Books In the Middle Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Amelia Westlake Was Never Here by Erin Gough It all started with a comment. A completely inappropriate comment made by their physical education teacher. One that Will was not going to let slide by, and of course, it meant that she got in trouble for it and ended up in detention. The worst part for Will was the fact that Harriet heard what the coach said to Ruby, and just gave him...

Send us Fan Mail The Gathering by Dan Poblocki She knows everyone thinks she is “crazy Poppy” but she really does see a girl in the mirror – in any mirror- that she looks into. And not only that, but the girl gives her things. Things that Poppy sees in the mirror and then finds in real life. But Poppy has no idea who she is and why she appears only to Poppy. And Marcus has for years heard music th...

Send us Fan Mail Love, Life and the List by Kasie West   Abby knows Cooper doesn’t like her “like that” after that disastrous discussion last summer, but it doesn’t mean she can just turn off her feelings. Still, she has to pretend, right? After all, she doesn’t want to lose Cooper as her best friend, and it will totally mess up their group of four friends. But two of those four are going away for...

Send us Fan Mail Show Me a Sign by Ann Clare LeZotte Mary has spent her whole life on Martha's Vineyard - an island off the coast of Massachusetts, living with her parents and her older brother. Tragically, her older brother died in an accident the year before, leaving Mary with feelings of guilt.  But now a stranger, a scientist has come to their island to study people like Mary. People who...

Send us Fan Mail What Lane? by Torrey Maldonado Stephen has some good friends, but lately, his best friend Dan, has been hanging out with his cousin, Chad. Chad, for lack of a better word, is pretty much a jerk and seems to be mean on purpose to Stephen. Any time Chad is around, Stephen just wants to leave. So when a bunch of Stephen's friends hang out one day, and Chad starts to challenge St...

Send us Fan Mail The Cousins by Karen McManus It was strange that their grandmother finally wanted to see them, after all this time. After all, she’d cut out her own children from her life, so easily it seemed, all those years ago, so why did she want to see them now? For Milly, Aubrey and Jonah, the mystery of what happened then begins to blend in with the now. Recommended for 8th grade and up. ...

Send us Fan Mail Following by Jeffry Johnston Ever since his parents were killed, Alden has been driven to figure out the why. Why do people do what they do? And for him, the best way to figure that out is to follow people. Even though  his best friend Charlie tells him it is a bad idea, he can’t seem to stop himself. After following a guy from school one day, Alden begins to believe Charlie, sinc...

Send us Fan Mail From a Whisper to a Rally Cry by Paula Yoo On the evening of June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin was beaten in the middle of a street in Detroit, Michigan after going to a club for the evening. He was going to be married in a little over a week.  Instead of people attending his wedding, they went to his funeral.  The question is raised was Vincent killed because he was Asian? For the firs...

Send us Fan Mail Hunted by Meagan Spooner Beauty, as she used to be called when she was little, knows she doesn't like life in town, even if her two sisters do. She struggles with the expectations of what life might and probably will be like for her. Basically, finding someone to marry, setting up a house and then having children. But, does she really want that? Or should she just accept that...

Send us Fan Mail Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard Mare knows her time is running out before she will have to leave her family and fight in the war with the Lakelanders. But she is as prepared as she can be. After all, she's got three older brothers already fighting in the war, and an injured father from his time serving. What she isn't prepared for though, is her best friend, Kilorn going t...

Send us Fan Mail Strong as Fire, Fierce as Flame by Supriya Kelkar Things were changing in India in 1857. But it turns out, not fast enough for Meera. She longs to learn to read and write like the boys her father teaches, but she knows that isn't something that her father approves of for girls. In fact, Meera is getting ready to go off and be with her husband, a boy named Krishna when she tur...

Send us Fan Mail That’s Not What I Heard by Stephanie Strohm Kimberly and Teddy have been a couple since, well, it seems like forever. Now, senior year is upon them, things are going to be amazing. Until one day, as they are leaving the cafeteria, Teddy asks Kimberly a question - one she is shocked to hear. And very quickly, it spirals and soon the whole school has picked a side! Recommended for g...

