All the Colors of Magic, by Valija Zinck

If you are looking for a fun, comfy middle grade fantasy full of color and quirky details, try All the Colors of Magic, by Valija Zinck (Chicken House, December 3, 2019).  I enjoyed it lots.

10-year-old Penelope lives a mostly ordinary life with her mom and grandma.  The ordinary part is being looked after, going to school, and sometimes thinking about her dad, who vanished long ago.  There are less ordinary parts to her life though.  Her hair is gray, she has a whiff of fire smell around her, and it always rains on her birthday.  And she has a knack for hearing things in her head before her ears hear them.

When her mother has a bad traffic accident, leaving Penelope and her grandma on her own for several weeks while she's in the hospital, Penelope finds to her surprise that her hair isn't naturally gray--it's fiery red.  And she discovers her father is still alive, and still in (sporadic) touch with her mother.  With her hair red instead of gray from the paste her mom's been putting on it, her life gets more magical--for instance, she can hear, and converse, with the local road (which adds nice bits of humor to the story).   And now she knows her dad's alive, she wants to find him.

And so she sets out to do just that, on a path that leads both to discovery of her gifts, and to danger--power-hungry men would do almost anything for the opportunities her magic could give them....

There's enough plot and suspense to the story to keep one's attention, without one (me, that is), being made too anxious, and there's humor to further lighten things.  Penelope is a believable, appealing girl, and it's fun to see her magic blooming.  The risk she takes and the dangers she faces are substantive, but not exaggerated past the point where I rolled my eyes (not even close to that point, actually, and I wouldn't have minded a smidge more tension).   And the writing is full of color (literally), with vivid descriptions of the vivid world Penelope lives in (it's our world, but Penelope's family appreciates color....)

All the Colors of Magic was first published in Germany in 2017, making it even more interesting...it's always fun to read middle grade fantasy from other countries!  But it should feel right at home here in the US.  Offer it to young readers who love books of ordinary kids finding extraordinary, slightly whimsical, magic, like Natalie Lloyds A Snicker of Magic.

And now, for my own entertainment, I go to Kirkus to see if they agree with me (if they don't they're wrong, and if they do we are both righter....)  and they do! We both win! "The charming, comforting, and enjoyable tale of a magical girl discovering her (family and hair) roots."   

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (12/8/19)

Back with middle grad sci/fi fantasy round-uping; please let me know if I missed your post from this past week!  Thanks.

The Reviews

The Box of Delights, by John Masefield, at Semicolon

Charlie Hernandez and the League of Shadows, by Ryan Calejo, at Savings in Seconds (with giveaway), and books 1 and 2 of the series at Middle Grade Minded (with giveaway of both books)

The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz, at Imaginary Friends

Deeplight, by Frances Hardinge, at Magic Fiction Since Potter

The Diamond of Aether, by Scott L. Collins, at BigAl's Books and Pals

The Fear Zone, by K.R. Alexander, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Fiend and the Forge (The Tapestry #3), by Henry H. Neff, at Say What?

Geeks and the Holy Grail (The Camelot Code #2), by Mari Mancusi, at Say What?

Hilda and the Hidden People, by Luke Pearson, at Twirling Book Princess

Legacy, by Shannon Messenger, at Pages Unbound

Legends of the Sky: Dragon Daughter, by Liz Flannagan, at Say What?

Malamander, by Thomas Taylor, at Randomly Reading

The Miraculous, by Jess Redman, at Rosi Hollinbeck

The Mystwick School of Musicraft, by Jessica Khoury, at Hidden in Pages (audiobook review)

The Polar Bear Explorers' Club, by Alex Bell, at Pages Unbound

Twinchantment, by Elise Allen, at Ms. Yingling Reads

A Wolf Called Wander, by Roseanne Perry, at Charlotte's Library

Authors and Interviews

Amy Ephron (The Other Side of the Wall) at Jungle Red Writers

Other Good Stuff

"Matrons, Monsters, Children: Femininity in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" at Tor

Here's Kirkus' list of best mg sci fi/fantasy of 2019

A Wolf Called Wander, by Roseanne Perry

I am still busily reading elementary/middle grade science fiction and fantasy for the Cybils Awards (the shortlists will be announced January 1, 2020, so the clock is ticking...), and although I do my darndest every year to read all the books in a timely fashion, there are still some that I didn't get to when they first came out.

