First of all, Of Magic and Mayhem is on sale for 0.99 this weekend!! So get it now while it's on sale! :D You can get it HERE
The month of February has been a Middle Grade book kind of a month. While everyone else is reading Valentine and romance books, I've been reading sweet, magical books about kid going on adventures. After reading The Problim Children, I've felt the sudden need to reread the Sister's Grimm series (which I usually end up rereading at least once every year) so I think I'm going to start on that.
As I'm working on revisions for Project Hellion (the new title for Project Khione!!) I was inspired by the stories of The Problim Children, Snow and Rose and The Sister's Grimm and came up with an idea for a new MG book. Its a Peter Pan/Pied Piper retelling and I'm really excited about it! When I was watching Myths and Monsters on Netflix, they talked about the story of the Pied Piper and how they have actual evidence that something did happen to the children of Hamelin. They all disappeared or were gone. Most historians believe it was the plague that took (killed) all the children of Hamelin, but the reports and evidence they have never specified what really did happen. That really intrigued me and ever since then I've wanted to write a story about what happened there. I love when fairytales and folklore are steeped in reality, where there's potential evidence of something happening. Anyways, writing this new book and spending February reading MG books, has rekindled my love for the genre.
I love the Young Adult genre. I love reading teen drama and romances and the darker stories that explore the reality of the world and deeper, more adult themes, but there's something about Middle Grade books that go so much deeper than most Young Adult books. YA books may explore more adult themes, but MG books hit the heart. They're full of stories of the aches and pains of growing up, of first love, of hope and family and love in the purest form of the word. MG books are full of good heroes on mighty adventures and quests and bad guys who are sophisticated but also clearly bad. Unlike in YA books, there isn't a lot of gray area and sometimes I like that. I like having a clear line between good guys and bad guys sometimes.
Take a moment and remember some of your favorite books you read growing up. What did they make you feel? How did they shape you? What do those books say about you now? Growing up, I had bad dyslexia. I could barely read until around eleven or twelve and then it just clicked. After reading clicked for me, I read every book I could find (mostly fantasy). Those years of middle school, from like fifth grade to eighth grade were the years I read the most books. I don't read nearly as many as I did back then. But every time I think of those books, I can't help but smile and just feel happy. They're just so magical and whimsy and beautiful. I feel like MG books aren't getting enough credit. Most of them may be shorter and meant for a younger audience than YA books, but that doesn't make them any less good and their themes any less meaningful. They remind us what it's like to grow up, the innocence of childhood and just how to be a better person. Its impossible to even put into words the type of magic a good MG book can have. Their young characters teach us or remind us that love for family and friends is just as (if not more) important than romantic love, that it's Ok to be different, that growing up is hard and sometimes we slip up (sometimes a lot) and that there is still good and magic in this world. They teach us how to be more compassionate and loving to others and I really love that. I also really like how in the entire MG genre across all sub-genres there's a good variety of boy and girl protagonists. There aren't a whole lot of male protagonists in YA books.
The two latest MG books I read, are a testament to that. First, I read Snow and Rose by Emily Winfield Martin.
My mom picked it up from the library, planning to read it to my little brothers, but she wanted me to test read it first. I ended up loving it. It was a fairytale retelling about two sisters and how they needed to save their father because he wet missing. There was magic and wonder and gorgeous illustrations. I highly recommend it. But at the heart of the story, is how powerful two sisters, two siblings, can be and love for family and friends can conquer all.
Then there's Natalie Lloyd's new The Problim Children series.
Oh my gosh, do I love Natalie Lloyd's books! I've read her last three releases, A Snicker of Magic, The Key to Extraordinary and now this one. She has such a fun, quirky way of writing. Her books are always brimming with magic and whimsy and laughter and weird, quirky characters that make you smile. I think the best way to describe her books are little rays of sunshine. They're so wonderful and The Problim Children were no different. I also love how unconventional some of her characters are and even some of her descriptions. She sometimes compares certain people or parts of her stories in the book with Biblical stories which I think is really cool. I really loved and appreciated that the Problim children are all unschooled. I just thought that was really cool of her to add because I've never read of children being unschooled in a book. It's so unconventional, even more so than regular homeschooling and a lot of people have a problem with it (personally I love the idea of unschooling and I think its wonderful and one of the best ways to grow up and learn). That little detail just made me love the book and the characters even more. Then there's the fact that there are seven children in the family! That's only one more kid than what we have. I have five siblings, four younger brothers and a big sister and I don't often get to read about such a large group of siblings. The only other book that I related to on that sort of level was Savvy. Mibs had like four brothers and a little sister, I think in that book.
