Intro Hi and welcome to Books Between - a podcast for teachers, parents, librarians, and anyone who wants to connect kids between 8-12 to books they’ll love. I’m your host, Corrina Allen - a mom of two girls, a 5th grade teacher, and glad to be back after a brief hiatus to refocus and recharge. But - we’ve got a lot of great new books to talk about so you knew I wasn’t going to be gone for long! This is Episode #38 and today I am chatting about the Wonder movie with a friend of mine, I’ll discuss three new graphic novels you’ll want to check out, and then I’ll answer a question about what to do when all your child wants to read is graphic novels and nothing else. But first I am excited to tell you that today’s episode is brought to you by WriteAbout.com - a writing community and publishing platform that is perfect for classrooms. If you are like me and are looking for an engaging and authentic way for your students to share their ideas with a wider audience, you are absolutely going to want to visit WriteAbout.com to check it out.    Main Topic - Wonder Movie A couple  weekends ago, I had the chance to go see the film adaptation of Wonder by RJ Polacio - one of my all-time favorite books and one I’ve read every year with my fifth graders since it came out in 2012.  And I am sure a lot of you also have a lot of love for this book.  So, when I saw that my #BookVoyage friend, Julie Kirchner, had also seen the movie - I asked her to come on the show so we could chat about it.  As you will hear, Julie is an amazing librarian and an all around amazing person and one of those people really worth connecting with Twitter. Alright - take a listen. Links to books and topics we chatted about: Nerdy Book Club Wonder by R.J. Palacio Auggie & Me: Three Wonder Stories by R.J. Palacio The Bad Seed by Jory John The Wonder Movie website Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds Ghost by Jason Reynolds Patina by Jason Reynolds Sunny by Jason Reynolds The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street by Lindsay Currie Fenway & Hattie: Up to New Tricks by Victoria Coe Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes & Gordon C. James Dazzle Ships by Chris Barton & Victo Ngai Red and Lulu by Matt Tavares Claymates by Devorah Petty & Lauren Eldridge After the Fall by Dan Santat Dan Santat’s Interviews on Picturebooking  and SharpRead Come With Me by Holly M. McGhee and Pascal Lemaaitre Most People by Michael Leannah & Jennifer E. Morris   Book Talk - Three New SciFi/Fantasy Graphic Novels In this section of the show, I share with you three books centered around a theme and discuss three things to love about each book. This week I want to share with you three brand new graphic novels with scifi /fantasy elements - Fish Girl by David Wiesner and Donna Jo Napoli, NewsPrints by Ru Xu, and Mighty Jack and the Goblin King by Ben Hatke. Fish Girl Let’s start with Fish Girl! This is the first graphic novel for both Caldecott medalist David Wiesner and linguist and children’s book writer Donna Jo Napoli. Fish Girl is about a young mermaid trapped inside a huckster’s multi-story aquarium on the boardwalk of an ocean-side town. But- she doesn’t REALIZE that her captor isn’t really Neptune, God of the Seas and when Fish Girl secretly becomes friends with one of the visitors, things get dicey. Here are three things to love about Fish Girl: The simplicity and softness of the story. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t have depth or nuance, but I liked that the plot was quieter, easier to follow, and set mainly in the aquarium. And because the mermaid girl can’t speak, a lot of the emotion and backstory is conveyed in her expressions and gestures and in her internal thinking.   I loved how the mermaid is portrayed and drawn. So - I’m always a little leery of mermaid depictions because they can tend to look sexualized with clamshell bras and such. But - it is always clear that Fish Girl is just that - a young girl. One who likes pizza and creating handmade jewelry for her new friend. I