books for tweens
Not an Easy Win
What do you do when someone keeps baiting you? Do you fight or do you find a way to step back without seeming a coward? Lawrence always seems to be in the wrong place…
The Secret Sunshine Project
The Secret Sunshine Project by Benjamin Dean is a sweet, feel-good story about family and love. I enjoyed it, and I felt my eyes prick more than once as I turned the pages, revelling…
Something Like Home
What a beautiful book Something Like Home by Andrea Beatriz Arango is! Told in free verse, it is a moving middle-grade story about friendship, family and courage. Laura is sure she made the wrong…
Nikhil Out Loud
I read The Best At It a few years ago, and I loved it. Nikhil Out Loud has been on my TBR since then, and it didn’t disappoint! Optimistic, warm and funny, it paints…
The State League
I don’t play football; I don’t even watch football. Despite that, I was sucked into yet another brilliant book by Mallika Ravikumar – The State League. To be fair, considering how much I have…
Off with Their Heads
Dystopia and murder. Both genres I typically avoid. Yet, the moment I started reading Off with Their Heads, I was hooked. Chapter after pacy chapter drew me into a world where a group of…
A Revolution in the Valley
Protest. Isn’t that what is on everyone’s mind now? How does one protest? How does one agitate, educate and organise? Where do we find the courage to stand up for what we know is…
Bud, Not Buddy
I said, “No, sir. I don’t know why, but my eyes don’t cry no more.” Steady Eddie said, “I like that, ‘my eyes don’t cry no more.’ You mind if I borrow that? That sounds…
The Vaidyar’s School of Medicine and Magic
The Vaidyar’s School of Medicine and Magic
Recently, I was asked to conduct a workshop on exploring new perspectives in fantasy writing. As usual, I started by asking students what they’d read. All the usual names cropped up – Percy Jackson,…
Hope in the Valley
The blurb of Hope in the Valley speaks of how the book is a tale of “growing up in Silicon Valley at a time when immigrants are looked at with suspicion”. With news coming…