A recent read I enjoyed lots is A Wolf Called Wander, by Roseanne Perry (Greenwillow, May 2019).  It's a story told from the point of view of a young wolf, Swift, whose happy pub-hood in the mountains tumbling around with his litter-mates comes to a horrible end when his pack is attacked by other wolves.  Injured and separated from his family, he sets out on his own to find a new place to call home.

It is a long and hungry journey.  A raven, working with him to find water and prey (this is something ravens really do, apparently), gives him some company, but Swift's longing for a pack is a constant ache.  Happily, after many hardships, he finds a female wolf, also on her own, and they begin a new life together.

Swift's story is based on the true story of a wolf who was tracked making the same epic journey (shown in a helpful map at the end of the book).  And Swift, though his thoughts are presented to the reader in human words, is very much a realistic wolf.  Not quite, though--there's just enough of "would a wolf really be thinking that" to push it just over the boarder from realistic to speculative fiction (side note--as a general rule of thumb, thinking animal books get put in Speculative Fiction in the Cybils Awards*).   The sense of Swift's character, and his keenly felt experiences, make it easy for the reader to journey right there with him, and as the pages turned my own fingers crossed tighter and tighter for a happy ending....

There's quite a bit of gore and violence that might be off-putting for the squeamish.  And there's one very sad wolf pup death.  But it's the sort of violence that does happen in the wild...

It will appeal to lovers of survival stories about kids on their own facing desperate circumstance (Hatchet, for instance), and any young (or even old) reader who loves stories of wild animals having realistic adventures will love it, and will appreciate the back matter about wolves as well.  If you have a young wolf lover in particular, pairing this book with the symbolic adoption of a real wolf, through the World Wildlife Fund, would be an excellent gift!

*more about thinking animals--almost all animal centered stories that come to my mind I'd put in fantasy, because they are from the pov of the animal, which requires the animal to be thinking coherently enough to propel a plot.  One exception is the original Lassie book (which I really recommend; there's no Timmy falling down a well); we are only in Lassie's head sporadically, and always from a slight remove, and her thoughts are instinct rather than human sort of reflection...What do you think?  Would you put, for instance, The One and Only Ivan in realistic fiction or speculative fiction?

The Trouble with Time Travel, by Stephen W. Martin, illustrated by Cornelia Li, for Timeslip Tuesday

Gee.  The past few weeks have been the longest I've ever gone without reviewing anything since my blog started over a decade ago.  But I got the pre-Thanksgiving home renovations that needed finishing finished (mostly), got the house clean (mostly) and had a lovely time with my dear extended family!  And now I'm back, easing myself in gently with a picture book review...

The Trouble with Time Travel, by Stephen W. Martin, illustrated by Cornelia Li (Owlkids, October 15, 2019), is a charming (though stressful) story of Max and her dog Boomer, and a too-enthusiastically thrown Frisbee that shatters a family heirloom, the one thing saved from the mysterious sinking of her many-times great-grandmother's houseboat.  Max decides that the only thing to do about the shattered vase is to build a time machine, and go back in time to smash the vase before it ended up in her living room.

Happily, building a time machine is but the work of minutes (a nice bit of girl engineering power), and off go Max and Boomer!  Controlling the machine, though, is tricky, and they bounce along the millennia from ancient Egypt to a robotic future, before reaching the houseboat....and causing it to sink (and the vase is, as it always has been, is saved...).

Faced with this disaster, Max decides confessing right at the beginning would have been a better course of action, and so she finds herself just before the fatal Frisbee is thrown, and delivers the important message.

Obviously, young readers will assume that "don't throw the Frisbee!" would be a great message.  But instead, Max gives herself a different warning--"do not build a time machine!"  And the book ends with the Frisbee about to begin its fatal flight....

