This week's middle grade science fiction and fantasy round-up (5/19/13)

Welcome to yet another week of what I found in my blog reading of interest to us fans of middle grade sci fi/fantasy, and possibly of interest to people who aren't fans themselves but have to buy the books for others.  Please let me know if I missed your post, please feel free to send me links any time during the week, please feel free to tell me about the posts of others, and please feel free to mention these round-ups on your own blog if the spirit moves you!

The Reviews

An Army of Frogs, by Trevor Pryce, at Journey of a Bookseller

The Bell Between Worlds, by Ian Johnston, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, by Charles de Lint, at Fantasy Book Critic

The Clan of the Scorpion (Ninja Meerkats), by Gareth P. Jones, at Jean Little Library

The Circle, by Cindy Cipriano, at SA Larsen

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at The Book Smugglers and Cover2CoverBlog

Fyre, by Angie Sage, at Unlikely Librarian

Goulish Song, by William Alexander, at That Blog Belongs to Emily Brown 
and Tor

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, by Christopher Healy, at Between the Pages

Iron Hearted Violet, by Kelly Barnhill, at Great Imaginations

The Last Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis, bySharon Ledwith, at swlothian

Loki's Woves, by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr, at One Librarian's Book Reviews

Nation, by Terry Pratchett, at The Book Smugglers

New Lands, by Geoff Rodkey, at Geo Librarian

The Path of Names, by Ari Goelman, at Charlotte's Library

The Planet Thieves, by Dan Krokos, at The O.W.L.

The Princelings of the East, by Jemima Pett, at The Ninja Librarian

The Reluctant Assassin, by Eoin Colfer, at Book Nut

The Rose Throne, by Mette Ivie Harrison, at Kiss the Book

Seeds of Rebellion, by Brandon Mull, at Fantasy Literature

Summerkin, by Sarah Prineas, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Tilly's Moonlight Garden, by Julia Green, at Kid Lit Geek

The Tree of Mindala, by Elle Jacklee, at alibrarymama

The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blackwood, at Charlotte's Library

Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George, at Sharon the Librarian, The O.W.L. and Small Review (giveaway)

Wonderlight, by R.R. Russell

A World Without Heroes, by Brandon Mull, at Fantasy Literature

ps:  just once I would love to have a book for every letter of the alphabet.   So please, why not consider reviewing a book beginning with E, I, J, K, M, O, Q, U, V, X, Y, or Z?  Then I would not have to search frantically, and disappointingly, for reviews of The Menagerie, or Undertown.    For a while, Jinx and The Key and the Flame covered those two difficult letters, but that well seems to have run dry... You Only Die Twice, by Dan Gutman, gave me a Y once, but  no one has reviewed Zombie Kid or Zombie Tag or Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom for ages...

It's probably a fruitless task-- I don't know if I have ever been able to include a book beginning with X.  I once read a book beginning with X, but did not feel moved to review it.....

Authors and Inverviews

Sage Blackwood (Jinx) at Charlotte's Library (giveaway)

Anne Nesbit (Box of Gargoyles) at The Enchanted Inkpot

"Lemony Snickett" (Who Could That Be At This Hour?) at The Children's Book Review

Soman Chainani (The School for Good and Evil) at The Enchanted Inkpot

Ari Goelman (The Path of Names) at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia and Brooklyn Arden (who edited the book; giveaway)

Jessica Day George (Wednesdays in the Tower) at Small Review

Kelley Armstrong (Loki's Wolves) at Literary Rambles (giveaway)

Kit Grindstaff (The Flame and the Mist) at Cynsations

R.R. Russell (Wonderlight) at A Backwards Story

Barbara Brauner and James Iver Mattson (Oh My Godmother: The Glitter Trap) at All For One and OneFour Kidlit

Dorine White (The Emerald Ring) Blog Tour stops so far:

Tuesday, May 14- From The Mixed up Files of Middle Grade Authors- Author Interview and giveaway

Tuesday, May 14- The Misadventures of a Twenty Something- Review

Wed, May 15- I am a Reader, Not a Writer- Author Interview and giveaway

Thurs, May 16- Word Spelunker- Spotlight/Giveaway

Fri, May 17- The Writing Blues- Review

Fri. May 17- Adventures in Reading- Review

Sat. May 18- Mels Shelves- Review

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle blog tour continues, at Candace's Book Blog, The Modge Podge Bookshelf, and The Hiding Spot

Other Good Stuff:

There's a Book has a giveaway for all three books of the Lovecraft Middle School series

Fair Coin, by  E.C. Myers (Pyr) has won the Andre Norton Award (I've not yet read it--should I?); here's the list of all the Nebula winners.

The Vindico, by Wesley King (G.P. Putnam’s Sons/ Penguin Group) has won the 2013 Red Maple™ Fiction Award  (grades 7-8). I haven't read this one either....

Here's a nice little list of Historical Fantasy at Views from the Tesseract

The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, has been optioned

Finally, here is my favorite new fantasy animal--the alot.  I like the alot a lot.  I think it needs its own book.

Bout of Books update

I've read embarrassingly little for the Bout of Book Readathon....I was actually too sick to want to read in the middle of the week (the horror!) and work does get in the way something fierce...

But for what it's worth, here's what I've read in the past five days:

3 Terry Pratchett books--Small Gods, Lords and Ladies, and Soul Music, plus 104 pages of Hogfather (there's a reason why I am reading Pratchett straight through....but I'm not quite convinced its going to happen, so more later on that score....)

