Most kids learn about the world first through colors and shapes. If your kids are still figuring out what different shapes look like and how o identify them in their daily lives, you’ll appreciate these picture books about shapes. Find the circle in tortillas and see the many shapes of Paris, animals, and day-to-day objects as you explore these picks.
Middle Grade Books About Baseball
I’ll be honest: I don’t know much about baseball, except that it’s a beloved American sport and it involves bases and throwing and catching. Thankfully, many other readers are big baseball fans and enjoy it whether in a fictional tale or as part of their non-fiction reading. If you or your kids are in the baseball-loving camp, this list is just for you! We’ve rounded up 23 of the best middle grade books about baseball. Despite my poor baseball knowledge, I love several of the books on this list, and I know you’ll love many too.
Review | What Happened to Rachel Riley?
When Anna Hunt moves from Chicago to Wisconsin for her mother’s new job, she soon realizes that something’s off about her new eighth-grade class. One student, Rachel Riley, who was once popular is now treated as a social pariah. So when their English teacher assigns them an un-essay — which is an exploration of a topic in any other format besides an essay — Anna decides to investigate the question: What happened to Rachel Riley? Of course, the teacher rejects Anna’s topic despite her lawyer mom’s protests. But with some hesitant help from Rachel and some other schoolmates, Anna pieces together the mystery.
Interactive Picture Books for Kids
Picture books are great, but for toddlers and younger kids, you know what’s even better? Interactive picture books! These kinds of picture books encourage the reader to get involved by lifting the flap, finding a missing (or-hiding-in-plain-sight) animal, or even pushing a bright red button. If you’re looking for more ways to get your kids excited about reading, these interactive picture books for kids are it!
Review | Sincerely Sicily
Sincerely Sicily features young Panamian-American Sicily who’s dealing with a major social upheaval: she’s changing schools. After planning to coordinate first-day-of-school outfits and looking up each other’s schedules, she won’t be attending the same middle school as her best friends (the group calls themselves the Tether Squad).
At the new school, Sicily, fortunately, reconnects with an old friend and decides to do her first school project on the culture of the Panamanian people. But her classmates protest the fact that she — a Black girl–can’t possibly be Latin American. Sicily is rattled. Add to that a new crush that threatens to ruin her new friendship and an Abuela who thinks her braids are “ghetto” and it’s looking like a tough year for Sicily. Thankfully, she’s also rediscovering her love for writing just in time.
Middle Grade Books with Arab Protagonists
Middle grade books with Arab protagonists are so rare, but lately, the number has been growing (slowly, but surely). For this post, I’d like to highlight six middle grade books featuring Arab lead characters. If you didn’t know, “the Arab World consists of 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Algeria, Bahrain, the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.” (source.) Most people assume that all Muslims are Arab (so many Arab book lists end up being a list of books with Muslim leads), but this isn’t true.