It's a funny story, with attractively detailed illustrations adding lots to the text.  The plot, and the twist of the end, gives lots of room for discussion and contemplation, making this a very nice "my first contemplating the consequences and paradoxes of time travel" sort of book!  I myself would have liked more time bouncing around the past and future-there are only three spreads of time travel, and I think a bit more would have made it clear how difficult time travel can be, and heightened the tension.  And the picture of the houseboat being crashed into isn't as clear about what's happening as it could have been; the adult reading the book aloud might well  have to explain.  But still, lots of fun!

and again, no round-up this week

Last week I had no round-up because of home renovation pressure, and in what is a surprise to no one, this weekend I am still renovating, and the pressure is greater because the first family arrives tomorrow (just my oldest son, home from college, so not huge pressure on his account), but then my mother come on Tuesday, and I care more about making the house feel welcoming, and showing what a competent person I am, living my beautiful, happy life...it makes her feel better (at least, I imagine it would make her feel better if she ever thought this....).  No one arriving at the house today would think it a welcoming home, and indeed they would join me in questioning my choices.

But next Sunday it will be too late to do anything about anything, so come back then for your weekly fix of mg sci fi/fantasy goodness!

And in the meantime, registration for Kidlitcon 2020 is now open!  The program is still in progress, but is already looking great!  If' you're interested in being a panelist, do reach out to the organizers!

 

No middle grade round-up this week

I'm in the those of home renovation, which has to be finished before my mother comes for Thanksgiving, so don't have time for a round-up today.  I hope it will be done by next Sunday so the round-up can happen then!

I'm also going to an event today--a middle grade STEAM sci-fi panel, at An Unlikely Story just up the road from me (if you aren't from RI, otherwise practically a day trip) in Plainville MA.  It looks like lots of fun!

The Last Human, by Lee Bacon

The Last Human, by Lee Bacon (middle grade, Abrams, Oct 8, 2019), is set in a future in which robots exterminated humanity to save the earth from environmental destruction.  Now the robots live peaceful lives, carrying out their duties, and every day the President reminds them via its universally shared messages just how horrible humans were, and how good robots always do what they are supposed to do (which includes never keeping secrets).

12-year-old XR_935 is a good robot, working with his team-mates to install and maintain solar panels every day, then going home to their family units to recharge.  Each has a role--Ceeron is the brawn of the group, lifting and carrying, zippy little SkD is the electrical engineer, and XR-935 is the analytical one, making sure all the numbers work.  Then one day their peaceful lives are disrupted when an Unknown Lifeform comes into the solar field where they are working.

It is an unthinkable lifeform, a human girl called Emma.  Emma survived with a handful of other humans in an underground bunker, but was the only one to make it through a devastating sickness.  Now she is trying to do what her parents wanted, following a map to the place they wanted her to go.

The robots face a dilemma.  Emma doesn't seem like a monstrous world destroyer; she seems like someone who needs their help.  XR_935 crunches the numbers, and realizes that the probability of Emma making her way through a world full of enemy robots is almost nil.  A little bit of help for Emma at the beginning snowballs into the robotic threesome going AWOL, setting out with Emma and getting themselves into greater and greater trouble.   

The journey with the human girl forces XR_935 to question not just whether humanity was a horrible as it's been led to believe, but whether the President is in fact not being a good robot itself.  And indeed, the President has been keeping information from the robot community; information that can, and does, change everything (the ending offers the promise of human/robot co-existence).

It's a story told in short chunks, making it very friendly for readers daunted by large swaths of text.  XR_935, and his comrades, are also very engaging traveling companions, and it's delightful to see XR_935, the point of view robot, stretching its consciousness past acceptance of the status quo.  Ceeron and SKD are delightful in their own ways as well, bringing considerable humor to the tense adventures.

