Since I started reading, I gravitated to books with believable characters in real situations, because I could see myself in these stories. How would I cope in a family dealing with illness or death, breakups in relationships, money woes, and other crises that I read about? Realistic stories about family problems are relatable to everyone, and reading about them through the eyes of the children involved is so meaningful. That’s why when I started creative writing after I retired, I found my voice in the genre I loved to read as a kid. I write authentic stories about families presented with difficult issues for middle-grade readers (and adults).
Kids coping with a family in crisis is a theme that resonates with young readers. These middle-grade books can be gut-wrenching, but always hopeful too. The Great Gilly Hopkins is a classic in this genre. There is heartbreak, humor, and lots of quirky characters like Mr. Randolph, the blind, elderly neighbor with an impressive library of books. Eleven-year-old Gilly Hopkins is feisty and irrepressible. She is determined to find a way to reunite with the mother who abandoned her by sabotaging each foster care placement, until she lands in Mrs. Trotter’s house. She finds in Mrs. Trotter an insurmountable force who refuses to let Gilly fail again. Every troubled kid needs a Mrs. Trotter in their lives.
The timeless Newbery Honor Book from bestselling author Katherine Paterson about a wisecracking, ornery, completely unforgettable young heroine.
Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she's hated them all. She has a reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmanageable, and that's the way she likes it. So when she's sent to live with the Trotters—by far the strangest family yet—she knows it's only a temporary problem.
Gilly decides to put her sharp mind to work and get out of there fast. She's determined to no longer be a foster kid. Before long…
One for the Murphys is another story about a kid in foster care, but this time it isn’t due to abandonment. Carley Connors has been betrayed by her mother in the worst possible way. Still, Carley is terrified of being placed in a new family, confirming that sometimes you think the horror you know is better than the one you imagine. The author takes us on a roller coaster ride of emotions as Carley learns what give-and-take in a stable family means. I love the message of hope even though the ending wasn’t what I was wishing for, but then again, this book is not a fairytale.
A moving debut novel about a foster child learning to open her heart to a family's love
Carley uses humor and street smarts to keep her emotional walls high and thick. But the day she becomes a foster child, and moves in with the Murphys, she's blindsided. This loving, bustling family shows Carley the stable family life she never thought existed, and she feels like an alien in their cookie-cutter-perfect household. Despite her resistance, the Murphys eventually show her what it feels like to belong--until her mother wants her back and Carley has to decide where and how to live.…
One can’t read about families in crisis and not confront the devastation and stigma of mental illness. I think this theme resonates with many people, who are close to someone dealing with this illness, including me. In Where the Watermelons Grow, the consequences of mental illness in a family are stark as seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old Della, whose mother is on the verge of a serious breakdown. Della is thrust into new responsibilities for her baby sister and on the family farm. Despite this, Della is still a child who believes in magic and searches for a cure to heal her mother. Of course, there is no magical cure, but there is magic in understanding and acceptance.
Fans of The Thing About Jellyfish and A Snicker of Magic will be swept away by Cindy Baldwin's debut middle grade about a girl coming to terms with her mother's mental illness. An Oregon Spirit Award Honor book.
When twelve-year-old Della Kelly finds her mother furiously digging black seeds from a watermelon in the middle of the night and talking to people who aren't there, Della worries that it's happening again-that the sickness that put her mama in the hospital four years ago is back. That her mama is going to be hospitalized for months like she was last time.…
This next book is gritty in its authenticity. It isn’t for the faint of heart to read about the heartbreaking struggles of thirteen-year-old Anna Collette whose mother tries to take her life and is hospitalized. Anna has to live with her distant father, his new wife, and their baby where she doesn’t feel like part of the family. But the author gives us a warm and loving character in her stepmother who shows Della what family can be. I’m enthralled by true and complex characters in this book who represent the highs and lows of real life.
The beginning of the eighth grade is not what Anna thought it would be. Her lifelong best friend has ditched her for the cool kids, and her mum is in the hospital after swallowing a bottle of pills. Anna is also trying to reconnect with her dad who remarried and has a baby now. Ultimately, Anna finds friendship and camaraderie from some unlikely sources and learns that sometimes life leaves you feeling gobsmacked, but if you have the right people in your life to support you, you'll be just fine.
Bricktown Boys is a story of a family in crisis from a boy’s point of view. Thirteen-year-old Sam Beasley lives with his dysfunctional mother, her abusive boyfriend, and drugs. He assumes the role of his mother’s protector and will do anything to save her from herself which is near impossible. Fanning gives us a counterpoint to Sam’s mother in Mrs. Coleman, the bible quoting, grammar stickler widow on his street. Mrs. Coleman is full of spirit and kindness, but also has a no-nonsense approach which Sam gravitates to. She is his rock in an upside-down world. This book has wonderful street-wise dialogue and a fascinating group of diverse characters.
*Winner of the 2021 Indies Today Best Juvenile Book Award*
It's 1987 and twelve-year-old Sam Beasley only wants two things: to play football and for his mother to stop dating losers. Only there's no money for a football team in Bricktown, while there's an endless supply of losers for his mother to bring home.
Sam finds a friend in the elderly widow down the street. While he's careful not to let on about his crummy home life, Mrs. Coleman always seems to know when he needs to do wash or eat a hot meal. When he mentions his football dilemma,…
Swallowed by a Secret is a middle-grade mystery about a boy whose father dies suddenly and whose mother tells him a bogus story that "Dad’s heart stopped." As Rocky’s trust in his one remaining parent unravels, he’s determined to crack the secret about the circumstances of his father’s death. He’s the son, he has the right to know.
In his search for answers, Rocky is joined by two assistants – Olive, a smart, feisty friend, who is a master plotter of plots and his dead father. Rocky’s journey is twisty and risky, and in the end, he confronts a truth that forces him to question if he ever really knew his father. This book is full of pre-teen humor and friendships and heartache and hope.
Pete is content living a simple life in the remote Montana town of Sleeping Grass, driving the local garbage truck with his pot-bellied pig Pearl and wondering about what could've been. Elderly widow Wilma is busy meddling in Pete's life to try and make up for past wrongs that he knows nothing about. Yet.
When the sister Pete was separated from as a child shows up, Pete must confront a past he buried long ago, and Wilma discovers her long-awaited chance at redemption may cost more than she’s willing to pay.
For the first time in his life, Pete has everything to lose.
After years of drifting, fifty-year-old Pete Ryman has settled down with his potbellied pig, Pearl, in the small Montana town of Sleeping Grass--a place he never expected to see again. It's not the life he dreamed of, but there aren't many prospects for a high-school dropout like him.
Elderly widow Wilma Jacobsen carries a burden of guilt over her part in events that led to Pete leaving Sleeping Grass decades ago. Now that he's back, she's been praying for the chance to make things right, but she never…