The Secret of the Ginger Mice, by Frances Watts

197 pages of The River of No Return, by Bee Ridgeway

89 pages of The Bank of Bob, by Bob Harris (a nonfiction book about Kiva loans)

56 pages of Penelope, by Penelope Farmer

2013 Mythopoeic Award finalists announced

 I quite like the choices made by the folks handing out the Mythopoeic Awards--they have historically have very good taste.  The awards are given in the categories of Adult Literature, Children's Literature, and two categories of scholarship--Inklings Studies, and Myth and Fantasy Studies.


The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature honors books for younger readers (from “Young Adults” to picture books for beginning readers), in the tradition of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia.

I'm not at all sure that this year's finalists actually meet that criteria, but it's a nice list none the less (special yay for Giants Beware!, a book I adored):

• Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado, Giants Beware! (First Second)
• Sarah Beth Durst, Vessel (Margaret K. McElderry)
• Merrie Haskell, The Princess Curse (HarperCollins)
• Christopher Healy, The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (Walden Pond Press)
• Sherwood Smith, The Spy Princess (Viking Juvenile)

The Adult Finalists are interesting too:

• Alan Garner, Weirdstone trilogy, consisting of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (Collins), The Moon of Gomrath (Collins), and Boneland (Fourth Estate)
• Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl (Roc)
• R.A. MacAvoy, Death and Resurrection (Prime Books)
• Tim Powers, Hide Me Among the Graves (William Morrow)
• Ursula Vernon, Digger, vols. 1-6 (Sofawolf Press)

The Path of Names, by Ari Goelman-- fantasy rooted in Judaism

Quick!  How many current middle grade fantasy books can you think of whose magic is rooted in Judaism?  There was a flowering of Golem books a little while ago--here's a good summary,  and there's The Inquisitor's Apprentice, and its forthcoming sequel.  There are a number of other fantasy books whose protagonists are Jewish, but which don't take place in an imagined space in which Judaism and magic co-mingle.

This space, however, is exactly where The Path of Names, by Ari Goelman (Scholastic, April, 2013), is set, and to make it even more unusual, it is primarily contemporary.  The setting is a camp for Jewish kids,  and the magic that drives the plot comes specifically and exclusively from the magic of the Kabbalah.

13-year old Dahlia did not want to go to a camp for Jewish kids.  She wanted to spend all her summer at magic (the stage kind) camp, honing her skills as a magician.   As a math and magic geek, she's pretty certain that this paritular camp isn't going to full of new friends. (Irrelevant aside--I tried going to camp only once--Scottish dancing camp--when I was a grown-up.  It was horrible.  All the other campers knew each other already.  I felt for Dahlia.)

And Dahlia did not want to start seeing ghosts--two little girls who only she could see, who seemed to be trying to communicate to her.  And she most certainly did not want to be possessed (on occasion) by the spirit of a long-dead young Rabbi from New York, whose book of esoteric writings just happened to show up on the camp bookshelf...

And Dahlia most certainly did not want to be involved in a life or death struggle in which she is forced to use her fledgling understanding of the Kabbalah against an extremely powerful enemy willing to kill children in his quest for magical power... 

I think this is one that will appeal most strongly to the self-identified geek girl.  The mystery and the magic and the backstory and the subplots are complex and somewhat esoteric, and as a result it helps to pay close attention while reading.   Happily for me, I found the story more than interesting enough to do so.   The parts that I liked best were the flashbacks to the story of the young Orthodox Jewish man who is haunting Dahlia.  He's a young man who has found the 72nd Name of God, in a system of belief where names and numbers have real power--power for which bad guys will kill-- and his story is tremendously exiting.

But sadly for me, I never managed to care all that much about Dahlia as a person.  She's kind of cross at life for most of the book, and rather stiff--and not tremendously sympathetic, emotionally, although intellectually she was more so.   And, again on a personal level, I never quite found that the supernatural elements of this story (and there were lots of them, very interesting ones) ever roused in me more than intellectual curiosity.  In short, this isn't a book that pulled on my heart or made my hair stand on end. 

Your mileage may, of course, vary--and I do, as I said above, think that there is an audience for this one--the smart, mystery-loving 10-12 year old girl (especially the one who likes math puzzles and who doesn't care for summer camp bonding activities).

So, having written my own review, I'm now curious to see what other people thought, especially since I myself had a trouble deciding whether I really liked it (interesting, engrossing story!) or not (left kind of disappointed emotionally).

Here's what Kirkus had to say.  I don't know why they put 12-15 for age of reader.  There isn't any sex, and the horrible deaths (not that many of them, and not that horrible) happened in the past, the bad guy is less scary than Voldemort, and Dahlia is only 13.   The Kirkus reviewer calls the book "challenging," so maybe that's it, but if that's the case, I think it underestimates the 11 year olds of today, whose minds seem to me considerably more agile than those of most adults.  Typical smart 11 year old--oh, esoteric system of numerology that involves the hidden names of God?  Bring it on. 

You can read the starred Booklist review at Amazon, but here's the punch line: "With the help of her friends, she uses her mystical powers to confront the Illuminated One, who selfishly seeks the name for himself. Debut author Goelman’s story is full of exciting plot twists and well-rounded, engaging characters—all amped up by thrilling esoteric magic."    Ok, maybe it was just me not hitting it off with Dahlia. 

And finally, here's an interview with Ari Goelman at The Lucky 13s.

Feel free to mention any other contemporary fantasy books drawing on Judaism in the comments (which is to say, not books in which the main character just happens to be Jewish and then meets a unicorn or whatever).

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Interview with Sage Blackwood, author of Jinx

I am thrilled as all get out today to present Sage Blackwood, author of the excellent middle grade fantasy, Jinx (my review).  Jinx is the only book I have re-read this year, and I can easily imagine happily reading it a third time.  Since re-reading is the highest level of personal favor I can give a book, this is saying a lot.

