Books In the Middle Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Unwind    By Neal Shusterman What do Conner, Risa, and Lev all have in common? They are all considered unwinds. What exactly is an unwind? An unwind is a kid between the ages of 13 and 18 who has been deemed by their parents to be unfit to go on in their current state, or who has pledged their life as a tribute for their religion. Basically, they will be taken away, and their body...

Send us Fan Mail Midnight Without a Moon by Linda Williams Jackson That summer was a hot one, just like all the others in Mississippi. Yet Rose Lee was used to the heat, even if she never got USED to it. It just was. But that July, she and her brother Fred Lee got bad news, news that they should have seen coming but didn’t. Their mother, who had married a man to take care of his younger children,...

Send us Fan Mail Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi Race, in America, is a complicated and divisive subject. How can we talk about it, if we don’t exactly know how it all came about, and where so many of the ideas we still believe today actually had their origins?  When we look back at the history of enslaved people in our country, how is it that so many belie...

Send us Fan Mail Skinny by Donna Cooner You know that voice? The one that tells you you’ll never get that part in the play, or get a spot on the team, or that boyfriend you want? Well, meet Skinny. Skinny is “that voice” for Ever. Ever is overweight and she is constantly reminded of that fact by the voice she has named Skinny. The voice that tells her no one likes her because of her weight and no...

Send us Fan Mail Splinter    By Sasha Dawn For ten years, Sami has been haunted by the last memory she has of her mother. She said she would see Sami on Wednesday, but her mother never came back. Instead, Sami was found by herself, scared. But she doesn’t even recall that. All she knows is that her father is under suspicion for her disappearance. In all the years though, Sami has believed her fath...

Send us Fan Mail Across the Universe By Beth Revis Knowing that you will live your entire life on board a spaceship in route to a new planet, a planet you will never see is a strange feeling. Knowing you will be in charge of the entire spaceship soon can’t be easy either. Yet that is the position Elder finds himself in, and when the bodies of people who aren’t supposed to wake up until they land o...

Send us Fan Mail The Tragedy Paper     By Elizabeth Laban What makes something tragic? Is it different for everyone? Tim has never viewed his life as tragic, per se, however, as he heads out to begin the last semester of his senior year of high school at a new boarding school, he has to come face to face with the idea of tragedy. First, because it is a major school assignment to write a tragedy pa...

Send us Fan Mail All American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney Allie has moved around, a lot. Her dad has been in search of the perfect professor teaching position and it looks like he has finally found it - just outside of Atlanta, GA. Allie is hopeful her family can finally put down some roots. But that might mean living in a place long enough for people to find out she's Muslim. She is...

Send us Fan Mail What I Carry by Jennifer Longo Muiriel was named after the hospital she was abandoned at. To be precise, the John Muir Medical Center in California. And since she was a girl, well, they tried to keep it close. And when her social worker, Joellen, gave her a book about her namesake for her 8th birthday, it, in many ways changed the direction of her life. If she had any say in it, t...

Send us Fan Mail Caster by Elsie Chapman Aza is struggling - with the death of her older sister Shire, with the failing fortunes of her parents' tea shop and most of all with her own full magic abilities and how best to use them to help her family, or not use them! But now the gang lord that runs their sector of Lotusland is calling in a payment, and Aza is trying to shield her parents from i...

Send us Fan Mail The Rules for Disappearing     By Ashley Elston After having moved six previous times, Meg decides she’s going to come up with a Plan. That “Plan” will include figuring out exactly why her family is in the Witness Protection program. She decides she has to figure out a way to make it all stop. The “Plan” also involves NOT getting involved or close with anyone in their new town. Wi...

Send us Fan Mail Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds A lot can happen on the way home from school. Just ask any of the kids that traverse the 10 blocks around their school – from the “Low Cuts” due to their hair styles to Fatima Moss – who records everything to Bryson Wills – who actually got to stay home from school the next day because of something that happened on the way home from school. Recomme...

Send us Fan Mail Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone Have you ever been embarrassed? Like so embarrassed that you had trouble talking? Olivia has a moment like that when she's being yelled at by her principal, all because she is wearing a tank top and won't put her sweatshirt on. But she has a reason for not putting her sweatshirt on, a very good reason. Molly witnesses Olivia's moment...