To top it all off Natalie Lloyd is so strong in her writing that she could balance all seven of those POV's in her book! At one point or another all seven of those children got to have their thoughts told and I think that's pretty impressive that she can do that. A seven sibling family of main characters sounds scary and daunting to me as a writer. Not to mention, the whole Problim family was weird and unconventional. They live messy, crazy, fun lives that most people didn't understand. I can really relate to that cuz we're all homeschooled over here and we do things a little different than other families. We're messy too a lot of the time and a lot of people have a hard time understanding us. Having that many kids always makes a family look like a circus, especially if a few of them are high energy. They all have a little sprinkle of magic in them. They're all quirky and strange in their own unique ways and Natalie Lloyd doesn't make that a bad thing. She makes quirky and strange and unique beautiful and fun and wonderful. This book was full of all sorts of whacky, exciting and funny escapades that I think anyone, especially younger reads would thoroughly enjoy.
The two main characters that took up most of the book's pages, are twins, Wendel and Thea. They have this thing they call Heartspeak, where they can communicate without talking to each other and throughout the story, I really loved the them Natalie wove into story between the two twins. About how all of their siblings just see them as Wendel-Thea, like one person and at first Thea was OK with that. She didn't understand why her brother was getting kind of annoyed with always being tied to Thea, and she got sort of jealous because her inseparable brother had found a new friend to spend time with. But as the story went on Thea realized that sometimes it was OK to have an adventure by herself without all her siblings with her and that her siblings would always be inseparable and best friends, but it was good to have other friends too. I thought it was a really sweet theme and character development and I'm excited to see what Natalie Lloyd does in the next book!
Anyway, The Problim Children was wonderfully whacky and special and I really related to a lot of the characters because our families have quite a few things in common. I highly recommend the first book in this series, and her last two books to anyone and everyone, but especially younger readers. I think younger readers would get more out of them and fully appreciate the stories. That and those who are young at heart and who haven't quite grown out of their love for MG (like me).
Because this post is mostly about the Middle Grade genre and I love sharing my favorite MG books with everyone here's a list of my favorite MG books! There aren't many Young Adult books that are my favorite, that I've read over and over again. Most of the books and series that I read like religiously once or twice a year or Middle Grade book series and I'm pretty sure I've read more MG books in my almost twenty years of life than I have YA, and actual adult books? I don't think I've ever touched one of those. But anyways, here's a list of MG books that I highly recommend:
The month of February has been a Middle Grade book kind of a month. While everyone else is reading Valentine and romance books, I've been reading sweet, magical books about kid going on adventures. After reading The Problim Children, I've felt the sudden need to reread the Sister's Grimm series (which I usually end up rereading at least once every year) so I think I'm going to start on that.
As I'm working on revisions for Project Hellion (the new title for Project Khione!!) I was inspired by the stories of The Problim Children, Snow and Rose and The Sister's Grimm and came up with an idea for a new MG book. Its a Peter Pan/Pied Piper retelling and I'm really excited about it! When I was watching Myths and Monsters on Netflix, they talked about the story of the Pied Piper and how they have actual evidence that something did happen to the children of Hamelin. They all disappeared or were gone. Most historians believe it was the plague that took (killed) all the children of Hamelin, but the reports and evidence they have never specified what really did happen. That really intrigued me and ever since then I've wanted to write a story about what happened there. I love when fairytales and folklore are steeped in reality, where there's potential evidence of something happening. Anyways, writing this new book and spending February reading MG books, has rekindled my love for the genre.
I love the Young Adult genre. I love reading teen drama and romances and the darker stories that explore the reality of the world and deeper, more adult themes, but there's something about Middle Grade books that go so much deeper than most Young Adult books. YA books may explore more adult themes, but MG books hit the heart. They're full of stories of the aches and pains of growing up, of first love, of hope and family and love in the purest form of the word. MG books are full of good heroes on mighty adventures and quests and bad guys who are sophisticated but also clearly bad. Unlike in YA books, there isn't a lot of gray area and sometimes I like that. I like having a clear line between good guys and bad guys sometimes.
