Wonder World Book Cafe'

Minni's story shines a bright spotlight on water inequities worldwide. Living in Mumbai, access to fresh water is difficult. People endure long lines at the public water source to get meager amounts of water. Fights over water are common. Water thieves, trying to get rich, exacerbate people's basic right to fresh water. Minni's poetry and her tenacity will delight and inspire our middle grade readers. 

Transcript here 

⏰Listening commitment: 9 minutes

Latika wants to make a significant change in her rural village in India - she wants toilets so the females don't have to walk great distances every night "to do what they need to do." Brave Latika will inspire our young people to again realize they can make significant positive impacts in the world. Written in verse with stunning illustrations, this story may be short, but it's powerful and serves to educate the world about why basic sanitation matters especially for females and without it, safety, education, and poverty are critical factors. 

Transcript here 

Listening commitment: 9 minutes. Danny is growing up in an Appalachian town during WWII and befriends an older boy, Jack, with a haunting past. Here readers learn what it's like for American towns to do their part to support war efforts and how injustices in the world occur right in our communities. 

Transcript here 

Listening commitment: 9 minutes Ava feels like she isn't enough: Persian or American. She loves the poet Rumi, surfing, and claims she's mildly OCD. Summer is here and after this, she's headed to high school, so she plans to surf all summer with the only person who gets her-Phoenix. Life has other, heart breaking plans for both Ava and Phoenix. Readers will delight in the music and poetry. Friendship. Heartbreak. If you pick up Wave, you won't put it down, and even when finished reading, prepare to store it away in your heart. 

Transcript here 

Listening commitment: 10 minutes

If 8th grade Haz plans to return to the football field, he must go participate in therapy for his overly aggressive behavior. Couple this with his dad's current job deployment in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, and quickly realize Max is shouldering some heavy events. 

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🌟🌟Celebrating Season 2! Listening commitment: 8 minutes

At 6 feet tall and a recent ADHD diagnosis, sixth grade Max's life is tough enough, but nothing compares to the accident where his best friend, Will, is injured on a fateful night when a group of boys snuck out into a nearby forest. Will is now in a medically induced coma, and nobody knows what occurred during the forest visit to cause Will's head injury. Max and a classmate set out to solve this mystery. Calling: Whodunit enthusiasts and readers who'd like to know more about ADHD. 

Transcript here 

✨✨Celebrating episode 20!

⏰Listening commitment: 9 minutes

Samira and her family are left without a country to call home when her own country of Burma (now Myanmar) ceased to recognize them as one of their 135 ethnicities, so they flee to Bangladesh, where they are also unwelcome. Samira is a strong, curious girl, and Rohingya. Learn about her desire to attend school, learn to surf, and her history. 

This wraps up season one. Please celebrate with me: leave a review or follow me on Instagram at Wonderworldbookcafe. I'll be back in August and can't wait to launch season two. ✨✨

Transcript here 

⏰Listening commitment: 9 minutes 

Meet quirky, word-loving, lexicographer "Worser." He's quick to correct grammatical errors, has one humongous heart, and is learning to live with his new life, one where his mom is recovering from a stroke. Root for and love Worser, and pick up numerous new words to add to your own vocabulary along the way. 

Transcript here 

⏰Listening commitment: 9 minutes

Addie advocates for people wrongly accused of witchcraft in Scotland, centuries ago. Addie is autistic and realizes she too could have been one of those sentenced to death had she lived during this time only because she is "different." This beautiful and much needed story can span age ranges of readers as it works to dispel stereotypes about autism. Come along on Addie's journey in A Kind of Spark. 

Transcript here 

⏰ Listening commitment: 9 minutes

Muki and his family are "moths" in the country of Mariposa. Muki uncovers the president's plan to send moths, people not born here to camps and maybe out to other countries. The president commits to protecting the butterflies, those who "belong in Mariposa" because this is their country where they and their family have lived for many generations. 

Transcript here.