by Sara Voigt (@meaningfulmadness)
We at Unabridged stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. There are SO many books that we love by Black authors, and we look forward to lifting up those amazing books. Today we are talking about some of our favorite middle-grade authors and books that we think would be amazing in any classroom. This is definitely not a complete list, but this features some of our favorite authors for middle-grade lit, including Jason Reynolds, Sharon M. Draper, Kwame Alexander, and Jacqueline Woodson. These books are all appropriate for middle school but could also skew up or down dependent upon your students and your classroom goals.
Some of our favorite books for middle-grade readers are:
Jason Reynolds's Ghost
Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming
Sharon M. Draper's Out of My Mind
Kwame Alexander's Crossover
Sharon M. Draper's Stella by Starlight
All of these authors are creating amazing texts for middle-grade readers that are both accessible and tackle a wide range of important topics. We find that these texts are manageable in length for the classroom, which makes them optimal both as whole-class novels, if you like to employ that strategy in your classroom, or for literature circles, if you prefer this strategy. In addition, these books are great choices for read alouds with your own children or the children in your life. All of these authors are gifted in both their craft and in their storytelling, which provides a rich and authentic learning experience for middle-grade readers.
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Interested in what else we're reading? Check out our Featured Books page.
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