A readathon of my own! Gratefully Reading the Books Given

I have a long, long lovely weekend ahead of me (taking Friday off, and VJ Day on Monday--a perk of living in Rhode Island) and so I am challenging myself to read all the lovely books that have come my way as gifts!  I am bad at reading presents, because having them in the house almost feels like present enough.  So my tbr shelves include Christmas gifts and birthday gifts from loved ones, some unread for several years (oh the shame) and books from dear bloggers (some also unread for years sigh).   But no more!  I will read them this weekend, and then start working on my  Christmas/birthday present wishlist with an untrammeled heart. 

Would you like to join me in my Gratefully Reading the Books Given Readathon?  I realize that I might be alone in my shame, but if not, please feel free to play too!  I went and poked at Mr. Linky, but you seem to have to pay to make a widget of your own, and I don't feel like doing that.  So I'm going to do a round-up by hand-- leave a comment with your intro post to join!


Here are my own presents (and doubtless I am missing some, because the piles of books are deep and dark and precariously staked).   I will start reading them Thursday evening, and have them all read by Monday evening!

Clockwise from left:  from-- Maureen, an unknown blogger (it's been so long), and Brandy:

From my dear husband (yes, that first one is a book by a favorite author that I've had for years and haven't read):

And one more from my husband, and one from my sister:

The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare, by MG Buehrlen

It's a great time to be a reader of YA time travel--books like The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare, the debut novel of MG Buehrlen (Strange Chemistry, February 2014), keep coming down the pike and offering new twists and turns.   (And I am willing to bet that Outlander is going to keep things hot, as it were--I don't think there any danger of YA time-travel romance petering out any time soon!) 

So the basic premise of today's book is time travel through the visiting of past lives (56 of them in the case of a teenaged girl named Alex Wayfare).  But these are not touristy past life visits, but science-fictionally masterminded ones.  And (as is so often the case) the mastermind in question has been corrupted by the power he wields over the past...and it is his motives and ploys that shape the time travelling.

And Alex, when we first meet her, has no clue.  She thinks she's just a spaz with weird visions and not friends, and so she shrinks into a cocoon of social outcastness, letting the bullying and unkindness go by unopposed while she tinkers with mechanical things and grieves for her little sister who is fighting cancer. 

But then Alex starts to move through time (with the help of a mysterious older man who shows up to be her mentor)....and on her first trip back to the past she meets a boy called Blue and feels a strong bond with him.  This is especially important to her because he is the first person outside her family she has felt kinship with for ages.  At which point, some of us are thinking "oh, time travel romance" but then the twisty speculative fiction side of things ratchets the pace up a notch.  There is a backstory to Blue that Alex could never have guessed...a story far stranger than insta romance.  

And there is danger afoot, as the aforementioned mastermind becomes aware that Alex has been born again, and is travelling once more.

And so Alex is on the way to the races of, uh, destiny  as she struggles to find Blue again (her primary motivation), and keep getting herself out of the troubles she tumbles into, and the troubles she was born, and born again, to keep on having.....

This is one I found interesting intellectually, more than warm fuzzy emotionally.  On the plus side,  I liked very much the premise on which the time travelling was based.  The time travelling expeditions were nicely detailed and vivid, especially Alex's time as a sharpshooting gang member in the wild west!  Alex inhabits the bodies of her past selves, but without their memories...but with the past persona still able to take over the action as required.  It made for a a nicely twisty sort of time travel!

It was a good premise, but Alex is a bit of a psychological mess and not the most sympathetic character.  Her prime motivation--finding in time travel bonds of affection (ie, making sure Blue cares about her)--is perhaps understandable, but it diminishes the more intriguing scaffolding of the larger worldbuilding and story.  Throughout the book Alex, instead of focusing on the bigger picture, is busier getting external validation from all the guys she was encountering--her mysterious mentor in time travel, Blue, and the guys in the past who loved her past selves, and a guy in the present who wants to be her friend despite her asocial prickliness. 

And I felt a bit put out that her little sister, with whom she had been very close, had become just her dying sister, and not a person with whom she had a convincing relationship.   And on top of that, Alex is given the gift of magical healing through time travel--no more asthma, and no more glasses.   So basically her character arc didn't do that much for me, until right toward the end of the book, when she starts showing independent agency...

At which point I started zipping through it like crazy, and the last 60 pages or so went woosh.  At which point it becomes clear that this book is essentially a set-up for larger confrontations to come--I am glad that even though the Strange Chemistry imprint is no more, MG Buehrlen is moving ahead with the sequel, The Untimely Deaths of Alex Wayfare. 

So just for clarity-- I am cautiously recommending/not discouraging anyone from reading The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare, because it is an interesting read for time travel fans, and there are those who like it much more than me, and maybe you would be one of them.

If you want a second opinion, here's a good one at The Social Potato-- note that it's a four star review that's mostly negative!

Drift, by M.K. Hutchins

Drift, by M.K. Hutchins (Tu Books, April 2014, upper middle grade/younger YA)

Imagine a world where turtle islands swim through the ocean, each bearing on its back a great tree, each trailing the roots of its tree beneath them.   Some are large, some small, and all are home to people.   But it is not a peaceful ocean  for the turtles and the people for whom they are home.  The turtles must contend with monstrous nagas, who devour their roots and slow them down in their quests for food; the people must contend with the possibility of larger turtle communities attacking and enslaving them.

Tenjat and his sister came to their small turtle home fleeing danger on a larger island.  Tenjat is determined to become a Keeper-one who works to keep the turtle safe and fed, while being supported by the general populace.  That way he can guarantee that he and his sister will have a safe, prosperous future, without having to burden the turtle by slowing it down with the weight of offspring.  For in this world, to become a husband, farming the turtle ground and reproducing so as to have cheap labor on hand, is the most shameful fate a young man can have.

And even though his sister (for mysterious reasons that she won't tell her brother) objects strongly, Tenjat presents himself at the door to his turtle's great tree, and takes the test....

And what the reader gets next is sort of a Magic School of Turtle Keeper Training, complete with forays into the world of the monsters and the gaining of magical treasures and bullying older students and some good teachers and some bad!  (I liked this part of the book very much).

And then what readers get is Tenjat and his allies having to do some serious turtle-saving, during the course of which they up-end their island's ideas of the natural order of things (big twist here--I'm not sure it is entirely convincing, but it was big and interesting all right!).

