Are you on twitter? I am as @warrchick, but only as it suits me and I manage to make time for it. One thing which keeps me coming back to it are the chats, and in particular #MGlitchat, of which I’m one of the hosts! We meet weekly at 9pm EST using the #MGlitchat hashtag and talk about everything from outsider kids to fixing saggy middles, and every other topic you can imagine. It’s a super fun group where aspiring authors can glean from bestselling authors and everyone can share book loves till our TBR piles teeter all the way to the sky!

These past two weeks we turned the spotlight on some of 2019’s debut MG authors, and I wanted to show off their pretty books, share a little about these authors with you all!

Remy Lai, author of Pie in the Sky, would like young readers to know that if they find themselves where she once was, the new kid in a country where they don’t speak the language, that it will be okay! They’ll make friends, they’ll grasp the language. They’ll miss their old home sometimes but they will be okay!

Joshua Levy, author of Seventh Grade vs The Galaxy, is hoping kids will realize that reading is a blast after picking up his book. He is a #MGlitchat regular and lists the gracious, thoughtful, extraordinary people of the writing community as one of the most surprising/amazing things about publishing a middle grade.

Gail Shepherd, author of The True History of Lindie B. Hawkins, shared this: ‘I hope readers will take away the desire to dig beneath the surface: to investigate, to empathize, to seek the truth. Things are much richer and lovelier and more complex they may seem at first glance.’ Which of course taps directly into her book, in which Lindie finds herself living with a fusspot Grandmother who’d rather keep her veteran son’s problems a secret than get him the help he needs.

Chris Baron, author of All of Me, loves writing for middle grade because he finds it such a rich, complex age. He hopes readers of his verse novel about a young boy struggling with his weight, bullying, and absent parents while facing down his bar mitzvah, will take away a sense of compassion for each other, and what it means to be positive about what they look like and how they feel about themselves.

Finally, Rajani LaRocca was my co-host (and in truth, she totally mc’d the heck out of the whole thing!), and is also the author of Midsummer’s Mayhem. Her debut book is a delightful twist on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, in which a young Indian-American girl hopes to win a chef-judged baking contest, but after accepting the help of a mysterious boy from the woods, people around her start acting loopy. She loves the idea of her book going out into the world and being read and loved by kids. Having been highly influenced by the books she read as a kid, the idea of this fills her with joy!

And I could go on! From Wendy Swore’s A Monster Like Me, which I know I’ll be picking up as soon as it’s available, to Nicole Panteleakos’ Planet Earth Is Blue, and so on, this bunch of authors is so highly talented and a great group to get to spend time around! Even Apricot-kitty thinks they’re worth getting up for, and you know what a tough critic she is.

You can find the full transcript of our debut party–and every other #MGlitchat transcript–stop by the blog or our FB group. We’d love to have you drop in!

Which books are you hoping to snag this year? What kind of book would exactly hit your sweet spot? Tell me in the comments–I always love hearing what you’re reading!

For the full roundup of Marvelous Middle Grade Monday spotlights, reviews, giveaways and interviews stop by Greg Pattridge’s blog, and happy reading!

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