(image from Target.com)
Eternal Life, by Dara Horn (Target link) (Amazon link).
This is a book about a woman who is 2,000 years old and can’t die but can only regenerate. I liked it while I was reading it (though I thought it was weird how often she shuddered/snarled/panicked while talking with her family members on tricky topics such as her age—after 2,000 years, wouldn’t she be better at this?), but felt the ending was unsatisfying, in a “But…wouldn’t it make more sense if…?” sort of way. I liked it enough to be interested in trying another book by this author. (I went to make a note on my To Read list, and found I already have another book by Dara Horn on that list: The World to Come.)
(image from Target.com)
Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos (Target link) (Amazon link). I wrote about the first book in this series here. It continues to surprise me how a book that doesn’t seem like it would be my thing (chummy cool-girl narrator speaking to the reader, including telling us pretty often how tiny and beautiful she is) is VERY MUCH MY THING. It’s as if the author is TRYING to write fluffy, lightweight, silly books but keeps accidentally failing. Like, she INTENDS to write a Classic One-Dimensional Mean Girl, and accidentally writes a multi-layered sympathetic character you want to be friends with. I thought the first book had an uneven, first-novel feel to it; I thought this one was much better. My main complaint is that the author keeps trying to write characters who are exceptionally funny or exceptionally brilliant or exceptionally good at witty dialog—but then, since it is the author herself writing those characters’ jokes/thoughts/remarks, it comes off wrong, because she’s essentially praising HER OWN writing. That’s an area where I’d suggest telling rather than showing, or else showing without telling, but not doing BOTH. I ordered a used copy of this book from EBay so I’d have it later; my library doesn’t have it anymore, and I know I’m going to want to re-read.
Someone very dear to me has a new book coming out next month, if you would like to pre-order it and/or get on your library’s hold list!
(image from Target.com)
The Art of Magic (Target link) (Amazon link).
It’s categorized for kids 8-12, grades 4-7. I don’t normally read books in this age category anymore, but of course I did read this one, and I genuinely enjoyed it. There are a lot of books my kids liked that I could not tolerate reading to them, but this is one I would have liked reading to them.
I am going to do a giveaway, and I’ll pre-order so you should receive it on or near its release date. (U.S. addresses only—but if you KNOW someone in the U.S., I can send it to them with a note that it’s from you.) To enter, tell me one of your favorite books from when you were this age/grade. I loved the Anastasia Krupnik books, and also pretty much any of those books where A Girl Has a Problem (eating disorder, periods, unrequited crush, parents divorcing, unpopular, summer camp, scoliosis). I’ll pick three winners on Saturday, April 23rd.
[Update: I ordered the winners’ books from Target, to avoid using Amazon. And today, on the release date, I got a bunch of notifications that there was a “new estimated delivery update,” which would be May 17th. This is…frustrating. One of the POINTS of pre-ordering is to get it on or very near the release date, not LITERALLY TWO WEEKS LATER. I’m trying to decide whether to switch all the orders to Amazon (which delivered one of the copies I ordered from them YESTERDAY), or whether to hope Target will soon send a NEW batch of delivery-update emails and deliver the books at a reasonable time.] [Update: Target still says out of stock, so I switched to Amazon. I try to avoid them, but…they have the books, and they will ship them now, and they will do it for free. So they win.]
I love when you do book reviews! We seem to have similar tastes. I will have to check all of these out. As for The Art of Magic, please enter me into the giveaway. I would love to have this for my granddaughter. My favorite books at that age were probably Judy Blume books.
What happy news! I, and my kids, really loved Horus and the Curse of Everlasting Regret, so I am very excited the author has a new book!! (Also, I just went to recommend it to my library, and they already have copies on order!)
At that age, I think my favorite books were the Nancy Drew series, The Secret Garden, and A Little Princess.
I would love to be in the giveaway for my 9-year-old. My favorite books were Judy Blume, specifically Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself.
My favorite books at that age were the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede. I still love them, to the point where I have considered a tattoo referencing my favorite character.
My husband is an elementary school librarian for a Title 1 school (economically disadvantaged). We’d love to donate this to the school so that many children can find it! (Once I get to read it, of course…)
My daughters are almost 8, 9 and 12 and I like to read what the are reading. What I am saying is this book would be read by 80% of our household! We would love to be entered into the drawing. Thanks for doing this!
I have a daughter in that age range and she loves this kind of book! I was a huge Judy Blume fan always and still.
