Alison Reads

Set at the Endinburgh International Festival and Fringe Festival which are held for three weeks each August, this book starts out slowly and it’s hard to keep all the characters in one’s head, but gradually the characters become real and by the end all the separate threads are tied together. I enjoyed learning about pyrotechnics […]

Middle schooler Amedeo Kaplan moves from New York City to Florida, where he gets to know his eccentric neighbor, an elderly former opera star, and makes his first friend, a boy named William. We learn a fair amount about modern art, especially art that was stolen by the Nazis during Hitler’s regime. This book’s OK, […]

Greg Heffley is an undersized sixth grader who keeps a journal (not a diary!) of his first year in middle school. Greg’s questionable choices get him into trouble with bullies at school and with his parents and brothers at home. “Hand printed” on lined paper and filled with drawings, this book is a quick read […]

Eleven-year-old Mags schemes to help her talented new friend Gillian convince her father to pay for her to study violin at a conservatory in England. Very Irish, and some of the phrases may be problematic for Americans, but delightful. For grades 4-6.

Catherine is 12 and is tired of having to deal with her 8-year-old brother’s autism. She loves him, but she doesn’t like being embarrassed by his behavior. She takes it upon herself to make him a list of rules to live by, because he won’t learn them any other way. At the speech therapist’s office […]

Thirteen-year-old Miles O’Malley knows more about the ecology of the tidal mudflat near his home in Olympia than anyone. That summer he finds a giant squid and a rare deep-sea fish that was thought to be extinct. He becomes a minor celebrity and members of a religious cult seek him out. Miles is passionate about […]