I thought at first this would be a dystopia from the human point of view--attempted extinction and a world ruled by hostile robots is fairly awful.  But it turns out that the robot society itself has dystopian elements, with knowledge controlled by a de facto dictator, and free will (these robots are so advanced that free will is possible for them) suppressed.   I also thought Emma's journey would be the center of things, but instead it's just as much as story of XR_935 growing from trusting kid robot to questioning thinker, taking responsibility for its own actions.   And so I found it much more interesting than I expected!

I enjoyed it lots, and I think it has tons of kid appeal. Definitely one to give to fans of The Wild Robot, or kids who love reading about plucky kids copying with unimaginable circumstances.

Bone Talk, by Candy Gourlay

Bone Talk, by Candy Courlay (middle grade, David Fickling Books, November 5 2019 in the US), is set in the mountains of the Philippines in 1899.  Samkad is ten, on the verge of become officially recognized as a man, and taking his place as a warrior of the Bontoc people, fighting their enemy, another mountain people,  on and off as they have for generations.  His best friend Luki also wants to be a warrior, but she's a girl, and that's not the role awaiting her.   The ancestors are close at hand, giving guidance and protection, the rice grows well, and the world seems to be working as it should.

Then the world changes.  An American arrives, with a boy originally from Samkad's village, who grew up in the lowlands.  The man is friendly, sharing knowledge of his strange country and its customs.   But other Americans have come to the Philippines too, bringing war, and they too come to the village.   They are not friends, and Samkad's passage from childhood to adulthood is the trauma he and his father must face together in the wake of the American war.

I did not know anything about the Philippine-American War before reading this book, though the general trajectory of violent invasion and clash of cultures didn't surprise me.  But the story isn't about the invasion so much as it is about Samkad's growing up, and coping with the dramatic disruption of his world.  He's a great, believable kid, anxious to prove himself, making impulsive decisions that sometimes aren't great, and ultimately come through everything true to himself.  There's enough about the war and the Americans to make things exciting, without that story decentering Samkad and his perspective as things fall apart around him.

The sights and sounds and even smells of Samkad's world are well described, making this place and its people vividly real, which in turn makes the story of invasion and cultural disruption even more powerful.  The story ends gently, with the horror softened by a reprieve for Samkad and the Bontoc people, and indeed, after finishing the book, I was relieved to find that the Bontoc are still living in their mountains (see link above).

So the book is two things--an excellent, and universally familiar story of growing up, and a great introduction to a culture very foreign to many US readers, and to the horror of "culture contact" and imperialism for young readers!  And it is, in fact, endorsed by Amnesty International:

"Amnesty International endorses Bone Talk because it upholds many human rights, including our rights to life, to equality, to have a religion, to enjoy our own culture. It also shows us what can happen when these are taken away from us."

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (11/10/19)

Welcome to this week's round-up, and please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

City of Ghosts, by Victoria Schwab, at Hidden in Pages

The Darkdeep, by Ally Condy and Brendan Reichs, at Hidden in Pages

A Dash of Trouble (Love Sugar Magic #1), by Anna Meriano, at Imaginary Friends

The Dragon Warrior, by Katy Zhao, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Edge of the World (Mightier than the Sword #2), by Drew Callander and Alana Harrison, at Feed Your Fiction Addiction, A Garden of Books, and Always in the Middle

The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone, by Jaclyn Moriarty, at alibrarymama

The Forgotten Girl, by India Hill Brown, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Frostheart, by Jamie Littler, at Book Craic

The Griffins of Castle Cary, by Heather Shumaker, at Geo Librarian

Grimworld, by Avery Moray, at Becca Leighanne

The Hound of Rowan, by Henry Neff, at Say What?

