March: We Dream of Space
Our March book is We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly. Join the conversation led by Exhale member Joy Netanya Thompson. Even if you haven’t read the book, we’d love for you to join the conversation!
About Joy
Joy Netanya Thompson is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles, where she covers motherhood, culture, and identity, and writes the newsletter Midweek Joy. She is the mother of her one and only child, a first grader named Zadie, and has been married to Robert for 11 years. She serves as editorial director and senior writer at Fuller Seminary, and she is currently working on a middle grade historical fiction novel based on her grandmother's story of surviving the Holocaust as a young teen.
WHY ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT THIS BOOK?
Erin Entrada Kelly is one of the great middle-grade writers of our time. She is a wizard at multiple POV, and has that effortless quality of writing that makes you wonder how she creates such an absorbing story in such a simple way. I'm looking forward to reading this book because it deals with how siblings can all experience the same event but be impacted by it very differently. Also, it's historical fiction...that takes place in the 80s! Our childhood is historical. (!!) If you have never read middle-grade fiction, it's a wonderful escape as an adult reader, and--bonus--middle-grade books are much shorter than adult books, so you can finish it in a week (or an evening, depending on your speed!).
I love what Afoma Umesi, creator of the website Reading Middle Grade, has to say about adults reading MG: "Unlike the sometimes dreary outlook of adult books—because they want to be so rooted in real life—middle grade books, they always end on a very hopeful note. You know that at the end of the book, no matter how sad everything has been throughout the journey, you’re going to come out feeling a little light. You’re going to come out with a little more hope for the world."