Take a moment and remember some of your favorite books you read growing up. What did they make you feel? How did they shape you? What do those books say about you now? Growing up, I had bad dyslexia. I could barely read until around eleven or twelve and then it just clicked. After reading clicked for me, I read every book I could find (mostly fantasy). Those years of middle school, from like fifth grade to eighth grade were the years I read the most books. I don't read nearly as many as I did back then. But every time I think of those books, I can't help but smile and just feel happy. They're just so magical and whimsy and beautiful. I feel like MG books aren't getting enough credit. Most of them may be shorter and meant for a younger audience than YA books, but that doesn't make them any less good and their themes any less meaningful. They remind us what it's like to grow up, the innocence of childhood and just how to be a better person. Its impossible to even put into words the type of magic a good MG book can have. Their young characters teach us or remind us that love for family and friends is just as (if not more) important than romantic love, that it's Ok to be different, that growing up is hard and sometimes we slip up (sometimes a lot) and that there is still good and magic in this world. They teach us how to be more compassionate and loving to others and I really love that. I also really like how in the entire MG genre across all sub-genres there's a good variety of boy and girl protagonists. There aren't a whole lot of male protagonists in YA books.
The two latest MG books I read, are a testament to that. First, I read Snow and Rose by Emily Winfield Martin.
Then there's Natalie Lloyd's new The Problim Children series.
To top it all off Natalie Lloyd is so strong in her writing that she could balance all seven of those POV's in her book! At one point or another all seven of those children got to have their thoughts told and I think that's pretty impressive that she can do that. A seven sibling family of main characters sounds scary and daunting to me as a writer. Not to mention, the whole Problim family was weird and unconventional. They live messy, crazy, fun lives that most people didn't understand. I can really relate to that cuz we're all homeschooled over here and we do things a little different than other families. We're messy too a lot of the time and a lot of people have a hard time understanding us. Having that many kids always makes a family look like a circus, especially if a few of them are high energy. They all have a little sprinkle of magic in them. They're all quirky and strange in their own unique ways and Natalie Lloyd doesn't make that a bad thing. She makes quirky and strange and unique beautiful and fun and wonderful. This book was full of all sorts of whacky, exciting and funny escapades that I think anyone, especially younger reads would thoroughly enjoy.
The two main characters that took up most of the book's pages, are twins, Wendel and Thea. They have this thing they call Heartspeak, where they can communicate without talking to each other and throughout the story, I really loved the them Natalie wove into story between the two twins. About how all of their siblings just see them as Wendel-Thea, like one person and at first Thea was OK with that. She didn't understand why her brother was getting kind of annoyed with always being tied to Thea, and she got sort of jealous because her inseparable brother had found a new friend to spend time with. But as the story went on Thea realized that sometimes it was OK to have an adventure by herself without all her siblings with her and that her siblings would always be inseparable and best friends, but it was good to have other friends too. I thought it was a really sweet theme and character development and I'm excited to see what Natalie Lloyd does in the next book!
Anyway, The Problim Children was wonderfully whacky and special and I really related to a lot of the characters because our families have quite a few things in common. I highly recommend the first book in this series, and her last two books to anyone and everyone, but especially younger readers. I think younger readers would get more out of them and fully appreciate the stories. That and those who are young at heart and who haven't quite grown out of their love for MG (like me).
Because this post is mostly about the Middle Grade genre and I love sharing my favorite MG books with everyone here's a list of my favorite MG books! There aren't many Young Adult books that are my favorite, that I've read over and over again. Most of the books and series that I read like religiously once or twice a year or Middle Grade book series and I'm pretty sure I've read more MG books in my almost twenty years of life than I have YA, and actual adult books? I don't think I've ever touched one of those. But anyways, here's a list of MG books that I highly recommend:
- The Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley
- The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan
- The Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff (I recommend pretty much all of her books)
- The Companion Quartet by Julia Golding (I recommend pretty much anything by Julia Golding too)
- The Jack Blank series by Matt Myklutch
- The Emily Windsnap series by Liz Kessler
- The Philippa Fisher's Fairy Godsister series by Liz Kessler
- The Princess for Hire series by Lindsey Leavitt
- Savvy, Scumble and Switch (especially Savvy) by Ingrid Law
- The Keeper series by Shannon Messenger
- The Winterling trilogy by Sarah Prineas
- Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursa
- Peter and the Starcatchers series by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
- Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan
- Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan
Have a great weekend and rest of February everyone!!
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