Great Middle Grade Reads discussion

We made it into a new year! Happy 2023, everyone! While we're readying our goals for the months ahead, take a moment to consider December. Did you squeak in with any year-end titles that impressed you?

I needed an "U" book for the A to Z Challenge, and I wasn't expecting much from Undercover Princess by Connie Glynn, but ... darn it if it wasn't a good read!



And while we're being all retrospective, let me ask: What were your best reads of 2022? Share a handful of your top middle grade titles. Maybe the rest of us will be adding them to our To Read piles for 2023!

Here are some of mine:

This is terrible. I keep trying to pick just one book as the best one of the month, and every month I struggle to pick only one. I was able to narrow my choices down to 5 this month. In no particular order, my top five books read in December are:

Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry
Call of the Crow by Jessica Khoury
A Fractured Song: The Broken Melody by Vincent Yam
Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake


As for top books of the year, here are some of mine:



And what I think is probably the best middle-grade book I've read all year. The sequel is coming out in May, and I am definitely excited for it:

C.J. wrote: "I needed a "U" book for the A to Z Challenge, and I wasn't expecting much from Undercover Princess by Connie Glynn, but ... darn it if it wasn't a good read!
"

I read Undercover Princess in April and loved it as well. I keep hoping that my library will either get copies of the sequels or they will go on sale so I can buy them all... LOL

I tried reading The Clockwork Sparrow but gave up after three chapters because I thought it was really irritating on a number of fronts! But my only other MG of the month was a fictionalised biography of Ada Lovelace, from a team called Rebel Girls. Ada Lovelace cracks the Code is excellent IMHO.



My MG book of the year was Looking For Emily, which won out from Ada, When Stars Are Scattered and Birdgirl.

Dear Peter, Dear Ulla

The Children of Green Knowe

The Sterkarm Handshake

The God Beneath the Sea

The Borrowers

The Chimneys of Green Knowe

A Stranger at Green Knowe

Journey to Jo'burg: A South African Story

Skellig

The Flying Classroom (read in German, Das fliegende Klassenzimmer every year for Christmas)