So all in all, a good, gripping read.  Readers who make it past the rather depressing farming introduction to the great tree will be rewarded.   It's a good one for your older middle grade reader--there's relationship issues, but not of a "romance is the most important thing" kind, more the sort of still emotionally not yet mature middle-grade kind.  And middle grade readers, like me, do enjoy a good magical school-type story....with cool monsters and magical objects wrested from a mysterious non-world!

My one dissatisfaction with the book is the amount of opprobrium toward "hubs" (husbands), which the aforementioned middle grade reader might have a hard time understanding.  On the other hand, many middle grade kids think that ending up settled with a passel of kids a horrible fate, and so they might relate strongly to Tenjat's cultural prejudice against reproduction.   They might, however, be baffled by his repulsion when he starts feeling "hubish" toward the young woman, Avi, who is his trainer (and a beautiful strong, skilled, full-of-agency-and-independent story trainer at that).   In any event, I felt that I grasped the whole issue of cultural prejudice rather more efficiently than the author gave me credit for, and worried more about sustainable, genetically diverse populations than I was expected too.

I was also slightly bothered by the fact that, while women who marry and reproduce are also not respected, they are seemingly less despised, as if they have less choice, and I am one for gender-equaliaty in public shaming, if public shaming their must be...But on the other hand, I am pretty sure this unbalance comes from Tenjat (being our male POV character) desperately not wanting to become a hub himself, and so we hear more about that side of things....

Drift is inspired by Mayan cosmology, twisted and added to, which makes it a refreshing change, and its people are described as brown skinned, making this one for my list of diverse speculative fiction.   The world-building, especially the Info Dump reveal towards the end, does require that belief be gently folded and put on a top shelf, perhaps more so than most, but that makes it all the more fresh and fascinating for those who cooperate with the story-telling!

Here's  what Kirkus said, which isn't actually all that helpful....but you can read samples on line at Lee and Low, which is more so.  Drift is a Junior Library Guild selection.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

This week's round-up of middle grade science fiction and fantasy from around the blogs (8/2/14)

The first round-up of August!   It was a good week for the letter F.  Please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews:

Archer's Goon, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Leaf's Reviews

Blue Moon, by James Ponti, at The Book Monsters

The Boundless, by Kenneth Oppel, at Waking Brain Cells

The Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson, at Charlotte's Library

The Children of Green Knowe, by L.M. Boston, at Tor

Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce, at Susan the Librarian

Evil Fairies Love Hair, by Mary G. Thompson, at Smitten Over Books

The Familiars, by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, at Bewitched Bookworms

Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times, by Emma Trevayne,  at Dee's Reads

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, at Teach Mentor Texts

The Forbidden Library, by Django Wexler, at Charlotte's Library

The Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer L. Holm, at Book Nut and The Knight Reader

The Frankenstein Journals, by Scott Sonneborn, at The Bookshelf Gargoyle

The Freedom Maze, by Delia Sherman, at books4yourkids

Frostborn, by Lou Anders, at The Bibliosanctum

Gabriel Finley and the Raven's Riddle, by George Hagen, at proseandkahn

Galexy's Most Wanted, by John Kloepfer, at The Write Path

The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing, by Sheila Turnage, at Plenty of Pages

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy, at Log Cabin Library

Icefall, by Matthew Kirby, at Hidden in Pages (audiobook)

The Islands of Chaldea, by Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones, at Parenthetical and On Starships and Dragonwings

Krabat and the Sorcerer's Mill, by Otfried Preussler (translated from the German by Anthea Bell) at Kid Lit Reviews

The Kronos Chronicles (Cabinet of Wonders, etc.) by Marie Rutkoski, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

The League of Seven, by Alan Gratz, at Wandering Librarians

The Magical Mind of Mindy Munsen, by Nikki Bennett, at Mother, Daughter and Son Book Reviews

Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie, by Jeff Norton, at The Book Zone (For Boys)

Mission Unstopable: The Genius Files, by Dan Gutman, at books4yourkids (possibly not spec. fic.???)

The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier, at Geo Librarian

Oliver and the Seawigs, by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, at Manga Maniac Cafe

Return of the Padawan (Star Wars Jedi Academy) by Jeffrey Brown, at Mom Read It

The Riverman, by Aaron Starmer, at mstamireads

Seven Stories Up, by Laurel Snyder, at Book-a-Day Almanac

The Sword of Kuromori, by Jason Rohan, at Blog of a Bookaholic

The Time of the Fireflys, by Kimberly Griffiths Little, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Thickety, by J.A. White, at Evelyn Ink

The Trolley to Yesterday, by John Bellairs, at Charlotte's Library

And quick looks at four middle grade fantasy books, with brief notes for teachers, at The Page Turn


Authors and Interviews

Julia Mary Gibson (Copper Magic) at Literary Rambles (giveaway)

G.A. Morgan (The Fog of Forgetting) at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

Wendy Knight (Banshee at the Gate) at fourfoxesonehound


Other Good Stuff

Another great Tuesday 10-- Sci Fi Time Travel-- at Views From the Tesseract

Here are the July diversity links from Diversity in YA

Kidlitcon 2014 is shaping up to be a nice one for us readers of MG Spec Fic.-- I don't have the full program to present to you yet (because we've extended the deadline for session proposals until this Friday, August 8), but I can tease a little by saying that Mike Jung (of the truly excellent Geeks, Girls, & Secret Identities) will be there, taking part in a WeNeedMoreDiverse panel!  And my program teaser on Friday was the news that Zetta Elliott is coming--she's the author of the upper MG/YA Ship of Souls, among many other books.    

I hope all of you can come too!  (and that includes authors as well--Friday there is a nice chunk of time for author mingling and book promotion--more info. for authors and publishers here)

And another heads-up-- round-about the middle of August, the call will be going out for bloggers who want to take part in judging the Cybils Awards.   For those who haven't heard of them yet, the Cybils are awards given by bloggers to children's and YA books (and aps) in a variety of categories.  There are two rounds of judging--first round panelists read the nominated books (around 140 in MG Spec. Fic) and make a shortlist, from which second round panelists will choose a winner).  If you're a first round panelist, you don't have to read every single last one--each book has to be read by a minimum of two people. 