So when Sage Blackwood asked if I might be interested in hosting her for her first interview, I said yes, with quick conviction!  My questions are in bold.

The most important question first:  Will there be a next book, and can you tell us anything about it?  I want to know what happens next!  I am hoping for more about Sophie and her world...  

Yes! A sequel, Jinx’s Magic, is due out from HarperCollins in January, 2014, and yes, there will be more of Sophie and her world. Jinx will go to Samara and, of course, get into all kinds of trouble. And Sophie… well, you’ll see. (She said annoyingly.) 

And speaking of Sophie, one of things I loved about Jinx was the sense that there is lots of backstory to her, and to others in the book, that is very nicely implied without being spelled out.   Because the characters give such a full feeling of lives lived outside the pages of this particular book,  I'm wondering which people from Jinx actually became known to you first, and in what imagined context(s) did they first appear? 

Oh, great question! The characters wandered into my head at different times, over the course of several years, before finally hooking up with each other. The first character was the Urwald… the fairy tale forest which I think is inside each of us. I wanted to evoke it, hopefully in a way that begins on the page but ends in the reader’s imagination. Then came Elfwyn… a girl in a red hood who was smarter than history has given her credit for being. Elfwyn would not have any difficulty distinguishing her grandmother from a wolf.

Next was Simon Magus, a legendary figure about whom we know very little… and from what we know, it’s not really clear if he’s good or evil. Simon Magus had a wife named Sophie. Or possibly Helen. But Sophie seemed like a better name for the character. I forgot that it was also the name of the protagonist of Howl’s Moving Castle.

I was on my front porch drawing pictures of these characters when another one showed up—Jinx. There’s a rather enigmatic comment in the Simon Magus legend: that he got his power from a boy who had died a violent death. (The boy in the legend doesn’t actually seem to be dead, though, violent death notwithstanding.) So I planned for the first scene to be Simon strangling Jinx. When I actually sat down to write the scene, though, Simon refused to do that. So I had to figure out what really happened, as it were.

So I doodled some more, and eventually drew a picture of a boy, a troll and a wizard in a forest. And there the story begins.

Jinx is a book with tons of appeal for those of us adults who still sincerely love reading (good) fantasy for kids.  Are you yourself one of those?  When you were writing Jinx, did you consciously recall books you loved when you were the target audience?  Or to put it another way, what books helped shaped your writerly experience?  And are there any favorite books of yours that you could recommend to the reader (young or not so young) who enjoyed Jinx?
 

Oh yes, I’m definitely one of those!

My favorite author is Diana Wynne Jones. My memory insists I have loved her since childhood, when I came across a copy of The Magicians of Caprona at the village library. Unfortunately the publication date doesn’t back me up on that. Apparently I was 15 when the book came out. Anyway I sat down on the little bench in the children’s section, opened the book, and was hooked.

You know what’s different about Ms. Jones? It’s that her characters live in a real world. They’re not too noble to be irritated by life’s little annoyances. They’re not too concerned with truth and justice to care who gets the last brownie. And that makes her heroes more heroic, not less.

Books I’d recommend: All of DWJ, but especially Drowned Ammet (sheer brilliance), Cart & Cwidder (especially to writers), The Homeward Bounders (more brilliance), The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona… I feel as if I’m forgetting something important, so everyone please insert your favorite DWJ book here.

I highly recommend Terry Pratchett too, but to your blog readers, that’s probably like saying I highly recommend breathing. Of his children’s books, The Amazing Maurice is my favorite.

I know that my personal representative of the target audience (in this case, a 9 year old fantasy loving boy) enjoyed the adventure/danger/questy part of the story most, whereas I (and I bet more of the other grown-ups who've read Jinx), enjoyed the more personality-driven first half (although I could be wrong!).   Which part of the book was more fun/more challenging to write? 

I’m so glad to hear he enjoyed the book. I really enjoyed writing the first half, with its focus on character and everyday life. I think a lot of people like reading about everyday life, which is why Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana books are such a hit.

It was a lot of fun creating the Urwald, and creating Simon’s house, both of which are somewhat archetypal so it was largely a matter of writing my way into familiar places. And of course it was fun getting to know the characters. Then of course the story developed out of who the characters are.

My impression so far is that children like the idea that Jinx can do magic. They would like to do a bit themselves. They like the action, the monsters, the scary stuff at Bonesocket, and they think it would be pretty cool to live in a wizard’s house.

And just dragging Sophie back into it, I don't think I'm alone in feeling that if you ever felt like writing Sophie and Simon stand-alone stories they would be welcomed....

Simon’s and Sophie’s backstory! I’d love to write that. Not sure if I’ll ever get the chance. It’s a bit darker than Jinx’s, so it might not make good middle grade material. 

If there are any questions that I didn't ask, that you have answers to all ready to go, do feel free to ask them of yourself!

Oh, thank you! I do have one of those, and no one is ever going to ask it. So here goes:

Some have called Jinx’s ability to learn foreign languages a form of magic. But isn’t it an application of second language acquisition theory, meaning that pretty much anyone could do what Jinx does, and isn’t this a rather loaded question?

Yes!

Thank you so much, Sage, for the fascinating answers to my questions!  I'm so glad there isn't going to be a long wait for the next instalment.

The winner of the giveaway was alibrarymama.

Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett, for Timeslip Tuesday

By the end of June, I hope to have read all of the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett.  This, like so much else in my life, is an unreasonable expectation, but whatever; at any rate, I've been enjoying the process.   Especially since I have just finished my favorite of the series--Night Watch (2002).   It knocked my socks off, wrung them out, and left them to dry.

