• The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert. Set in post WW2 Germany and published first in 1954, The Ark tells the story of and the Lechow family and how they began to rebuild their lives two freezing attic rooms in Mrs. Verduz’s house on Parsley Street.
• At the Seven Stars by John L. Beatty.
• A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus (published in 2021).
• The Alley by Eleanor Estes.
• Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell. This British author was recommended to me when I was in Ireland a couple of years ago, and this book , set partly in Zimbabwe and partly in England, is about a girl who grows up wild and free on a farm with very few rules and very little “civilization”. However, about one third of the way through the book Wilhelmina’s life changes drastically when she is sent to boarding school in England.
• 365 Days to Alaska by Cathy Carr (published in 2021)
• Across the Pond by Joy McCullough (published in 2021)
• The Elephant in the Room by Holly Goldberg Sloan (published in 2021). Sila’s mom has been in Turkey trying to resolve her immigration issues for a whole year, and although Sila’s dad is great, both Sila and her dad miss her mom a lot. Sila makes a couple of new friends, an old man named Gio who lives in an old house with high walls around it and a boy named Mateo, who is autistic and very interesting. Then the new friendships and the advent of an elephant named Veda help Sila to deal with the absence of her mom.
• The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho. “Fleeing war-torn Cambodia in 1980, Dara, her mother, and her older brother find sanctuary in a refugee settlement on the Thailand border, but when fighting erupts, Dara finds herself separated from everyone and everything she loves.”
• The Swallow’s Flight by Hilary McKay. Another World War II book, the story takes place in several different threads with characters, both German and British, who all come together in the final chapters of the book. The characters, two German boys, two British girls, and their families, are all well drawn, quirky, and full of life.

I read a total of 48 middle grade fiction books this year. 35 of those were middle grade realistic fiction. 13 were fantasy or science fiction.