ALL THE GREYS ON GREENE STREET by Laura Tucker

Coping with the unusual is definitely something that's on my mind these days. All the mysterious happenings in this story kept me hooked.

Description from the publisher:

SoHo, 1981. Twelve-year-old Olympia is an artist--and in her neighborhood, that's normal. Her dad and his business partner Apollo bring antique paintings back to life, while her mother makes intricate sculptures in a corner of their loft, leaving Ollie to roam the streets of New York with her best friends Richard and Alex, drawing everything that catches her eye.

Then everything falls apart. Ollie's dad disappears in the middle of the night, leaving her only a cryptic note and instructions to destroy it. Her mom has gone to bed, and she's not getting up. Apollo is hiding something, Alex is acting strange, and Richard has questions about the mysterious stranger he saw outside. And someone keeps calling, looking for a missing piece of art. . . .

Olympia knows her dad is the key--but first, she has to find him, and time is running out.

All the Grey’s on Greene Street by Laura Tucker was published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in 2019.

Why you want to read this book…

All the aspects of the art studio, the artist loft and Ollie’s lifestyle were intriguing, but what really tugged at my heart was the predicament Ollie was put in. Reading about how Ollie tried to cope with her father leaving and her mother’s depression made for a strong, emotional experience.  I also really enjoyed all the details about art!

 

Opening:

May Day is the first day of May.

“Mayday” is a radio signal used by ships and aircraft in distress.

This spring, May Day was the first day that my mom didn’t get out of bed.

If you’re a writer…

You might be interested in the way the author left space for the reader to interpret and think about what is going on. The way the author described the art techniques put me right there in the moment. This is a good book to study to see how different threads of plot are wound up and tied together at the end.

I hate charcoal. You’d think I’d like it because there’s no color involved, but I hate the horrible scratching sound it makes against the paper and the smudgy mess of it.

If you’re an educator or parent…

A great story for a read aloud to open up discussions about feelings, different kinds of families, and coping with family troubles. The art and the mystery give the story lots of ways to interest readers.

  

If you’re looking for another great list of middle grade books to read, check out Marvelous Middle Grade Monday on Greg Pattridge's blog.

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday – THE SEVENTH WISH by Kate Messner

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada, so it seems especially appropriate to feature a novel that reminds us that some families are struggling today. This is an absorbing read, especially for children ages 11 and up with challenging family situations. 

                              

Description from the publisher:

Charlie feels like she's always coming in last. From her Mom's new job to her sister's life away at college, everything else always seems to be more important than Charlie's upcoming dance competition or science project. Unsure of how to get her family's attention, Charlie comes across the surprise of her life one day while ice-fishing . . . in the form of a floppy, scaly fish offering to grant her a wish in exchange for its freedom. Charlie can't believe her luck until she realizes that this fish has a funny way of granting wishes, despite her best intentions. But when her family faces a challenge bigger than any they've ever experienced, Charlie wonders if some things might be too important to risk on a wish.

The Seventh Wish was written by Kate Messner and published by Bloomsbury in 2016.

Why you want to read this book… 

It's great to find a story that shows how a sibling is affected when her older sister faces a difficult challenge. It’s a realistic portrayal of how a whole family struggles and has to come to terms with the crisis, while still carrying on with all the other things they have to do in their lives. (This story reminded me a bit of Jo Knowles’ novel, Still a Work in Progress, because it is also told from the perspective of a sibling of a struggling character. See my review here.)

I think this is the first novel I’ve read that includes both Irish dancing and ice fishing! For me, the magic fish reminded me how sometimes we wish for a quick solution that will make things better but in reality there are some difficulties we can only get through with time and hard, emotional work. The ending of the story was realistic and hopeful.

“But today, I’m tired of being the youngest in the family. I hate the way everybody else’s plans matter more than mine.”

If you’re a writer… 

This is a good story to study to see how to create a fully realized picture of the many elements that make up middle school life – friends, family, activities and interests, homework… It’s so interesting to see how the author manages to balance all of these elements in the same story!

“Mom doesn’t need that stomping and kicking and forget-everything loudness the way I do, especially now.”

If you’re a teacher…

Many students need to cope with difficult family situations, like addiction, so I think it’s an important novel to at least have available in the classroom. I really liked the way the story showed the family taking time to work through the situation. This story has connections to curriculum related to substance abuse and addiction.

“We can wish on clovers and shooting stars and flowers all we want. But in the end, the only real magic is what’s inside us and the people we love.”

Opening Line:

“I’ve only seen the ice flowers once.”

Other Info:

Kate Messner has written many middle grade novels including Eye of the Storm, Capture the Flag, The Exact Location of Home and the Ranger in Time series.