Send us Fan Mail Unbroken     by Laura Hillenbrand He really was a troublemaker. If there ever was a kid that was destined for juvenile hall, it was Louis Zamperini. If it wasn’t nailed down, he had no problem stealing it and even if it WAS nailed down, he’d bring a hammer and pry the nail out! His mother despaired of him ever amounting to anything. So how did he go from possible juvenile delinque...

Send us Fan Mail Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights    By Steve Sheinkin During WWII, the navy as well as all the armed forces were segregated. Black sailors were allowed to enlist, however, they couldn’t serve on ships other than as cooks and attendants of that sort. So any who were in the Navy ended up doing menial labor jobs. However, there was another job that bl...

Send us Fan Mail Hi Everyone, No podcast booktalk this week, but just a quick little announcement from me. If you would ever like me to do a podcast for a specific book, please send me an email at tasquires66@gmail.com or if you could let me know how you use and hopefully enjoy these podcasts, I would be most appreciative.  Have a wonderful spring!  Tasha Squires Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer Rob and Meagan both have reasons to hate going to school. Rob's is because of something his father did, and Meagan, because of something she did. Neither wants to have a partner for their math project, and as a result, they end up being stuck together. At first it is pretty rocky going, but soon they start to realize they have both mis...

Send us Fan Mail That's Not What Happened by Kody Keplinger As the third year anniversary of her school's mass shooting comes and goes, Lee is forced to relive the horror of that day when her best friend was shot and killed in the same bathroom stall with her. But now she's hearing rumors that her friend Sarah's parents are going to be putting out a book about her death. And Le...

Send us Fan Mail K-Pop Confidential by Stephan Lee Candace can sing - like really sing! But the only people who know that are her two best friends because Candace's parents (mostly her mom) don't seem to approve of her singing. They would rather she be in orchestra playing a string instrument, like the viola. So when a large South Korean company decides to hold tryouts for a new K-Pop Id...

Send us Fan Mail Time Bomb by Joelle Charbonneau Six students all walk into a high school, over a week before school is going to start for the year. Each one brings with them a backpack filled with important pieces that make up who they are. Or who they think they are. Yet just after noon, the school is rocked by an explosion that shatters parts of the school. Diana, Frankie, Tad, Cas, Z and Rashi...

Send us Fan Mail The Girl in the White Van by April Henry Savannah is pretty sure she and her mom are going to be moving again. Because, once AGAIN, the man of her mom's dreams hasn't turned out to be the man of her dreams. And for Savannah, this move is going to be hard, because she likes it here. She is taking Kung Fu classes and loves it. So one night when she gets into a fight with h...

Send us Fan Mail Invisible Emmie by Terri Libenson Emmie feels like now one sees her and no one hears her. Mostly because, she doesn't like to talk to really anyone outside of her family and her best friend Brianna. Being in 7th grade can be super hard for someone who is invisible. Or at least feels invisible. But one day at lunch Emmie drops something that gets found by someone who then proc...

Send us Fan Mail Suggested Reading by Dave Connis Clara is excited for the start of the school year – her last year – at Lupton Academy or LA as everyone calls it. She thinks it will be a great year and is excited for it to get started. But one quick glance at a computer screen changes everything when she reads an email meant only for the staff. Clara reads a confidential email listing 50 books th...

Send us Fan Mail Big Bad Ironclad     By Nathan Hale Many of us know a lot about the Civil War, or at least some of the battles that were fought, some of the main players, and what it was about. But how many of us know names like Will Cushing, John Ericsson, Gideon Welles (A.K.A. Father Neptune) or Gustavus Fox? If you are like me, I didn't... until I read this book. The war was also on the s...

Send us Fan Mail Devils Within    By S. F. Henson  He killed his father. There is no disputing that as a fact. However, being 14 at the time his lawyer was able to get him tried as a juvenile, even though there were others who wanted him tried as an adult. After all, his father was an upstanding member of the community. Or was he? And just what kind of community was it? Turns out, Nate’s dad was t...