City of Thirst, by Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis

City of Thirst, by Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis (Little Brown October 2015), is the sequel to 2014's The Map to Everywhere (here's my review of that one).  At the end of that book, Marrill returned to the ordinary world after wild adventures on the Pirate Stream of magic with a group of ship-board comrades that included the best friend she's ever made, a boy named Fin who is cursed with being utterly forgettable (Marrill is the only person Fin's ever met who can remember him from minute to minute).  Back in our world, Marrill's been left in the care of an older girl, Remy, while her mother undergoes treatments for cancer.  Marrill doesn't expect any more magic in her life, but then the Pirate Stream touches her life again, and she and Remy are swept away into adventure back on board the same ship, the Enterprising Kraken.

Warnings have come of the imminent approach of the Iron Tide, an the Enterprising Kraken sets out to sail the Pirate Stream and find out what exactly the Iron Tide is, and how it can be stopped.  The journey takes them into old stories of the Sand Salt King and a truly fantastical city that exists in a bubble of its own time.  At the heart of the city is the long-lost wish machine; Marrill could wish for her mother's recovery, Fin, increasingly dispirited by never being remembered, could wish to be normal.  Or they could wish the Iron Tide away, saving not just the Pirate Stream and all the lands it touches but our own world as well.

Except there are problems; an old enemy is close to making the wish-machine his own, and the Sand Salt King, who set events in motion, is a terrible threat in his own right.  And even if the wish issue were resolved, there's the problem of escaping the un-escapable City of Thirst....

This is the sort of story where one (if one is me) comes up for air periodically to think "my goodness, this is wildly imaginative and incredibly invented" followed quickly by "I hope I am understanding what the heck is happening."  So if is fun reading, although of course the really great wildly inventive fantasies (one in thousand) are so great that one never thinks to come up for air at all.  But if "wildly inventive" is what you like in middle grade fantasy, with lots of adventure and fascinating magical happenings and characters, City of Thirst and its predecessor will be right up your alley.

Some thoughtful depth is given by the predicament of Fin, who is dealing more directly with the downside of his forgettable-ness than he was in the first book.  His friendship with Marrill is tested, and he evokes just tons of sympathy from the reader.  Marrill's own predicaments of saving her mother vs. saving the world, and going home vs being a loyal friend, pale in comparison although they are of course still valid concerns.

Short answer--not exactly to my taste at the moment, but a cracking good read that's lots of fun with a sprinkle of heart tugging. I liked it more than I did the first book, perhaps because this one is mostly on dry land, which I tend to prefer....things at sea tend to be more episodic, and I like settling down into a nice city of extraordinary oddness much more!  That being said, I am committed to the next journey of the Enterprising Kraken even if it does take place at sea (mostly for Fin's sake)!

disclaimer: review copy greatfully received from the publisher at Kidlitcon 2015.

No True Echo, by Gareth P. Jones, for Timeslip Tuesday

Sometimes time traveling (either doing it or reading about it) makes your head hurt, because of all the tricksy paradoxes and divergent timelines and multiple strands of reality, and (me waxing poetic) sometimes it makes your heart hurt too (if you are the time traveler), when you see your dead mother still alive (assuming you loved your mother, or at least wanted to love your mother) or say goodbye to a beloved in a timeline that isn't reality not knowing if you will meet again.  And then sometimes a week passes between reading a book in which all of the above happens (except for the run-on sentence structure) and sitting down to review it, and then one becomes really uncertain indeed about summarizing the plot....

No True Echo, by Gareth P. Jones (Harry N. Abrams, Oct. 2015 in the US), is the story of an ordinary English school boy, Eddie, living a boring life with his grandmother in a boring small town in the middle of nowhere and then Bang it all blowing up into a swirling vortex of time travel madness.  The catalyst that sets off the bang is the arrival of a new girl, vibrant and curious and charismatic.  A new girl who Eddie wants to be friends with.  A girl who is actually not a catalyst, but a reactant--there because of things done in other pasts and in possible futures. 

This is sci fi time travel of a fantastic sort--a machine that can send echoes of a person back into their past, allowing them to change things.  But the echo pasts live alongside the original pasts, and just what the original, real, meant to happen timeline is gets obscured.  This confusion hits Eddie's timeline hard, because the new girl hasn't come to his time and his place by chance--it is the epicenter of the new time travel technology.  Basically the title of the book sums up the whole approach to time travel very nicely.

Eddie is about to ask questions he'd never considered, like "is my mother alive or did she die in a car accident when I was a baby?"  and "will I ever see this girl I think I might love ever again."  But Eddie confusions aren't all that this story is about.  There was also a murder done, which Eddie is a witness to (or possibly no murder ever happened), and if it did in fact happen, justice needs to be done....and so, in a rather nice little side plot, we see bits of that story from a local policewoman's point of view, in both the book's present and in the future.

I enjoyed it very much; you don't often get a murder mystery that personally affects the characters, and I enjoyed splashing along with Eddie as he floundered through all his various pasts and presents.  I'm not sure I understood it all at the end, but it was a good ride.  One that was made even better by the inclusion of Frankenstein, which is the text being discussed in English class, and which echoes lots within the story.  Good food for thought,

The romance stays rather nascent, because of temporal complications and both Eddie and the new girl being rather busy, and so it is not your run of the mill sort of YA spec fic with young love front and center.  It felt at once middle grade (Eddie is still on the young side of teenagerness) and adult (with the thrillery murder mystery and all the complicated sci fi temporal paradoxes).  The library copy next to me rather coyly says "tween;" I guess I'd shelve it as YA with the caveat that the best reader of all might be the sharp as a tack 7th or 8th grader....

Short answer:   happy to have read it, happy to recommend it, pretty sure I don't need my own copy to re-read in the nursing home (I think I will only take books I am sure I understand to the nursing home with me....)

And now--what does Kirkus say? (I like to compare with Kirkus because they often disagree with me and because it is easy to find their reviews).

"At once a classic time-travel narrative and resonant fable about the price to be paid when we alter our world simply because we can, this smart, satisfying eco–techno-thriller with heart transcends genre."

All right, that's fair enough, although I'm not sure about the "eco" part.  There were some trees mentioned....possibly a sheep or two kicking around in the background...it was definitely muddy.....It's certainly not "eco" in the sense of "global warming" or "horrible drought."

Just for kicks, here's what the UK edition, which came out some months earlier, looks like:

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi/fantasy from around the blogs (3/6/16)

Good morning, and welcome to another round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy gleaned from my blog reading!  Please let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews

Alcatraz Vs. The Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson at The Write Path

Astrotwins: Project Rescue, by Mark Kelly and Martha Freeman, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Bayou Magic, by Jewell Parker Rhodes, at Bibliobrit

Behind the Canvas, by Alexander Vance, at Cracking the Cover

Charmed, by Jen Calonita, at Read Till Dawn

Diary of a Mad Brownie, by Bruce Coville, at Sharon the Librarian

The Dragon King, by Nils Johnson-Shelton, at Say What?