In any event, it is a great thing to be part of (reading books, chatting about them with your fellow panelists, passionately advocating for your favorites), so do think about throwing your name into the hat! The main criteria for panelists is demonstrated enthusiasm for reading and blogging about the category you want to be part of....so any of you whose blog regularly appears in these round-ups should think about putting your name in for MG Spec Fic (for which I am the category chair).

And finally, Guardians of the Galaxy was really good and all four of us enjoyed it very much indeed!  I laughed and cried (mostly at the beginning, when I though I was watching a trailer for A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness) but mostly I laughed.  "Nothing goes over my head," says one metaphor-challenged character.  "I am too quick for that." (paraphrased....). I was doubtful about the raccoon, but I need not have been.

A Kidlitcon program teaser (and also a note that the deadline for panel ideas has been extended a week)

The program for Kidlitcon 2014 is slowly taking shape.  We've extended the deadline for session proposals a week because we know there are people out there still Mulling, so you have till August 8th to send your idea my way (here's the Official Form, but you can email me on the side if you want--charlotteslibrary at gmail dot com).

Even though the program isn't finished, I can guarantee that it's going to be great.  We have our keynote speaker, Mitali Perkins!  We  have a panel of awesome authors from WeNeedDiverseBooks!  (details to come....)

And just yesterday, in breaking Kidlitcon News, author Zetta Elliott agreed to come be part of a panel--yay!  (it's a panel I'm really excited about that I think is especially important........). 

And of course we also have our own lovely blogging selves on the program, because this is our time to talk too. 

The Forbidden Library, by Django Wexler

The Forbidden Library, by Django Wexler (Penguin, April 2014, middle grade) -- a review in three acts.

Act 1:  In which we meet Alice, and the Library

Alice, who quickly becomes an orphan once she
a.  realizes she's the heroine of a middle grade fantasy
b.  loses her father to a mysterious boat accident in which a nasty insect fairy person might have had a hand

is taken in by her "kindly" uncle who has
a.  a big house
b.  a big house with really strange and creepy staff of two and no clear reason for putting Alice in a maid's room at the top of the house
c.  a Forbidden Library

and Alice of course enters the Forbidden Library and starts becoming embroiled in its secrets.

Act 2:  In which there are magical secrets revealed
Setting:  a library with lots of mysterious bookish passages, nooks, etc, as well as (more unusually) places where the ambiance and environment contained within particular books leaks out, causing physical ramifications.

In the library, Alice meets
a. a cat
b. a boy
both of whom strike up conversations with her,

And finds that
a.  it is possible to read oneself inside certain books, after inadvertently doing so and almost being killed by the cute little deadly killers trapped inside.
b.  She's really good at reading herself into books, and now has psychic control over the whole host of cute little deadly creatures (this comes in useful in Act 3)

[The book is illustrated, but the picture of these little creatures is the only one I noticed because the cuteness is just too cute.  Does anyone else read so fast you can't remember if a book was illustrated or not?]

Act 3--In which we learn that not everyone can be trusted and there were lots of things people weren't telling Alice

Turns out Alice is being used to do something magical that might have ramifications and there is Potentially Fatal Adventure involving the denizen of a very dangerous book indeed....

It's a perfectly fine fantasy adventure, with a nicely detailed and intricate plot and setting ( although I expected more actual bibliophilia).   Not a huge amount of emotional depth, but that's not a necessary prerequisite for middle grade reading enjoyment, and there was enough actual rational thought and sincere feeling on Alice's part to make her more than a place-holder.  She also gets points for pluck.

So basically, I enjoyed reading it just fine, can easily imagine lots of 11 year olds enjoying it, don't particularly want to urge it on adult readers of middle grade fantasy in a Read This Now because My God it is Brilliant way,  but wouldn't want to dissuade anyone from reading it either.   I will be reading the sequel; it ends at a good ending place but clearly there needs to be more.

Those who like The Books of Elsewhere series, by Jacqueline West (another trapped by magic story, though in paintings, not books, and another one with talking cats) might well enjoy this too. 

Here is the UK cover, which I personally prefer; the US cover makes me think of Poltergeist.

Waiting on Wednesday-- The Swallow: a Ghost Story, by Charis Cotter

I do not always see eye to eye with the folks reviewing middle grade fantasy books over at Kirkus, but still, when I read a Kirkus review that says "Middle-grade storytelling at its very best— extraordinary" my little eyes light up.   Although The Swallow: a Ghost Story, by Charis Cotter, sounds like one I'd have wanted to read regardless.....

 

"In 1960s Toronto, two girls retreat to their attics to escape the loneliness and isolation of their lives. Polly lives in a house bursting at the seams with people, while Rose is often left alone by her busy parents. Polly is a down-to-earth dreamer with a wild imagination and an obsession with ghosts; Rose is a quiet, ethereal waif with a sharp tongue. Despite their differences, both girls spend their days feeling invisible and seek solace in books and the cozy confines of their respective attics. But soon they discover they aren't alone--they're actually neighbors, sharing a wall. They develop an unlikely friendship, and Polly is ecstatic to learn that Rose can actually see and talk to ghosts. Maybe she will finally see one too! But is there more to Rose than it seems? Why does no one ever talk to her? And why does she look so... ghostly? When the girls find a tombstone with Rose's name on it in the cemetery and encounter an angry spirit in her house who seems intent on hurting Polly, they have to unravel the mystery of Rose and her strange family... before it's too late."

(I like a synopsis that makes good use of ellipses.)

And here's the Kirkus review.

Coming from Tundra Books, Sept. 9, 2014.

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

The Trolley to Yesterday, by John Bellairs, for Timeslip Tuesday

I feel that many people, knowing they will want to review a time travel book next Tuesday, will read one over the weekend.  And I wanted to...but there was the fence to put up, the sofa cushions to sew, the wood to stack, the birthday party for a child's friend to host at our house, and several etcs.  So when it became clear at c. 5pm today that I wasn't going to finish the book I'd wanted to review (The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare), I turned to a shorter book of yesteryear-- The Trolley to Yesterday, by John Bellairs (1989).   This is the sixth book in a series about Johnny Dixon and the eccentric professor who is his neighbor, but it can stand alone.

So the basic premise of the plot is that the professor has a time travelling trolley in the basement of his house, and has been using it to go back in time to watch the build up to the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.   And Johnny and his friend Fergie intrude themselves into the trolley rides to the past.

