Here are 65 books that The Wall in the Middle of the Book fans have personally recommended if you like
The Wall in the Middle of the Book.
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I always felt like books were mysterious and elusive works of art. When creating them occurred to me, I started to think, “What is a book, really, and what does it mean to publish one?” This over-analysis of books makes me appreciate authors who are able to step back and see books for what they really are–pages and ink. Distilling it down to that makes writing and publishing a book feel more accessible to me.
This innovative and wildly funny read-aloud will be the Must Have book of the season. You might think a book with no pictures seems boring and serious. Except...here's how books work. Everything written on the page has to be said by the person reading it aloud. Even if the words say...BLORK. Or BLUURF. Even if the words are a preposterous song about eating ants for breakfast, or just a list of astonishingly goofy sounds like BLAGGITY BLAGGITY and GLIBBITY GLOBBITY.
I always felt like books were mysterious and elusive works of art. When creating them occurred to me, I started to think, “What is a book, really, and what does it mean to publish one?” This over-analysis of books makes me appreciate authors who are able to step back and see books for what they really are–pages and ink. Distilling it down to that makes writing and publishing a book feel more accessible to me.
This book does such a good job of engaging the reader. I love how Grover communicates with the reader and actively tries to stop them from moving forward.
It doesn’t hurt that Grover is my favorite Sesame Street character, and his energetic voice came through in the text.
The Monster at the End of This Book is a classic, adored by toddlers and adults alike. This collectible kit includes a mini book version of The Monster at the End of this Book, featuring the full text and illustrations from the original classic story, and a plush Grover backpack clip. Journey with lovable, furry old Grover to the end of the book to discover who the monster really is!
Lovable, furry old Grover is distressed to learn that there's a monster at the end of this book! He begs readers not to turn the pages, but of course kids…
After high school, I traveled, exploring cultures beyond North America. I worked on kibbutzim in Israel for nearly two years. During the Yom Kippur War, exploding bombs drove us into underground shelters until the ceasefire. That experience made me consider the impact of war in new ways. Decades later, I wrote about the issue of "conflict" in my country: the Acadian deportation and World War Two. As a school librarian meeting Palestinian families in 2002, I decided to research and visit families in the West Bank through Christian Peacemaker Teams for my novel The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. A story children told me there inspired my picture book What the Kite Saw.
I immediately loved the structure of this nonfiction book. Each page poses an intriguing question that ignited my imagination, like the titular “What If Soldiers Fought With Pillows?” followed by a true life–interesting–story of legendary people from around the world who addressed the problem.
Each well-chosen question and answer inspired me to believe that changing the world is possible. I also admire how Camlot chooses a diverse range of terrific examples, from heroic (a WW Two fighter pilot) to funny (Clowns Without Borders) and artistic (Picasso) to video-gaming (1979 Revolution: Black Friday).
What if the impossible were actually possible? What if we turned our dreams into action? What if our imagination could help solve real-world crises, like war, famine, and human rights violations?
Through a series of seemingly whimsical questions, this middle-grade nonfiction book introduces readers to people and organizations that are subverting violence, war, and totalitarian power. What if soldiers refused to carry weapons? What if fighter pilots dropped seeds instead of bombs? What if music could be a creative force for democracy? None of these ideas are impossible―in fact, they are all true historical examples of ideas that have been…
I always felt like books were mysterious and elusive works of art. When creating them occurred to me, I started to think, “What is a book, really, and what does it mean to publish one?” This over-analysis of books makes me appreciate authors who are able to step back and see books for what they really are–pages and ink. Distilling it down to that makes writing and publishing a book feel more accessible to me.
I’m not usually big on celebrity authors, but this story made me feel like the author really didn’t enjoy reading when he was growing up.
It’s simple and silly and, ultimately, a great way to convince non-readers to get into reading. And hey, by the end of the book, you’ve realized you’ve read a book about not wanting to read a book…how neat is that?
I always felt like books were mysterious and elusive works of art. When creating them occurred to me, I started to think, “What is a book, really, and what does it mean to publish one?” This over-analysis of books makes me appreciate authors who are able to step back and see books for what they really are–pages and ink. Distilling it down to that makes writing and publishing a book feel more accessible to me.