Sam Vimes has risen through the ranks to become Commander of the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork.  He is a duke. He is rich.  He loves his wife, and looks forward to the birth of their first child.

Then time turns ugly on him.  A magical storm sweeps down on the city, and with bolt of lightning, sends Sam back to the very year he first joined the City Watch.  The mysterious History Monks reassure him that history really wants to make things come out the way they should, but their vagueness is hardly comforting.   Sam's arrival coincides with the untimely, and temporally wrong  death of the Watch's sergeant--  the man who was supposed to be Sam's own mentor.   Unhappy, confused, and wanting home to still be a place that he can someday get to, Sam is at first uncertain about what he should do.

But he knows what's about to happen in the city--it's about to go up in flames of violence and rioting and death, and there are bad, bad people there pushing the violence forward.   And he knows that young Sam needs his mentor, or he won't grow up to be himself.  But most of all, he knows that he is a policeman, and he knows he is needed.

So he takes the place of the dead sergeant, and does the best he can to keep as many people safe.  Even though he knows that people will die, regardless.

And oh my gosh, I love books so much where the hero is a truly decent, good person, who knows that things are hopeless, but does the best he or she can because that is the only thing do to.   And I love books where that hero not only clings to a dogged, hard-won refusal to give up, but also is smart enough to see chances where none exist.  Sam Vines reminded me, to my great surprise and pleasure, of two of my favorite heroes-- Phaedrus from The Mark of the Horse Lord, by Rosemary Sutcliff, and Eugenides, from Megan Whalen Turner's Queen Thief Series.  

Of course, since this is Pratchett, it isn't the same as either of those two.  It's funnier, and more farcical, in true Discworld style.  There were plenty of bits that made me chuckle.  But I wept a little, at the end...

It is, I think, the time-travel of it that makes it so poignant--because Sam knows what's going to happen.   Because he can see his young self, about to face things that shouldn't happen.  Because he doesn't know if he'll get home again, to see his wife and unborn child... And still he does the best he can.

If you've not read any Discworld books before, but are intrigued--this can be read as a stand-alone, as long as you don't try to make sense of the things you don't understand, and just accept, for instance, the fact that the librarian of the Unseen University of wizards is an orangoutang.

Why I wish I could be a guest in my own home (it's the books...), plus Bout of Books Sign Up

My sister-in-law just returned to England after a lovely two week visit.  In large part it was lovely because she is a reader (and published writer) of children's books, and I got to do one of the things I love best--browse my shelves and find piles and piles of books for a guest to read!

Here's what she got through during her visit:

The only bittersweet part of all this book fun was that I had to go to work.  I did not get to be a guest too--reading and basking in the sun and resting (whiney whiney whiney).   So when my dear boy said his throat was killing him, and could he stay off school on this lovely sunny spring day, I tenderly acquiesced (I'm not feeling that great either...).   And though I won't actually get to be a guest for the day (there are Chores to be done), I'm planning on doing a lot of reading.  It will be good for my mental health.

And so I am sneaking in under the sign-up wire for the Bout of Books Readathon...

And I will start reading, after, of course, I carefully put all the books shown above back to their proper places, and restore the lego creations I stashed in the laundry room two weeks ago.

The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blakemore

The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blakemore (Walker Childrens, middle grade, Jan. 2013)

The three Appledore-Smith kids were leading a perfectly normal life until the horrible day their father suffered a debilitating stroke.  Next thing they know, their mother is dragging them off north to the town of Crystal Springs, Maine--to the mysterious old Water Castle, a tangled labyrinth of a house built by their ancestor.  There he had hoped to find the water of life...and there Ephraim, the middle child, can't help but hope that if the stories of the water of life are true, it might break his father free from the prison the stroke has trapped him in.

With the unlikely, and at first unwilling, help of Mallory, whose family worked for the Appledore family long ago, and Will, whose family has nursed a feud against them for over a century, Ephraim begins to explore the Water Castle.  He and his new comrades find themselves solving a mystery that combines science and story, past and present.   And at the end, there is the water...

Interspersed with the story of Ephraim and co. are flashbacks to the past of 1908, that tell the story of Nora, a young black girl from Mallory's family, recruited by old Mr. Applebaum so long ago to help him in his quest for the water of life.   She was his research assistant, hobnobbing with the likes of Nicola Tesla, seizing the chance to learn all she could so that she could explore all the great, vast world, like the explorers racing to be the first to find the North Pole...and her story plays an integral part in shaping the present.

The Water Castle is perhaps slow to start, and I was initially unwarmed by the uncomfortable social dynamics in which Ephraim finds himself enmeshed--lots of things go wrong at first, especially at school.  It didn't seem like the book was going to live up to the promise of its utterly appealing cover.  But as the story progressed, and grew simultaneously more focused and more complex, I was sucked in.   And was rewarded by the very nice twist at the end.

There's radioactivity, tragedy, generations of complex social relationships, a Van der Graaf generator that turns ugly on Ephraim, libraries full of books, hidden rooms that defy conventional architecture, questions about what science is, and what exploration is--why does it matter if the North Pole is found?  And there's the biggest question of all--if the water of life was real (even if it just extended your natural life), would you drink it?

Best thing--the science is really cool, and the book stars both girls and boys who love it.  Give this one to your kid who likes both fantasy and the history of science--it's not fantasy, but it has that feel.

It's possible to explain everything that happens rationally, and the reader can have fun doing that.  But it's a much more powerful story (that twist I mentioned....) if you can suspend disbelief, and accept, along with Ephraim and Mallory and Will, that science can be truly wondrous. 

