Rachel Reads & Reviews

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Tag: #middlegrade

  • Book Highlight: Song of the Lioness

    Ah, The Song of the Lionness. The quartet that helped put Tamora Pierce on the map as premiere fantasy novelist with a feminist hero for the ages. It also founded the expansive Tortall universe. Since the books have been around since the 80s I’m not going to repeat what happens in them. Everyone has probably…

  • Interview with Jessica Burkhart

    First off, for those who didn’t grow up in the early 2000s when Canterwood Crest first came out, how did you get started?  I started really, really young as a freelance writer. Like, I was 14 when I started pursuing writing for publication. Over the years, I did regular work for several different (many now…

  • Jacqueline Dembar Greene Interview

    Jacqueline Dembar Greene is a writer of lower/middle grade historical fiction and creator of Rebecca Rubin for American Girl. In this here interview she talks about her inspiration, heritage and historical fiction books. She also kindly provided cover images. Please enjoy! What first drew you to reading? More specifically, the historic fiction genre? Growing up…

  • Interview with J.H. Sweet

    J.H. Sweet is the author of a number of Christian-inspired fantasy books for kids. In this interview she discusses her longrunning Fairy Chronicles series, Christianity, philosphy and the timelessness of stories. Please enjoy. 1. What sparked you to become a writer?  Love of reading, to start with; but also, English was my favorite subject in…

  • The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages Review

    I was a fan of the series way back in middle school so when I heard they were coming out with a whole new book all these years later. I ignored it. But now I figured why not, let’s see if it holds up. So I reread the other four books and dove into The…

  • Disney Descendants: School of Secrets Review

    Unlike my post on the Isle of the Lost, this one will be an actual review of the series overall. Unlike the Isle of the Lost series, this has some leeway in escaping continuity issues. They are not to set up movie plots or examine the main characters. This focuses on side characters that appear…

  • Book Highlight: The Yawning Rabbit River Chronicle

    This is a fun kids book that acts as a triptych taking place over 20 years in titular Yawning Rabbit River. The first story tells the origins of how the rabbit thief, Sean raced the river goddess Violet to bring water back to the Valley and how his heroic actions immortalized him forever. As well…

  • Author Highlight: Courtney Sheinmel

    I have already talked about one of her books that I have reread several times, Sincerely, but last year I decided to go on a binge of several of her middle grade books. None of them are connected, but each deal with the complexities of families and the young protagonists dealing with big changes in…

  • Top 4 Meg Cabot books

    Girl meet Boy series This fun, frothy romcom series is written entirely in epistolotory form. meaning that it’s written in emails, texts, and such. No prose, which makes it a very fast read as the characters swap gossip, get into miscommunications and get sexy. The romances all share small-town girls falling for outsider city boys,…