Featuring a winning heroine and tackling such issues as immigration, neurodiversity, veteran’s health, and race, this book is bound to spark exciting classroom discussions and would be an excellent introduction to current events for young readers. Through the girl’s growing interest in welding, she and her father find a way to communicate. Concurrently, Emilia’s father, a marine, returns home, and the two struggle to reconnect. Through her investigations, she learns more about a plan to solve overcrowding in nearby schools and begins to form her own opinions about this and other concerns facing her community. In this sweet, timely tale, Emilia is researching her town, Merryville, for a school project. 2019 Gr 4-6) readers meet Emilia Torres, a sixth grade Latinx student with ADHD. In Pablo Cartaya’s Each Tiny Spark (Penguin/Kokila, Aug. Students will enjoy putting together clues and discussing how they would solve the mystery, and the decadent donut descriptions at the beginning of each chapter make this book the perfect excuse for a classroom donut party. Ideal for upper elementary, this book gives appropriate weight to sensitive topics such grief and trauma, yet the overall tone is optimistic, weaving friendship, community, and perseverance into Mattie’s healing journey. With help from the mysterious owl and two loyal friends, Mattie is determined to get to the bottom of this ecological crime and save the donut shop, even if it means confronting deep-seated fears she developed after her mother’s death. Somebody has dumped a suspicious substance near her aunt’s donut shop-which is bad for the environment and bad for the shop.
Young Mattie is startled by an owl tapping on her window, alerting her to strange happenings in the neighborhood.
With short chapters, a whodunnit mystery, and uplifting themes, Owl’s Outstanding Donuts(Carolrhoda, Sept., 2019 Gr 3-6) by Robin Yardi hits the right notes.
When choosing a classroom read-aloud, I look for tightly-woven plots that keep students rivited, and topics that invite discussion and reflection. From titles that will ignite discussions about contemporary issues, highlight little-known true stories, or tug on the heartstrings, these books will find a place on classroom shelves. Educators in search of engaging new chapter books to read aloud to their students need go no further.
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