I am an expat Australian freelance writer living in Silicon Valley, and also the mother of two boys aged ten and seven. My boys are avid readers and it is an accepted rule that no one in our family speaks at breakfast. I have a bad habit of reading books over their shoulders, but my boys are still willing helpers on some current writing projects on kids’ fiction and circumnavigating the horribly sad “decline at nine”. I also have a PhD in South Asian Studies and have worked in commercial research and marketing.
My project is
Madelaine @ Medium
I love to write and you can find some of my work on Medium. My last article was entitled Why Are Chihuahuas Filling Up Bay Area Shelters?
Kwame Alexander is an astoundingly good writer for children and young adults. The Crossover is a verse novel, telling the story of 12-year-old basketball talent Josh and his twin brother Jordan (the Black sons of a former pro basketballer). The verse novel is a format that as an adult I have to admit I avoid like the plague - but Alexander uses poetry to unfold the action of the novel like an actual game of basketball. “The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz tonight I'm delivering”. The pace is fast and mesmerizing, and this is a great one for pulling in reluctant readers. Middle-grade themes like friendships, dealing with new feelings, and struggling with family are all there, but delivered with a zest that will leave you satisfied and exhausted.
'With a bolt of lightning on my kicks . . . The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz tonight I'm delivering'
12-year-old Josh and his twin Jordan have basketball in their blood. They're kings of the court, star players for their school team. Their father used to be a champion player and they each want nothing more than to follow in his footsteps. Both on and off the court, there is conflict and hardship which will test Josh's bond with his brother. In this heartfelt novel in verse, the boys…
This isn’t one you’ll enjoy reading over your kid’s shoulder unless you truly are a diehard soccer fan. Matt and Tom Oldfield’s series of soccer-star bios are comfort food for tween fans - a bland, seemingly never-ending diet of rags to riches stories to inspire every kid with dreams of the Premier League. The prose is undemanding: “With his mohawk dyed red this time, Neymar Jr walked onto the stage. He couldn’t believe what was happening. His goal had beaten brilliant strikes by Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi”. The story unfolds with a happy triumphalism: Neymar is spotted as a deft-footed child prodigy, he is scouted to the heights of Barcelona, he overcomes injuries, he puts the team first, he is a mega-star who does noble things for Brazil. If you’re not a soccer person, the Oldfields’ books on Lionel Messi, Harry Kane and Paul Pogba don’t read very differently. My son has read his very large collection of Oldfield titles probably 50 times each, though, and these are what he returns to when he’s tired and looking for a reading rest. Like The Babysitters Club or Choose Your Own Adventure for kids who grew up in the 1980s, these are the books that when he grows up will instantly take him back to this time in his life.
1
author picked
Neymar
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
8,
9,
10, and
11.
What is this book about?
The No.1 football series - over 1 million copies sold!
'As Neymar Jr made the long walk to the penalty spot, he knew this was his chance, the one that he had dreamed of since the age of three. If he scored, Brazil would be Olympic Champions for the first time ever.'
Neymar da Silva Santos Junior is the boy who carries the hopes of Brazil on his shoulders. Although he now faces a new challenge at Paris Saint-Germain, it was his years playing for Barcelona, in a fearsome attacking trident alongside Messi and Suarez, that made him a legend…
Mal's older brother has disappeared into thin air. Laura's parents went away for the weekend and when she gives them a call, they have no idea who she is. In pursuit of answers, the teens become entangled with two others similarly targeted by a force they don't understand and now,…
Your kids may have no idea what roller derby is (I didn’t), but I guarantee they’ll love reading about this tough, fast, aggressive sport, with its creative, counter-cultural vibe. Just about every character is a girl or a woman, and as the mother of boys I’m so happy to see them reading a book like this. The main character, Astrid, is sweet but strong, with a tetchy, vulnerable style of middle school humor. She suffers through friendship issues kids will identify with, and deals with them in some fantastic ways: you’ll love her decision to brave her mother’s fury and dye her hair blue. Astrid’s relationship with her mother is beautifully drawn - this woman isn’t perfect, but she parents calmly and lovingly, and they get through things together.
