Marvelous Middle Grade Monday: Skunked, by Jacqueline Kelly

(Sorry I'm late to the party today...long, long day. Is being fashionably late still a thing??)

I've found a new love in the Middle Grade category of books: early chapter books. Those in-betweeners that aren't picture books, aren't full length novels, but something all their own. Unfortunately, many of them feel like dumbed-down, cranked out potboilers dictated by a robot set to common core standards. But the good ones... ah. When I sit down to read one of several beautifully-crafted chapter books with my own early reader, I feel like I'm viewing a Sargent sketch at a museum. It may not have the depth and fullness of an oil painting, but every line is beautiful. Only the necessary lines are even present, but each one is perfectly executed.

In case you're a geek like me, you'll find it interesting that Sargent drew this sketch
of Dame Ethel Smyth in 1901, the very year Skunked is set. You're welcome. :)

Another day, I'll compile a list of our favorite early chapter books, but this evening I'd like to spotlight the one my 7-year-old and I are currently reading together: Skunked, by Jacqueline Kelly.

You older readers may remember Callie Tate from her Newbery-honored novel The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, but in Skunked, she and her little brother Travis are introduced to the early reader crowd with all the humor and heart of the first story and a considerably thinner book spine. Plus really gorgeous illustrations every few pages.

When Travis Tate finds an orphaned baby skunk in a hollow tree near their Texas home in the early 20th century, his tender heart leaves him no choice but to bring it home. Scientifically-minded Callie has her own opinion about this, but she loves her brother too much not to lend him a hand, even if that means risking the wrath of their domestic-animals-only kind of mother...

I loved Callie just as much in this story as in the two full-length novels bearing her name, and I so enjoyed introducing her to my younger daughter! Callie is an incredible role model who acts passionately in defense of the defenseless, would do anything for her family, and refuses to give up on her dreams despite the opposition of the world. No wonder my 7-year-old loves her as much as I do!