Books In the Middle Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Anna Dressed in Blood     By Kendare Blake         His job is to kill ghosts, even though they are already dead. Cas and his mother travel all over tracking down spirits that don’t want to go quietly into the night. With the knife his father used to send spirits packing, Cas goes after ghosts that harm humans. And he’s heard about Anna Dressed in Blood and realizes she might be a...

Send us Fan Mail Acceleration    By Graham McNamee After Duncan isn’t able to save a drowning girl, his life begins to take a tailspin he isn’t sure how to pull out of. When his dead end summer job in the subways Lost and Found center becomes more than he bargained for after finding a psychopath’s journal, all bets are off as to whether he can save anyone, himself included. Recommended for mature...

Send us Fan Mail We Were Liars    By E. Lockhart What happened? That is what circles around and around in Cadence’s mind. What happened the summer when she was 15, along with all the other liars? Something that left Cadence in the water, almost drown, and no one will talk about it. What could have possibly happened on the family island that everyone feels the need to hide from her? Recommended for...

Send us Fan Mail Since You’ve Been Gone    By Morgan Matson What do you do when your best friend disappears…right before what was supposed to be the best summer of your life? Emily goes on a quick vacation with her family and upon her return sends message after message to her friend, Sloane. Only to realize Sloane isn’t answering. Right before she is going to tell her parents that her best has dis...

Send us Fan Mail Maniac  Magee by Jerry Spinelli           Jeffery, or Maniac, as the people of Two Mills begin to call him, is an orphan who ran away from his aunt and uncle one day after a school concert. He is looking for a home and seems destined to come close, but not always get there. In Two Mills he discovers some wonderful people, but some very strange rules - at least he thinks so. When M...

Send us Fan Mail Code Name Verity     By Elizabeth Wein It was a stupid, rookie mistake. Looking the wrong way for cars before crossing the street. That is how Queenie is taken prisoner by the Gestapo in France during WWII. She must write her story for the SS commander in charge of her interrogation. Give all the information she has a British spy before she is killed. What can she say that will ke...

Send us Fan Mail After     By Amy Efaw Devon had everything going for her. She was an awesome soccer player, great student, a good friend, more responsible than her own mother. So where did things go wrong? How could she be accused of attempted murder?  Recommended for 8th grade and up.  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Orbiting Jupiter     By Gary Schmidt When Jack sat down with his parents and Mrs. Stroud, from the State of Maine * Department of Health and Human Services, he knew his parents wanted to foster a teenager named Joseph. What he didn’t know was just how much Joseph would impact them all. Recommended for mature 7th graders and up.  For a more complete review, check here .  Support th...

Send us Fan Mail POP     By Gordon Korman Moving to a new town is always hard, but it’s even harder when you are a quarterback trying to make a new team that was undefeated the season before. Add to that the current quarterback isn’t happy to see you and his ex-girlfriend keeps hitting on you. But craziest of all, is the older man who show up in the park each day to help Marcus become the best foo...

Send us Fan Mail In Case You Missed It by Sarah Littman Sammy has the typical concerns. She's worried about the four AP exams she'll be taking in a few months, along with her driver's license test and the SAT. PLUS, the prom is coming up, and she's desperate for a promposal (the over the top prom proposals that get recorded for the world to see - although after seeing one in th...

Send us Fan Mail Dirty Little Secrets  By C. J. Omololu         Ever have a secret so great; you just can’t even begin to think about telling anyone? Lucy lives with a huge secret. Her mother is a hoarder. Nothing ever gets thrown out, and now Lucy lives among towering piles of bags and plastic bins as well as clothes everywhere. How can she ever have a normal life? Recommended for 8th Grade and u...

Send us Fan Mail The Swap     By Megan Shull Ever just thought that someone else has it easier than you? Well, Ellie feels like her life is falling apart. Her oldest friend seems to have ditched her for someone new and she is being incredibly mean about it. Jack can’t seem to control his anger and it can lead to some tight spots. When they happen to meet up in the nurse’s office on the first day o...

Send us Fan Mail Stones In Water By Donna Jo Napoli Being in Italy during the war wasn’t much fun, but things get deadly one afternoon in a movie theater when Roberto, his brother and friends get taken out by the Germans to work in labor camps. Roberto, and his close friend Samuele go to many desperate lengths to prevent the other boys from learning Samuele is Jewish, because it would mean certain...

