Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Author & Illustrators

Justin A. Reynolds Books

A funny, voice-driven middle-grade story from American author Justin A. Reynolds.

Twelve-year-old Eddie Gordon Holloway, who has ADHD, has concocted his most genius plan ever to avoid chores, especially laundry. If he can wear every item of clothing in his wardrobe, summer will be halfway over before he has to do laundry!

On the day of the highly anticipated Beach Bash, Eddie ends up grounded until he can get his clothes clean. While left home alone to do his laundry, the power goes out mid-cycle. With his first load of laundry soaking wet and the rest still filthy, Eddie sets out to explore the seemingly empty neighbourhood in just his swim trunks and flip-flops.

As he meets up with other neighbourhood kids to find out what happened, they realise that their families aren’t coming back anytime soon. And as night falls, the crew realizes they aren’t just the only people left in the neighbourhood – they might be the only people left…anywhere.

For those not already familiar with the Miles Morales character from the Marvel movie ‘Into the Spider-Verse’, Miles is an alternate Spider-Man doing his superhero thing in Brooklyn, while also juggling school, friendship issues and doing the right thing by his family.

New to the Spidey-game, Miles is still learning how to web sling accurately, when he comes across two young thieves, Vex and Trinity, who also seem to have superpowers. From here on, we follow a classic formula of adventure, evil bosses, hidden identities and magical glowing rocks. Whilst that might make ‘Miles Morales: Shock Waves’ sound derivative, in truth it is anything but: as a non-Marvel-fan, I was quickly drawn in. Particularly engaging are the family scenes when Miles’ family are affected by an earthquake in Puerto Rica, and Miles’ floundering attempts to make friends with new girl, Kyle, at school.

 The style of art by Pablo Leon (Eisner Nominee for ‘The Journey’) is very approachable with particularly striking use of colour tones and facial expressions. For a primary audience, I love that the text in this graphic novel is all in lowercase, rather than the harder-to-read comic standard of full uppercase, making it much more accessible to a wider range of readers.

The text throughout is written in a conversational style with an approachable tone and lots of very funny snarky come-backs. Young readers will love the contemporary references to Instagram and TikTok dance challenges, while Marvel fans will love spotting the odd hidden easter egg reference to the wider MCU. 

Miles Morales: Shock Waves is a superb and deserving of a place in every primary school library. I hope there are many more to come in this fantastic new graphic novel series.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Your Review

Stone Girl Bone Girl

review

Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:

Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:

Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?

Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?

Would you recommend the book for use in primary schools?

yes

Curriculum links (if relevant)

Curriculum links (if relevant)

Any other comments

Any other comments