March 17, 2021
Everyone needs something new to read from time to time, even tweens!
Occasionally, we'll post tween book talks right here on www.mcpl.us. The talks will cover a wide range of novels aimed at late elementary and middle school-age kids. The talks can be experienced in two different ways. Tweens can either watch the YouTube video discussion associated with each book below, or can download an MP3 file of the talk to their computer, tablet or smartphone and listen to it podcast-style!
The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera
Available from the library as a book (see link below)
The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo
Available from the library as a book (see link below)
Grasping Mysteries by Joseph Elliott
Available from the library as a book (see link below)
The Good Hawk by Jeannine Atkins
Available from the library as a book or audiobook (see link below)
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
Available from the library as a book or audiobook (see link below), or via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an e-book
The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. Holm
Available from the library as a book or audiobook (see link below), or via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an e-book or audiobook
Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer by Gillian Goerz, Little White Duck: A Childhood in China by Andres Vera Martinez and Na Liu, and Queen of the Sea by Dylan Meconis
All three are available from the library as a book (see link below). Little White Duck is also available via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an audiobook
The Little Gentleman by Philippa Pearce
Available from the library as a book (see link below)
Halfway Normal by Barbara Dee
Available from the library as a book (see link below)
Cast Away: Poems for Our Time by Naomi Shihab Nye
Available from the library as a book (see link below)
The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis
Available from the library as a book (see link below), or via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an e-book
House of Dreams by Liz Rosenberg
Available from the library as a book (see link below), or via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an e-book
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Available from the library as a book or audiobook (see link below), or via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an e-book or audiobook
The Line Tender by Kate Allen
Available from the library as a book or audiobook (see link below), or via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an e-book or audiobook
The Boggart by Susan Cooper
Available from the library as a book or audiobook (see link below), or via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an e-book
The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente
Available from the library as a book or audiobook (see link below)
A Place to Belong by Cynthia Kadohata
Available from the library as a book or audiobook (see link below), or via Wisconsin's Digital Library as an e-book or audiobook
"A PLACE TO BELONG"
12 year-old Hanako and her family, reeling from their confinement in an internment camp, renounce their American citizenship to move to Hiroshima, a city devastated by the atomic bomb dropped by Americans.
"THE GLASS TOWN GAME"
Whisked away to a magical historical land of their own invention as they are about to depart for boarding school, sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë find themselves fighting Napoleon to obtain a potion that raises the dead, a situation that is complicated by the abduction of their siblings, Anne and Branwell.
"THE BOGGART"
After visiting the castle in Scotland which her family has inherited and returning home to Canada, twelve-year-old Emily finds that she has accidentally brought back with her a boggart, an invisible and mischievous spirit with a fondness for practical jokes
"THE LINE TENDER"
Following a tragedy that further alters the course of her life, twelve-year-old Lucy Everhart decides to continue the shark research her marine biologist mother left unfinished when she died years earlier.
"WHEN YOU REACH ME"
As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1970s television game show, "The $20,000 Pyramid," a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.
"HOUSE OF DREAMS"
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maud who adored stories. When she was fourteen years old, Maud wrote in her journal, "I love books. I hope when I grow up to be able to have lots of them." Not only did Maud grow up to own lots of books, she wrote twenty-four of them herself as L. M. Montgomery, the world-renowned author of "Anne of Green Gables."
"THE BREADWINNER"
oung Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan. Because Parvana's father has a foreign education, he is arrested by the Taliban. Women cannot appear in public unless covered head to toe, go to school, or work outside the home, so the family becomes increasingly desperate until Parvana conceives a plan.
"CAST AWAY: POEMS FOR OUR TIME"
Poet Naomi Shihab Nye shines a spotlight on the things we cast away, from plastic water bottles to refugees
"HALFWAY NORMAL"
"THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN"
"SHIRLEY & JAMILA SAVE THEIR SUMMER"
"LITTLE WHITE DUCK: A CHILDHOOD IN CHINA"
"QUEEN OF THE SEA"
"THE FOURTEENTH GOLDFISH"
"THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE"
"THE GOOD HAWK"
"GRASPING MYSTERIES"
"THE BEATRYCE PROPHECY"
"THE LAST CUENTISTA"
Elizabeth Lutz / Library Specialist
