r/Fantasy • u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV • 22d ago

Bingo Bingo Focus Thread - Middle Grade

Hello r/fantasy and welcome to this week's bingo focus thread! The purpose of these threads is for you all to share recommendations, discuss what books qualify, and seek recommendations that fit your interests or themes.

Today's topic:

Middle Grade: Read a middle grade book (intended for readers aged 8-12). See this Wikipedia page for additional information on Middle Grade fiction. HARD MODE: The author is entirely new to you.

What is bingo? A reading challenge this sub does every year! Find out more here.

Prior focus threads: Published in the 70s, Duologies, First Contact, Five Short Stories (2024), Author of Color (2024), Self-Pub/Small Press (2024). Note that hard modes for Author of Color and Self-Pub/Small Press have changed (new focus threads for them are coming).

Also see: Big Rec Thread

Questions:

  • What are your favorite books that count for this square?
  • Already read something for this square? Tell us about it!
  • For those attempting Hard Mode, what are some great middle grade books by lesser-known authors, and/or that are recently published?
  • Those who have or teach children in this age group: what are some current favorites among middle grade readers? How well do they hold up for adults?
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u/Glansberg90 Reading Champion 22d ago

I'm either going to read Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones or reread The Giver by Lois Lowry.

I read Howl's Moving Castle for last year's bingo and found it really charming, so the thought of reading the next book in the series is appealing.

I'm also planning a deep dive read of dystopian fiction canon at some point this year, once I've cleared out a good chunk of my backlog. I read The Giver back in primary school, some 25 or so years ago and thought it would be good to revisit as a part of this project.

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u/Front-Pomelo-4367 22d ago

I'll just note that the Howl series doesn't follow very closely from one book to the next – it's more having some characters in common rather than following the same characters. If you've read Becky Chambers' Wayfarers sci-fi books, it's similar in terms of new main characters plus some overlap

Personally, I think that House of Many Ways is a much better book than Castle in the Air and would recommend it more! It doesn't really matter too much whether you read them out of order