This book made such a clever use of the “gutter” in the middle of the book.
I have an irrational fear of picture book gutters and margins after formatting my first self-published book and making sure all the important stuff (including the text) stays in the frame.
This book gave me the feeling of ownership over the gutter that I never knew I needed.
In this wonderfully inventive book, Bella is taking her dog for a stroll across the page but halfway across, he disappears! Unable to quite believe what's just happened Bella watches, transfixed, with changing emotions of surprise, indignation, moments of renewed hope (as the authorities arrive to take control) followed by shock (as they too succumb to the book's inexplicable behaviour) and finally action when Bella marches toward the dangerous middle of the book . . . only to disappear herself! At this point, the book has consumed its characters and it's down to the reader to step in to help.…
After high school, I traveled, exploring cultures beyond North America. I worked on kibbutzim in Israel for nearly two years. During the Yom Kippur War, exploding bombs drove us into underground shelters until the ceasefire. That experience made me consider the impact of war in new ways. Decades later, I wrote about the issue of "conflict" in my country: the Acadian deportation and World War Two. As a school librarian meeting Palestinian families in 2002, I decided to research and visit families in the West Bank through Christian Peacemaker Teams for my novel The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. A story children told me there inspired my picture book What the Kite Saw.
The Syrian refugee crisis is the largest in the world, with over 12 million displaced people. As an elementary school librarian in a diverse city, I would have loved to read this book to every class. I appreciated that the story wasn’t violent yet managed to show what the boy and his family had to escape. I think any aged child from any background could care about this Syrian boy as I did.
Told in first person, the boy misses and worries about the pigeons he raised as his family flees their town (bombed in the distance). I was struck by the illustrator’s palette choice—realistic but respectful of a child’s sensibilities. Dark smoke and flames engulf the town, but the brightly-coloured family survives.
In the refugee camp, the boy’s father plants a life-sustaining, vibrant green garden. In time, the boy feeds and cares for the birds again. When a traumatized…
A New York Times Notable Children's Books selection. The moving story of one boy's refugee experience in the Syrian Civil War and the birds who help him on the road to emotional healing
Behind Sami, the Syrian skyline is full of smoke. The boy follows his family and all his neighbours in a long line, as they trudge through the sands and hills to escape the bombs that have destroyed their homes. But all Sami can think of is his pet pigeons-will they escape too? When they reach a refugee camp and are safe at last, everyone settles into the…
After high school, I traveled, exploring cultures beyond North America. I worked on kibbutzim in Israel for nearly two years. During the Yom Kippur War, exploding bombs drove us into underground shelters until the ceasefire. That experience made me consider the impact of war in new ways. Decades later, I wrote about the issue of "conflict" in my country: the Acadian deportation and World War Two. As a school librarian meeting Palestinian families in 2002, I decided to research and visit families in the West Bank through Christian Peacemaker Teams for my novel The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. A story children told me there inspired my picture book What the Kite Saw.
This author-illustrator has a gift for creating a high-concept, wordless story that young children can follow and enjoy in bold, simple images. I love how Otoshi chooses physical play to show the development and resolution of "conflict" at a child’s level. Not so easy to do!
The story begins with two boys separately drawing lines. When they bump into each other, they don’t turn angry. They play together. What fun when the lines come to life and become one long rope!
Then, one boy gets tangled and falls, and the other laughs at him. Anger builds, and the rope magically morphs into a bad, ugly space between them that grows until one boy starts to colour on the space. The other joins him. They laugh at how messy they look before running down the wonderful road they just created.
Draw the Line is a powerful picture book about forgiveness from Kathryn Otoshi, author of the bestselling book One.
When two boys draw their own lines and realize they can connect them together-magic happens!
But a misstep causes their lines to get crossed.
Push! Pull! Tug! Yank! Soon their line unravels into an angry tug-of-war.
With a growing rift between them, will the boys ever find a way to come together again?
Acclaimed author/illustrator Kathryn Otoshi uses black and white illustrations with thoughtful splashes of color to create a powerful, multi-layered statement about friendship, boundaries, and healing after conflict.