The Lifters, by Dave Eggers, at The Comfort Table),

The Other Side of the Wall (Castle in the Mist #3) by Amy Ephron, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Over the Moon, by Natalie Lloyd, at Puss Reboots

The Piper's Apprentice, by Matthew Cody, at Fantasy Literature

Prince Dustin and Clara: Secrets of the Black Forest, by Daniel Lee Nicholson, at Log Cabin Library

The Princess who Flew with Dragons, by Stepahnie Burgis, at Foreward Reviews

Small Spaces, by Katherine Arden, at Broadway World Books

The Spirit of London (Spirits #2), by Rob Keeley, at Pages for Thoughts

Throwback, by Peter Lerangis, at Charlotte's Library

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia, at Player FM (audiobook)

Two at The Book Search--Spark, by Sarah Beth Durst, and Dragonfell, by Sarah Prineas


Authors and Interviews

Katharine Orton (Nevertell), also with review, at thereaderteacher

Matt Harry (Cryptozoology for Beginners) at Carpinello's Writing Pages

Rick Riodan at the B and N YA podcast

Ross MacKenzie (Evernight) at thereaderteacher


Other Good Stuff

What's new in the UK, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Five fractured fairy tales, at Scholastic Parents

Throwback, by Peter Lerangis, for Timeslip Tuesday

Throwback, by Peter Lerangis (HarperCollins, October 2019), is a riveting middle grade time travel story about a kid who can change the past.

Corey is used to being told he has an active imagination, and he used to noticing odd things, so when he sees an old picture in his friend Leila's house, and finds himself in what seems to be New York 100 years in the past, he thinks it's just part of the movie he knows is being filmed in his neighborhood.  Or possibly a hallucination.  It's not, though.   Corey's actually travelled though time.  And he is one of a very small group who can actually change things in the past.

His grandfather is also a time traveler, who can't change things.  He tells Corey how he's gone, over and over again, back to 9/11, to try to keep his wife from going to work in the World Trade Center that day.  And of course, when Corey's talent emerges, the possibility that he might be able to save her occurs to them both....the possibility that he might change other things, disrupt the timeline in ways they can't predict, also occurs to them, and the possibility that if news of his gift spreads in the time traveler circles, there are those who will want to control his use of it for their own purposes....

But Corey is determined to try to save his grandmother, and so he sets off to 9/11, with modern coins and his cell phone with him as anchors that will let him get home to his own time again.  It doesn't go well, and instead of getting home, he goes further back in time to 1862, and his phone and money are stolen. Fortunately, he makes a good friend, Quinn, a kid who also has secrets...and the two become urban railroad cowboys (riding on the track ahead of the train, to clear obstacles). Meanwhile, in the present, Leila learns secrets about her own family, and finds she too can travel in time, and heads down stream to 9/11 herself....
 
Full of lots of tense moments, vivid depictions of the past, interesting characters, and lots of time travel intrigue and danger, this is a gripping read!  The first half is full of the mystery of Corey discovering his gift, the second half is essentially dangers in past.  The time travel is as believable as it can be, and the implications of being able to change the past aren't complicated any more than they need to be (so my mind stayed as clear as it ever does--sometimes, even though I'm a veteran time travel reader, I get confused by multiple timelines, but that didn't happen here).  There's much that isn't fully and carefully explained, leaving room for other books to explore things further, and there's a lot of room for more character development of Corey and Leila now that their setup for adventures is established, and I hope there are more books, and that Quinn, in particular, is in them!

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (11/3/19)

Welcome to this week's round-up; please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

The Thousand Year Old Boy, by Ross Welford, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Black Cauldron, by Lloyd Alexander, at Say What?

The Book of Story Beginnings by Kristin Kladstrup, at Say What?

Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden, at Abby the Librarian

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at A Garden of Books (audiobook review)

The Double Helix (Explorer Academy #3), by Trudy Truit, at Always in the Middle

The Dragon Thief, by Zetta Elliott, at Middle Grade Book Village and Charlotte's Library

The Dragon Warrior, by Katie Zhao, at Hit or Miss Books

Dragons in a Bag, by Zetta Elliott, at Middle Grade Book Village

The Fire Keeper, by J.C. Cervantes, at Feed Your Fiction Additiction

The Ghouls of Howlfair, by Nick Tomlinson, at Book Craic

Grimworld, by Avery Moray, at Jazzy Book Reviews

The Hippo at the End of the Hall, by Helen Cooper, at Mom Read It

The Impossible Boy, by Ben Brooks, at Book Craic

Music Boxes, by Tonja Drecker, at Defining Ways

The Mystwick School of Musicaft, by Jessica Khoury, at The Write Path

The Other Side of the Wall, by Amy Ephron, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

