Compilation - 15 Noteworthy Middle Grade Historical Novels

For my 2024 compilation posts, I've decided to provide lists according to genre. I recently joined a Facebook group for historical fiction enthusiasts. No doubt some of them may wish to find historical fiction titles for their tweens. This month, I'm offering a list of middle grade historical fiction (presenting most recently read first). All of these titles garnered 4-1/2 or 5 stars in my estimation:

• More Than Grit by Gretchen A. Carlson - (ACFW Genesis Award Winner) A coming of age novel based on a true story. It is 1939 in Kansas and Sissy is desperate to help her family raise the necessary funds to bring electricity to their farm home.
• Lifeboat 12 by Susan Hood - A riveting survival tale based on a true story. This novel in verse is set aboard a lifeboat during World War II.
• Rascal by Sterling North - (Newbery Honor Book) Set in 1918 in Wisconsin and published as fiction, this autobiographical tale tells of Sterling's adventures in his eleventh year, when he adopted a baby raccoon.
• We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly - (Newbery Honor Book) A novel about The Challenger Space Shuttle Expedition in 1986.
• Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt - (Newbery Honor Book) Set in New England in 1912, and based on a true story of a community's destruction, this book highlights a challenging friendship despite cultural prejudices.
• Penny from Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm - (Newbery Honor Book) A tale of an Italian-American family fighting prejudice after WWII in 1950s New Jersey.
• Bird in a Box by Andrea Davis Pinkney - Three kids fight their own battles as they follow the radio commentary of heavyweight champion, Joe Louis.
• Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder - Beginning in a log cabin in 1871, this is the first of the nine pioneering Little House books.
• A Faraway Island by Annika Thor - (Mildred L. Baltchelder Honor Book) Book One of the Faraway Island series. Two Jewish girls find refuge in Sweden in 1939.
• The Lily Pond by Annika Thor - (ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book) Book Two of the Faraway Island series. Stephie Steiner is sent to school on the mainland.
• A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen - Details a family divided by the rise of the Berlin Wall.
• Countdown by Debra Wiles - First in The Sixties Trilogy. A riveting book about an 11-year-old girl in 1962.
• Revolution by Debra Wiles - (National Book Award Finalist) Book Two in The Sixties Trilogy. Sunny experiences all the changes brought by Freedom Summer in 1964 Mississippi.
• Lily's Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff - (Newbery Honor Book) Lily learns that lies have consequences when a Hungarian refugee comes to her Rockaway summer house by the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 1944.
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry - (Newbery Award Winner) During WWII, Annemarie's family take in her Jewish friend, concealing her as part of the family.

Book Review: Do You Pray? - Highly Recommend

What a powerful pamphlet! J. C. Ryle (1816-1900) was Bishop of Liverpool. His passion for prayer is inspiring! His simple question is, "Do you pray?" If not, why not? If so, how so? I would have loved to have held this pamphlet in hand, but I settled for listening to it in audio form available through Hoopla. I discovered one available from Christian Books.

The author argues passionately for the power of prayer. I wonder how much we believe in the power of prayer. We read about miracles wrought by prayer in the Bible, yet fail to trust our own prayers will change the lives of those we love. His words are convicting and comforting. The author argues that backsliding begins with the neglect of private prayer. He encourages the reader to take everything to God in prayer. He addresses the prayerless reader, "Who and what are you that you will not ask anything of God?"

The above quote (found on Facebook, by worshipblog) is not from Ryle, but illustrates the power of prayer!

Finally, Ryle launches into specifics of how we should pray. He articulates the importance of reverence and humility, earnestness and faith in prayer, the importance of praying regularly, the importance of boldness, fullness, and particularity in prayer, and the importance of intercessory prayer. I found so many helpful nuggets of truth: "Never think that time is wasted which is given to God.... A Christian never finds he is the loser in the long run by persevering in prayer." "Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow. Without it, prayer will not hit the mark." If the batteries driving your prayer life are flagging, this book will jump-start your petitions to a God who loves hearing from His children and longs to meet their needs.

Book Review: The Lincoln Highway

I may be late to the party with this one. The buzz is there; I just never followed the buzz. When I discovered it in audio form, I gave in to the accolades. I think my old book club read this. They read either The Lincoln Highway or A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (both acclaimed titles). It was long, at 16-1/2 hours, yet I never lost interest in the story. It felt ambling, but kept me invested enough in the characters.

The Lincoln Highway follows a quest or journey format. 18-year-old Emmett Watson is returning to his family farm after a stint in a juvenile detention facility (involuntary manslaughter). Upon arrival, he discovers his recently-deceased father lost the farm in foreclosure. Emmett wants nothing more than to pick up his 8-year-old brother and set off to make a new life. Unfortunately, two other juvenile delinquents hitched a ride in the warden's trunk and have a plan of their own. Their plan relies on Emmett's car (the only possession Emmett can claim as his own) and a stash of money Emmett's father hid away, intended for his sons.

One sentence in the back cover blurb enticed me: "Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles's third novel will satisfy fans of his multilayered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes." Boy, did this book live up to that hype! I enjoyed the distinct voices of the various narrators. We hear feisty, determined Sally and mischievous, flamboyant Duchess in first person. But the other characters (Emmett, Billy, Ulysses, Professor Abercrombe) come through with their own voice despite their third person narrations. 

I believe this would provide for an interesting discussion in a book club setting. Besides the layers of motivations driving the characters, you have many passages revealing deep, life truths. I would even love discussing the author's method of story-telling. Perhaps I'm alone in my reaction to the ending. It was clever, yet I yearned for more redemption and resolution of the journey/quest. Having enjoyed this read, I might be more apt to consider the best-selling Moscow title. Who knows!

Although I didn't mark this with a content caution, it included occasional language and a brief scene in a brothel (no graphic details).

Learning to Hold Things Loosely

With three sons passing through the teenage driving stage, I'm not new to car accidents. We've been down this road more than our fair share, I believe. I've had three myself. I hit a tree when backing out of my professor's driveway (while driving my then best friend's car - hmm, no longer best friend 😉). Another time, I glanced at an accident while turning at an intersection and didn't expect a fire truck parked inside the intersection. Yes, I hit a fire truck (not the big kind, mind you, but still...). Finally, a large construction vehicle backed into the road. I was the fifth car back. By the time the car in front of me slammed on the brakes, it left insufficient time for me to stop and I plowed into his vehicle. He was very nice about it - my husband (we were separated at the time), not so much!

My oldest son had three car accidents. The first time, there was condensation on his windshield. He tried to scrape it off, but it remained. Sadly, he drove even though he couldn't properly see. He hit another student's car as she made her way out of the school parking lot. The second time, he misjudged his timing, assuming he had time to turn in front of an oncoming vehicle. He told me with exasperation, "Mom, she saw me and she sped up!" His third accident left us reeling. He was fine, yes, but his beloved Mustang was not.

Now, it is my middle son's turn. When he first began driving, a fox ran out into the road and hit the front of his vehicle. Next, he hit a patch of ice and slid into a stop sign (oh, wait - I've had 4!!! - I hit a patch of ice and slid into a telephone pole, yikes!), requiring a door replacement. Now, he has had his third accident. On the way home from work, on the back country roads, he skimmed the side of a concrete bridge. When we arrived, he was partway in the grass and the tire that was hit was almost perpendicular from the other. They had to change this tire's position to transport it on the tow truck.

This was his beloved convertible. I'm grateful he's alive. No limbs were broken, and the car didn't flip. Still, he is beside himself with grief and determination to fix the thing (please, Lord, don't let him pour more money into a dying vehicle!). He sees only cosmetic damage and thinks it is not a big deal to purchase a new door, etc. Yet, the body shop's initial estimate (which, we all know how those things go up) was $8K. Even if he wanted to fix it himself, he doesn't have that skill set. Plus, we don't know what damage was done to the axle and engine. Needless to say, this has been a stressful start to a new year, following an extremely stressful year.

On the bright side, God answered both prayers offered in the way we hoped. The Lord kept these precious sons safe. Thank you, Lord! Please continue to hold them tightly in Your hand.

Mid-month Mention: Beloved Author Kate DiCamillo's Journey

Last month, I happened upon this article celebrating Kate DiCamillo's 20th anniversary of her book, The Tale of Despereaux. What joy! What happy memories I have of listening to Ms. McKee enthrall her 3rd grade class with her narration of this book! We were all transfixed, kids and teachers alike. This tender story of a hero-mouse tapped our deepest longings and healed our hidden wounds. I remember thinking, "Now, THIS is an outstanding writer!" Of course, this was just the beginning of my love affair with DiCamillo books. Then came Because of Winn-Dixie (one we listened to on our drive to and from CBLI family camp one year), and the Mercy Watson books (inciting my younger sons to parrot often, "toast with a great deal of butter"), and when they were a bit older, The Tiger Rising. I adored The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, another one I listened to while on a car trip, but I don't believe the boys were with me.

As I watched the accompanying video (a video of Jenna Bush interviewing Kate and encouraging children to read during the summer), I was blown away by a truth I didn't know. Kate asked students to guess how many rejection letters she received. I'm with them, my calculations would be between 5 and 50, but that is way out of the true range. 473! Unbelievable. Further admonishment to never give up! This is a fantastic writer, who accumulated more rejection letters than I can even fathom. I have not been as persistent! Indeed, for a spell, I have given up writing (apart from journaling and blogging) altogether. It saddens me to think of all the world would have lost, if Kate DiCamillo had responded the way I respond. Congratulations Despereaux on thrilling young readers for two decades! I'd give anything to travel back in time and relive those days in Ms. McKee's classroom watching children catch a passion for books and story.

Book Review: Dear Henry, Love Edith

I am writing this review of Dear Henry, Love Edith (Becca Kinzer's debut novel) for the second time, weeks after completing this read. Somehow, I deleted my book review and cannot retrieve it. I will try to give this book its due, but my memory has long since stepped away from this story. My apologies. Here is what I think I wrote:

If asked what my ideal romance would be, it would involve two strangers meeting through letters, developing a correspondence, and finding love. I still have bushels of old letters from friends (pack-rat that I am). While I had a brief taste of this dream, it was not entirely the same. After college, I went on a mission trip to the Philippines. One of the other mission teammates corresponded with me for those ten weeks. We were in similar places. We experienced: a) things we'd never encountered before; b) deep emotional connection to those experiences; c) shared struggles and observations; d) and genuine vulnerability with each other. It was impossible for romantic feelings to remain at bay, although I was determined we would not act on those feelings during the mission trip. For a brief time, afterwards, we connected, but he was not as interested in me as I was in him, and I realize that the intensity of our letters made me think there were connections that were not there. All of that to say, the premise of this book (two strangers meeting through letters and falling in love) seems earmarked for me!

After his niece's pipe bursts, Henry agrees to take on her temporary boarder. He believes she is a little old lady. Edith is visiting the small Illinois town to fill a position in a crisis nursery until arrangements for her mission trip fall into place. She believes she is living in the upstairs portion of an elderly man's house while he recuperates from a fall. He works days and she, nights; thus, they keep failing to meet the other and a correspondence between the two develops. Their assumptions lead them to share more deeply than they otherwise might. (However, don't expect a great deal of intimacy in the letters, because most of the love story plays out apart from the correspondence.)

While the humor sometimes verges on slapstick, this is a fun, delightful book. It would be perfect if you need something lighthearted amid personal pain. The plot draws the reader along with questions like: What will dispel their assumptions? Is love inevitable? Can they find a way to one another, despite divergent paths and past relational difficulties? I would happily dip into books by Becca Kinzer again. You can visit her author website and sign up for her newsletter to receive two short romance stories.

Book Review: Nineteen Steps

The cover leads one to believe 19-year-old actress Millie Bobby Brown (of Stranger Things fame) wrote this book. It impressed! I didn't expect to be sucked into the story in the first five pages (the mark of a talented writer). Then, I revisited the title page and discovered the words "with Kathleen McGurl." I guess my question is, how much did Millie write? Is Kathleen McGurl a ghostwriter resigned to the title page as the big name draws in all the readers and profits? Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps Millie did indeed write out chapters, only to be finessed by the talent of Kathleen McGurl. If I took no notice of the author at all, however, I would say it was a well-written, moving tale of great tragedy.

This is based on an unfamiliar true story. With so many WWII novels, new angles are rare. Nineteen Steps does just that - provides a new angle or lens on a little-known story from the war. I don't want to give too much away because that would detract from the very thing I find appealing about the book. Suffice it to say, when the air raid sirens sound and Nellie Morris makes her way down the nineteen steps into the Bethnal Green underground station, her life is forever changed. The scale of this tragedy and the emotional tug of the fictionalized story line took me by surprise. As Nellie's story progresses, the reader is pulled into a vortex of agony swirling alongside hope. It has everything a good story needs: specific setting, harrowing conflict, progressing plot, and endearing characters. This is a book I would happily recommend to my sister (who loves reading WWII novels). Additional plus, it was clean (not even cursing). 