Here are other reviews, at Fuse # 8 and at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Disclaimer:  I received a surprise review copy from the publisher just recently.  I had already gone out and bought my own on a biblio-shopping-therapy whim (at an indie bookstore, so I could feel Righteous), and I had picked this one out because it was the only one that had a kid on the cover who wasn't white--Mallory (because if enough people buy more books with non-white kids on the cover, maybe there will be more of them some day), and because the cover was, in more general terms, one that screamed at me that this was a book I had to read.  Stone griffins etc.   Of course, having bought the book, I felt no pressure to actually read it, because there was no rush to do so, so I'm very glad I got a second one that came with the all impetus attached to review copies!  Now I keep one, the library gets one, and everyone is happy.

Except perhaps Ephraim and Will and Mallory, who are left in a somewhat "eeks what will happen next" place....

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantsy (5/12/13)

Happy Mother's Day, and welcome to this week's round-up of middle grade sci fi/fantasy postings from around the blogs.  If I missed your post, let me know!

The Reviews

The Ability, by M.M. Vaughan, at Charlotte's Library

An Army of Frogs, by Trevor Price and Joel Naftali, at Now Read This!

Astronaut Academy Re-Entry, by Dave Roman, at Charlotte's Library (I don't generally include graphic novels, but I love this one lots and its my own review.  Also it is science fiction, which is thin on the mg ground)

Canary in a Coal Mine, by Madelyn Rosenberg, at Geo Librarian

Charlotte Sometimes, by Penelope Farmer, at The Book Smugglers

The Cheshire Cheese Cat, by Carmen Agra Deedy, at Bunbury in the Stacks (audiobook review)

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, LibLaura5,  Salima Korri Reviewing the Writing, The Book Cellar and YA Bibliophile (audiobook review)

The Game of Sunken Places, by M.T. Anderson, at Great Books for Kids and Teens

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, at Nerdy Book Club

Gustav Gloom and the Nightmare Vault, by Adam-Troy Castro, at Log Cabin Library

Here Where the Sunbeams are Green, by Helen Phillips, at Book Nut

In a Glass Grimmly, by Adam Gidwitz, at There's a Book 

Jinx, by Sage Blackwood, at io9 and Reading Rumpus

Loki's Wolves, by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr, at Ms. Yingling Reads, Great Imaginations, Charlotte's Library, and Alice, Marvels

The Menagerie, by Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland, at Readers by Night

Museum of Thieves, and City of Lies, by Lian Tanner, at Kid Lit Geek

New Lands (The Chronicles of Egg, 2), by Geoff Rodkey, at Akossiwa Ketoglo
and thehopefulheroine

The Runaway King, by Jennifer Nielsen, at Bibliophilic Monologues

The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, at  Kid Lit Geek and Scott Reads It

The Silver Bowl, by Diane Stanley, at Madigan Reads

The Spindlers, by Lauren Oliver, at That's Another Story

Stolen Magic, by Stephanie Burgis, at Waking Brain Cells

The Storm Bottle, by Nick Green, at Geo Librarian

Summer and Bird, by Catherine Catmull, at alibrarymama

Teacher's Pest, by Charles Gilman, at BookYAReview, and Tim's Book Reviews

The Time Cavern, by Todd Fonseca, at Time Travel Times Two

The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blakemore, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George, at Kid Lit Geek


Authors and Interviews:
(note to publicists--please feel free to send me blog tour lineups with links to the specific posts--I'd be happy to include them, but don't always have time to track them all down myself!)

Jessica Day George (Wednesdays in the Tower) at Cracking the Cover

Soman Chainani (The School for Good and Evil) at Cracking the Cover

Liesl Shurtliff (Rump) at Literary Rambles

A Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle character intros. at Ms. Yingling Reads, Kid Lit Frenzy, The Write Path, and The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia

Megan Whalen Turner (The Thief) at KidsEBookBestsellers

Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr (Loki's Wolves) at Entertainment Weekly  And here are the stops from the Loki's Wolves blog tour:

Tuesday, May 7 – Bookalicious featuring Ragnarök

Wednesday, May 8 – Mundie Kids featuring Odin

Thursday, May 9 – Novel Thoughts featuring Thor

Friday, May 10--Charlotte's Library featuring Freya and Frey

Saturday, May 11 – Bewitched Bookworms featuring Loki

Geoff Rodkey (New Lands--The Chronicles of Egg, book 2), joined by his agent and editor, at From the Mixed Up Files  and all by himself at Book Dreaming

Ari Goelman (The Path of Names) at The Lucky 13s

Stuart Webb (Jenny at Chatsworth) at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books


Other Good Stuff:

I could have put this in the reviews section, but thought it would be happier down here--Kate Forsyth takes a loving look at an old favorite--The Stone Cage, by Nicholas Stuart Gray, at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles.

I made a short quiz of mother's shown on covers of recent mg sff books for Mother's Day.  It's short cause there aren't many.

And finally, librarians on parade to celebrate spring and promote summer reading (found at 100 Scope Notes).  I find it strangely moving (no pun intended).

Can you identify the Cover Mothers of middle grade sci fi/fantasy? A short (because there aren't many) quiz.

My own Mother's Day fun is that I get to stay home with the kids and my husband's sister while my husband is off doing his Irish Music thing in New York.  Happily, I like my children and sister-in-law more than I like New York, so that's fine.

But none the less,  in an effort to Take Part in the national celebration, and perhaps even Contribute, I offer this short quiz.

It's a truism that mothers don't play an active role in middle grade fantasy and science fiction--mostly they are shown either not noticing their kids are gone/replaced by aliens etc.,  too busy with their own lives/too critical of their children to have a clue, or, occasionally, sad their children aren't there any more.   But there are exceptions.  The four mothers (one a stepmother, one a ghost) shown below are all made it (more or less) on to the covers.   Do you recognize them?  (Hint:  2 are from 2012, one is from 2011, and one is from 2009).   I've put the answers at the end.

