It's only when I began writing this post that I noticed that most (six out of seven) of my favourite middle-grade reads from 2023 have blue covers! How odd!I made a conscious effort to read more middle-grade books this year, also because I want to write more middle grade. It's an age-group I enjoy interacting with, and I want more MG literature that moves and changes me, urging me to read on. Here are the books that I read and loved in 2023. An Alien in the Jam Factory I read this wacky book at the end of November 2023, and I loved it so much that it's going to be part of the February 2024 edition of Read, Write, Explore. An Alien in the Jam Factory is a book that I think most children can identify with, even though the protagonist is a genius who meets an alien, a situation that most children cannot identify with. What makes me feel it has … [Read more...]
Gathering Blue
Gathering Blue opens with an unknown character in an unknown world. Sure, it is a dystopian world, but I found myself wondering, isn't this the second book in The Giver quartet? I even went back to check that I hadn't started reading the wrong book by mistake. I hadn't. Yet, there were no overlapping characters that I could find.Soon enough, however, one similarity between the two books stood out: the utter isolation of the community in which Kira, the protagonist of Gathering Blue, lives. Like Jonas, Kira has no knowledge of the world outside. She has heard of beasts that will drag you away, and she has even heard them growl, but she has never seen a beast. She has never ventured off the beaten path, and has never dared to go beyond the Field.Where Jonas's world is too perfect, Kira's is cutthroat. When her mother dies, the other women, led by the scarred Vandara, want to take … [Read more...]
The Giver
Teaching creative writing is always eye-opening. Over time, we've worked with mythopoeia, dystopia, fantasy, adventure, and mystery, requiring us to come up with all kinds of mentor texts and examples. During the April to June 2023 edition of the programme, somehow, we kept coming back to The Giver by Lois Lowry, a book I had not read. I finally remedied that!The Giver is a powerful dystopian story, one that fills the reader with yearning. Jonas lives in the perfect community. Every morning, each family unit discusses dreams. Every night, family units discuss feelings. There is no loss, there's no needless pain, and there's no suffering. The community functions like a well-oiled machine. Each individual has a clear role to play, and when it is time, they are released from the community.Even as we read about this perfect, comfortable life, we have a niggling sense of … [Read more...]