Marvelous Middle Grade Monday # MMGM Book Review: The Secret Winner's Club by Donna Galanti

 

Three friends, Sunny, Vee, and Trev, start a secret club in order to reach their goals. They all have a common goal of winning. Trev wants to get the lead role in the upcoming musical, Vee wants to beat her nemesis in swimming, and Sunny wants to build the best junkbot and win the upcoming competition. Each of them has their reason for wanting to win, part of which is having others see them without their autoimmune conditions. They come up with plans to reach their winning goals. They agree that they’ll stop at nothing and tell no one. When a new girl named Josie asks to join their club, she tells them that she has an autoimmune disease just like they all do. Soon something seems amiss and their winning plans have a few hiccups. Is winning everything?  If you do whatever it takes, will getting what you want really make you happy? You’ll have to see what happens to this group of friends on their journey to win.

The Secret Winners Club by Donna Galanti is one of many books that I’ve read by her. I like how the story was told from different viewpoints, so we got to see what each of the main characters were thinking. Sunny, Vee, and Trev seemed very real because they had their good qualities, but they also had their flaws. I know a lot of kids that have a variety of autoimmune conditions, and I think this would be a book where they could see themselves. Two of my friends have alopecia, and there aren’t a lot of books with kids who are going through the same thing. Learning about vitiligo, psoriasis, and alopecia will help other kids learn about what life is like for some people and may answer some of their questions. It was interesting to see what each person did to try to reach their goal and how they felt afterwards. It makes you think about what you'd do to win. I would recommend this book to anyone in fourth grade and up who likes books about friendship. 

Has anyone else read The Secret Winners Club? Or have you read another book by Donna Galanti?

We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Happy Reading!
~L

For other MMGM posts, please visit Greg Pattridge's blog.

Margo's Musings: Feeling Comfortable

Margo saw this book and the penguin was wearing the same hat she was donning. Of course, we had to borrow it! Clive Penguin by Huw Lewis Jones and illustrated by Ben Sanders was on display as a new winter read. So glad we picked it up and read about Margo's "twin".

Clive Penguin does the same thing, in the same place, day after day. He's also freezing. He doesn't want to be cold anymore in a place he isn't happy, so he decides to look for somewhere better. Somewhere warmer!

Clive sees amazing things on his journey! Amazing sights are around every corner. But will Clive be happy once the journey is over? Will the new place he finds be better than where he started from? 

The style of the illustrations was just perfect for this story. I love how we got to really see and feel Clive's expressions. 

We enjoyed this book- and Margo thought Clive was funny. We just had a snowstorm, with about two feet of snow- so we could easily relate to Clive's unhappiness with the frigid temperatures!

This was a great book to read more than once because there is a lot to look at in the pictures, and the words make you think. 

Has anyone else read Clive Penguin? Have you read another book written by Huw Lewis Jones? Or one illustrated by Ben Sanders? We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Happy Reading!
~F