Wow, how to pick just one book!! Mine at that age were Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, and the Misty of Chincoteague series by Marguerite Henry. Yep definitely horse crazy little girl!!! I was lucky enough to be able to ride a friend’s horse close to every weekend from time I was about 10 to 12, and then had my own old horse for about a year before she died.
Oh man, there were so many! I was also a fan of A Girl Has A Problem books, of which there were many. I loved survival stuff, like Hatchet, My Side of the Mountain, Escape from Warsaw, and Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Island of the Blue Dolphins! Favorite.
Definitely Nancy Drew for me, I would find even the older ones. I also loved A Wrinkle in Time :)
Anastasia! Yes! Those were great. I was still heavily reading Babysitters Club (I…got a little stuck there and failed to expand my horizons.). But also Number the Stars and Mixed-Up Files, of course. :) Entering for my kiddo. Thanks! :)
This book sounds RIGHT up my daughter’s alley!
I loved Anastasia Krupnik, too! And anything that had a mystery element: Cam Jansen, Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins.
I read everything – even the Reader’s Digest Condensed books my parents got. I think the Witch of Blackbird Pond was one of my favorite’s around 10 yrs old. and then I moved onto Agatha Christie in junior high. However, the advantage of having kids is you can discover new and old classics when they get to that age. I wish I had read the Enchanted Forest Chronicles when I was younger!
I’d love to enter the giveaway! I’m a children’s librarian, and think this would be fun to share with our youth book club, who fit in this age range.
I forgot to mention my favorite children’s books growing up: definitely the R.L. Stine books, and even now I love middle grade horror and fantasy. They’re just the right amounts of scary but not too scary.
In that age range I remember loving Tuck Everlasting, White Witch of Kynance, Witch of Blackbird Pond, Island of the Blue Dolphins – basically I read anything I could get my hands on, but these are the few I clearly remember loving and reading myself these 30 mumble mumble years later. My dad read me all of the LOTR books at bedtime through 4th and 5th grade so they’re still near and dear to my heart, but I didn’t read them myself until I was older.
I just put Belong to Me on hold at my library. Thanks for the run down!
Oooh, this book sounds great, my 10 year old would love it. I also loved the Anastasia Krumpnick books at that age, as well as A Wrinkle in Time, The Westing Game, and all the Babysitter’s Club, Sweet Valley High, and Thoroughbred books I could get my hands on.
My favorites were anything tragic, especially A Summer To Die by Lois Lowry.
I’d love to read the giveaway book and then put It in my classroom library for my 4th graders.
Email fixed to real email!
I have an 11year old daughter who loves magical/fantasy books, so this would be right up her alley! My favorite book at that age was probably A Little Princess, because I loved poor, tortured orphans. I also had a book called Behind the Attic Wall (I think?) about a truly unlikeable orphan who discovers extremely creepy but friendly talking porcelain dolls. I loved that book so much haha.
I would love this book for my 11 year old Goddaughter who I buy all my old favorites for. In 5th grade I read The Song of the Lioness quartet and it’s still my favorite book(s) of all time. I limit myself to rereading it every summer at the beach so I don’t get sick of it.
Bridge to Terabithia! One that I still love.
My daughter is 10 years old and we are both big readers. She has had a rough year (undergoing treatment for leukemia) but she has had lots of extra time to read. She read and loved all the Harry Potter books over the winter, and she just read all the Magic Misfits series by Neil Patrick Harris. Her other favorite genre is mystery, she loves the Friday Barnes series. My favorite from when I was young was Anne of Green Gables, but I also really loved all the Judy Blume books.
Thanks for the giveaway! I loved and still read Gone Away Lake and The Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright.
You’re the first person I’ve seen online who loved Elizabeth Enright at that age! I read those books so often I nearly had them by heart.
This looks very much like something my 9 year old would love. Her current faves are Harry Potter and Babysitters Club. My favorites were either Nancy Drew or the series about Darcy by Cynthia Voigt.
I am glad that you liked the Dara Horn book– The World to Come is my favorite of her books, but they are really all good.
I don’t have a good kid for the book, so don’t include me in the giveaway drawing, but when I was that age/reading level I was heavy into Ann of Green Gables and All of a Kind Family, and sad girl books (like Bridge to Terabithia, anything by Katherine Peterson, etc.) I was just commenting to my sister how glad I was that there was SO much GREAT middle grades fiction now, in comparison to when we were younger.
Thank you for doing the giveaway! My favorite books at that age (and, well, every age) were Girl Saves the Day type books. I loved the Nancy Drew and Vesper Holly series, Jackaroo by Cynthia Voight, the Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley.
Granddaughter would love.
I would like to comment without entering, but I will suggest your friend’s books to my library!