The Princess Who Flew With Dragons, by Stephanie Burgis, at Foreward Book Reviews

Rose Coffin, by M.P. Kozlowsky, at Charlotte's Library

Saving Fable (Talespinners), by Scott Reintgen, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Titans, by Kate O'Hearn, at The Never Ending TBR

The Tunnel of Bones, by Victoria Schwab, at Twirling Book Princess, The Zen Leaf and Imaginary Friends

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia, at Laughing Place

also seven new ones with blurbs by me at the B and N Kids Blog

Authors and Interviews

Thomas Taylor (Malamander) at Nerdy Book Club

Kara LaRue (Rise of the Zombert) at Middle Grade Book Village

K.G. Campbell (A Small Zombie Problem) and Laura Ellen Anderson (Amerlia Fang and the Barbaric Ball) at B and N Kids Blog

Other Good Stuff

A children's author and her son share their favorite middle grade fantasy fiction that features children of color, at embracerace blog

This year's Witch Week is off and running!

Publishers Weekly has announced its list of best kids books of 2019; not as much mg sff as I'd like, but still some good ones!

Rose Coffin, by M.P. Kozlowsky

Rose Coffin, by M.P. Kozlowsky (Scholastic October 2019), is a fun middle grade portal fantasy with a very interesting twist!

Rose is going through a tough patch.  An accident has left her twin brother is in a coma, and her parents have little time and energy to spend on her.  At school she's teased for her too-small clothes, and for blushing all the time, and so when the popular SallyAnn encourages her to audition as a singer for her band, Rose is thrilled.  But the "audition" is simply an excuse to get Rose off alone in the woods, to humiliate her utterly and record it all to share in school.

Rose can't make herself get on the school bus the next day.  Instead she takes off into the same woods, and her life is upended.  A walking tree person and a golden boy kidnap her, and take her into the magical realm of Eppersett, where she is hailed as the chosen one.  But don't role your eyes at this seeming cliché--in Rose's case, her bad luck continues, and being chosen one means she'll be the one who gets to be sacrificed to the Abomination, swapping her life for 10 abomination-free years for Eppersett.  (We readers find this out almost immediately, so it's not too severe a spoiler).

Rose, naturally, doesn't find this appealing, but she's not given a choice.  The only thing the Eppersettians are worried about is getting her into the maw of the Abomination alive.  So the golden boy, the tree person, two fierce dog-like beings and a fairy with no wings agree to try to get her there alive.

Dangers beset the travelers, and Rose discovers that she is not, in fact, helpless; she has an actual magical talent of her own (that makes her even more valuable as a sacrifice).  Fighting alongside her captors, and seeing the horror that the Abomination is bringing to Eppersett makes Rose feel some sympathy for them....and if it weren't for the fact that they were bent on sacrificing her, they would be her first true friends outside her family....

And then in the end, Rose has to decide what she will do to save not Eppersett so much as her own self.

So as a standard story of child from our world find a magic gift and a destiny in a magical land it is fine; the magical world and its characters and their backstories and motivations are interesting, the challenges formidable and inventive, with nicely high stakes , and the Abomination unquestionably abominable.  But the whole twist of Rose being a sacrifice gives it a most enjoyable edge of ethical dilemma, that is brought to a satisfying conclusion that makes Rose a victim neither of fate, or of Stockholm Syndrome, but still requires a satisfactorily high level of threat/sacrifice on her part.

It's a journey in which Rose moves from being isolated to being a member of a community, and though she didn't start the journey willingly, in the end she's glad she did (and so is the reader!)

Here's the Kirkus review, if you want another opinion that is basically the same as my opinion...

