorporate puzzles and games and thinking challenges into the story to appeal to both the mathematically inclined and the mystery fans among us. In Much Ado, Ben and Trish have to solve the puzzle of how to become friends and how to work together as teammates as well as working through the mysteries of family relationships and baseball. The book begins with the words, “Baseball is magic. Time stops between the instant the ball is released and when it makes it over the plate, between the whack of the bat and when the ball finally touches earth again.” And it ends with, “Baseball was magic. Math was magic, too. And thanks to them both, I had family and friends, in the perfect proportion.”

Nothing is terribly profound here, but there is some interplay between logic and imagination, and thoughts about making room for both. The Shakespeare references will be fun for children who are familiar with the plays, and perhaps those who haven’t yet tasted any Shakespearean goodness might be enticed to do so. It’s a fun romp with some Indian American characters in everyday situations, baseball magic, math puzzles, a girl playing baseball and excelling at math, and Shakespeare. What more could you ask for?

The Lord will come and not be slow,
his footsteps cannot err;
before him righteousness shall go,
his royal harbinger.

Truth from the earth, like to a flower,
shall bud and blossom then;
and justice, from her heavenly bower,
look down on mortal men.

Surely to such as do him fear
salvation is at hand!
And glory shall ere long appear
to dwell within our land.

Rise, God, judge thou the earth in might,
this wicked earth redress;
for thou art he who shalt by right
the nations all possess.

The nations all whom thou hast made
shall come, and all shall frame
to bow them low before thee, Lord,
and glorify thy Name.

For great thou art, and wonders great
by thy strong hand are done:
thou in thy everlasting seat
remainest God alone.

A paraphrase of Psalms 85 and 86.

Chapter 6 is a short chapter, and in it we meet seven new servant leaders of the growing church at Jerusalem, but especially Stephen. Stephen is described as:

I don’t know what the verse at the end of this chapter means when it says that the Jewish leaders “saw his face as the face of an angel.” Maybe Stephen’s facial expression was unusually courageous and joyful and honest and open. Or maybe his face was actually shining like Moses’ face after he met with God or Jesus’s face at the transfiguration. Whatever it was, it should have been a sign to the Jewish council to tread carefully and listen to Stephen’s message. (But it wasn’t.) 

I do know that I prayed after reading this chapter: I want to be so Spirit-filled, wise and full of faith, like Jesus and Stephen, that the only thing men can find to bring against me is a pack of lies.

What did this introduction to Stephen and to the inner workings of the church at Jerusalem say to you?