The  Fallen Spaceman, by Lee Harding, at Views From the Tesseract

Flunked by Jen Calonita, at Read Till Dawn

The Girl Who Could Not Dream, by Sarah Beth Durst, at Destined 4 Wierdness

The Grey King, by Susan Cooper, at Tales of the Marvelous

Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon, at Puss Reboots

Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Eager, at Waking Brian Cells

The Last Kids on Earth, by Max Brallier, at Guys Lit Wire

Lost & Found (Witherwood Reform School #2), by Obert Skye, at The Reading Nook Reviews

Moon Rising, by Tui T. Sutherland, at Bibliobrit

The Pearl Orb, by Elizabeth Ball, at Nayu's Reading Corner

Quest Maker, by Laurie McKay (Last Dragon Charmer Book 2) at Buxtons' Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood by Liesl Shurtliff, at The Book Monsters

The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud, at Cover2Cover

Stingray City, by Ellen Prager, at Mom Read It and Kid Lit Reviews

Well Witched by Frances Hardinge, at Leaf's Reviews

Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson, at Pages Unbound

The Whispering Skull, by Jonathan Stroud, at Great Imaginations

A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin, at By Singing Light

The Wrinkled Crown, by Anne Nesbet, at Leaf's Reviews

Two at Ms. Yingling Reads--How to Capture and Invisible Cat, by Paul Tobin,  and Forest of Wonders, by Linda Sue Park

Authors and Interviews

Kelly Barnhill (The Girl Who Drank the Moon) at Tor

Natalie Lloyd (The Key to Extraordinary) at The Hiding Spot

Ross MacKenzie (The Nowhere Emporium) at The Guardian

Ross Montgomery (Perijee and Me) at Middle Grade Strikes Back

Dianne Salerni (The Morrigan's Curse) at My Brain on Books

Other Good Stuff

A MG fantasy, The Nowhere Emporium by Ross MacKenzie, is the winner of the 2016 Scottish Children’s Book Awards "younger readers" category (read more at  The Guardian)

"Middle-Grade Novels Have Gotten 173% Longer over the Last 40 Years" at The Book List Reader

"One Day You Wake Up and You Are Grown: Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland and the Secrets of Growing Up" an essay at Tor

The White House wants to use science fiction to settle the solar system (at Gizmodo, via Views from the Tesseract)

The Seventh Bride, by T. Kingfisher

"I would follow this hedgehog into the mouth of hell," says Rhea, the heroine of The Seventh Bride, by T.Kingfisher (pen name of Ursula Vernon), at a difficult moment toward the end of the book.  She has reason to trust the hedgehog, which joined her on the dark and terrifying journey to her betrothed's home ("She was still going somewhere terrible, but she had a hedgehog, dammit").  Rhea, an unexceptional young miller's daughter, has been chosen by a lord to be his bride, and their difference in status is the least of the wrongnesses at work.  But at least Rhea has her hedgehog friend to stand beside her as she copes with the fact that her betrothed has been married six times before, and all but one of these wives are still alive (more or less). 

Rhea, with hedgehog assistance, completes various tasks the sadistic sorcerer lord sets her, and copes with the terror of her situation as best she can.  And in the end, with the help other wives, she wins freedom for them all.   It's a fine story, with bits that are disturbingly horrible, and Rhea is a fine heroine, and there were bits of humor (not just the hedgehog) that I enjoyed very much.   But somehow it's not a book I think I need to re-read to get more out of it--everything is pretty much right there, plot and character, without much subtle depth and nuance.  And I'm not quite sure what the point is of the tasks the evil lord sets Rhea to do, as her fate is the same regardless of whether she does them or not (he's not going to let her off marrying him), and so they were more divertissements of story rather than powerful pieces of it.  Still, The Seventh Bride makes for good reading, and I enjoyed it.

But I absolutely adore the hedgehog.   And if you enjoy fairy tale reimaginings, this might be right up your ally--it echoes both Bluebeard and The Robber Bridegroom. At the right is the cover of the ebook edition (as best I can figure); and it shows nicely some of the creepiness (zombie birds as garden décor, delivering scary advice....)

It could easily be shelved as YA, seeing as Rhea is a young teenager, but it isn't much like standard YA fantasy--there is no romance.

"Young Woman in a Garden" by Delia Sherman, for Timeslip Tuesday

"Young Woman in a Garden" is one of the stories in the anthology of the same name by Delia Sherman (Small Beer Press, November 2014), and it's my Timeslip Tuesday pick this week.  This is something of a spoiler right from the get go, but I really liked the story and wanted to share it, and there are plenty of other good stories in the book that aren't spoiled...There will be more and worse spoilers for this story to come, though, so before I get to them I will simply say--this story is about a young woman working on her PhD in art history, who has come to the rural home of a rather less famous French impressionist and his wife Celeste (who herself was a fine painter, before marriage), hoping to find among his papers something that will make him a more interesting subject for her dissertation.  What she finds is a whole lot more interesting than she ever imagined (which is an awfully generic sentence of unspoilerishness, but true, especially given that the protagonist isn't all that good at imagining things....).

Edouard Beauvoisin was known primarily for two paintings, "Young Woman in a Garden," and "Reclining Nude," whose model was a Spanish woman, Luz Gasco, that any art historians who thought much about him assumed was his mistress.  Theresa, the young grad student, is a great great great niece of the painter, and has used her family connections to get an introduction to the keepers of the museum that is Beauvoisin's house.  Instead of the usual set up of such museum houses, she finds a home lived in by two old women, with a lovely garden, and no other visitors.  She spends little time thinking of the strangeness of the situation, but becomes absorbed in following a web of clues in journals and letters that almost spring from the house as if waiting for her to discover them.  While she is absorbed in her work, she comes almost to be a stand in for Beauvoisin himself, the outsider to the relationship between his wife Celeste and Luz Gasco....and solves the mystery of Beauvoisin's relationship, such as it was, to Luz Gasco, which is what the two women wanted.

Starting the spoilers for real, now.

And having learned the truth, that it is Celeste and Luz were the lovers, and that Celeste was the artist of the two paintings, she sees that the beautiful gardens of the house are no such thing, but a rather neglected overgrown tangle (the garden changing is what makes this clearly time travel, and not ghosts).  All afire with what she's learned, she spares little though for the remarkable fact that she had been spending the past few weeks back in the past, but fortunately the reader (not having a dissertation to write) gets to enjoy the thought.  (I'd say that she'd spent her time back in the mid 20th century, based on the two women now being old, but not dead....).

