Marvelous Middle Grade Monday: The View from Saturday

I hope everyone is enjoying MMGM and President's Day Weekend. I should have probably reviewed something holiday appropriate like Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman. But I didn't. Maybe Shannon Whitney Messenger did. This week my pick is:

The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg

Published in 2003

Other books by E.L. Konigsburg include (but are not limited to):

• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
• Silent to the Bone
• A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver
• The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

The Hook: 4 6-graders are picked to do a quiz competition against other schools. The kids form a club and an unlikely friendship.

Why I loved it: It is sorta like slumdog millionaire but there aren't any slums, or millions, or dogs (just kidding, I forgot there are a couple of dogs). But the kids find the answers to the quiz competition base on their experience. Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the kids and tells the story behind their answer. A great book for both boys and girls.

My favorite line from the book: I am a passenger on the spaceship earth.

Want more on E. L. Konigsburg? Check out her biography.

Did you review a book for MMGM? Leave a link in the comments and I'll add your link. Also if you're on Twitter, check out #MMGM for more.

Other fabulous MMGMers:

• Joanne Fritz is throwing it up for Rodman Philbrick.
• Ben Langhinrchs reviews Swallows and Amazons.
• Myrna Foster raves about Origami Yoda.