Five Sundays this month means an extra blog post for me! I recently finished a handful of middle grade books that are potential nominees for our state book award list, so I figured why not give a little rundown of each of them? Here we go!
Seeds of Discovery: How Barbara McClintock Used Corn and Curiosity to Solve a Science Mystery and Win a Nobel Prize by Lori Alexander - This biography of Barbara McClintock was so informative and interesting! I loved how it broke down the scientific process, and I found Barbara's determination to be herself no matter what inspiring. Did I expect a biography about a scientist to make me cry? I did not, but it did!
Psychic Investigators, Evil Exterminators by K.T. Healey - I liked this story overall, it was very touching and a great book about the different ways people navigate grief. I especially appreciated the way our main character went to bat for his friend when one of their teachers were trying to tell his mom that she was a "bad influence" because she was flamboyant and a bit of a class clown. I am going to level with you, though, sometimes graphic novels are a bit overstimulating for me, and this one was no exception. A LOT going on, and I didn't always know what order panel dialogue was supposed to go in. Still a solid read!
Global by Andrew Donkin and Eoin Colfer - Another graphic novel, but this one was much less dialogue-heavy and relied a lot more on the illustrations to tell the story. This book was very haunting and tense, two kids in difficult situations as a result of climate change (and, let's be real, their own questionable choices). I thought it was beautifully told, inspirational, and touching.
So anyway, I'm a few books into this list of choices for our final top ten list of nominees, and I've already enjoyed all of them? It's going to be fun trying to narrow these down to my favorites.
