These books, with their accessible texts, plethora of illustrations, and “pause and reflect” sidebars, should make solid additions to any middle school collections. They will serve those looking for biographical material and literary analysis of these author’s best-known works. A great feature is the “straight to the source” pages, which offer poems or passages from a piece of writing by the featured author and then ask readers to consider its big ideas. Other analytical questions are posed at the end of the books, and each one has useful, student-friendly back matter.