The Newbery Honor Award Winner and New York Times bestseller Roller Girl is a heartwarming graphic novel about friendship and surviving junior high through the power of roller derby-perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier's Smile!
For most of her twelve years, Astrid has done everything with her best friend Nicole. But after Astrid falls in love with roller derby and signs up for derby camp, Nicole decides to go to dance camp instead. And so begins the most difficult summer of Astrid's life as she struggles to keep up with the older girls at camp, hang on to the friend…
Kids who love the minutiae of sport - collecting the cards, following the stats, learning the teams and their star players - are often drawn to history as well. Dan Gutman gets this, and the Baseball Card Adventures is a brilliant series for giving young readers a way into a nuanced US history. In Jackie and Me, the hero, Stosh, is thrown out of Little League for attacking a pitcher who mocked his Polish heritage - “You know you can’t hit me, Stoshack. Because you’re a big, slow, ugly, dumb Polack!” Back at school, Stosh elects to write a book report on Jackie Robinson, and uses his magical baseball card to travel back in time. Stosh experiences Robinson’s first Major League game and the breaking of the color bar in baseball, finding a new perspective on difference and discrimination. Gutman writes colorful dialogue that kids really respond to, and he doesn’t dumb down the history, either. The inclusion of historical photos and news articles is a really clever invitation for kids to think about the interweaving of fiction and history.
With more than 2 million books sold, the Baseball Card Adventures bring the greatest players in history to life!
Like every other kid in his class, Joe Stoshack has to write a report on an African American who's made an important contribution to society. Unlike every other kid in his class, Joe has a special talent: with the help of old baseball cards, he can travel through time. So, for his report, Joe decides to go back to meet one of the greatest baseball players ever, Jackie Robinson, to find out what it was like to be the man who…
15-year-old James McCafferty is about to board an old junk-rigged boat on a summer adventure therapy for problem teens. James' problem is he hears voices and sometimes sees people others don't see. He believes the boat to be possessed by malicious spirits intent on sinking the ship. Once at sea,…
Castle Crenshaw, better known as Ghost, is the dirt-poor, Black son of a single mother. The two of them have fled the family home with Ghost’s father shooting at them (“But the craziest thing was, I felt like the shot - loudest sound I ever heard - made my legs move even faster”). A coach spots Ghost’s exceptional talent when he takes an instant dislike to an albino kid in an overpriced tracksuit and races him in a burst of anger. Ghost joins the team, and struggles with a sport that proves to be demanding and exhausting, as well as forging relationships with teammates battling troubles of their own. This one is great because it's funny: Ghost’s voice captures that exact innocent, nervous sarcasm of the middle schooler trying out different personalities in an uncertain and always slippery social context (“really, I was just happy something unboring was finally happening). It’s also great for structuring a story around a sport that’s grueling and less glamorous than the more usual ball games that dominate sports writing for kids. Ghost is a window into a far less white and less privileged existence than you’ll find in most middle school novels, and kids just love this story of an underdog with a beautiful talent, who makes plenty of poor choices along the journey.
Running. That's all Ghost (real name Castle Cranshaw) has ever known. But Ghost has been running for the wrong reasons -until he meets Coach, an ex-Olympic Medallist who sees something in Ghost: crazy natural talent. If Ghost can stay on track, literally and figuratively, he could be the best sprinter in the city. Can Ghost harness his raw talent for speed, or will his past finally catch up to him?
READ THE RUN SERIES: Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for…
Over the past 50 years, scientists have made incredible progress in the application of genetic research to human health care and disease treatment. Innovative tools and techniques, including gene therapy and CRISPR-Cas9 editing, can treat inherited disorders that were previously untreatable, or prevent them from happening in the first place.…
Everyone in Angelina's big family has a story to tell.
The Yesterday Dress is a story for seven to nine-year olds about family connections and how learning about the past gives us a stronger sense of where we come from, who we are and how we fit into our world.…
