Candy Bunny Reader

The last book I read for Middle Grade March! The first book of the Witchlings series by Claribel Ortega follows Seven: a girl who gets placed in the "Spare" coven of her town. Being a Spare witch is practically considered a curse since they don't have full powers and are looked down upon by everyone. But Seven tries to break out of this situation to become a full-fledged witch by requesting to do an impossible task: hunting down the Nightbeast! It's been so long since someone invoked an impossible task, and anyone who fails to complete it gets turned into a toad. Seven, her new friend Thorn, and her bully-turned-friend Valley waste no time researching the Nightbeast and finding how to capture it. But at the same time, the Nightbeast and its minions called cucos have been attacking citizens in their town and nearby towns. The attacks always seem to happen whenever the towns (or at least Seven's town) try to vote on giving more rights to Spares. Someone Seven tho...

  Well, I read Under their Skin and Nightbooks and loved both of them, but I also DNF these two:    Luckily I am currently reading Witchlings, and so far I am loving it!

The second book I read for Middle Grade March ! Nightbooks by J.A. White is a middle grade horror novel. The main character, Alex, is a kid who loves all things horror, but has been having a hard time at school because of it. He decides one night to burn all of his "nightbooks" (notebooks that has scary stories he has written) in the boiler room of his apartment complex. But the night he tries to set out to do it, he instead gets lured into a mysterious and magical apartment unit instead. It is owned by a witch named Natacha.  Natacha imprisons Alex and makes him read a scary story to her every night. At the same time, Alex forms a bond (althought they did butt heads at first) with another girl imprisoned in the apartment: a baseball-loving girl named Yasmin. Yasmin's job is to tend to the plants that Natacha makes her essential oils with. Together, Alex and Yasmin figure out a way to escape, and they find out so many more shocking truths about the apartment and Natacha ...

  This book was a part of my Middle Grade March challenge, and it fits the prompt of a book featuring siblings. Well, if you've been on my page long enough, you know how much I love the majority of Margaret Peterson Haddix 's books! This was another great one.  Under Their Skin is about twin fraternal siblings Nick and Eryn, whose mother gets remarried to a guy named Michael. They all move into a new big house to live in. For some reason, Nick and Eryn are not allowed to meet their new stepsiblings. Whenever the twins are out meeting their dad, their stepsiblings Ava and Jackson come to their new house.  Of course, Nick and Eryn get all curious as to why they are forbidden to meet them, so during a snow day when they can't go to school and their mom and stepdad are out of the house, they devise a sneaky plan to go meet them. When they do, they get the shock of their lives of what secrets they're hiding.  I can't get too into details because it will go into spoiler ...

Here I just have what I have over on my Instagram (with changes to the title page). Hopefully I get around to all of these and like all of them!  

  And it's this book! I just could not get into it...  Seriously, it's like every time I participate in a readathon or a book challenge of some kind, I end up DNFing or giving a low rating to most of the books I read. I think I might have to take a break from readathons for a while. I am still doing the 12 books 12 friends challenge for the rest of the year though!  Image of book was found on Google Images

  Yeah, only guess what? I DNF (did not finish) this one too! It was too sad. With everything going on in the world right now, I prefer reading something a lot more uplifting.  That's all for today.   Image of book was found on Google Images

  Unfortunately, I DNF (did not finish) this one... I just couldn't get into it. It was kinda boring and confusing.  Hopefully the next book I had planned to read (Liesl and Po) won't be as disappointing.

TW: Mention of parents dying  This is the first book I read from Jodi Meadows that she wrote herself. Before this I read The Lady Janies series and The Mary series that she co-wrote with Cynthia Hand and Brodi Ashton.  Bye Forever I Guess is about 13 year old Ingrid Ant, who lives with her grandmother, who taught her how to knit and has her own knitting channel on YouTube (her grandma, not Ingrid). Ingrid also likes gaming, and she became friends with a girl named Lorren who is also her age through an virtual massive role player game. Lorren and Ingrid also bond over their favorite book series, Essa Starlight . Ingrid got into the series as a source of comfort after losing her parents in a car accident. Ingrid has a Scrollr (like Tumblr) account where she posts texts conversations she has with wrong numbers. It's called "Bye Forever I Guess" because the first wrong number text she got was from someone who ended the conversation with "bye forever I guess" afte...

 TW: Mention of a parent dying This is Morgan Matson's middle grade debut, and I had a blast with it!   Firefly Summer is about Ryanna, who lives with her father, who is a famous movie director, and stepmother. One day they get a letter in the mail from Ryanna's maternal grandparents, the Van Camps, whom she's never met. They want her to come to their vacation house to meet the rest of her late mom's side of the family. The vacation house happens to be situated it what was formerly a summer camp site, that was also owned by the Van Camps. Ryanna's father is a little relunctant to send her at first since he had a falling out with his in-laws after his wife's death, but when he sees a note in the letter that it might be the last summer the Van Camps might be able to get together as a family, he agrees to send Ryanna. It coincidentally happens to be around the same time he has to go to Hungary to film a new movie, too.  When Ryanna gets there, things get off to a...

  ...and by one of my favorite authors, too! Funny enough, I realized this book also fits the prompt from Middle Grade March of reading from an author with three names. The Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix is about three siblings: Finn, Emma, and Chess. They have a relatively normal live in their small town in Ohio with their single mother. That is, until one day news come out that three kids identical to them--down to the same first names and birthdays--are kidnapped several states away in Arizona. The three are shocked at these news--but when these news break out, their mother starts to act really strange. Then all of a sudden, their mother says she'll be going away and don't know when she will return. She leaves them in the care of Ms. Morales, one of her friends. The three siblings befriend Ms. Morale's daughter, Natalie, and they all try to figure out what's the deal with their mom. It leads to them finding out something they never knew about their own house.....

So this is the first book I read for Middle Grade March. It is the second book of the Amari series by BB Alston . I read the first book, Amari and the Night Brothers last month. You can read the review for that here . I can't get too into detail with this second book, Amari and the Great Game , because it's a sequel. I will say though this book was way more intense than the second one! I really love the way BB Alston writes. The story had me on the edge of my seat. I love Amari and her friends. The worldbuilding is cool, too. The mystery was mind blowing. I can't wait to read book 3! Image of book was found on Google Images

  I've known about this challenge for years but only now I decided to partcipate in it.  So here are the prompts for this year's middle grade March and the books I have decided to read for each: 1. Part of a series: For this I chose book two of the Amari series by BB Alston . I already read book one last month (review for that here). Book two is titled Amari and the Great Game . 2. An author with three names. I chose Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones . I will also be comparing it with the Studio Ghibli movie.  3. Include travel: Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver 4. Flowers on the cover: Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder 5. Published in the 1900s: The Railway Children by E. Nesbit I am so excited to read all these books! I love middle grade fiction. 

  This is the 3rd book of the Amber Brown series by Paula Dazinger.  In Amber Brown Goes Fourth , Amber is finally in fourth grade! Except she isn't super excited about it because it's her first school year without her best friend, Justin, who moved away in Amber Brown is not a Crayon. Amber isn't sure if anyone else at her school wants to be her new best friend. Amber's mother has also started dating a guy at her workplace named Max, and Amber is not ready to meet him. She still wants her parents to get back together.  On the first day of fourth grade a girl Amber knew last year who was friends with her rival Hannah sits next to her. Her name is Brandi. Amber tries to befriend her at first, but a brief miscommunication happens, and Amber feels bad about it and wonders if fourth grade will be a lonely year. But her opinion on Brandi changes for the better when they start hanging out in after-school care everyday before their moms come to pick them up. Amber starts to fe...