Apr 03 2024
Louis is a good kid, but his life isn’t the typical kind you see portrayed in the media. His dad took early retirement from firefighting in the city to become a fisherman in a much more laidback environment. His mom is a perennial do-gooder who wound up getting significantly hurt while breaking up a fight …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/04/03/walkin-the-dog-by-chris-lynch/
Feb 01 2024
So there are a lot of reasons why this book resonated with me and made me cry for younger me, but foremost among them was the very clear cut, if never fully named, eldest daughter syndrome our main character Deena suffers from. Idk if it’s even a thing in certain cultures, but the expectation she …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/02/01/drawing-deena-by-hena-khan/
Jan 02 2023
Every Christmas, while the kids are exclaiming over toys and playing in relative harmony, I adopt benevolent mama pose and sit and read a Bad Machinery book while they giggle and coo (clearly romanticized, but if not now, when.) This year, I was so discombobulated by the book series’ change of format that I accidentally …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/01/02/the-case-of-the-forked-road-bad-machinery-7-by-john-allison/
Sep 27 2022
with the most charming illustrations by Nina Mata. Ryan Hart is the one perpetually in the middle: between her prank-loving big brother Ray and her new baby sister Rose, and between her two best friends KiKi and Amanda. Fortunately, Rose is a little sweetheart, even if she does seem to take up almost all of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/09/27/ways-to-share-joy-a-ryan-hart-story-3-by-renee-watson/
Sep 23 2022
I’m genuinely starting to believe that some of the best under-the-radar writing out there nowadays is coming from middle grade authors. Not that Olivia Jaimes is primarily that (or even her real name.) Having gained acclaim for her reboot of the long-running Nancy comic strip, she’s now published her first middle-grade novel under this name, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/09/23/the-very-genius-notebooks-1-the-chronicles-of-deltovia-by-olivia-jaimes/
Jul 28 2022
with the loveliest illustrations by Wastana Haikal. Like, I’m not joking, the pictures add so much to an already really terrific story. Bapak Wastana really captures all the different multicultural generations in his line drawings, and I’m wholly in love with them. The story itself far exceeded my expectations from reading just the blurb. Zara …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/28/zaras-rules-for-record-breaking-fun-by-hena-khan/
Jun 22 2022
Combining two volumes of the original series, translated from the French, this volume follows middle-schooler Chloe Blin as she navigates two very of-the-moment issues: environmental friendliness and cyber-bullying. The first half of this book sees Chloe and her friend Mark roped into helping start an eco-friendly vegetable garden at school by their far more enthusiastic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/22/chloe-6-green-thumb-by-greg-tessier-amandine/
May 26 2022
Oh my heart. This was one of the sweetest, most tender, yet still emotionally honest and unflinching middle grade novels I’ve yet had the privilege of reading. Little wonder that Varian Johnson has won so many awards with prose and plotting like this! Our hero is ten year-old Anthony “Ant” Joplin, who plans to team …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/26/playing-the-cards-youre-dealt-by-varian-johnson/
May 12 2022
Oh gosh, I didn’t expect this to end on such a cliffhanger! I also didn’t expect this kind of visual design from a book aimed squarely at middle school kids. It’s seriously delightful, a clever mix of mid-century modern with the more expected kids’ doodles on graph paper. The illustrations throughout are entirely suited to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/12/f-a-r-t-top-secret-no-kids-allowed-by-peter-bakalian/
Nov 16 2021
Meet Daisy Sparrow, a young peasant witch living in Elizabethan England. Together with her beloved Mum, she brews and sells potions and other assorted concoctions at market fairs. But she wants more from life than just helping people who probably didn’t need that much help to begin with, even if she’s painfully shy when it …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/16/the-queens-favorite-witch-book-1-the-wheel-of-fortune-by-benjamin-dickson-rachael-smith/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire