




Interview with Donna Barba Higuera about THE LAST CUENTISTA.Book Review: REBOUND by Kwame Alexander.Interview with Kelly Yang about FINALLY SEEN.She has been teaching for twenty-two years, and her passion is getting books into the hands of her students. You can find her on Twitter at your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.įollow Search for: Follow us on Twitter My Tweets Recent Posts She’s also happy to be part of the #classroombookaday community, and loves to learn alongside her students and fellow educators. She’s a member of #bookexpedition, a group of teachers, librarians and authors who read and review ARCs and newly released middle grade books. K atie Reilley is a fourth and fifth grade ELA teacher from Elburn, Illinois, and a proud mom to two amazing daughters, ages 14 and 10 who has been married to a wonderful husband for 18 years. *Thank you to Simon & Schuster/Aladdin for providing Middle Grade Book Village with an early copy of this novel in verse to read and review.* Publishing in January of 2021, and I’ll definitely purchase to add to my MG classroom library. (It made me think of the ending of Lisa Graff’s Lost in the Sun or Laurel Snyder’s Orphan Island in the same way). While I know that’s not the purpose of the book, and realizing Maddie’s storyline did have closure, I wonder if middle grade readers will feel the same. I longed to give it a 5, but not knowing exactly what caused the massive evacuation left me yearning for more answers. Maddie’s journey of strength and perseverance is one I think they’ll love. And they enjoy rereading them, piecing the storylines, characters, and words together that they might have overlooked on a first read. Facing natural disasters, looters, and wild animals, Maddie grapples with intense loneliness as the seasons pass and the thought of being rescued grows dimmer each day.Īs a MG teacher, my readers love novels in verse. Maddie must learn to survive with no power, no internet, and no way to communicate with the family that’s (unknowingly) left her behind. Her only companion is the neighbor’s Rottweiler, George. But when she wakes up the next morning, she discovers she’s mysteriously all alone, left behind after her town’s been completely evacuated and abandoned due to an imminent threat. Maddie decides to go ahead with her plans and enjoy an evening of snacks and solitude. Set in Colorado, twelve year old Maddie and her friends hatch a scheme for a secret sleepover, but her friends suddenly have to cancel.