It is very unusual to have a time travel story in which the main character doesn't get that they have gone into the past.  It only works if you can plausibly get rid of modern conveniences (by setting the story in what is assumed to be a historical museum house), and it helps if, as is the case here, the only two other characters are somewhat in on the truth (they recognize Theresa is standing in for Edouard, and want her to find things out...).  Of course, the reader is also taken aback, but it makes for nice re-reading!

So basically it is an academic detective story about a romantic relationship in which the protagonist has travelled several decades back to a time when two of the players in the relationship are still alive, but who are unable? unwilling? to actually tell her the whole story.  It's a perfect short story for any feminist art historians, or those who want to spend a month or so researching in a country house in France.

And just for the record--the other stories in the anthology range from horror to domestic fantasy, and offer a nice variety of mood and tone.

The Head of the Saint, by Socorro Acioli

The Head of the Saint, by Socorro Acioli (Delacorte Press, March 8, 2016, YA, translated by Daniel Hahn), is a Brazilian import I picked up at ALA Midwinter because it is about a boy, Samuel, who lives in the titular head--a head that was supposed to crown a giant statue of St. Anthony, which in turn was to bring economic zip to the small Brazilian town of Candeia.  (I really like stories about kids on their own making homes for themselves in odd places like hollow concrete heads).  The head had never made onto the giant body prepared for it.  And gradually all the townsfolk are moving away from the surreal headless colossus that is Candeia's shame, or dying in their hoes with no-one left to care.  Samuel's father had left his mother before he was born in another small town a ways away, and never made it back, and Samuel, fourteen years old and alone in the world after his mother's death, was barely able to make the long walk to Candeia, his father's hometown, with his grandmother's address his only hope of family.  But instead of feeding and sheltering him, which he badly needs, she sends him up the hill to the concrete hollow head of Saint Anthony.

A badly infected wound from a dog bite guarantees that he'll have to stay in the head for a while, and fortune smiles on him when he meets a boy from town who's snuck up the hill with a small illicit stash of porn to enjoy in peace.  Samuel promises not to tell Francisco's secret, and in return (not just because of being blackmailed) his new friend brings him supplies, food, and things scavenged from the many abandoned homes.   So the head is a reasonably snug shelter...but it is full of prayers to Saint Anthony, which only Samuel can here.  Francesco, with his local knowledge, is able to pin specific prayers to specific people, and the boys decide they can maybe make a bit of money and have some fun by making prayers come true.  Their first venture, making a girl's dream of love happen, is so successful that the head becomes a place of pilgrimage, and through luck and common sense, and quite possibly divine intervention, more successful romances are made.  Candeia beings to live again; the abandoned houses are in demand again, the church is refurbished, and there's a small economic boom.

But Samuel, still living in the head, is plagued by the pilgrims outside, and prayers inside, and the one voice in the head he wants to keep hearing, a girl singing sadly beautiful songs morning and evening, is being drowned out by the clamor.  And the mayor of the town is not at all happy (he's a bad one).  And there is a sad dark story behind the head, and the misfortune it brought to the town when it couldn't be put on the body.  And there is the fact, too, that Samuel is still alone; his grandmother shows no interest in being family....

But Saint Anthony, though he'd doing a great job with romance, is primarily the patron saint of lost things and people; and happily (because my maternal heart was so sad for Samuel), the lost are found and the book ends with hope.

It's a lovely moving rewarding book, and I recommend it very highly!  It is fantasy, because there are magical elements besides the voices in the saint's head (like someone being dead, but still getting around and doing things), but the point isn't the fantasy, but more the interconnectedness of people.  Quite possibly I found it very moving because Samuel is about the age of my own boys, making it natural for me to feel all sorts of maternal feels for him.   But also I found it moving because it is such a clearly depicted set of people, many of them good people, several not so much, living their somewhat precarious lives as best they can.  I also liked it very much because it is such a clear, interesting portrayal of a place I'm not familiar with.  And I did like the little house inside the head, just as I thought I would.

In short, it was a read in a single sitting book(it's only 192 pages) that has left me with vivid memories.  And lest I have made it sound too sad, I shall mention that it is also quite funny in places.  And finally, if I were a high school English teacher, I'd seriously consider using this one--there is lots to think about, and lots to enjoy.

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (2/28/16(

Here's what I found in my blog reading this week; please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

The 26-Storey Treehouse,by Andy Griffiths, at Sharon the Librarian

The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn, at Cracking the Cover and Charlotte's Library

Anna and the Swallow Man, by Gavriel Savit, at Ex Libris (I haven't read this one myself yet, so am not sure it's really fantasy, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt....)

The Aviary, by Kathleen O'Dell, at Puss Reboots

Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge, at Bibliobrit

Darkmouth, the Legend Begins by Shane Hegarty, at Geo Librarian

The Dungeoneers, by John David Anderson, at Bibliobrit

Finders Reapers, by Anna Staniszewski, at Sharon the Librarian

Flunked, by Jen Calonita, at Imaginary Reads

The Fog Diver, by Joel Ross, at Geo Librarian

The Freedom Maze, by Delia Sherman, at Time Travel Times Two

Fridays with the Wizards, by Jessica Day George, at Book Nut

The Goblin's Puzzle, by Andrew Chilton, at Always in the Middle

The Green Ember, by S.D. Smith, at Charlotte's Library

The Incredible Space Raiders from Space, by Wesley King, at That's Another Story

The Key to Extraordinary, by Natalie Lloyd, at Read Till Dawn

The Lincoln Project (Flashback Four #1), by Dan Gutman, at Ms. Yingling Reads and books4yourkids

The Nest, by Kenneth Oppel, at Welcome to My (New) Tweendom

Nightbird, by Alice Hoffman, at Supernatural Snark

 Nightborn, by Lou Anders, at Read Love

No Flying in the House, by Betty Brock, at Log Cabin Library
Ravenous, by MarcyKate Connolly, at Mom Read It

The Remarkable Journey Of Charlie Price, by Jennifer Maschari, at Pop! Goes the Reader and Supernatural Snark

Serafina and the Black Cloak, by Robert Beatty, at Big Hair and Books

Seven Dead Pirates, by Linda Bailey, at Kid Lit Geek

The Silver Chains, by L.J. Clarkson, at This Kid Reviews Books

Snow in Summer, by Jane Yolen, at Fantasy Literature

Space Hostages, by Sophia McDougall, at Views From the Tesseract

Warren the 13th and the All-Seeing Eye, by Tania del Rio and Will Staehle, at Kid Lit Geek

A Whole Nother Story, by Dr. Cuthbert Soup, at Mister K Reads

Witherwood Reform School, by Obert Skye, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

The Wildings, by Nilanjana Roy, at The Book Wars

Authors and Interviews

Abi Elphinstone (The Shadow Keeper) at The Book Zone (for Boys) and Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books


Other Good Stuff

A great list of sci fi for middle graders at SLJ

The Guardian asks why so many children's fantasy books are adapted as films

And also at The Guardian, the best quotes from children's and teen fantasy books

And just continuing on with The Guardian, "how fantasy can inspire us to live in the real world"

Via Tor--Ava DuVernay to Direct Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time

Joining the March "Take Control of your TBR Pile" Challenge

My TBR piles have been weighing heavily on me for several years, so I'm joining this March challenge hosted by Caffinated Book Reviewer to at least make a small dent.  It will be too little too late, but every book read helps.  2016 has been a very slow reading for me, too, so I'd like to get my numbers up a bit!  I'm going to aim for 50 books, because why not.

