Middle Grade Monday #1

Okay so I know Green Bean Teen Queen has her Tween Tuesday. This is a little different (I guess). Middle Grade Monday will be a feature I host here every other Monday (hopefully). This feature will be all about middle grade novels and their authors. Some weeks I'll have book reviews, some weeks I'll have author interviews and some weeks I may just show covers and talk about which books I look forward to reading. Maybe we can even have book discussions. Feel free to join in on this feature from your own blog. I'll have a Mr. Linky on all my MGM posts so that people can check out what you have to share this week.
The only rule for MGM is that it has to be Middle Grade related. No Adult, YA or picture books allowed!

This week's MGM I'd like to talk about 43 Old Cemetery Road. There are two books in this series by Kate Kline(illustrated by M. Sarah Kline) so far. The first one is titled Dying To Meet You and the second is Over My Dead Body. I just finished reading them and I thought they were really fun. The book is written in letters, newspaper clippings, legal documents and other such things that the characters use to interact with each other. The first book is about an author named Ignatius B. Grumply (I.B. Grumply) who rents a Victorian house for the summer. Of course, upon renting it he did not realize that there was an 11-year-old boy and his cat (and a ghost) that he was in charge of as per the rental agreement he had his attorney sign for him. Throughout the book Mr. Grumply is having trouble believing that ghosts are real and blames the young boy, Seymour, for all the strange things that happen. Eventually he realizes that it may not be just the boy after all.
I just thought these books would be excellent for reluctant readers. There are some nice vocabulary words in there and great illustrations. These books were a very fast read for me and just fun. I certainly will be trying to get the kids who think they don't like to read to read these books. After these books they might like to tackle books like The Name of This Book is Secret, Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, or maybe even The Graveyard Book.
So these are definitely a nice quick read and something you could have in younger grade classrooms. They are funny and entertaining and have great illustrations.