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Set in Rabbit, Utah, When Giants Burn by Beth Vrabel tells the story of two tweens who know that feelings aren’t temporary like their school counsellor Mrs. Freid claims. Both Hayes and Gerty know that “sometimes feelings twist and tunnel. Sometimes they wrap themselves into every bit of a person, locking them into a place where nothing else can grow” (214). Afraid of losing his mother to addiction and a life of crime again, Hayes is struggling to form a relationship with his ex-con mother. Untethered and unable to forgive and forget her abandonment, Hayes wears his anger like armor. An independent and largely self-sufficientRead More →

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An unwieldy topic, climate change has been creeping up on us in slow motion for more than 200 years. To humanize this topic and to motivate activism, Alan Gratz writes his middle grade novel Two Degrees. Written in seven parts, his book features four tweens from different locales in North America, all linked by an invisible web. These seventh graders are connected through the adversity they individually face with wild fires, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, and storm surges. Living near the Sierra Nevadas in California, Akira Kristiansen seeks to escape the chaos of school and family by riding Dodger, her chestnut gelding quarterRead More →