The Green Ember, by S.D. Smith

This is me making an effort to move a few more of the Cybils books from last season off my piles and into the library!  The Green Ember, by S.D. Smith, was nominated for the Cybils by Sherry at Semicolon, who found it very popular at her library and among the homeschoolers she knows, and it's definitely one I'd recommend to fans of Redwall.

Heather and her brother Picket have a happy, peaceful life, in which the sad tales of the fall of the good king are simply stories, until the day their family is brutally attacked by the enemies of their kingdom.  Fortunately, two strangers come to their aid, one of whom turns out to be the uncle they never knew they had.  Their uncle takes them to a place of refuge, where arts and crafts are cultivated in the hopes that a new king will arise, and usher in a new era of peace. 

Heather is happy to join in the community, though many of its residents seem strangle unwelcoming, and it is clear that there are many secrets,  but Picket is bitter and sullen, until he forces himself into an apprentice with a mysterious and tremendously skilled fighter.   The skills he learns come in all too handy when treachery threatens to destroy any hope of restoring the good king's heir, and all the secrets are revealed....and Heather too has her part to play in the frantic race to salvage hope.

So it's a pretty solid kids saving the day type fantasy story, with a twist--these kids are rabbits.  Rabbits who make stained glass windows and do embroidery, who wear clothes, and who are referred to as having 'hands," which of course are much better than paws when it comes to arts and crafts.  And this was something of a deal breaker for me.  If you are going to make your characters rabbits, pitted against wolves and hawks, that's fine, but please, make there be some other point to the rabbitness! Powerful kicking action comes into play at times, but otherwise there isn't anything rabbit about these characters way of being in the world.  And this fretted at me, keeping me from fully enjoying what is a fine "kids discovering their place in an epic saga" type story. But if you have a young reader of nine or so who enjoys animal fantasies, and who really loves desperate hope, bolstered by sword play, this might be just the ticket.

disclaimer: review copy received for Cybils Award consideration

The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn (The Snow Merchant in the UK) , by Sam Gayton

Way back in March of 2013, I read a review of The Snow Merchant at Playing by the Book.  Zoe raved about it most lovingly, and I added it to my own tbr list (it was only out in the UK at that point), waiting for the time when I was in the mood for a Book Depository purchase....Then this month I was offered a review copy of The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn, and oh was I happy to see that this was The Snow Merchant in its US incarnation, and how quickly I said yes please!   Because how could I pass on a book Zoe described thusly:

"Read it to your children (or any you can borrow), and I’m confident that for very many it will become one of those few books they look back on with especial warmth in their heart when they are all grown up; one of those books that leads into magical landscapes, with characters they desperately wished were their friends, taking them on adventures that even twenty, forty, sixty years later they still wish they could take part in."

Lettie's mother went away years ago, leaving a cryptic note that warned Lettie never to set a foot outside.  And so Lettie has been a virtual prisoner in the family's inn, trying to keep the business going while her father drinks and gambles away what little money comes in.  But then a mysterious visitor arrives, an alchemist who brings with him something no one has seen before--snow.  Snow that's controlled by magic, that only he has the power to create.  And Lettie, he says, is the customer for whom he's created the snow.  But the two other guests, both greedy old women, want the beautiful snow for themselves, to make money off of what they see as ice diamonds.

Then the snow melts, and the Snow Merchant hightails it off to the harbor.  Lettie, and a boy named Noah, whose boat brought the Merchant to town and who is Lettie's first human friend, follow, guided mysteriously by the Wind.. 

What happens next is a mad race across the ocean.  Lettie and Noah, and a most uncooperative, rude, and hostile Snow Merchant, are chased by the two greedy old women, who have promised wealth to some nasty whalers in exchange for transport and help with capture and disposal of witnesses (Lettie and Noah).  Lettie finds that she herself has a gift for alchemy, which keeps them from being captured, and at last the journey takes them to the place where her mother is waiting, and the story of how the snow was first created, and why her mother left, are finally told. 

Zoe read the book out loud to her children, and found it wonderful and magical and lovely, and her children did too.   I can see why-- Lettie is an appealing heroine, and I was happy to read about her great friendship with Noah, and I liked the way the alchemical magic worked, transmuting elements of the material world.  The adventure proceeds at a nice pace after the cold and atmospheric set up of the first snow inside the inn.  Gayton does an excellent job with his descriptions, and it is all very vivid.

But sadly for me, I couldn't share Zoe's personal enthusiasm, not because I have anything critical to say of the book, but because it just wasn't to my taste.  This  is a very fantastical sort of fantasy.  The Snow Merchant's alchemy, for instance, turns one of the greedy old women's head into a teapot, with tea inside it, with no consequences other than the occasional slopping of tea from her spout.  Noah comes from a far off land where everyone is born with a plant stalk growing from them, and although I liked how the stalk was used imaginatively to grow useful and tasty flora, I couldn't tap into my child side enough to think it wonderful.  And then the boat grew wings (which I actually didn't mind as much as I minded the teapot head that could talk).  But if you like really fantastical fantasy, like Jonathan Auxier's Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, for instance (which didn't work for me for much the same reasons), you might well love this one too, and I can easily see how an actual young child reader (as opposed to me) might well love it.

And in large part, and again a matter of totally personal taste, I ended up being disappointed because the Amazon UK blurb I read back in 2013 gave me the impression that Lettie looking after the rambling old inn would be a major part of the book, and being a fan of girls who have to run ramskakle inns of magicness, I was sad when the plot took us all out to sea (I like fantasy inside old buildings much more than I like fantasy at sea).

Final comments:

Zoe makes mention of the illustrations by Tomislav Tomic; the US edition is illustrated by Poly Bernatene in a style that looks (to me) much more American (less fine line and more shading with almost no white space).

