Wonder World Book Cafe'

Hey Gen Alpha. You're the first kids who’ve always had social media and are super tech‑savvy. That’s a major strength, and lots of screen time can make it harder to focus and hang out with friends in person. Break up with your phone? Probably not. You can make decisions to "use technology as a tool and not let technology use you."

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Meet Mariam. She’s in sixth grade and starting at a new school in a small California farm town. It’s a Catholic school, and Mariam’s Muslim. Her mom thinks it’s fine, even helpful, to learn about a different religion. Mariam? Well, she’s not so sure.

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Set in San Diego, 1931. Based on a true story about a school board and local chamber of commerce pushing segregation by creating a separate school for the Mexican children. It’s filled with families with a fighting spirit, traditions and holidays, music, food, pinatas, and plenty of Spanish phrases. 

Sisters Mattie and Olive are inseparable but couldn't be more different. One thinks in words, and the other in pictures. This makes for a playful (yet serious) tale as each shares their part of the story differently: Mattie with doodles and drawings, graphic novel style, and Olive with free verse poetry and her specially created crossword puzzles.

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Hilariously written about a serious topic! J.J. is living with a hidden disease, Chron's. In this story, the disease is an actual character (funny and sarcastic) named Norm--a 7 foot ogre and motorcycle gang member. Filled with tons of illustrations, middle grade readers will LOVE it.

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Mira has ONE big goal for her 6th grade year: start talking at school. A talented stop motion film producer, Mira is comfortable creating in her bedroom/studio/sanctuary. But social situations cause anxiety and the inability to speak. A serious story with many comical moments. Readers gain insight into situational mutism.

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Living in California, 8th graders Finn and Rabbit are not strangers to wildfire danger. It's not IF, rather WHEN. And, when one devastates their community, these two friends think they know the cause and are ready to use their voice to tell others. Will the community listen?

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Overcome with grief over his father's death, 7th grader Finn is given a chance to make amends for an act of vandalism by hiking the 46 highest peaks of the Adirondack Mountains.

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Zarina is a young girl navigating challenges of identity, family and culture during the political turmoil of the Partition in 1947 when India gained independence from the British. What does Zarina and her family do when they're told they no longer belong in their ancestral country, one they deeply love?

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Welcome back to a new season! Here, I shine a light on the top three listened to episodes of ALL TIME!

Want a sneak peak? Okay! Ep. 46 Solito by Javier Zamora, Ep. 1 Unsettled by Reem Faruqi, and Ep. 6 This Light Between Us by Andrew Fukuda

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