I'm pretty sure this shows both father (left) and mother (right), because of them having breakfast together as a family, even though the "mother" looks about 10....

And finally, I'm not quite sure which of these is the mother of the main character (though if pressed, I'd say the last one), but in any event, they are all mothers...

If you can think of any other mothers shown on mg sff covers, do share!

Answers  (highlight to see):  Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, by Frank Cotrell Boyce, Fairest of All, by Serena Valentino, Spellbinder, by Helen Stringer, and A Greyhound of a Girl, by Roddy Doyle.

Loki's Wolves, by K.L. Armstrong & M.A. Marr, Review and Character Blog Tour

Ragnarok, the end of the world in violence and freezing winter, fortold in Norse mythology, is coming...but instead of taking place far off in long ago Scandinavia, it's about to take place in the modern US.  And there's just one little problem--the Norse gods, who were fated to fight in the great battle against the forces of darkness, are dead.


But they have descendants.

Loki's Wolves, by K.L. Armstrong & M.A. Marr (Little Brown, 2013), is the story Matt, a thirteen year old boy who's grown up in South Dakota knowing that he's descended from Thor.   What he didn't expect was that he would have to play Thor's part in Ragnarok...and what is worse, the elders of his family are certain that he has no chance of winning.

Guided (cryptically) by the Norns, Matt is determined not to give up, and sets off to gather together descendants of all the gods.  The first kids he meets, though, are descendants of Loki--a boy named Fen and his cousin Laurie, and they've never been friends with Matt.  Far from it.   But though Loki fought with the bad guys in the original story, if Matt can learn to trust these two unlikely allies, maybe they can work together in this new version of the story....

And so the three of them set out, on a quest to gather certain magical items and find the rest of the god-descended teenagers they need--Odin, Fri.   But it's not a walk in the park--already the forces of darkness are beginning to work against them...and, as this first book comes to a close, the stakes are getting very high indeed...

Of course, it's hard not to compare this to the Percy Jackson series, and indeed, fans of those books will welcome this series--more mythological fun and mayhem!  But Loki's Wolves is somewhat different in feel.  For one thing, the focus of the book is on three distinct characters right from the beginning, so there is more character-driven tension, and less immediate mythological mayhem.   And here we are immersed more gradually in the struggle at hand--this first book is more a gathering of characters, setting the stage for the Real Adventures to come (although it is not without excitements).

My own response--a fine start with a great premise, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

I'm happy to be a stop on the Loki's Wolves Blog Tour, in which questions are asked and answers given by the authors. My assignment was to ask about two of the god-descended teenagers-- Reyna and Ray, descendants of Frey and Freya.

 He launched into explaining the myths: “The twins are Frey and Freya. In the old stories, Freya is the goddess of love and beauty. Frey is the god of weather and fertility. We need to find their descendants, who are apparently also twins.” Matt paused. “Two for one. That’ll make it easier.”

- Loki's Wolves, page 148

Me:  In this first book of the series, the twins Reyna and Ray are somewhat shadowy figures--Fen calls them "Goth Ken and Goth Barbie,"  with good reason--they aren't exactly bubbling over with rich, nuanced demonstrations of personality.  Will we get a chance to know them as individuals later in the series?  Will they get to play a more central role, bringing into the story the characteristic of their ancestral deities, Freya and Frey?  And will we get more insight into their particular powers? 

Kelley: Yes, we definitely don't get a full picture of Ray and Reyna in the first book. They're the most wary of the descendants, unwilling to commit fully to the group and so, unwilling to reveal more of themselves. In Loki's Wolves, the other characters don't have a chance to get to know the twins so, by extension, neither does the reader. Once they become a true part of the team, we'll get to see their real selves. At the same time, they'll learn more about themselves and their powers.

Me:  And why did you decide to make them Goth?  I'm having trouble imaging Freya and Frey, deities of love and procreation and warmth of all sorts, as it were, as morose Goths hanging around a cemetery!   We haven't been told much about their backstory--just that their dad's a  (relatively) rich casino owner, and I'm wondering if there's something that we haven't been told yet….

Kelley: Goth culture is known for its emphasis on morbidity and death, but also seeks to find light and happiness in the dark parts of life. Ray and Reyna are two kids struggling to come to terms with their past and their present--their heritage as gods of light and fertility combined with lives of commercialism and cynicism (as the children of casino owners) They've discovered their affinity for magic and without the proper background regarding their heritage, they associate those powers with the dark arts and have embraced that side of themselves. Like many very young goths, they feel alienated and confused, and they're seeking to find their way.

Me:  I'll look forward to finding out more about them! Thanks very much, Kelley and Melissa!

The other stops on the blog tour are:

Tuesday, May 7 – Bookalicious featuring Ragnarök

Wednesday, May 8 – Mundie Kids featuring Odin

Thursday, May 9 – Novel Thoughts featuring Thor

Saturday, May 11 – Bewitched Bookworms featuring Loki

(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)

Astronaut Academy Re-Entry, by Dave Roman

"They're Mine!"
"No, they're mine!  They live in My room!"

etc.

This was the conversation that ensued when it came time to pick a shelf space for the two Astronaut Academy books by Dave Roman, the second of which, Astronaut Academy Re-Entry (First Second, May 15, 2013) was read about five times each in five days by my two boys (nine and twelve). 

I would have solved the problem by putting them on my own shelves, if I kept graphic novels in my bedroom.  They are that lovable.  They are also very funny--both the words and the pictures.  And they are also very good value for your money.  Not only are they eminently re-readable, but even a fast-reading adult (ie me) will take at least an hour to savor every page the first time through (I didn't let my eyes glide over any of the pictures.  I didn't want to miss anything).