And Good Grief!  Kirkus and I are in agreement again (I think it's three in a row now):

"There’s plenty of action and creative plotting, but some readers may find it difficult to warm up to the offbeat characters and thus be reluctant to follow Lettie all the way to the grand finale."

But anyway--lots of people, not just Zoe, love this book!  So don't give too much weight to my personal taste issues, because they are personal.

If you are in Boston tomorrow evening, and are interested in children's book awards....

I am on a panel!

Please join
Children’s Books Boston
for a panel discussion (and refreshments!)

WINNERS, LOSERS, AND SOMETHING IN BETWEEN:
AN INSIDE LOOK AT BOOK AWARDS

Simmons College,
300 The Fenway, Boston MA
Management Building, 5th Floor
5:30-7:00 PM Tuesday, February 23
(Snow Date: Tuesday, March 1)

Panelists:

Cathie Mercier, Director of the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons, has been a member of Newbery, Caldecott, Sibert, Wilder, Boston Globe-Horn Book, and NYT Best Illustrated Books Committees.
Nancy Werlin, Author, has been a National Book Award finalist and judge, Edgar Award winner, finalist, and judge.
Charlotte Taylor, Blogger, has been a Cybils Award judge.

this week's round-up just got deleted by the cat

I just spent two hours working on this week's round up and it just went away.


WHAH!  it was a really good one too.

sorry.

Beetle Boy, by M.G. Leonard

I don't mind beetles, and in small numbers (say, one at a time, and not eating my plants) I'm perfectly capable of finding them fascinating.   And this is good, because Beetle Boy, by M.G. Leonard (Chicken House, Feb. 2016), asks its readers to be capable of finding beetles appealing (although in larger numbers than I prefer).  Happily the main beetle protagonist, helpfully  named Baxter (a name I find friendly) is in fact appealing.  Baxter is adopted by a boy named Darkus whose life has fallen apart. His father has disappeared from a locked room full of natural historic collections of beetles, and the police are refusing to believe he didn't just walk off on his own accord.  Darkus' mother having died earlier, Darkus goes to live with his uncle Mark (who is a fine uncle, but with a small cluttered flat), who believes along with Darkus that this is a kidnapping.

And then Darkus rescues Baxter from sidewalk dangers, and realizes that Baxter is no ordinary beetle, but one capable of communicating and comprehending human speech.  In the rotting old house next door, where two almost farcical brothers argue over the almost farcical squalor, Darkus and two human friends of geeky quirkiness discover a whole colony of similarly gifted insects...(by the end, the two friends have gotten beetle buddies of their own, kind of like insect familiars).

It rurns out that the kidnapping of Darkus' dad, and the existence of the gifted insects, in danger of extermination via pesticide, or worse (there is a villain--a sort of Cruella de Ville of insect-directed malevolence)  are two pieces of the same story--a story of genetic manipulation and greed.

It's definitely more than just a mystery, because as well as preternaturally gifted beetles, there is a really disgusting bit of genetic manipulation that involves a person having acquired some insect physiology.  Icky!!!!!  But kids who enjoy mysteries might well appreciate that aspect of Beetle Boy.  Those who like "lonely kid making animal friend" stories, and those who like natural science (there's quite a bit of beetle info. woven into the story) will also like it (as long as they don't mind natural science become un-natural).  

I myself liked it fine, and read it with interest and enjoyment, although I really find people with insect legs unappealing and feel that I do not need such images in my head.   Though there were some parts of the book in which there were lots and lots and lots of beetles, including maggots, I wasn't that bothered because they were mostly busy moving their insect home of old mugs and jars etc. to a safe location (which is the sort of domestic story I like) and not just writhing insectly around in squirmy ways.

The immediate issues are satisfactorily resolved, and more of the story is coming down the pipeline--I think my fondness for the kids and their fire-lizards insect companions will be enough to make me want to read more, though I really don't want to be exposed to much more insect-human hybridity (I really hate that that bit from Nightmare on Elmstreet III is burned into my retinas).

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Three for three this week for agreement between me and Kirkus, who said of Beetle Boy--"Overall, a charming and (at times) affecting romp through beetle land. (entomology dictionary)" 

Quest Maker, by Laurie McKay (Last Dragon Charmer book 2)

I enjoyed Villain Keeper, the first book of Laurie McKay's Last Dragon Charmer series, quite a bit (here's my review), and so I was very happy to curl up with the second book, Quest Maker (HarperCollins, Feb. 2016), this past week.  If you haven't read the first book, go and do that before reading my thoughts on the second, because I had to include some spoilers.... 

The basic gist of the set up is that a boy from a fantasy realm, a prince and Elite Paladin in training named Caden, fell into our world (specifically, Ashville, NC), and there he found that the local public school is in fact a prison of sorts for villains from his world who have been banished there by magic, run by a powerful dragon principal, Ms. Primrose, of very uncertain temper.  In the second book, it becomes clear that someone is trying (successfully) to sabotage the school.  Ms. Primrose calls on Caden to find out what is going on (he's more familiar with magical villains than other students are, and has a magical talent for using language to charm and cajole).  So Caden, assisted by Brynne, a magic using girl who fell through to Ashville with him, Jane, who's mother was an elf, and Tito, Caden's good hearted foster brother, who provides ballast for the group, do their best to find out what exactly is going on.

And in the meantime, one of Caden's many older brothers, Jasan, arrives in Ashville, banished after been found guilty of killing another brother (he is hired by Ms. Primrose as a gym teacher).  This adds another (related) mystery that needs solving--if Jasan isn't the murderer, who is?

It's an interesting story that moves along briskly with lots of villain-ness from the villains.  Caden gets stuck a bit in his Elite Paladin persona, but gets some depth of character through his efforts to salvage a relationship with Jasan, which means confronting his own, not very happy, childhood as the youngest half-brother of the seven older princes, and his three friends provide a good counterweight to heroic virtue.  Though Caden has now been in our world for a while, there's still humor to be found in his reactions to mundane reality.  Here's a bit that made me chuckle:

"In the middle [of the flowers] stood a strange smiling figurine with a tall pointed hat.

It made Caden uncomfortable.  It seemed to be looking at him.  "What is that?"

"A garden gnome," Tito said.

"That isn't a gnome"  He turned to his friend.  Gnomes were small creatures with bad breath and pointed teeth  "Gnomes are smaller. And meaner. And they don't wear hats, because they wouldn't fit over the horns," he said.  "And they only smile before they attack."

Tito shrugged.  "Asheville-type gnomes are happy, ceramic, and have tall pointed hats"

Caden glanced at the garden gnome again.  "I don't like it."

Tito sighed and pulled him toward the door.  Caden kept the gnome in his sight, though.  He didn't trust it.  Why did it have such a tall hat?"  (p 199)

My only slight disappointment was that Ms. Primrose didn't go into full dragon mode, and just solve her school's problems with fire and teeth.  I think that she is under some magical restrictions...we will probably find out more in the next book! 