Now, I myself would be surprised to find a neighbor had a time-travelling trolley, and had used it not only to go back to 1453, but also to ancient Egypt from whence he had returned with a minor Egyptian god nicknamed Brewster but Johnny and Fergie take it in their stride.  And it is good that they are able to accept the impossible, because back in time in Constantinople they get to experience--

--a boatload of Knights Templar ghosts
--a magical device, given to them by the ghost Templars, that acts as a magical transporter
--the original inventor of the time trolley, who for some time thinks he's a Venetian admiral
--a talking statue that makes them answer Roman trivia questions; if they can't, their stuck in the city's subterranean aqueduct forever
--Brewster's magical abilities

And the more mundane efforts of the professor to save the Christians who have taken refuge in the Hagia Sophia pale by comparison to all these divertissements.

What there is, clearly, is lots of story, and a lot of tense excitement as things get worse and worse for the time travelers and they are separated from their trolley ride home to the future by more and more people who want to kill them (both Christians inquisitors and Muslim invaders).   It was kind of like a time-travelling Mad Libs story.   As I read, I didn't bother to ask "what is happening?"  because there it all was, happening away, and though impossible and rather insane, it all followed a fairly linear path.   I did, however, ask "why are they so blasé about all this magic?" but I guess that's what a time-travelling trolley will do to a person.

I also asked the rather more interesting question "how is this book different from books published today?" and the main thing that struck me (apart from the fact that it was shorter) is that there is very little tension between the characters--there's no important emotional story arc, which I feel most middle grade fantasy books of today at least aspire to.  That's not to say there's no emotion--the friendship and not always amiable interactions between the two boys were just fine, and the emotional desperation of the people inside the besieged city was believably intense.  It's just that the same things would have happened to any old kids just about, and character development wasn't the point at all.

Oddly, Booklist called this one "perfect for the pre-Stephen King set" and I am really having trouble wrapping my head around this...there is no similarity, no sense that the Templar ghosts of today will become the dark horror of tomorrow.   It is just as perfect for the pre-Hemmingway set.

Publisher's Weekly said something I found odd as well--  "Bellairs's vision of Constantinople is as spooky as it is exotic" and I do not know at all what they mean by "exotic" because we barely see the place, unless they mean "not 20th century New York" which isn't saying much, or possibly exotic as in  "having magical talking statues guarding the aqueduct" which is saying more.  It is not exotic in the sense of providing a rich, detailed description of life in a different culture.

However, not all educational opportunities are lost--at least the young reader will know that Constantinople fell, and have a confused but vivid sense of how that day in history played out.

I myself have no desire to read any more John Bellairs, but I can see how the kids of 1989 who would have loved Harry Potter and Percy Jackson would have enjoyed his books.   And I can imagine, though with a tad more effort, kids of today enjoying this book, because it really was rather fun.

(fans of Edward Gorey will have noticed that he did the cover art; here's a post about the book's art at the Goreyana blog which has just distracted me more than somewhat.)

Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson -- Beowulf in the Florida swamps, with football

Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson (Random House, upper middle grade/younger YA, April 2014)

Charlie has come to the Florida sugar cane country for the funeral of his step-dad's foster father, football coach and mentor of generations of boys in a small town up against swampland.   There he meets Cotton, a second step-cousin his own age, who takes him exploring off the edge of town...and what they find there is the start of a battle against darkness.  For off in the swamp a dark, twisted mother is making the town's dead into zombie children.  And Charlie and Cotton are caught in an age old struggle between good and evil that they can't outrun.  Not matter how fast they are....

To my surprise and pleasure, it turned out that I was reading a Beowulf reimagining!   Grendel is played by the zombies, Grendel's mother is of course the mother down in the swamp, and Charlie is forced into the role of the hero!   Very cool.*   I don't think you have to know Beowulf to make sense of things, but it sure added a lot to my own reading pleasure.

But it's more than just a retelling.  It's also a story about family and coming to terms with the past.  Charlie's biological father, who ended up abusing him and his mother, is out of prison, and back in this same small town (he was a football player in sugar cane country too).  And it's a story with lots of football--Charlie's step-dad made it to the big leagues, and so is a returning hero, and just about all the boys in town are football crazy (note--in general, I have no desire to read about football, but I thought it added lots to this particular story).

It's not a story about race, but is a story in which some of the characters (like Charlie's step-dad) are black and some are white, and this is the way things are, and there are tensions but this is not the point.

It's also just a flat out good story.   The sense of place is really, really strong-you can almost feel the slash of the sugar cane on your face, and smell the dark stinking mud-- and it's a place that clearly has deep (and dark) history (a history in which the Native people are a key part, though they are not here in this place at the time of the telling).   Exploring this place, and learning its story, is what sets things in motion.

And Charlie and all the other extended cast of characters are great.  Charlie's step-dad is awesome, Cotton (forced to a high level of erudition by his home-schooling mama) is awesome, and Charlie himself is a character you can root for with conviction.

And on top of that, the whole story manages to fit inside 195 tight and succinct pages, without loosing any umph.   This friendly brevity, and all the football in the book, makes it a good one to offer the kid who likes Chris Crutcher...and who might be ready for a dark supernatural twist alongside the athletics!   It might also be a good one for fans of horror for kids who are now somewhat older.  Here is my idea of a the perfect reader-- the smart seventh through ninth grade ex-Goosebumps reader who plays football and who knows who Beowulf is.

Which is of course not exactly me, but I was also a good reader for it all the same, and enjoyed it lots.  It wasn't too icky, though it was scary (don't give this to a younger kid who gets scared) and tense and a panther dies (sad). There was never once so much non-stop unbroken action that I started skimming, and I loved the Beowulf references.

*A small pedantic note:  I hope future editions change "Welcome to my heriot" on page 118 to "Welcome to my Heorot"-- the first is a death-duty, the second the great hall in Beowulf.   Or even take it out altogether, as it calls for higher level Beowulfian knowledge than most of the target audience will have. Which leads to my one issue with the book--it would have been good if there had been more introduction to that story, because if you don't know it, you might find the references to things like Grendel's arm pretty meaningless.

How I presented at Kidlitcon, and how you can too!

Kidlitcon, the wonderful yearly gathering of book bloggers (Sacramento, October), is seeking proposals for sessions, and I have a rather personal interest in having lots of proposals come in, because I am the Program Organizer, and need program elements to organize.