On one level, these books deliver sci-fi fun of a very wacky sort.  The setting is, after all, Astronaut Academy, where students arrive in robot-cat like school bus in space.  There are robots and other high-tech accouterments.   There is also a character who is a ninja bunny, and the mysterious Senor Panda.   There's the very sci-fi game of Fireball, that plays a major role in the events of Astronaut Academy, and lots lots more.

But what there also is, even more so, is characters to love.  From Hakata Soy, the central protagonist, to the kids on Team Feety Pajamas (who spend most of their time in the library, ostensibly Evil, but actually not so much), to the shy, the geek, the sporty kids who make up the gloriously fascinating and diverse student body, there is someone for just about anyone to relate too and sympathize with.

And so the central story line of Astronuat Academy Re-Entry isn't the Fireball excitement, the way Hakata makes peace with his Past, or even the defeat of the heart stealing fiendish monster from space.  Nope, the central story line follows the emotional arcs of lots of kids as they navigate the world of school and friendship and parental expectations (at a wacky school in space, but still universal).   And my heart goes out to them all.

(Here at Tor, you can see nice several pages of the book, staring one of my favorite characters, Thalia Thistle, playing fireball.  And some of the heart eating monster stuff).

It's not a straight-forward, linear progression of story--it's told from multiple points of view.   And things don't necessarily make Sense, especially if you haven't read the first book.   This might make it not a book for everyone.  But who cares about sense, says I,  when you are given a combination of words that read themselves out loud in your head and pictures that make you smile like crazy?

Plus dinosaur cars.  I loved them in the first book, and I was getting worried that they weren't going to be in this book.  But they are.

Here's my review of book 1--Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity.

disclaimer:  review copy received very happily indeed from the publisher. 

The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard, by Gregory Rogers, for Timeslip Tuesday

I am very sad about the recent, and horribly untimely, death of Australian writer and illustrator Gregory Rogers.  I've already featured one of his wordless time-travel picture books (The Hero of Little Street), a book I liked well enough, but today I'm posting about the book I think is his masterpiece, one that is truly a classic, and the one that makes me wish something fierce that Gregory Rogers was still here to give us more --The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard (Roaring Brook Press, 2004).

In this wordless picture book, a boy kicks his soccer ball into an empty theater, and goes in after it.  It is strange, and dark, and abandoned...and utterly fascinating.  The boy finds himself in the costume room, and dressed as an Elizabethan actor, he pulls the curtains aside to go out on the stage....and WHOM!  He's back in time, Shakespeare himself is tripping over the soccer ball, and the play is ruined.

Now the boy must run through the streets of London, pursued by the furious playwright.  He hides behind the cage of a dancing bear...who asks (wordlessly) to be set free...so boy and bear together set off to experience what the city has to offer them. But Shakespeare is nothing if not persistent.  Fortunately the cell block off the Tower of London offers a refuge, and there they find another prisoner (the baron of the title) to be released!

Now Baron, Bear, and Boy are on the run together.  But all is not lost!  Their path takes them right to Queen Elizabeth, and she is charmed...

Shakespeare, however, still wants revenge.  And he chases the boy back to where it all began--the empty stage, and so back home again.

It is sweet and lovely and funny and fascinating, and utterly wonderful.  The story flows just beautifully, despite being wordless.  The artwork is full of detail, full of enthusiasm, and captivating as all get out.  It is a book that is a delight to share with children of just about any age.   Critical and cynical though I am, I cannot think of anything negative at all to say about it.

Thank you, Gregory Rogers, for making me and my children laugh and learn.

The Ability, by M.M. Vaughan

The Ability, by M.M. Vaughan (Margaret K. McElderry Books, middle grade, April 23, 2013), isn't the most desperately original book, but it is not without considerable appeal for younger readers.

Young Christopher is having a rather grim time of it.  His mother is locked in a deep depression, and his teachers loathe him, through no particular fault of his own.  But when he is recruited to be one of six students at a top-secret, government-run boarding school hidden in the heart of London, everything changes.  This is no ordinary school--it exists to train kids to use their extrasensory abilities.  Here at last Chris can excel (his mind-reading skills are exceptional) and make friends.

But there is a catch.  The kids at this school are being trained, benevolently, but still, to work for the government...and their first mission starts sooner than planned.  Someone out there is using these same abilities to drive insane everyone who attended the first incarnation of this school, years ago.  And the prime minister himself is a target.

The strong kid-appeal part of the book comes from the loving description of the school and its curriculum.   It's a wish-fulfillment of interior decoration, tasty food, bonding with quirky kids, and recognition of Special-ness.    The adult reader might find the character development somewhat superficial (the brainiest of the group says at one point "I want to finish some extra advanced physics that I'm working on" p. 163),  the two girls are a sweet one who likes pink and a tousle-haired tough girl, and the other two boys are an amusing foreigner and a bully who isn't so bad after all).  And the same adult might wonder when something will actually start Happening...which, toward the end, it does, when there is a direct confrontation with the villains of the piece.

Because the reader is told right at the beginning who the bad guys are and what their motivation is, and sees them at work during the book, the suspense is somewhat lacking.  A violent twist toward the end does up the stakes, but a tad too late....

All this being said, the younger reader of spy/mystery/paranormal ability school stories about special kids (who is new to these various bits of genre) might well enjoy it tremendously.  After all, everything is fresh when you read it for the first time.