Send us Fan Mail Eyes of the Forest by April Henry So it is a real thing. Not being able to write. And R.M. Haldon's got it bad. So bad that maybe he needs to think outside the box to get something written, anything written to finish up his epic fantasy series, Swords and Shadows. After all, he has fans waiting, and waiting and really waiting for him to tie up all those loose ends. So why can...

Send us Fan Mail The Dozier School for Boys by Elizabeth A. Murray Boys in Florida from 1900 to into the 2000s could be sentenced to a school for boys if they committed a crime, or were truant from school. Some parents actually agreed to send their boys there, hoping it would set them on a good path for the future. But for the boys sent to the school, it was often not a place of learning but a pla...

Send us Fan Mail Ripped Away by Shirley Reva Vernick Abe has always had a "thing" for Mitzy, but has never been able to do more than just nod her way as he walks by her on his way home from school. Not that there is anything  waiting for him at home. Just the every day life of one of the many who blend in and go about their lives. But today, for some reason, he decides to take a little d...

Send us Fan Mail Bloom by Kenneith Oppel Petra and Anaya have horrible allergies and they seem to get worse at the years go by. Seth was abandoned as a small child and has been in and out of foster homes his whole life.  But it turns out they all have something in common when a strange rainstorm happens around the world - delivering what appears to be some kind of plant life. The plants seem to ma...

Send us Fan Mail Flood by Ann E. Burg In 1889 in Johnstown, PA, something horrible happened. An earthen dam that had been holding back a lake for years, suddenly gave way. Johnstown was at the bottom of that lake. For years people had been worried about that lake and the dam, but the rich folks who controlled the lake never did anything about it. This novel in verse looks at the people who were ju...

Send us Fan Mail Loving VS. Virginia by Patricia Hruby Powell Richard and Millie had grown up together with their families in Central Point, Virginia. It was an unusual area for that time in Virginia – black and white families would often get together for events and to just hang out. The rest of the segregated South seemed to disappear in Central Point. When Millie was in high school, she and Rich...

Send us Fan Mail Baseball Genius by Tim Green Jalen loves baseball. But he has a problem. He wants to get onto the best travel team in his area, but that costs money. Money he and his dad don't have. So it just so happens that his best friend Cat lives next door to a famous Yankee's player. And it just so happens that Jalen knows there are baseballs that this famous player has hit and si...

Send us Fan Mail A Pho Love Story by Loan Le Both Bao and Linh are the children of Vietnamese immigrants. Both of their parents' own a Pho restaurant and are in stiff competition with each other. That means they don't want Bao  and Linh associating with each other, even though they go to the same high school. One night though, Bao sees Linh, utterly dejected, sitting in the alley behind...

Send us Fan Mail Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson Stevie can’t wait to get away from her parents – parents who don’t share the same beliefs that she does. They work for a Senator that Stevie can’t stand. So when she finds out about an old Cold Case – a murder that hasn’t really ever been solved, and it is at a school – she decides she has nothing to lose and applies to it. However, Ellingham Acade...

Send us Fan Mail Trash by Andy Mulligan One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, or at least a nice sized chicken! That is all Raphael thinks when he finds a leather bag, map, key and some eleven hundred pesos in Trash by Andy Mulligan. And that means enough for a nice chicken for a dump boy and some of his relatives and friends in the Behala dump site. But when police come swarming over t...

Send us Fan Mail Chirp by Kate Messner Mia's family is moving back to the place she grew up in Vermont, after having lived in Boston for a few years. Mia is happy to leave Boston and its painful memories behind.  She's just happy she gets to be back with her Gram again and helping her with the business she runs. Mia's mom though, wants Mia to be "involved" this summer and...

Send us Fan Mail Under the Never Sky     By Veronica Rossi Her life had been pretty predictable up to this point. Aria had her close group of friends, her mother, Luna, and well, the Realms. Life in the Realms made everything seem fine. Until her mother has to leave their pod and go to another settlement called Bliss to do her research, leaving Aria behind. Still, not the end of the world, until c...

Send us Fan Mail I nk by Alice Broadway Leora and her mother have just had to say goodbye to her father and husband forever. He has just died. Now they both wait for the moment when they can bring him home, after the Weighing of the Souls ceremony. They won’t bury him, they will instead bring home his “skin book.” Everyone, after they die, has their skin removed and bound into a book. This book wi...