books for ages nine and ten

Munni Monster
Mishti’s life is good. She has a best friend (never mind if said best friend is a little annoying), parents who love her, and a grandmother whom she adores. Everything’s perfect–until Munni, her grandmother’s…

Talon the Falcon
We love the Feather Tales series at my book club! I didn’t choose to read Talon the Falcon earlier because it is much shorter than The Golden Eagle and The Paradise Flycatcher, but when children fall in love…

Crenshaw
I read Crenshaw over two years ago. In fact, it was one of my top reads of 2020, and it’s a story that has stayed with me since then, a story I think about often because…

Secret Friends
I love Elizabeth Laird. And Secret Friends was another beautiful read, a heartbreaking story about wanting to fit in, but never quite managing it. Lucy is the first to tease Rafaella, and this is…

I Survived the California Wildfires, 2018
I Survived the California Wildfires, 2018
During my first two writing programmes in 2020-21, one participant (who wrote this poem) recommended the I Survived series. She spoke about it time and again, and somehow, I never ended up picking up a copy.…

Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days
Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days
It’s been a year since I read Nimmi’s Dreadtastic Detective Days, and I’ve been mulling over whether to read it at my reading programme. It’s a little longer than the books we usually read, but…

A Big Splash
I read the entire PARI series a few months ago, and I’ve been mulling over them ever since. I’m not usually a big fan of nonfiction, and I haven’t yet worked with it at…

About Average
I read Frindle some time ago and loved it. I considered using it for my online reading programme, but it’s so well known that I figured that many children would have read it, or at least…