So I thought to encourage folks to submit I would share the story (not very interesting, but there it is) of how I myself bravely submitted a session idea, and what happened next.

Be the conversation you want to have!
(this is the title of the story, not just a random marketing slogan)

The wonderful thing about Kidlitcon is talking to like-minded people about subjects of keenly shared interest.   But I wanted to make certain sure that the subject I most wanted to talk about, blogging middle grade books, was going to be discussed, and the only way to do this was to propose a session myself.    I didn't want to be all alone at the head of the room, so I asked the Kidlitosphere group* if there was anyone who would join me, and lo!  Katy of BooksYALove and Melissa of Book Nut became my comrades in presenting!

The actual session was tons of fun, with lively audience participation, and we all got so enthused talking about the second topic on the list we'd prepared that we never got to the rest.  (This second topic was the issue of  "boy book/girl book" -- gendered marketing, reader/parent bias, individual readers vs gender blocks, the idea that boys don't read girl books, or don't read at all, etc etc. (This could be a session all by itself, with YA books and picture books too.)

This year there's a Theme to Kidlitcon--Blogging Diversity (and here's one of the organizers, Tanita Davis, talking about what we mean when we talk about diversity).   But!  (I will make it an even bigger BUT!!!)  This does not mean that diversity will be the only thing talked about.  On Friday there will be times where there are two sessions at the same time, and so there will be room for general bloggish sessions as well as those focusing on diversity.    I hope that lots of bloggers come who have never been to a Kidlitcon before, who haven't had a chance to talk about some of the topics that have come up in the past, and I want to be sure that there are things on the program to inspire and enthuse them (not that diversity sessions won't inspire and enthuse, but I want entry level sessions too).

Here's a sample Kidlitcon schedule (from 2011)--take a look, and think about what conversations you want at this year's conference! 

The deadline for proposals is August 1; here is the submission form.  If you think you might want to talk about something but are uncertain, do feel free to email me (charlotteslibrary at gmail dot com), and I will offer advice, encouragement, the possibility of matchmaking with others interested in the same topic, etc., to the best of my ability.

(and if you have never been before, and are on the fence about even coming, here are recap posts that some of us who went to Austin last year wrote.  None of us regretted it....)

 *a Yahoo list for children's book bloggers; more info. on how to join here

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs (7.27.14)

The last round-up of July....please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

The Ability, by M.M. Vaughan, at CSL Children's Department Blog

Blue Moon, by James Ponti, at The Book Monsters

Blue Sea Burning, by Geoff Rodkey, at The Book Monsters

The Broken King, by Philip Womack, at Our Book Reviews Online

The Castle Behind Thorns, by Merrie Haskell, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

Fairy Luck, by J.L. Bryan, at Word Spelunking

The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen, at A Tapestry of Words

Fiona Thorn and the Carapacem Spell, by Jen Barton, at This Kid Reviews Books

The Fog of Forgetting, by G.A. Morgan, at Charlotte's Library (with necklace giveaway!)

Hollow Earth, by John and Carol E. Barrowman, at Second Childhood Reviews

The Hound of Rowan, by Henry H. Neff, at Leaf's Reviews

How I Became a Ghost, by Tim Tingle, at Guys Lit Wire

Hunt for the Hydra, by Jason Fry, at alibrarymama 

The Luck Uglies, by Paul Durham, at Waking Brian Cells

Magic in the Mix, by Annie Barrows, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier, at Log Cabin Library

Nightingale's Nest, by Nikki Loftin, at Good Books and Good Wine

Nim's Island, by Wendy Orr, at Books & Other Thoughts

Ninth Ward, by Jewell Parker Rhodes, at Wandering Librarians

Oliver and the Seawigs, by Philip Reeve, at The Hiding Spot books4yourkids and In Bed With Books

Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy, by Karen Foxlee, at Fantasy Book Critic and Good Reads with Ronna

The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, at The Write Path'

Skullduggery Pleasant, books 1-3, by Derek Landy, at Woven Magic

The Storybook of Legends, by Shannon Hale, at Hit or Miss Books

The Swap, by Megan Shull, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile
and Once Upon a Twilight

A Tale of Two Castles, by Gail Carson Levine, at Librarian of Snark

Taylor Davis and the Flame of Findul, by Michelle Isenhoff, at Christina Mercer

The Terror of the Southlands, by Caroline Carlson, at Wandering Librarians

The Time of the Fireflies, by Kimberley Griffiths Little, at Word Spelunking

Zombie Baseball Beatdown, by Paolo Bacigalupi, at Nerdy Book Club

a two-fer (sp?) at the Social Potato--The Luck Uglies and The Eighth Day

and another two-fer at Ms. Yingling Reads-- The Gloomy Ghost, by David Lubar, and  File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents (All The Wrong Questions #2.5) by Lemony Snicket
The Avatar Battle, by Chad Morris, at The Write Path








Other Good Stuff


A Kidlitcon 2014 update from Jen at Jen Robinson's Book Page,  and at KidLitosphere Central, Tanita asks "What do we mean when we talk about diversity....and how you can contribute to the conversation."  The deadline for session proposals is August 1st.

And speaking of diversity, here's a nice list of mg sff fantasy books that fit the bill at Girls in Capes!

And here's another good list, of magical time travel books, at Views from the Tesseract  (when I started reviewing a time travel book every Tuesday, four years ago, I thought I would run out of books in about five or six years.  How wrong I was!)

Did you ever read E. Nesbit's story for younger children, The Book of Dragons?  It's a collection of eight lovely dragon stories.   At Oz and Ends, I just learned that a comics adaptation of the story is in the works from online comics magazine Off Registration, with help from Kickstarter.

Wondering what favorite authors will publish next (and hoping that the answer is "something" even if googling won't tell you more)

One of the nice (?) things about being a fan of Megan Whalen Turner is that you know she is working on the next book and the years and years it will take will result in a good book.  But lately, looking at my bookshelves, I have found myself wondering in a somewhat anxious way how certain other authors I like very much are doing. 

Sometimes this wondering leads to happiness.  Lena Coakly, for instance, wrote a book, Witchlanders about which I said "it's a cold, clear read of a book, that made lovely pictures in my mind" and I continue to be convinced it would appeal lots and lots to boys moving past the Ranger's Apprentice series.  So there I was looking at Witchlanders, and wondering if I should offer it to my 11 year old now, or wait, and I thought, wow, 2011--that's a long time ago, and I became anxious, hoping she was still writing, wondering if I'd missed a book....and lo!  A visit to her website last week let me know she was writing away...a visit just now has information about her new book!

