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Advocate by Eddie Ahn
Big Frog, Little Pond by George Mendoza and Peter Parnall (Illustrator)
Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill: Volume 2 by Ren Eguchi, MASA (Illustrator), and Kevin Chen (Translator)
Christa Comes Out of Her Shell by Abbi Waxman, Jesse Vilinsky and Jonathan Todd Ross (Narrators)
City of Grit and Gold by Maud Macrory Powell
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DON'T TOUCH THAT!: A Sci-Fi and Fantasy Parenting Anthology edited by Jaymee Goh
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Murder by the Bookend by Laura Gail Black and Susan Boyce (Narrator)
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The Secret Language of Birds by Lynne Kelly
The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas
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There Are No Ants in This Book by Rosemary Mosco and Anna Pirolli (Illustrator)
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Who's Got the Apple? by Jan Lööf, Ole Risom and Linda Hayward (Translators)
The World of Oz: A Fantastic Expedition Over the Rainbow by Allen Eyles


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City of Grit and Gold: 08/08/24

City of Grit and Gold

City of Grit and Gold by Maud Macrory Powell (2017) is historical fiction set in Chicago in 1886. Addie, a young Jewish immigrant witnesses her family torn apart by a TB outbreak and worker unrest.

The book is clearly written to teach about that particular time period. It's designed to deliver the most melodrama as possible in as short of a page span as possible.

Although the protagonist is on the cusp on being a teenager, the novel doesn't read like a middle grade novel. Save for the opening scene before Addie has to help fetch a doctor, the scenes just don't feel like they are from her POV. She's in them but she's not living them.

Two stars

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