reading, reviewing, and recommending middlegrade stories
A feather blew across the ground to him. It was not a crow’s. Too long, too hard, too tapering. The quill that had rooted it to the dragon’s flesh was black, and hard as flint. In all his life, he’d neither heard nor dreamed of dragon feathers.
No Such Thing as Dragons
Philip Reeve
A father ostrich’s protectiveness now surged through him. He rose and spread his sheltering wings. He was ready to run and, if need be, fight.
The Emperor’s Ostrich
Julie Berry
June 3 is National Egg Day! How do you like your eggs? We like ours MAGICAL.
Little egglet on your own,
Have your mom and daddy flown?
Don’t worry–you are not alone!
We’ll find you a good safe home
―The Secret Destiny of Pixie Piper by Annabelle Fisher
The smell from the biscuits seemed to fill the room, fill the world, and when she wiped them with a small cloth smeared with butter so the hot biscuits shone, the smell grew even more powerful. He swallowed again and again, and she smiled and handed him a biscuit split that she’d filled with honey, so hot he almost couldn’t hold it, but he ate it and could think of nothing else then. Just the biscuit and the honey and the butter.
The Cookcamp
Gary Paulsen
She pushes a bowl in front of Bailey, motions for me to get the ground meat and eggs and salt and onions, and soon we are mushing our hands in the meat mush, squishing it and squeezing it, and the garlic-onion-spareribs-bay-leaf-oregano-tomatoes are swirling in the big pot, and the smells are wrapping around us, and I am dizzy with it, with the smells and the squished meat and the play going on in my head.
Granny Torrelli Makes Soup
Sharon Creech
Homer got down from the chair and pushed a button on the machine marked, “Start.” Rings of batter stated dropping into the hot fat. After a ring of batter was cooked on one side an automatic gadget turned it over and the other side would cook. then another automatic gadget gave the doughnut a little push and it rolled neatly down a little chute, all ready to eat.
—Homer Price, “The Doughnuts,” by Robert McCloskey, 1943