Send us Fan Mail The Woods Runner    By Gary Paulsen         In the woods, life in the far away cities seems so removed from Samuel and his family, living on the frontier in the colonies. However, all that changes one day when he is hunting in the woods. His parents’ cabin is burned to the ground and all the other settlers killed or taken prisoner. Samuel begins a journey across the land to rescue...

Send us Fan Mail Starters    By Lissa Price           Callie is considered a “starter” at the age of 16. In a time when humans can live to be two hundred years old, Callie is just starting her life. However, since the Spore Wars, there are no people in between the young and the elderly. Any children without grandparents to take care of them are considered unclaimed minors and are viewed as a nuisa...

Send us Fan Mail Tabula Rasa     By Kristen Lippert-Martin Sarah is in the process of having her mind erased. It is for her own good. Something happened in her past and she doesn’t want to remember it. At least that is what everyone at the hospital tells her. She is almost done with the last treatment, but something goes wrong. The hospital comes under attack and it turns out, someone doesn’t just...

Send us Fan Mail Death Coming Up the Hill    By Chris Crowe Ashe is used to living in a war zone. While it is clear both his parents love him to death, they don’t share the same affection for each other. Most of his life has been spent in a cold war situation. With the real war in Vietnam heating up, Ashe realizes just how far apart his parents have become. Things really begin to fall apart when A...

Send us Fan Mail The Raft    By S.A. Bodeen         Robie wants to prove she is a competent teenager when her aunt has to leave her to go on a business trip. Not wanting to head back to be with her parents on Midway Atoll, Robie says she’ll be careful and a friend of her aunt’s is supposed to check in on her. When things don’t go as smoothly as Robie thought they would she decides to head back to...

Send us Fan Mail The Skeleton Tree   By Iain Lawrence  After his father died, Chris felt adrift. Not that he had been terribly close with his father. It always seemed complicated with his dad. His Uncle Jack thinks that Chris should come with him and take his boat and sail it down from Alaska to Washington. Soon Chris finds himself aboard the Puff . However, it isn't just Chris and his Uncle...

Send us Fan Mail The Adoration of Jenna Fox    By Mary E. Pearson         When Jenna awakes from a coma after an “accident” things feel off. She isn’t sure what is it, and parts of her memory are fragmented. Her parents tell her she will remember in time, but her grandmother seems to not even like her. Jenna discovers things are not what she first thought, and begins to question what it means to b...

Send us Fan Mail Uninvited     By Sophie Jordan Davy is living a pretty awesome life. She comes from a wealthy family, goes to a private school, has been accepted into Juilliard in New York because of her fabulous musical ability and has the best boyfriend a girl could want. What could possibly go wrong. Turns out, quite a lot. Davy tests positive for a gene that has been linked to killers. So doe...

Send us Fan Mail The Hunt    By Andrew Fukuda         Sick of the sweet vampires in Twilight and the whole saga? Well, welcome to a world where vampires have taken over and the only humans living are called hepers and have to live in a special protected dome to keep the vampires from getting them. In The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda with so few humans alive, when a Heper Hunt is announced all the vampire...

Send us Fan Mail Evil Librarian      By Michael Knudsen So, Cyn -short for Cynthia- realizes that not much can penetrate her laser focus when Ryan is around  (the guy she’s been majorly crushing on forEVER but doesn’t know she exists), but still, something is up when her normally unflappable, positive and totally supportive best friend.  Annie suddenly seems really taken with the new school librar...

Send us Fan Mail Chains      By Laurie Halse Anderson Isabel thinks her life is going to change with the death of her mistress. She believes she will finally be free and so will her younger sister Ruth. However, when the nephew of her dead mistress comes to claim all she owned, he decides to disregard the will stating Isabel and Ruth are now free. And thus begins a new saga for Isabel and her sist...

Send us Fan Mail My Brigadista Year by Katherine Paterson Lora is thirteen years old when her country of Cuba undergoes a major political change. Fidel Castro comes to power after he, along with other rebels, overthrow the dictator Batista. One of the first things Castro does is to create the Cuban Literacy Campaign. The goal is for the island of Cuba to be literate in one year. Recommended for gr...