The Frindle Files by Andrew Clements - I *loved* this modern-day follow up to the 25-year-old Frindle. If you haven't read it, find a fifth grader and share it with them. And then read this one! Loved it. Great middle grade novel about the power of words and using them wisely.
The House of Eve by Sadaqa Johnson - Historical fiction about black women in the 1950s. It was an interesting look at a piece of history that I haven't read about before. The "twist" seemed fairly obvious to me, but otherwise it was a pretty good story.
Flunked by Jen Calonita - A fifth grader ran up to me at Hebrew School and said "Rabbi! Book recommendation!" so I immediately borrowed it from Libby and it was delightful. The first in a series called "Fairy Tale Reform School," and now I'm pretty sure you have an idea of what it's all about.
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst - This checks all the boxes: found family, magical stuff, cozy fantasy. As long as I didn't think too hard about the world-building, it was great.
The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier - Historical fiction about the glassmakers of Murano, Italy. It follows a family through history but through an odd and completely mystifying time travel technique that totally threw me off. Much like the previous book, as long as I didn't think too hard about it, it was great. I wish it had been a more traditional family saga...without the weird time skips that didn't make sense.
Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe - Um...quirky? That's probably the word for this book. On the one hand, I liked the found family, struggle-to-find-your-narrative story. On the other hand, I was a little thrown by the um...use of the internet to earn a living. Enjoyable but a bit odd.
The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum - I liked Hoodie (short for Yehuda), an Orthodox teen who narrates the story. It's a fairly powerful story about Hoodie's intersection with the non-Jewish world around him, with the addition of some terrible antisemitism that rocks his community.
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