When I was in that middle grade age range, I also liked the girl with a problem type books, with my favorites being the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Alice’s Problem was that her mom was dead, so she needed explainers on allll the girl stuff from convenient females. She did all the milestones (first job ,dance, kiss, driving, etc), so it was very satisfying.
I would love to win for my daughters!
When I was that age I loved anything Judy Blume.
I think I will check out the Dara Horn book, although I trust you about the ending. I was thinking I had read Belong to Me but it might have been another book with rubber boots on the cover. I loved your description of her writing – I tend to shy away from “women’s fiction” or chick lit or whatever, but really it’s like any genre fiction – the bad is maybe worse than in straight fiction, but the good is just as good if not better. A good writer is a good writer, is what I’m awkwardly trying to say, I think. I’m in Canada, but I can’t remember what books I liked in grade 4 anyway – althought the Girl with a Problem thing sounds familiar.
I was big into serials: obsessive about Baby-Sitters Club, liked Sweet Valley Twins and High, had read all the Nancy Drew a little before. I did LOVE Island of the Blue Dolphins, Bridge to Terebithia, The Westing Game, and Harriet the Spy. Oh, and by 7th grade, I had read Jurassic Park and loved it enough to then read everything Michael Crichton had written, including some very strange ones in the 70s. 😂
The Westing Game was probably my favorite book around this age and was a regular re-read for me. Runner-up would be Harriet the Spy, and honorable mention goes to From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Also, the Headless Cupid and other books by Zylpha Keatley Snyder, who had been my sixth-grade teacher’s sixth-grade teacher.
I love juvenile and young adult fiction to this day, and my oldest loves art AND books about magic, so I will be putting this on our booklist regardless. :)
In a VERY ODD COINCIDENCE, I JUST FINISHED READING The Headless Cupid, which I ordered from EBay after reading Lemony Snicket’s book Poison for Breakfast, where he mentions it. It wasn’t available in my library system, so I bought one!
I LITERALLY ON SATURDAY ORDERED ALL THESE BOOKS FOR MY KID. The entire Stanley Family mystery series, plus Witches of Worm. I loved those books when I was a kid!
I would love to be in the giveaway, I think my granddaughter would enjoy the book. I loved the Nancy Drew books, I was going to be a sleuth when I grew up! 😆
I’d love to read this to my 8 year old! I loved many of the books already mentioned so I’ll add some new ones:
The Girl with the Silver Eyes
Ronia the Robber’s Daughter
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Chronicles of Pantouflia
The House with a Clock in its Walls
My kids are about the age of your kids now, but I have friends who have kids in this age range.
My favorites from that time in my childhood were A Wrinkle in Time series and everything written by Roald Dahl, particularly Matilda because I loved to read so much and would have loved the powers she had.
Oh, fun! I was/am a Nancy Drew nut. Also Harriet the Spy and the Little House books. What’s funny is now I’m still a huge reader and read basically the adult versions of all these.
Thanks for the contest! My favorite book series when I was that age were Nancy Drew, Trixie Beldon, Chronicles of Narnia, and Little House on the Prairie.
It is such fun seeing others favorites and recalling that they were also my own! Misty of Chincoteague (I recently found and purchased a copy of Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague), The All of a Kind Family,
The Three Investigators series, Nancy Drew, and my true favorite: The Diamond in the Window.
My favorite books at that age were the Trixie Belden series. I read a lot of biographies around that time. One of my other favorite books was A Book of Dog Stories (I swear that was the title). And that’s literally what it was. A collection of supposedly true stories about hero dogs, cool dogs, dogs doing dog stuff but all in the past.
Ooh, this is a very difficult question! So many books. Diana Wynne Jones was one of my favorites, especially the Dalemark Quartet. I also liked Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising Series as well as Seaward. Of course Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword and The Hero and The Crown. All the Anne McCaffrey Pern books. And Pamela Service, Being of Two Minds, The Reluctant God. I strongly remember Child of Faerie, Child of Earth
by Josepha Sherman and Gwinna by Barbara Helen Berger such that I have bought copies for my daughter when she is older.
Fun giveaway! My kids would love this book. I also liked Anastasia Krupnik, and have made my kids listen on audio. I liked historical fiction at this age, especially girl saves the day variety. But also, so much Babysitters club!
What a cool giveaway! Congratulations to your writer.
I grew up on most of the above with a few odd forays into classics (at 8, Heidi and Pollyanna, but at 12, I loved the apartheid novel The Power of One? who gave me that?). I wish I’d had Ursula Vernon, especially Harriet Hamsterbone, or Castle Hangnail.