Max and the Millions

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A fast-paced and enjoyable adventure that encourages readers to appreciate the small things in life.' Kirkus It's also a strange statement to make in that Max has spent much of this book lipreading incredibly tiny people with no sound input. The majority of successful speechreaders do use residual hearing to supplement their lipreading, and it's clear that Max does as well. But even without this use of residual hearing, Max is able to successfully communicate. So he's been relying on lipreading alone for quite a while, without complaint. This book was ridiculous fun! With sugar-crazed five-year-old-girl army, noble steed fleas, carrot thefts, sparkle-unicorn onesies, and a headmaster I would love to have pushed into a dustbin, Max's adventure is all kinds of hilarious. It also does a nice job of outlining some basic deaf awareness skills and some of the difficulties that deaf children face. I especially loved how receptive Sasha was to some of these things and the little nods to how the two boys adapted their communication to ensure both understood each other. I would definitely have preferred Max to have sign language knowledge or have used alternative communication with Sasha (such as writing) rather than him having lip-reading superpowers that enabled him to understand basically everything Sasha said (that's very unrealistic - only about 30% of speech can be lipread, and that's without accents coming into the mix). It's also rather inappropriate to have the hearing kid teaching the d/Deaf kid to sign. Despite this, I enjoyed how Max's hearing aids were an important part of the story and the focus on him making friends and developing confidence in himself and his ability to communicate. Sasha was wonderful, as was his sister and her sparkle-unicorn minions. A totally off-the-wall story that combines a fast moving plot with some great characterisation and truly wonderful scenes. An absolute must-read for children aged between 8 and 12.”

Additionally, the creative writing ideas this book could spur would be highly inclusive- for example, those pupils excited by the violent threats and tabulations between the three camps could take this element of the story further and story map/ write an alternative section focusing on these miniature groups. The more sensitive of pupils in the class could take on Max’s story for friendship and his difficulties communicating, perhaps how Sasha and his friendship develops in the next academic term. This will make children think a lot about the size of things, the interpretations and different viewpoints in a situation. Max's size gives him a new stature to the Floor people, their world is seen as something tiny and insignificant by some full-size characters.The winners of the Diverse Book Awards 2023 have been announced, with one winner from each of the four categories announced: Picture book, Children... When a school caretaker mysteriously disappears, leaving behind a small pile of sand, a student is drawn into an extraordinary adventure.

The day before summer vacation, Max's closest friend at boarding school disappears, leaving behind his amazing model collection and a handful of sand on his bedroom floor. Like Max, the eccentric janitor Mr. Darrow is a genius at building tiny models. Eight weeks later, Max finds that the sand has magically transformed into a whole desert kingdom--filled with millions of tiny people! Max has few friends and rarely interacts with his peers at all, because it is too difficult to keep up with the speechreading. He's also not interested in sports activities, so he has even less interaction than many deaf children would have with hearing peers. His peers, all fellow kids, of course don't realize how fatiguing speechreading is, and the emotional and intellectual labor of repeatedly explaining this and asking for repeats is just as exhausting. For my final book I thought I would try a book that was more light hearted, and Ross Montgomery’s book delivered. A fast-paced and enjoyable adventure that encourages readers to appreciate the small things in life., Kirkus

A civilization that needs Max’s help . . .

The day before summer vacation, Max’s closest friend at boarding school disappears, leaving behind his amazing model collection and a handful of sand on his bedroom floor. Like Max, the eccentric janitor Mr. Darrow is a genius at building tiny models. Eight weeks later, Max finds that the sand has magically transformed into a whole desert kingdom–filled with millions of tiny people! Bestselling author Alexandra Christo, author of TikTok sensation To Kill a Kingdom, introduces her new book, The Night Hunt (Hot Key Books), a dark... Totally off-the-wall story and is characteristic of the vivid imagination that we've come to associate with Ross Montgomery. The world building is superb., The Bookbag Alongside the adventure, and with a light hand, Montgomery successfully touches on challenges such as coping with buzzing hearing aids, lazy assumptions about deafness, and people’s inept attempts to communicate better by shouting. Moreover, Mr. Darrow later manufactures a new pair of hearing aids for Max from scratch, ones that perform better than any aids on the market that are created, fitted, and adjusted by professionals. Given how well done the deafness is, the unrealistic savant MacGyvering HAs (reminiscent of Tony Stark’s “magic” HAs for Clint Barton) is disappointing. Like Kate DiCamillo, Montgomery’s use of miracles enables the deaf character to experience an inexplicable ease of communication access.