(Note to grown-ups choosing books for kids--the violent twist at the end involves Chris loosing control of his abilities and actually killing one of the bad guys (which distresses Chris very much, quite understandably).  Though of course the bad guys had been using their abilities in twisted ways, and there had been a few disturbing indications that the paranormal abilities of even the good kids weren't all fun and games, I was a little taken aback by this un-glossed-over death, and just wanted to mention it to the gate keepers out there...)

disclaimer:  advance review copy received from the publisher

This Week's Round-up of Middle Grade Fantasy and Sci Fi from around the blogs (May 5, 2013)

This week's roundup of middle grade fantasy and science fiction is brought to you from the Springfield Marriott, where I am at the New England Society for Childrens' Book Writers and Illustrators, trying hard to remember to introduce myself as "a writer of archaeological non-fiction" and not "a book blogger." As always, please let me know if I missed your link; I'll add it when I get home this afternoon!

The Reviews:

Alanna: the First Adventure, by Tamora Pierce, at Leaf's Reviews

An Army of Frogs, by Trevor Pryce and Joel Naftali, at Ms. Yingling Reads  

Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu, at YA Book Shelf

The Colossus Rises, by Peter Lerangis, part 3 of a joint review at  Maria's Melange and The Brian Lair

Deadweather and Sunrise (Chronicles of Egg Book 1), by Geoff Rodkey, at Project Mayhem

The Flame and the Mist, by Kit Grindstaff, at Waking Brain Cells

Fortunately, the Milk, by Neil Gaiman, at Educating Alice

Frogged, by Vivian Vande Venlde, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Garden Princess, by Kristin Kladstrup, at  Ms. Yingling Reads

The House of Secrets, by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini, at Good Books and Good Wine
and Book Dreaming

How I Met My Monster, byR.L. Stine,  at Ms. Yingling Reads

Jinx, by Sage Blackwood, at Bookends

Johnny and the Bomb, by Terry Pratchett, at Time Travel Times Two

The Key and the Flame, by Claire M. Caterer, at Candace's Book Blog

Loki's Wolves, by K.L. Armstrong & M.A. Marr, at Fantasy Literature

Lost Worlds, by Andrew Lane, at The Book Zone

The Menagerie, by Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland, at Challenging the Bookworm

A Mutiny in Time, by James Dashner, at One Librarian's Book Reviews 

The Peculiar, by Stefan Bachmann, at We Fancy Books

The Planet Thieves, by Dan Krokos, at Finding Wonderland

The Reluctant Assassin, by Eoin Colfer, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Renegade Magic, by Stephanie Burgis, at Waking Brian Cells

The Runaway King, by Jennifer Nielsen, at alibrarymama, Reads for Keeps, Karissa's Reading Review, and Geo Librarian

The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, by Nikki Loftin, at The Hiding Spot 

Sorrowline (Timesmith, book 1), by Niel Bushnell, at The Children's War

Teacher's Pest, by Charles Gilman, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Tilly's Moonlight Garden, by Julia Green, at The Children's Book Review

Troubletwisters, and The Monster (Troubletwisters 2), by Garth Nix, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile and Charlotte's Library

Wonder Light: Unicorns of the Mist, by R.R. Russell, at Candace's Book Blog

Authors and Interviews

Geoff Rodkey (The Chronicles of Egg) at Project Mayhem and at Akossiwa Ketoglo

Liesl Shurtliff (Rump) at Cynsations

Adam Glendon Sidwell (The Buttersmith's Gold) at The Write Path (giveaway)

Other Good Stuff

At the Horn Book--"Middle Grade Saved My Life"--thoughts on keeping mg distinct from YA, and why it matters

An excerpt from Faeryland: The Secret World of the Hidden Ones, by John Matthews, at Tor

Neil Gaiman's keynote address from the Digital Minds Conference

This giant rubber ducky (which I found at Tor) is touring the world:

Off to NESCBWI

Today I am going off to Springfield, MA, for the Society of Childrens' Book Writers and Illustrators conference.  My sister-in-law from England, Anna Adeney, who's published forty odd books for children, is coming with me, which is a nice bonus.  

I helped her work on her website yesterday.  I helped her accidentally delete a large chunk of it.  I felt very, very, sad.  So did she.  Sigh.

But regardless, off we go, and when I will come home I will catch up on all my reading and reviewing and get the garden completely into shape and catch up at work and do a little light home renovation (many people seem to like bathroom doors, and Anna brought the last roll of dining room wallpaper we needed with her from England, which saved us some money) and possibly, I hope, I really mean to, write my book.

More anon.

Waiting on Wednesday--Grumpy Cat, and Penguins Hate Stuff

I am feeling rather more cheerful than I did 15 minutes ago.  Since then, I have perused Chronicle Books' most recent catalogue.  To my surprise and pleasure, I found two picture books that I am looking forward to sharing, not with a young child, but with my older boy, who will, when they are released, be 13 (and presumably an occasionally grumpy adolescent).  Yeah for twisted humor!

Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book (October) is a compilation of Grumpy Cat (apparently an Internet sensation), being grumpy.  It looks like it could make even the most sullen 13 year old crack a smile.

The second book that appealed tremendously is Penguins Hate Stuff, by Chris Stones (July 16, 2013): 

"Penguins hate zombies. They also hate serpents, bad haircuts, sock monkeys, leprechauns, Halloween, oil rigs, vampire penguins, and mermaids. They really hate clowns, but they really like capes, balloons, and free vacations. This quirky collection reveals the discriminating tastes of these adorable flightless Antarctic birds who encounter odd foes (snow sharks, beavers, cowboys, samurai...), but still manage to enjoy the little things in life. With wit, humor, and the occasional alien invasion, Greg Stones's paintings capture the playfully absurd life of penguins."

I feel great love toward this book already. 

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.