mglit | Page 9 of 9 | Daddy Mojo

Dead Flip, retro teen scary vibes with a friendship backbeat

The 80s were chaotic, riddled with bad fashion that people thought was cool, produced some fabulous music, and is entertaining legions of teens nowadays. For the record ‘nowadays’ is possibly the oldest sounding word in the English language and is usually followed up with ‘back in my day’. Dead Flip is mglit that is all but served up with a heaping serving of Raisin Bran, featuring the iconic dancing raisins from 1989. It’s a fun book that today’s tweens and lower teens will enjoy because of the accurate 80s and 90’s shoutouts, as well as, the age-appropriate scares and drama.

Dead Flip is tween-aimed, mglit about a haunted pinball machine that has enough creeps mixed in with the retro teen ways of the 80s and 90s.

10 years and up who want spooky vibes will dig this

Coming Up Short is catch-all realistic fiction for the mglit set

One reason why mglit realistic fiction is challenging for some middle school readers is that life is not always 100% happy. There are sad, chaotic, confusing, and disappointing moments that everyone lives through. On the surface, those feelings don’t exactly roll out the reading red carpet to those 12-year-olds who are juggling their own personal issues, locker combinations, family issues, school work or sports. However, dig just a bit past the surface and those readers will discover that their issues, despite how unique and utterly end-of-world they might seem, actually have commonalities with realistic fiction characters. Coming Up Short easily falls into that category. It’s mglit that seems unique, end-of-world, and happens in a place where it could never really happen, but again, dig just a bit past the surface.

Coming Up Short is mglit that middle school readers will reach for, combining sports, family, competition, stress and poor decisions.

Mglit realistic fiction that stretches past the usual suspects

Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun is Potter Wakanda-tastic

A book series doesn’t exist unless the first book is any good and merits a sequel. Gone are the days when that was the modus operandi for books, not to mention those manuscripts that were lucky enough to become film. Now umpteen streaming services need content and that content must come from somewhere. Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun is the first in a series of books by Tola Okogwu that was optioned for Netflix before the book was even released. Its story is perfectly summarized by the publisher’s blurb ‘Black Panther meets X-Men’, as a book that is 100% and this is mglit that knows its target.

Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun is a book series that’s tailor-made for Black girls in upper elementary, Potterheads and superhero people.

Fans of Potter, Wakanda and MGlit will dig this