There’s a teacher’s guide for The Seventh Wish on Bloomsbury’s website.

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday – STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS

I loved Jo Knowles’ emotional middle grade SEE YOU AT HARRY’S, so I was excited to read this book. It’s written from the perspective of a boy whose sibling has a mental illness.

Description from Amazon:

Noah is just trying to make it through seventh grade. The girls are confusing, the homework is boring, and even his friends are starting to bug him. Not to mention that his older sister, Emma, has been acting pretty strange, even though Noah thought she'd been doing better ever since the Thing They Don't Talk About. The only place he really feels at peace is in art class, with a block of clay in his hands. As it becomes clear through Emma's ever-stricter food rules and regulations that she's not really doing better at all, the normal seventh-grade year Noah was hoping for begins to seem pretty unattainable. In an affecting and realistic novel with bright spots of humor, Jo Knowles captures the complexities of navigating middle school while feeling helpless in the face of a family crisis.

Still a Work in Progress was written by Jo Knowles and published by Candlewick Press in 2016.

As a reader and teacher:

When I first started reading, I wasn’t sure I’d like this story, even though the realistic details made me feel almost like I was entering middle school myself. As I read on and let myself get to know Noah, I couldn’t put it down. I wanted to find out what was going on with his family and sister Emma. Experiencing the situation through Noah’s thoughts and perspective made me think about how the whole family is affected when one person has a mental illness.

As a writer: 

Jo Knowles includes specific details and images to create an authentic story. I’d read this one again to study how to write a story about the sibling of a person in a difficult situation. I really liked this perspective and I think it’s an area of middle grade that has been overlooked. Another great example of a character-driven contemporary middle grade.

Opening Line:

“I am not afraid of Molly Lo,” Ryan tells me from inside the stall in the boys’ bathroom.

Other Info:

Jo Knowles is the author of See You at Harry’s, another middle grade book I really recommend (see my thoughts here). She has also written several YA novels.  

Here’s Jo Knowles talking about how she got the idea for the story:

There is a teacher guide for this novel. 

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday – OCDANIEL

You're probably surprised I actually have a post, since I slacked off during the end of the school year rush. But this book is worth waiting for. I've been looking forward to reading this book since the fall of 2015, when I heard Wesley King talk about it in a writing workshop put on by CANSCAIP (Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers).

Description from the publisher:

  

Daniel is the back-up punter for the Erie Hills Elephants. Which really means he’s the water boy. He spends football practice perfectly arranging water cups—and hoping no one notices. Actually, he spends most of his time hoping no one notices his strange habits—he calls them Zaps: avoiding writing the number four, for example, or flipping a light switch on and off dozens of times over. He hopes no one notices that he’s crazy, especially his best friend Max, and Raya, the prettiest girl in school. His life gets weirder when another girl at school, who is unkindly nicknamed Psycho Sara, notices him for the first time. She doesn’t just notice him: she seems to peer through him.

Then Daniel gets a note: “I need your help,” it says, signed, Fellow Star child—whatever that means. And suddenly Daniel, a total no one at school, is swept up in a mystery that might change everything for him.     

OCDaniel was written by Wesley King and published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in 2016.

My Take:

Reading this book was a powerful experience for me. I learned a lot about how a child with an obsessive-compulsive disorder thinks and functions. The book gave me a realistic picture of how a mental illness like this is integrated into a person’s life.  I really liked the way the author explained the behaviours and thoughts related to his disorder as “Zaps” and “the Routine.” I thought it was very realistic, too, how Daniel hid his illness from his parents.

Though it may seem like this book is about dealing with Daniel’s mental illness, it’s also a story about an ordinary kid facing with ordinary middle school issues like trying to get a girl to notice him, annoying older siblings, dealing with parents, and trying not to look like a total dweeb on a sports field. I was also intrigued by the mystery related to his new friend Sara. There was a lot going on in this book, but it all fit together and was written in an easy-to-relate to style.

For Writers: 

I’d study this book to see how the author balances all the different plot threads. It’s also a good mentor text for anyone writing about a character with a mental illness.

Opening Line:

“I first realized I was crazy on a Tuesday.”

Quotes:

“I don’t know when it started or why, but some numbers are good, and some are not.”

“Besides, I figured authors wrote even when they didn’t really want to, including the days when they had to go solve a murder.”

Other Info:

Wesley King is a Canadian and the author of the middle grade novels, The Incredible Space Raiders from Space and Dragons vs. Drones. 

OCDaniel originated from some of the author's own experiences as a child with anxiety and panic attacks stemming from OCD. In an Author's Note, he says "My OCD is a challenge that I deal with every day, but I wrote this book because I believe it can be defeated."

For some fun facts about Wesley King, check out this video at the Lost in a Great Book blog.