Book Review: You Were Always Mine

I love a unique "what-if" premise. You Were Always Mine, by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, hits on an unconventional idea. What if a black woman found an abandoned white baby and decided to foster the infant? I guess the only difficulty I had was in believing the premise. Does that say something about society, about racial dynamics, or about me? I don't know.

Until now, Cinnamon Haynes has kept her traumatic past under wraps. She is married and in a good job. Then Daisy Dunlap stops to console her on the park bench one day. As a black woman, Cinnamon has never struck up a friendship with a white teenager before. They fall into a comfortable weekly exchange. As people often do, they present partial truths to explain who they are. A few weeks after Daisy disappears from their weekly ritual, Cinnamon hears a soft mewling behind her. Tucked behind the bench is a tiny blond, blue-eyed newborn. Her first instinct is to take the abandoned infant to the police, but when she arrives, she cannot bring herself to thrust this little child into the same system that scarred her. Will she keep the baby, as Daisy's note beneath the blanket requests? Will her husband get on board with the plan?

I was riveted, eager to know what Cinnamon would do, if she would find Daisy, and how she would fight the system on behalf of this innocent child. But part of me was still skeptical. I did ask, as Jodi Picoult suggests on the back cover, "why you so often see white foster parents with Black kids... but rarely the other way around?" Many times, just like the husband's reaction, they have no desire to foster Caucasian children for a myriad of reasons. Yes, I believe they would receive the judgmental looks Cinnamon endures. Yes, I agree that a black man raising a white girl would encounter constant questions. And, given the number of stories about black women who loved and raised white children on plantations, I know they can deeply love a child of another race, yet... they don't often, do they? Why are racial lines so difficult to cross over?

Growing up for a spell in East St. Louis, I experienced racial dynamics first-hand. While it is true, we had close friends in a black family of kids across the street from us, it is also true other black kids in the neighborhood threw stones at us because they didn't want their kind playing with our kind. Moreover, someone murdered our white paper boy. When low finances caused my dad to turn off one light bulb over one basketball hoop in the church gym, several black men accosted him, convinced of racism. If only we could all see beyond color.

Thus, I struggled to put myself fully into this premise. The authors draw several characters in harsh lines: the grandfather who is a white supremacist, the pastor's son who agonizes over his identity as a homosexual because of his father's vehemence from the pulpit, the preacher who curses like a sailor, the white foster mother who exposes her black foster child to photographic images of racism. In many ways, it wasn't a favorite (nor clean) read. And yet, at the same time, this book brings up so many intriguing topics for discussion. It would make a rich book club study and questions at the end of the book help explore these topics.

As different as we are, I could put myself in Cinnamon's shoes. Her issues were relatable. She doesn't shy away from exploring the motives behind her actions. She's not above giving forgiveness when wrongs spark apologies. I love how she doesn't back away from the intense task that dropped into her lap. Nor does she give in to her husband's insistence that they not take in this child. Some of my favorite parts were the letters written to the child. I agree with Kate Baer, author of I Hope This Finds You Well, who writes, "Tender, provocative, thoughtful - I was invested in this story from the very first page." I would venture to read another book by this authoring duo.

📒 Content caution: language, sex

Top Dozen Reads of 2023

As I said in my 2023 reading analysis post, 2023 didn't seem to be a stellar year, but then, I did have a half dozen reads I highly recommended. Perhaps if I only read bestsellers, my recommendation list would be longer, but I like to read a variety. I list the following BEST books read in 2023 in chronological, rather than preferential, order (although, if pressed, my favorite of 2023 would be The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley):

Paths of Glory (historical fiction)

by Jeffrey Archer

Maureen (fiction)

by Rachel Joyce

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy (Christian non-fiction)

by Mark Vroegop

On Getting Out of Bed (Christian non-fiction)

by Alan Noble

A Place to Land (fiction)

by Lauren K. Denton

The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley (fiction)

by Courtney Walsh

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

The Wager (historical nonfiction)

by David Grann

Beyond That, the Sea (historical fiction)

by Laura Spence-Ash

The Words We Lost (Christian fiction)

by Nicole Deese

The Body Keeps the Score (nonfiction)

by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (young adult fiction)

by Jennifer E. Smith

Tactics (Christian nonfiction)

by Gregory Koukl