Tito and Jane (surnamed Chan) add diversity to the cast, which is good.

In short, if you have a young fantasy reader who might have grown tired of fantasy clichés, this is an excellent series.

And Kirkus agrees with me! (that's two in one week!):

"Caden is a true individual and hero. Dedicated to the Paladin Code, he is honest, noble, and brave. Thankfully Brynne and the rest of his friends are willing to be flexible: sometimes it takes a little subterfuge to battle evil. As in series opener Villain Keeper (2015), McKay juxtaposes hoary fantasy tropes against 21st-century reality with verve."

Secrets of Valhalla, by Jasmine Richards, for Timeslip Tuesday

Timeslip Tuesday falls on a Wednesday this week; I am not sure why it is so, but I have been struggling to find time to read and blog these past few weeks (actually, I am sure.  It is because I have been sickly and busy and because my 15 year old broke the headphone jack of his lap top and needs to listen to music to do his homework, and because my 12 year old now has a laptop of his own, and likes to listen to the musical background of his games, and all this is happening in the room with the fire going, which is to say the one really warm room, and it is so much easier just to play candy crush and not even try to focus on books).  But in any event, I have now read a timeslip book and will now write about it yay me.

Secrets of Valhalla, by Jasmine Richards (HarperCollins, January 2016) is a timeslip book in that there is a repeating Saturday on which the world has gotten stuck.  This is what gives urgency to the plot--reality is being worn thing by constant recycling, and all that the young hero of the story holds dear will be lost unless he can get time going again.  Buzz, though, is just an ordinary kid, caught in an adventure that is way more extraordinary than he is.   It all begins when he meets Ratatosk the squirrel scampering around Yggdrasil, a tree in the middle of a patch of woods he's been exploring all his life....

Buzz learns that each day of the week had a Norse god or goddess appointed as its guardian (with the exception of Saturday, of course, that one having a Roman god).  And the power of each day keeper was contained in rune stones...which Loki is now plotting to seize for himself.  The first step of Loki's battle, kidnapping Sunna, keeper of Sunday, is what fixed the world in the repeating Saturday.

Buzz, with his new friend Mary (so quirky and fey I though she might be a manic pixie dream girl, but happily she turned out not to be) set off into the realms of mythology to find the rune stones first, and restore the power within them back to the Day Keepers, so that they in return can restore order to the cosmos. Adventures result, lots of them, taking Buzz and Mary to Hel and back.  As well as to the Cloud realm of Zeus, the undersea realm of Poseidon, and the underworld of Hades....

The result is an entertaining read, that 10 or so year old kids who get a kick out of mythology will enjoy lots, especially readers (like me) who think Loki's kids were hard done by (the Fenris here is a lovey Fenris for those who like large wolfs).   Buzz and Mary are appealing main characters, with enough familial backstory to give them three-dimensionality.  There is, as is so so so often the case in MG fantasy these days, a Bully, who as is also almost the case, has Reasons for being a bully and is rehabbed at the end.  I feel this has been done enough, and can stop now.

Just got back from checking the Kirkus review, and we are in agreement on this one (!), although Kirkus is perhaps more actively enthusiastic than me.  Kirkus says:

"Some knowledge of Norse mythology will help readers unravel the multiple gods and complicated plot, but it’s not critical.  (me--I have lots of knowledge of Norse mythology, which let me figure out a plot twist, which I don't usually do...)
The combination of adventure, appealing characters, and high stakes should satisfy middle-grade fantasy fans. (Fantasy. 10-14)"
 
I myself wouldn't give it to a kid much older than that--some of the adventures skew a bit young, and some resolutions come a bit too easily to be truly satisfying for a very experienced MG mythological fantasy reader. 

However, the (relatively small) bits of the book that focus on the repeating Saturday in the real world are nicely done--people become aware in a dim way that things are going off (literally) but don't quite get it....

(random Norse mythological childrearing aside--if you happen to have a large stuffed dragon/dinosaur and two small boys (although girls would work too), put one boy at the top of the stairs, which are Yggdrassil,  to be the eagle, and put the dragon at the bottom to be the Nidhog, and then the boy in most need of exercising can be Ratatosk and scamper up and down the stairs conveying insults. If like me you have just two children, you will have to provide half the insults, but there are worse things).

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

First, the exciting news--the Cybils Winners are announced today!  Congratulations to Joel Ross, whose book, Fog Diver, is the Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction winner!

And now, the round-up (with nothing from me because my reading and review has been pathetic this year so far sigh sigh).  Please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

Baker's Magic, by Diane Zaher, at Read Till Dawn and Ms. Yingling Reads

Brambleheart, by Henry Cole, at Librarian of Snark and Librarian of Snark

The Cat Who Came in Off the Roof, by Annie M.G. Schmidt, at Cracking the Cover

The Dragon of the Month Club, by Iain Reading, at Nayu's Reading Corner

The Inquisitor's Mark, by Dianne K. Salerni, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

The Last Musketeer, by Stuart Gibbs, at Buxtons' Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels, with book 2, Traitor's Chase, here, and book 3, Double Cross, here.

Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City,by Will Mabbit, at books4yourkids

Marie's Atlas, by Sophia Estelle Wood, books*art*life

The Nargun and the Stars, by Patricia Wrightson, at Semicolon

The Nest, by Kenneth Oppel, at Bibliobrit

Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood, by Liesl Shurtliff, at WinterHaven Books and Bittersweet Enchantment

Simon Thorn and the Wolf's Den, by Aimée Carter, at Reads All the Books

Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, by Nikki Loftin, at Leaf's Reviews

Switch, by Ingrid Law, at books4yourkids

The Trap Door, by Lisa McMann (Infinity Ring 3)  at Time Travel Times 2

The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones, by Will Mabbitt, at books4yourkids

Vault of Shadows, by Jonathan Maberry, at Sci Fi Signal

Wildwitch: Wildfire, by Lene Kaaberbøl, at Polenth's Blog

Authors and Interviews

Ronald Smith (Hoodoo) at The Brown Bookshelf

Will Mabbitt (Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City), at The Reading Nook Reviews

Iain Reading (Dragon of the Month Club) at The Write Path

Margaret Chiavetta (The Alchemist's Theorem) at Smack Dab in the Middle

Other Good Stuff

If you want a chuckle this Valentine's Day, do an image search for Puritan Valentine's Day cards.

for instance:

Peas and Carrots, by Tanita S. Davis

Peas and Carrots, by Tanita S. Davis (Knopf Books for Young Readers , upper MG/YA, Feb. 9, 2016) is the story of two 15-year-old girls, Hope and Odessa, who are forced to live together by fate (in the form of Hope's parents).  Hope's parents took in Odessa's little brother several years ago, and now have opened their home to Dess as well.  Hope and Dess are the same age, and the same gender, but don't have much else in common.  Hope has been loved and cared for by both parents in a comfortably affluent home for all her life, Dess lives in a constant state of anxious stress-- her drug addicted mother is going to testify against her nasty felon of a father, and it's easy for Dess to imagine him coming to take his anger out on her.  So do Dess and Hope form an instant bond and become true sisters to each other easily?  Nope.