"Keep an eye out for WORLDS OF INK AND SHADOW, my forthcoming book from Abrams (US) and Harper Collins (Canada).  What’s it about?
On a lonely Yorkshire moor, young Charlotte Bronte must save her siblings and herself when they are haunted by the characters they themselves created."

So that is good.

But gee, I wish English author Caro King would write another book.  Her Seven Sorcerors duology is really really good, and Kill Fish Jones is rather brilliant in a darkly funny, thought-provoking way.  She has no website; there is no news.  

I just visited Rebecca Barnhouse's website--Coming of the Dragon and Peaceweaver are lovely historical fantasy, and Peaceweaver came out in 2012...so maybe the next one is coming?  will there be a next one?  will there ever be anything again?  I found some comfort in placing a book of hers for adults on my shopping list (Recasting the Past: the Middle Ages in Young Adult Literature), but that's not the same as another story.

And Elizabeth Bunce is an author who hasn't yet written a book I've fall in love with, but her books, especially StarCrossed, came close enough that I am full of hope that her fourth one will be the charm.   Let us check her website....nothing about a new book.

So anyway, on general principals I send lots of hopeful and encouraging thoughts through the ether to all authors (whether I know them or not) who might be writing books I will love. 

Who are you hoping will write another book sooner rather than later?

Mrs. Hurst Dancing & Other Scenes from Regency Life 1812-1823

Before my sister comes to visit me, she peruses the holdings of the Rhode Island library system, and when she arrives, there are her books.  On her last visit, she thoughtfully chose one I'd never heard of, which I enjoyed very much.

Mrs. Hurst Dancing is a gem of a book.  It is a collection of the water-colors of a young Regency woman, Diana Sperling, in which she's captured the daily lives of her brothers, sisters, parents and guests.  There are dances and donkey rides, sometimes ending in falling off the donkey.  There are expeditions in the countryside, sometimes involving fierce campaigns against wasps' nests, and journeys, sometimes involving getting stuck in the mud.  And these are lovely pictures, in the sense that they make these people from the past seem real and friendly. 

But what is more unexpected, and more delightful, are the pictures of the Sperling family throwing themselves with gusto in any domestic activity that might be of interest.  There's  scene of chicken chasing, and a lovely picture (I think it's my favorite) entitled "Mrs Sperling murdering flies--assisted by her maid who received the dead and wounded."   Mrs. Sperling is perilously standing tiptoe on the windowsill, swatting at a fearsome swarm, while the maid, perched on the chair-rail and clinging to the curtain, catches corpses in  basket....

And there's a lovely picture of brother Henry electrifying a chain of the others which his hand-cranked generator!

So if you are at all a fan of Regency books, do get a hold of this one--it is delightful.

If you live in Rhode Island--I'm about to return Mrs. Hurst to the stacks, and it will be up for grabs again!

The Shadow Hero, by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew

The Shadow Hero, by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew (First Second, July 15, 2014, YA) is a graphic novel about a boy who becomes a superhero... Green Turtle, the first Asian American superhero!

During the Golden Age of superhero comics, the 1940s, the Green Turtle burst onto the scene to fight for China against the invading Japanese.   Created by Chu Hing, a Chinese American cartoonist, it's probable he too was intended by his creator to be Chinese, though his face was never shown clearly enough to be certain.  He didn't burst with any success--there are just five issues about his adventures, and there were no clues about his origins.

Now we have that backstory.   In The Shadow Hero, Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew tell of how Hank, a boy born to Chinese immigrant parents becomes an unlikely and at first unwilling hero, pushed by his mother and assisted by the great Turtle Spirit of China.   When his gentle shopkeeper father is killed by the Chinese mafia, Hank is determined to get revenge...and so the Green Turtle bursts onto the scene!

It's a story of much more than superhero adventures--it's historical fiction, as well, creating a vivid picture (lots of pictures, actually, cause of it being a graphic novel), of life in a Chinese community in California before WW II.   And it's a coming of age story of the classic sort--a boy compelled to grow up and embrace challenges he never particularly wanted.   And it's the sum of these parts, resulting in an exciting, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant story, with a lovely little twist right at the end that brings the themes of immigration and identity into zesty focus!


And as a bonus, there's an appendix in which the story of the original Green Turtle is thoughtfully explained, and the first issue of his adventures is reproduced (complete with an advertisement urging the "fellers" to send away for a ju-jitsu course...).

Short answer:  Mind-broadening and entertaining, with an appealing hero and great artwork.

Note on age:  it's very much YA in terms of theme, and there's the expected violence (distressing at times, though not gorey).   So not one for the little kid running around in a cape, but more for readers of 12 and up, who might still have their capes but don't wear them in public anymore.

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia, by Candace Fleming

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia, by Candace Fleming (Schwartz & Wade, YA, July 8, 2014), is an absolutely top-notch exposition of its subject.  It's a pretty gripping story, of course, and reading this book is much like watching a train wreck in progress.  But even knowing the horrible inevitability of the end doesn't make the journey less suspenseful.

Fleming's beautifully lucid prose humanizes its subjects without straying into any sort of overly emotional intimacy--their story is  fascinating one, and they are fascinating people, and she is wise enough to let the primary sources and the facts of the matter speak for themselves without distracting authorly adornment.    It is narrative non-fiction of the sort that makes the people whose lives are recounted believable, without straying into speculation about things we can never know.  And Fleming doesn't tell the reader what to think, meaning that the reader is left with lots of room for independent pondering.

Interspersed in the account of the Romanovs--Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children--are primary sources that give voice to other Russians--the peasants, the workers, the ordinary people.  It is a tremendously effective approach.  Not only does it break up the primary narrative in a friendly sort of way for those with shorter attention spans, but it makes the whole state of affairs in Russia much more vividly real.  Numerous photographs, not just of the Romanovs and Rasputin, but of the world they lived in (including horrific images from WW I), also bring the past to life.

 I never thought I would really truly have a grasp on this period of Russian history (and the causes of World War I--it's the best two page discussion of this I've ever read), but this book has managed to educate me most beautifully.   But though I appreciate being educated immensely, I appreciate even more the fact that I sincerely enjoyed the reading of the book.   It's maybe marketed to YA audiences, but there absolutely no reason why even older adults won't like it too.