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

The Dragon Thief, by Zetta Elliott

In Dragons in a Bag (link to my review), Zetta Elliott introduced a  young boy named Jaxon, who was given a job to do by a magical old woman, Ma.  He had to return three baby dragons to the world of magic.  It didn't go as planned, not that Jaxon knew enough about what was going on to really "plan" anything, but he did his best.  It wasn't enough.  One of the babies was stolen by Kavita, the little sister of his best friend, Vik.

The Dragon Thief  (Random House, Oct 22 1019) picks up the story right where we left it.  Jaxon is worried about Ma, who has fallen into a strange sleep, and he's desperate to get the baby dragon to the magical world.  Kavita is worried about the baby dragon, which grows at an alarming rate when it gets fed.  When she realizes she can't keep it safe, her old aunty who lives with her family decides to help her get it home.

So on the one hand we have Jaxon and Vik, racing to find Kavita while figuring out how they can manage to open a door to the other realm, and on the other we have Kavita, an increasingly large dragonet, and her aunty on a journey to the same goal....

Jaxon's well aware he needs help, so when a mysterious man named Blue, covered with tattoos, offers assistance, Jaxon things this might be what he needs.  But the man is a trickster, with an agenda of his own...and the fate of the little dragon hangs (very tensly) in the balance!  (Blue's motivations and actions are ambiguous; I love a nice ambiguous "bad" guy, and I hope we meet him again in a future book so we can see if his point of view is in fact at all valid....)

It's a great story for younger middle grade readers (8-10 year olds).  There's a nice serving of ordinary story, including Jaxon and Vic becoming friends with a boy they'd steered clear of because of being intimidated by his large size, and Kavita finding out about her auntie's past in India (which offers an eye-opening bit of history).  The kids are very real characters, and one can easily imagine hanging out with them.  But the ordinary doesn't stay that way for long, as the boundaries between the magical and the real world collide, with the kids right smack in the middle of it!

It's lots of  fun, and I enjoyed it even more than I did book 1.  The only thing I can think of that would have made it even better would have been more dragon page time!

disclaimer:  the publisher sent review copies for Kidlitcon Providence 2019 last March, which came to my house, so of course I treated myself to one of the copies...and though I didn't get it read in time to pass on to another Kidlitcon attendee, I did find it a good home with a kid who loved it.

This weeks round up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (10/27/19)

Here's what I found this week; please let me know if I missed your post (or a post about your book....)

The Reviews

The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander, at Say What?

The Bookwanderers, by Anna James, at Ms. Yingling Reads and Book Nut

Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden, at Geo Librarian and Books4YourKids

The Dragon Warrior, by Katie Zhao, at Read Love

Ember and the Ice Dragons, by Heather Fawcett, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Iggy and Oz: the Plastic Dinos of Doom, by J.J. Johnson, at Reading, Writing, and Stitch Metric

Knock Three Times (Wizards of Once #3), by Cressida Cowell, at Twirling Book Princess

Lalani of the Distant Sea, by Erin Entrada Kelly, at Puss Reboots

Lintang and the Pirate Queen, by Tamara Moss, at Read Love

The Lost Girl, by Anne Ursu, at Not Acting My Age

Malamander, by Thomas Taylor, at Milliebot Reads

The Poison Jungle, by Tui T. Sutherland, at Hidden in Pages

Rise of the Dragons, by Angie Sage, at Say What?

The Rubicus Prophecy, by Alane Adams, at Always in the Middle

The Runaway Princes, by Kate Coombs, at Leaf's Reviews

Sam Saves the Night, by Shari Simpson, at Nerdophiles

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia, at The New York Times

We're Not From Here, by Geoff Rodkey, at Imaginary Friends

Two at The Book Search--The Spinner of Dreams, by K.A. Reynolds, and A Wolf Called Wander, by Rosanne Perry

Authors and Interviews

Jacqueline West (A Storm of Wishes) at Spooky Middle Grade

Katie Zhao (The Dragon Warrior) at Nerdy Book Club and Literary Rambles

Anna James (The Bookwanderers) at Nerdy Book Club

Other good stuff

Middle grade ghosts of 2019, compiled by me at the B and N Kids Blog

What I've been up to at the B. and N. Kids Blog

blogging here has been slow (just as soon as I finish painting the outside of my house, which I hope to do tomorrow, because goodness knows if there will ever be any nice warm days this fall), but I have been reading lots, and have written several nice posts for the Barnes and Noble Kids Blog!