Told in the alternating perspectives of the two girls, Dess and Hope navigate their uneasy new relationships with  Dess lashing out with barbed remarks and general hostility, and Hope responding with hurt and resentment.  But as the weeks unfold, Hope find the backbone to zing right back at Dess (though she'll never be in Dess's league), and Dess's hostility fades to the point where instead of taking Hope down, she is encouraging Hope to take chances (with both fashion and boys).

But Dess's fear of her father continues to weigh on her, and when her grandmother has a bad fall, Dess is sure it was her father attacking her.  Dess has not seen her grandmother since she was eleven, when her grandmother refused to offer her and the baby brother a home with her.  They had been close to her before, but all the letters Dess has gotten from her since have sat unread, until now. With the possibility of her grandmother's death very real, Dess reads the letters, and knows she must visit her grandmother, even though running off from her foster home means that she'll now have to fend for herself.

But Hope and her family come through for her, and Dess realizes that she doesn't have to be quite as tough and independent as she's been bracing herself to be all these years.

So it's a book about any number of things, but the book as I read it was a story about growing up and being a teenage girl and navigating friendships with people who aren't like you, and though I, like Hope, looked at Dess with wary eyes, she grew on me, and though, like Dess, I thought Hope was a tad immagure and wet, and needed more self-confidence, Hope also grew on me, and I liked very much reading about the relationship they were able to build.   So even though there are dark and gritty things always present in Dess's mind, the book itself didn't feel like a "problem" novel; it felt warm and friendly.   And the bulk of the credit for this goes to Hope's parents, who are truly lovely and good hearted fictional parents, which makes for a refreshing change!

I also appreciated the casual (by which I mean not emphasized with heavy moralizing) inclusion of issues of body acceptance, religion as meaningful part of Hope's family's life (one they weren't going to force Dess to participate in), and even more so, issues of race.   When I saw the cover, knowing one of the girls shown was a foster kid from a gritty urban background, I assumed it was the black girl.  Which is not the case; Dess is a white girl fostered into a black family.  And this is something that comes, for the characters, as something to be navigated as their own assumptions and the assumptions of outsiders are challenged.  Which in turn nicely challenges the assumptions a reader might be bringing to the story.

What I personally liked best is that Dess is a sewey-crafty sort of person, who can take an old grandma sweater and make it into a fun and flirty dress (for Hope, and it looks great on her, though she can't help but nervously keep trying to pull the short hemline down).  I'm not sure why, but I really like to read about that sort of thing....

So yeah, I enjoyed it lots, which is nice for me because Tanita is a friend of mine and she sent me a review copy, and in such cases it always much more comfortable to be able to say "thank a lot, I really enjoyed it" than not to be able to.

Peas and Carrots teeters between middle grade and YA in feel, making it a good for the seventh or eight grader who is starting to look upward.  There are references to teens doing drugs and drinking, though the kids here don't, and there's teen romance stuff starting to happen, though there's no sex.

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs (2/7/2016)

Welcome to this week's round up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs! Please let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews

The 13-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths, illustrated byTerry Denton, at Sharon the Librarian

The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn, by Sam Gayton, at A Throne of Books

The Alchemist's Theorem, by Margaret R. Chiavetta, at Leaf's Reviews

Alistair Grim’s Odd Aquaticum, by Gregory Funaro, at Fantasy Literature

Behind the Canvas, by Alexander Vance, at Sharon the Librarian

Beyond the Door (Time Out of Time, 1) by Maureen Doyle McQuerry, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

The Buccaneer's Code, by Caroline Carlson, at This Kid Reviews Books

Cart and Cwidder, by Diana Wynne Jones, at The Book Smugglers

A Dragon’s Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans, by Laurence Yep and Joanne Ryder, at Word Spelunking

The Dragon's Return (Zodiac Legacy Book 2), by Stan Lee at Barnes & Noble Kids Blog

Escaping Peril, by Tui T.Sutherland, at Hidden In Pages

The False Prince, by Jennifer A. Nielsen, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

Games Wizards Play, by Diane Duane, at BooksForKidsBlog and Barnes & Noble Kid's Blog

The Golden Vendetta, by Tony Abbott, at Boys Rule Boys Read!

The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley, at Tor

The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw, by Christopher Healy, at The Book Wars

The Icebound Land, by John Flannagan, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

The Lie Tree, by Frances Hardinge, at School Library Journal

The Night Parade, by Kathryn Tanquary, at The Book Wars and Book Swoon

Quest Maker (The Last Dragon Charmer #2) by Laurie McKay, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Runaway King, by Jennifer A. Nielsen, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, by Patrick Samphire, at Charlotte's Library

The Shadow Thone, by Jennifer A. Nielsen, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

Shipwreck Island, by S.A. Bodeen, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

Simon Thorn and the Wolf’s Den, by Aimee Carter, at On Starships and Dragonwings, The Reader Bee, and Barnes & Noble Kids Blog

Space Case, by Stuart Gibbs, at The Book Smugglers

Stopping for a Spell: Three Magical Fantasies by Diana Wynne Jones, at Back to Books

Time Travelling with a Hamster, by Ross Welford, at The Book Smugglers

The Tune Is in the Tree, by Maud Hart Lovelace, at Semicolon

The Voyage of Lucy P. Simmons, by Barbara Mariconda, at Leaf's Reviews

Three at alibrarymama--Moon Rising, by Tui T. Sutherland, Valiant, by Sarah McGuire, and The Toymaker's Apprentice, by Sherri L. Smith

Authors and Interviews

Aimée Carter (Simon Thorn and the Wolf's Den) at Nerdy Book Club and The Book Cellar

Danika Dinsmore (Narine of Noe), at Dead Houseplants

Jim C. Hines (currently at work on his first MG) on representation at Paranormal

Other Good Stuff

The characters of Harry Potter  have been anime-afied, via Tor

And you've probably already seen J.K. Rowling's new information about her wizarding world

A Wrinkle in Time mapped, at Tor

A Tuesday Ten on Mars, at Views from the Tesseract

There's a kickstarter going to help fund The Worlds of Ursula Le Guin documentary

(I've been blogging for nine years now, and have done this round up over 300 times, which is a lot of work (what with searching through well over a thousand blog posts every week to find the links).  So I went ahead and added the "buy me coffee" button over on the right, though I have conflicting feelings about it....)