(includes bibliography, footnotes, and index)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

The Here and Now, by Ann Brashares, for Time Slip Tuesday

The Here and Now, by Ann Brashares (Delacorte Press, YA, April 2014).

It is a bad future.   Messed up climate.  Plauges.  Scarcity.  Death from plagues.  Hopelessness....But no, there is hope!  With the help of newly perfected time travel, the future can be ameliorated!

Except that a whole bunch of time travelers arrive in our United States and don't actually want to mess anything up--they are too busy not being in the bad future.  And to make sure that their comfy present isn't jeopardized, the leaders of the time travelers make it their priority to enforce Rules, in a nasty, private little dystopia way of their own.

Our heroine, Prenna, is a traveller from the future and after a few years crash course in "passing" she is a (still an odd-ballish) high school student.  Our hero, Ethan, is a normal enough high school boy...who saw her arrive (though she doesn't remember it), and won't stop being her friend.  Even though close contact with the natives is one of the things forbidden to Prenna....

And so things would have gone on uneventfully enough, with Prenna pushing at the rules, and Ethan pushing at her differences (in a nice way--I like Ethan) except that......

There are other time travelers.   And not everyone wants one-way trip to the past to be just a staycation.  Some want to change it.  And one such man tells Prenna secrets she was never supposed to learn.  What he tells her sends Prenna and Ethan fleeing from the time traveler community to try to save the future....and to enjoy as deeply as possible being together in the present they're about to try to change, for as long as they can.

So although this might seem like Romance Time Travel, there's actually a lot more too it.  It's also Stranger in a Strange Land time travel, and two people from different places trying to connect story, and young person questioning assumptions story, as well as two people falling in love and exploring all of that together, and it's really quite interesting once it all gets going.   Not paradigm-shifting interesting of a deeply moving kind, but a good read.

It is, however, not desperately fast to get going--I really truly didn't need to be told with quite so heavy a hand how Ethan understood Prenna.  And the time travel paradoxes make me a bit nervous--Ethan and Prenna really do change time so that the future is different, which should mean Prenna not being Prenna....but sometimes, when reading travel, "whatever" is the best way to simply enjoy a good story.

And it is not one I would give to the sci fi/speculative fiction fan; it's more one, I think, for the high school relationship fan who wants something with a bit of a twist (that doesn't involve vampires).  It doesn't have the full on, gritty, really high stakes feel of a full-blown dystopia; it's more a story using speculative fiction elements to get to the relationship between the two main characters.   To like the story, you have to like Prenna and Ethan, and kind of let the glimpses of the future and the action in the present just carry you along.

So sort of a restful, escapist, romantic spec. fic. with dystopian elements, good for beach reading.

The Fog of Forgetting, by G.A. Morgan, with beautiful necklace giveaway!

The Fog of Forgetting (Book 1 of The Five Stones trilogy) by G.A. Morgan. (Islandport Press, middle grade/YA, July 17, 2014)

The three Thompson brothers--Chase (13), Knox (11),  and Teddy (6)--expected an ordinary summer in family house on the coast of Maine.   They didn't expect to have new neighbors--Evelyn (13) and Frankie (9), orphaned by the Haitian earthquake.   And they most certainly didn't expect that a forbidden excursion out on the waters of coastal Maine would take them through a mysterious fog to a magical land, from which there is (apparently) no returning.

There they find themselves in the middle of a struggle between the powers ruling four different realms, each attuned to one of the four elements.  Three of the rulers seek balance; the four, mastery over all, and unless he is stopped, the conflict could spill over to the ordinary world.   And there the five children find within themselves sufficient strengths to survive the challenges this conflict throws at them, and gain gifts from the magic of the various realms to which they find themselves attuned.   Chase, for instance, finds himself drawn to the element of air, and in the cold of the mountains, the asthma that has plagued him all his life is vanquished by magical healing.

The fantasy elements of The Fog of Forgetting are solid--those who enjoy kids encountering dangers and magics (with some lessons in sword-fighting) will like it.   This aspect of the story is strong enough to carry a group of kids who seem at first  unappealing (young Frankie excepted--the story of her kidnapping by the evil forces, and the unexpected friend she made in her journey, is my favorite part of the book).  But as the kids move past their bickering, lack of respect for each other, and lack of common sense, they are given a chance to become characters the reader can care for, caught up in a sweeping story given depth by the philosophy underlying the fantasy.

I'm awfully pleased to be able to offer a most excellent giveaway in conjunction with this review.  The magic of each of the realms within the story is tied to a gemstone, and there are a limited number of necklaces with these stones to be won!  This lovely Varuna necklace could be yours; just leave a comment below by 12 noon next Monday, July 28th!

Visit these blogs this week for chance to win other necklaces!

• The Book Cellar: Weds 7/23 Exor Necklace
• Not Yet Read 7/24 Metria Necklace

Moving on from my own take on the book to a look at what Kirkus said about it, because I have Issues....Kirkus says that "Morgan’s ambitious debut novel, the first book in the Five Stones Trilogy, has a mildly British feel to it, with vague nods to Swallows and Amazons and Harry Potter."   I guess I can see the "mildly British feel" (though I think I would say English)--there are more books set in England  in which children pass into magical realms than there are books with American kids, in America, doing the same.    Harry Potter...uh, no.  This is an adventure fantasy, with treks through hostile landscapes, meetings with mythical powers, sword-fighting.    The only similarity I saw is the age of the protagonists.  And Swallows and Amazons? No.  Swallows and Amazons is all about deep imaginative play (with sailboats involved) and just because this adventure starts with a (motor) boat doesn't mean it has anything in common with S. and A.  


Disclaime: review copy received from the publisher

The week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs (20 July, 2014)

Here's this week's round-up; as usual, please let me know if I missed your post!  Thanks.


