MMGM- Getting Ready for Summer!

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Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
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Always in the Middle 

and #IMWAYR day 

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Unleashing Readers

Cartaya, Pablo. A Hero's Guide to Summer Vacation

May 6, 2025 by Kokila

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Gonzalo has just finished 7th grade in California, and is not thrilled to be spending the summer with his grandfather, famous fantasy series author Alberto Garcia. The last book in the Chronicles of Gonzalo Sanz series is being published, and Gonzalo's mother, Vero, runs the media empire for the books and is busy arranging events. His grandfather doesn't like to talk about the books, or anything else, really, so staying at his beach house is uncomfortable. Gonzalo's father, an environmental scientist, has recently died, and Gonzalo deals with his emotions by taking picture on his iPad and turning them into drawings with monsters. Vero hires a driver to take ALberto to the various events, but he dismisses the driver and says he wants to drive himself in his 1968 powder blue Cutalass S convertible. No one else thinks this is a good idea, but Gonzalo and his grandfather (who is 71) are soon on the road. They are making stops to reconnect to people from Alberto's past, and during the drive, Gonzalo finds out about his grandfather's harrowing trip to the US from Cuba in the laste 1960s. He's also reading the whole series, and seeing parallels between his grandfather's journey and that of the fictional character he has created. They pass through Reno, Salt Lake Ciry, Kansas City, and Nashville. Vero joins them on the last leg of the journey, heading towards a book launch in Miami. In between the family's adventures, we also hear from an omniscient narrator who talks about Gonzalo's hero's journey, and see snippets from the grandfather's books. Will this trip help the family heal from their various traumas?
Strengths: This will be a perfect book for language arts projects, since there are lots of literary elements discussed, especially the hero's journey. Cartaya got the grandfather's age right, and depicts Alberto in a realistic way, which I appreciate. The family history is slowly revealed, and Gonzalo starts to realize that everyone experiences loss and has to find a way to deal with it. He is in therapy and has some support. The various locations are fun to visit, and we get just enough of the book to help us understand what is going on without having to process another entire story. Cartaya excels at descriptions of place, family, and community in books like Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish and The Epic Fail of Arutro, and adds an always fun road trip to this new book. 
Weaknesses: I am sorry that Mr. Cartaya (per his author's note) experienced so many losses, which are reflected in Gonzalo and his family's processing of grief. It is still not my personal favorite to read about, and I believe firmly that parents do NOT need to share their grief with their children. Keeping busy absolutely can remove a lot of the pain of a loss, and it's possible to move on if you want to.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed Cooney's 2006 Hit the Road, Acampora's 2016 How to Avoid Extinction, Cavanaugh's When I Hit the Road, Stone's 2020 Clean Getaway. 

Staats, Ann McCallum and Ingram, Zoe (illustrations). 

Fantastic Flora: The World's Biggest, Baddest, and Smelliest Plants

May 20, 2025 by MIT Kids Press, an imprint of Candlewick

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Plants adapt in amazing ways, and this book showcases some of those by highlighting exceptional examples. Broken into chapters about The Big, The Bad, The Smelly, and The Exceptionally Strange, plants like the Bolivian Water Lily or Deadly Nightshade are examined and discussed at length. There is additional information alongside the details of particular plants about general information like the role of leaves, how photosynthesis works, pollination, and even botanists, which gives helpful supporting background. A glossary, source notes, very up to date bibliography, and index round out this useful volume about plants. 

It's hard to find books about plants that appeal to middle grade readers. At a bit over 100 pages, this is a good length, and nicely formatted. Extremes and gross details are a good way to draw students in, so having Dead Horse Arum and White Snakeroot included are a good choice, but there's solid scientific details about a wide range of plant activity. The chapters start out in a conversational tone, with historical anecdotes (I did not know that Lincoln's mother died because of milk tainted with White Snakeroot!), and seque naturally into more biological explanations. I've always like gingkoes, so learned a lot about this fascinating, and sometimes stinky tree as well. 

There are plenty of gorgeous illustrations, and I loved the gold, green, and purple color palette that gave an almost 1930s vibe to the book. These colors are used in the sidebars as well, and the font size in both the text and the labels on the illustrations are just right. 

I've been looking for more nonfiction about plants for my school library, since I currently only have a field guide to trees. Fantastic Flora will be a great book for students who are interested in plant biology, along with Storey Publishing's Backpack Explorer: Discovering Plants and Flowers and Davies' Green: The Story of Plant Life on Earth. 

Wenjen, Mia and Clinthorne-Wong, Kimberlie (illus.)

The Traveling Taco: The Amazing and Surprising Journey of Many of Your Favorite Foods

May 6, 2025 by Red Comet Press

Copy provided by the author and publisher

What do shawarma and tacos have in common? Who invented cream cheese? Where did the French fry really originate? These questions, and many more, are answered in this fun overview of the history of popular foods. 

Introduced with short rhymes, a variety of foods are briefly investigated, looking at the same main ingredients: What is it? Did you know? Where does it come from? and How did it change? This parallel construction makes this understandable even by younger readers, and each question is answered succinctly. The illustrations also help make things clear; inset maps with arrows show either the countries from which foods came, or how they spread. At the end of the book, there is an even bigger map with all of the foods on it, which also helps. 

While there are some common foods like pizza, pasta, and ice cream, there are also some more unusual foods like ceviche, pavlova, and jerk chicken. There's a nice array of different types of food, and good representation of different cultures. 

The illustrations are nice and bright, and rather whimsical; the rice pudding spread is particularly fun, with Lilliputian people frolicking amidst bowls of the dish and the ingredients. I loved that the text says that rice pudding can be eaten as a meal or dessert, as this has been a topic of hot debate in my house. (I say it has enough sugar that it should be dessert, but a friend of mine swears it was served as lunch at his elementary school!)

Books about food are always popular with young readers, and this short, picture book exploration of the origin and development of favorite foods will be a big hit with fans of Stanley and Hartland's Alice Waters Cooks Up a Food Revolution, Castaldo and Mihaly's Ultimate Food Atlas: Maps, Games, Recipes, and More for Hours of Delicious Fun, Zachman and Donnelly's There's No Ham in Hamburgers: Facts and Folklore About Our Favorite Foods, or Lurie's History is Delicious.