After high school, I traveled, exploring cultures beyond North America. I worked on kibbutzim in Israel for nearly two years. During the Yom Kippur War, exploding bombs drove us into underground shelters until the ceasefire. That experience made me consider the impact of war in new ways. Decades later, I wrote about the issue of "conflict" in my country: the Acadian deportation and World War Two. As a school librarian meeting Palestinian families in 2002, I decided to research and visit families in the West Bank through Christian Peacemaker Teams for my novel The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. A story children told me there inspired my picture book What the Kite Saw.
This book is written for 10+ readers and is about two soldiers holding guns.
I enjoyed the obvious visual absurdity of two adults hiding in deep holes on opposing pages. As the story progresses, it becomes obvious they’ve been taught by a manual to believe that the other side is a monster, an enemy to be killed. Near the end, when both soldiers are fed up with the whole situation, they venture out of their holes only to discover that the other man is a human being with a family and home just like them! The other man was also taught by a manual to believe a story about someone they’d never met.
In the funny and eminently sensible ending, each of them throws a bottle containing a message into the other’s hole: "Let’s end this war."
In this moving picture book, award-winning collaborators Davide Cali and Serge Bloch present a fable for our time about two lonely soldiers facing each other across a barren battlefield. What each discovers, as the story unfolds, is that the enemy is not a faceless beast, but rather a real person with family, friends, and dreams.
We tell stories for many reasons, but one of the best reasons is to teach our kids (or remind ourselves!) how to navigate in the world. We’ve all read Aesop’s Fables and at the end, the moral lesson is spelled out. This ruins the conversations you can have with someone else about what the story was about. Instead of feeling entertained, we feel like we were being told what to think and how to feel. As a writer, I love to include multiple themes in a book so that, depending on the age of the reader, or how many times the story is read, new ideas jump out of the book and into your brain.
This beautifully illustrated book gently teaches that an act of kindness is always returned ten-fold. While my youngest child may not understand the biggest lesson in this book until he reads it to his own children, he did understand that helping others is always a good deed, and that sometimes we have to delay fulfilling our own wants and put others before ourselves. I read this book to my children over and over again, not only because we loved knights and tales of medieval times, but because the book has so much heart and soul in it, that it begs to be taken off the shelf.
This is the tale of a brave knight who sets out one day to serve his King. But as he rides toward the castle, frightened travelers seek the knight's aid and protection. Though he resists, something inside will not allow him to refuse. He presses on, but his mission is delayed again and again as the knight stops to help those in need.
Has he been loyal to the King by following his heart, or has he been an errant knight after all?
Long before I started my career in journalism I was a voracious reader of historical novels. I devoured epic adventure about medieval Europe and eventually got involved in European martial arts: fighting in full armour in tournaments and melees. My love of history finally won out over my day job of defence reporting and I began penning novels. The books I most enjoy are more than just battle tales, they’re about people. Good historical fiction isn’t just about the history. It needs more than volleys of arrows and swinging swords, it needs characters you care about. These books combine authenticity with passionate, compelling writing and unique characters you won’t soon forget.
Cameron’s Chivalry series of which this is the first, takes the reader on a thrilling journey across Europe during the Hundred Years War, chronicling the life of a mercenary who comes to serve the great Sir John Hawkwood and eventually is knighted himself.
Cameron is a master of prose description, scene-setting, and dialogue that rings true to the ear. His historical research is impeccable and like me, he has for many years donned full armour in reenactments and tournaments and so truly understands the challenges of medieval combat. A great read.
'Brilliantly evoked' SUNDAY TIMES Discover the first medieval adventure in the action-packed Chivalry series! Perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow and Conn Iggulden. September, 1356. Poitiers. The greatest knights of the age were ready to give battle.
On the English side, Edward, the Black Prince, who'd earned his spurs at Crecy. On the French side, the King and his son, the Dauphin. With 12,000 knights.
And then there is William Gold. A cook's boy - the lowest of the low - who had once been branded as a thief. William dreams of being a knight, but in this…