The Reviews

11 Birthdays, by Wendy Mass, at Books Beside My Bed

The Boundless, by Kenneth Oppel, at Bookends  and Mister K Reads

The Burning Shadow, by Michelle Paver, at The Book Monsters

The Cat Who Wished to Be a Man, by Lloyd Alexander, at Fantasy Literature

The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau, at That's Another Story 

The Extraordinary Book of Doors, by Anne E.G. Nydam, at Charlotte's Library

Fire and Ice (Spirit Animals Book 4), by Shannon Hale, at proseandkahn

The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie, by Kirsty Murray, at Charlotte's Library

The Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer L. Holm, at Mom Read It

Hell Hound Curse (Sammy Feral's Diaries of Weird), by Eleanor Hawkin, at Nayu's Reading Corner

House of Dark Shadows, by Robert Liparulo, at Time Travel Times Two

Minion, by John David Anderson, at This Kid Reviews Books and Charlotte's Library

My  Zombie Hamster, by Havelock McCreely,  at Wondrous Reads

The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier, at Great Imaginations, Reader Noir, and Lunar Rainbows

Of Sorcery and Snow (Ever Afters #3) by Shelby Bach, at Log Cabin Library 

Oliver and the Seawigs, by Philip Reeve, at Mom Read It and Carstairs Considers

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, by Karen Foxlee, at Evelyn Ink

Palace of Stone, by Shannon Hale, at By Singing Light

Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, by Richard Roberts, at alibrarymama

The Savage Fortress, by Sarwat Chadda, at books4yourkids

Silent Starsong, by T.J. Wooldridge, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia 

Timesmith, by Neil Bushnell, at Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books

The Tomb of Shadows (Seven Wonders book 3), by Peter Lerangis, at Ms. Yingling Reads

A World Without Princes, by Soman Chainani, at The B.O.B and  Good Books and Good Wine (audiobook review)

The Vengekeep Prophecies, by Brian Farrey, at Here There Be Books


Authors and Interviews

G. A. Morgan (The Fog of Forgetting) at On Starships and Dragonwings 


More Good Stuff...

...and lots of it, at Wild Things! Acts of Mischief in Children's Literature where stories that didn't make it into the book of the same title are shared.  Go there now, if you haven't yet, because the number of great stories keeps growing, and you could find yourself spending hours of catch up time there.....

A lovey list of scary stories from Kell Andrews (Deadwood) at Project Mayhem  and more scariness and danger from School Library Journal

And finally, registration is now open for Kidlitcon 2014!

Minion, by John David Anderson

Minion, by John David Anderson (Walden Pond Press, June 2014, upper middle grade, but pushing toward YA), is a riveting tale of a 13-year-old kid with super-powers, set set in the same world as last year's Sidekicked, but with all new characters.

Under different circumstances, Michael could have been a super hero, or at least a sidekick.   He has the power to control people's minds (if he's making eye contact, and can keep his focus...).   But Michael wasn't raised to be one of the good guys.  Plucked from a Catholic orphanage while still a boy, he was adopted by a brilliant inventor who sells his creations to the highest bidder.  The inventions are not of a warm, fuzzy sort, and the bidder in question is the head of one of the local organized crime syndicates.  And Michael's new dad isn't adverse to using the power of mind control to keep the cash coming in between inventions.

But Michael loves his dad, and after all, his powers aren't really hurting anyone much....and so he lives a somewhat lonely life, homeschooled and isolated, hanging out with a crime family minion, hypnotizing strangers at ATMs, and helping out on the experiments in the basement.

Then a new type of crime comes to town--one that transcends ordinary thuggery.  And there to stop it is a new superhero--the Blue Comet!

The clash of superhero and supervillian shakes Michael's world to its foundations.  Michael's powers and his dad's almost preternatural inventing genius become valuable commodities in the struggle....and Michael finds himself faced with a choice that will change the course of his life.  Minion....or good guy, whatever good guy might mean.

It's an interesting premise--this whole question of good vs evil--but it's by no means a heavy-handed moral story.  Instead, it's more like a mystery with nuance.   Things grow progressively more complicated, what with hidden identities,  villains hatching plots, and the family secrets that Michael didn't even know were there.    This tension, coupled with a cast of (mostly) likable, always interesting, characters keeps the pages turning nicely.

I think Michael is a tremendously relatable young teen--behind the excitement of the struggle of villains and heroes the heart of the book is about growing up, questioning your parents, thinking about relationships, etc.--all the things that young teens are thinking about!  Except that most young teens aren't in danger of being exploited by criminal masterminds on account of their super-powers....

Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher as part of the Minion blog tour--there's one last stop tomorrow, at Literacy Toolbox!  

The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie, by Kirsty Murray, for Timeslip Tuesday

I have a lovely one for this week's Timeslip Tuesday-- The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie, by Kirsty Murray (Allen and Unwin, July 2014 in the US, 2013 in Australia).  I am not alone in thinking it is lovely--it won Best Children's Book in last year's Aurealis Awards (Australian awards for spec. fic.). 

Eleven-year old Lucy must go stay alone with her eccentric old aunt in the old over-grown family home out in the bush.  Her older sister Diana, studing music in France, had an accident and is in a coma, and her mother has gone to Paris to be with her.  Her father must travel for work.  So the only option is Aunt Big.

Lucy is not happy.  She's anxious for her sister, very uncertain about gruff Aunt Big, and pretty sure she'll be bored alone in the middle of no-where (with no electronic devices on hand).   When she first sees the painted room downstairs--each wall decorated with the surronding landscape, one wall for each season--she doesn't care for it--she feels the outside should stay out.

But then one night Lucy cannot sleep...and magic happens when she enters the painted room, and follows the girl in the picture of spring who is calling to her.

And Lucy is back in the late 1930s, with a girl named April who could almost have been her twin, who lives in the same old family house, in this time a loved and lived in home.   Lucy travels through each season in turn, growing closer to April, her siblings, and her friend Jimmy.   Twice she is a hero, thanks to her study of Bush Fire Safty pamphelts at Aunt Big's house in the present, and thanks to her lifesaving course.  

But when she realizes who April will become, and what will happen to April's brother Tom, she wants to try to change the past....

And all the while in the present Lucy and Aunt Big are growing closer together to, in a most satisfying way.

I enjoyed it thorougly. The mystery of who April is is easy to guess, but that makes the interactions of Lucy and her aunt more meaningful.

If you are at all a fan of Tom's Midnight Garden, you must read it.   If you are a fan of intergenerational friendships, read it.   If you like lovely descriptions of beautiful places, and kids being kids, read it. 

Possibly my personal favorite book of the year so far (but then, I love old-fashioned British stories about kids sent off to old relations in the country, which is what this felt like, and I love gentle, episodic time-travel, so it was pretty much tailor-made for me!)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.