Month: January 2023

One of my favorite middle school books has been turned into a play/musical showing in New York city. This Schneider Family Book Award title features Allie who is frequently getting in trouble in school and frequently moving towns and schools. We find out she has a reading disability and is ashamed to reveal this secret. The theater is on W 42nd Street.

The play opens in March and “celebrates neurodiversity, friendship, and the power of imagination, and explores the harm bullying causes and the life changing potential of a generous teacher.”

As ALA gears up to announce the medal winning children’s books this coming Monday, January 30, American Libraries Online took a look back at the 100th anniversary of the Newbery Medal in 2022. Read the article, which also includes conversations with past winners, and a timeline of memorable firsts.

Flight by Lynn Steger Strong takes place in late December in upstate New York during the first holiday without Helen, the matriarch. Katie, Henry and Martin each miss their mother and are learning how to be this new family without her. Katie with her husband and three children is hoping the others will agree to allow her to live in the mother’s home instead of selling it. Martin and his career-minded lawyer wife, Tess, are not s easily persuaded. Artist Henry and his social-worker wife, Alice, are the only couple without children. Alice is beginning to come to terms with the idea she will not become a mother and is wrapped up in the lives of a single mother-daughter case she is assigned to care for. As each member navigates the holiday week, their likes and dislikes bubble at the surface and their flaws are revealed. An entertaining novel that held my interest.

If you’re looking for some reading recommendations, the New York Public Library has listed their best books of 2022 for adults, children and teens on their website. Check them out to see what you missed reading during the year…