In which I express love for A Thousand Nights, by E.K. Johnston

I am late to the party on this one...A Thousand Nights, by E.K. Johnston came out in October, and I feel that many of you all whose blogs I read have already read it and liked it, although I didn't actually read qua read any reviews, because of not wanting any spoilers (which was probably good, because it's very hard to write about this one without spoilers).

So this is a re-imagining of the story of the Arabian Nights, and it pleased me awfully much indeed.

Once there was a shinning young king, Lo-Melchiin, who rode out into the desert.  The thing that rode home again, in that same body, was a monster.  A monster who drew power from the deaths of young women, marrying and murdering wife after wife.  But the newest queen is not like the others.  She stepped forward to be chosen, to save her beloved sister.  And she is not killed.

There in the stone walls of the city she tells stories, not a narrative to entertain her monster husband, but a weaving-together of words and memories as she fills her empty time of waiting with the woman's work of spinning.  And in the desert, her sister is telling a story too, as fiercely and determindly as she can, spinning the tale of a living legend that makes of her sister a smallgod of their people.  And as the prayers to the smallgod queen swell and spread from woman to woman, the force of the telling becomes a force the queen can use to make her own words powerful enough to  defeat the demon possessing Lo-Melchiin.

So basically it's a story of telling and prayer becoming magic, and the words and power and creative work of women, mostly unseen and overlooked by men (including the demon king) are what brings about victory over evil.  It's not a romance; never did the young queen desire the king, which would have been icky because she was clearly aware that he was a viper in human form.  She did believe, though, what the king's mother said, that he had been a good man before, and so we are left with a hopeful future for the two of them.

I just went to Amazon to snag the link, and was curious to see why some people had given this book, which I loved, only two stars.   One problem some people had was that the main character and her family members were not named.  This did not bother me, because I did not realize it until close to the end of the book, when I was starting to think about how I would write about it.  The characters get their main strength and purpose from their relationships to each other; that is the central story of their lives.  So I did not mind the queen's sister just being her sister, and not named, and since I was incrediby absorbed in being right there with the main character it never occurred to me that I didn't know what she was called.  And I think it's kind of fitting that she should have no name that the reader of her story knows, because she is a locus of the being of so many women....

And I just want to say that

--I was glad that there was a place in her story where we could be sure that her father and brothers loved her too, because though sisters are the best, they aren't of course the be all and end all....

--I am not sure why this is categorized as  YA; it didn't feel YA-ish, perhaps because the romance bit didn't happen, although romance shouldn't be a pre-requisite for YA fantasy....I think that people who enjoyed Uprooted by Naomi Novik might like this one too, and that one was marketed for adults, despite having a romance and a similarily  young heroine.....

--It's a diverse read, in that the people of this desert realm are brown skinned, and Johnston sets her story, as is so often the case in Arabian Nights retellings, in an Arabian-esque place and culture.

Final answer--I really really liked this one.  Possibly because I really like books in which the Telling of things matters lots, and possibly because I really like books in which textiles and magic get mixed.

Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, by Patrick Samphire--an exciting adventure on Regency Mars

Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, by Patrick Samphire (Henry Holt and Co., January 2016), is my favorite book of 2016 thus far.  It is the sort of book that renews one's faith that middle grade science fiction/fantasy books can still offer new and wondrous things even for one who has read thousands of them.  The basic premise of the worldbuilding is that there are slip-ways created by Martian dragons long ago that connect Mars to Earth, and the discovery of these paths in the 17th century allowed the British (and other terrestrial civilizations) to establish colonies on Mars. It is now 1816, the Napoleonic era, and a boy named Edward and his family live a very comfortable British Imperial existence on Mars.  The ancient Martian civilizations are no more, although there are still plenty of native Martians around (they are human as well, though physically different due to centuries of life on a planet with lower gravity).  And the tombs of the Marian emperors of centuries past are rich repositories of wondrous technology...the sort of technology that could tip the balance of the ongoing war on Earth in Napoleon's favor if he could get a hold of it....

Edward's father is a brilliant inventor and devisor of mathematical and mechanical constructs.  His most recent project is a wondrous abacus that is essentially a water powered computer, and it has drawn considerable attention--a new map showing the location of an undiscovered Dragon Tomb has been found, but the symbols pinpointing its location are undecipherable, and the new abacus might be able to do it.  And so a disgraced ex-explorer desperate for fame and fortune kidnaps Edward's family, with the exception of himself, his little sister, Putty, and his older sister Olivia.  This villain is planning to force the father to decode the map.  Fortunately Cousin Freddy, who arrived on the scene just before the kidnapper (not a coincidence) isn't the bumbling idiot of his public persona (think Scarlet Pimpernel). And so Freddy, Thomas, Putty, and Olivia set out on a mission to save the family and find the dragon tomb first.

What follows is wild adventure on an alien planet with all sorts of strange flora and fauna, full of steampunkish technology and mechanicals (both helpful and hostile) set in a fascinating British colonial society reminiscent of the British Raj with a dash of regency romance.  The four main characters are all great--poor Edward, though he wants so badly to be a hero, mostly ends up being battered and knocked unconscious, though he has his extremely useful moments of bad guy foiling.  Putty, the little sister, is smart as a tack and as stubborn as a mule, and they would never have made it without her intelligence and determination.  Even Olivia, who never was much regarded by her family (not as pretty as her big sister or as smart as her little one) gets her chance to shine, and is rewarded by the romance part of the story.  And as for Freddy, I am predisposed in the favor of anyone who reminds me of the Scarlet Pimpernel.....

My only complaint is that I wish we'd got to spend more time actually exploring the Dragon Tomb once we got there!  It felt rather rushed; a here we are and look! a mummified dragon, and isn't the technology cool looking glimpse, and then nothing more substantial. 

So I really like it, but am find it tricky to put into words what sort of kid I'd recommend it to.  One who likes spy stories, and adventures on alien planet stories (not that there are many kids exploring alien planet stories these day; perhaps Minecraft comes closest; the cover art reminds me of Minecraft, so perhaps the publisher was thinking along the same lines)...but also one who likes books like Kat, Incorrigable, by Stephanie Burgis, with historical settings mixed with magicalness (I was thinking of Stephanie Burgis' books as I read, and was amused to see that she is the author's wife, who is thanked in the awknowledgements for her help).  I do know that I am able to recommend it to grown-ups who like the same middle grade speculative fiction books I do, which is something....and I also know that I am very much looking forward to the sequel (The Emperor of Mars), and I hope it goes into the culture confict on Mars more than the adventure/danger plot of this first book allowed.