My posts from the last month are:

10 Middle Grade Island Adventures to Thrill and Delight Young Readers 

8 Great New Middle Grade Action and Adventure Stories! 

Get On the Case with 5 Brand New Middle Grade Mysteries 

From Slightly Spooky to Downright Frightening: 8 Haunting New Middle Grade Ghost Stories

Two were assignments, for which I didn't pick the books myself, two were ideas I pitched to the blog editor.  At the moment I'm finishing off a list post of books with bullying....surprisingly not as depressing to read as I'd feared!

Stolen Time, by Danielle Rollins, for Timeslip Tuesday

If you are in the mood for a real page turner of a YA time travel story (it only took me two and a bit hours to read 400 pages), with lots of twists, lots of great characters, and lots of action, look no further than Stolen Time, by Danielle Rollins (Febraury 2019, HarperTeen).

It begins in Seattle, in 1913, when Dorothy runs away from the marriage her con-artist mother has inveigled her into.  Her flight leads her to a time traveler, from New Seattle, 2077.  Ash is on a mission to find his mentor, the professor who figured out time travel technology, and who disappeared. leaving his team of young people gathered from different times without guidance and purpose.  Dorothy stows away in his ship, and Ash inadvertently takes her back to his own time, to a city devastated by earthquakes and inundated by tidal waves.

It's a city living in fear of a vicious gang, whose co-leader, Roman, was once one of the professor's brightest students.  But Roman wanted time travel to be used to save his city and its people before it was destroyed, and the professor refused to believe this was possible (for good reasons).

When Dorothy goes exploring by herself, and is kidnapped by Roman, she's caught in the greatest long-con of her life.  But who is its mastermind, Roman, or someone else entirely?  And why did the professor disappear, and where has he gone?  And can Dorothy find a place for herself with Ash and the other members of the professor's team, earning their respect for her skills, and not just being admired for her pretty face?  A trip back to a military base in the 1980s gives her the chance to do just that; but whose hands is she playing into?  Will she be on the side of the destroyers, or the saviors (and is saving anything she cares about actually possible?)

Dorothy is a fascinating character.  She's badly damaged by her horrible mother, who's used her as a beautiful pawn in various scams her whole life.  Even though Dorothy is a point of view character, I was never sure I liked or trusted her, but it's clear that it's not her fault she's the way she is. She's been taught never to trust anyone, and no one has given her any reason to trust them...until she meets Ash.  Ash, a young World War II pilot, is less complicated, but still appealing in his loyalty to his comrades.

And then everything goes bang at the end, leaving one tremendously anxious for the next book.  Don't be me, and look at the end of the first book half way through to make sure it comes out all right in the end, because it isn't the end!  Fortunately book two, Twisted Fates, comes out reasonably soon, in February of 2020 (but don't read the blurb for that yet, because spoilers).

It's good fun time travel through technology, with lots of different jumps through time and tangled timelines, that manages not to be too confusing.  An interesting twist is that time travelers start to get glimpses of their future lives...used to good effect to ratchet up the tensions of their present lives....

this week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the web (10/20/19)

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

(I changed my post title from "around the blogs" to "around the web" but do cool kids these days actually say "the web"?  Would "on-line" be more au currant?)

Book Reviews

Archimancy, by J.A. White, at Puss Reboots

The Battle, by Karuna Riazi, at Randomly Reading

The Beast (Darkdeep #2), by Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz, at Cracking the Cover and A Garden of Books

The Dragon Warrior, by Katie Zhao, at Endless Chapters, For Ever and Everly, and The Quiet Pond

Dual at Araluen (Royal Ranger #3), by John Flanagan, at Say What?

The Evil Wizard Smallbone, by Delia Sherman, at Kid Lit Geek

The Fire Keeper, by J.C. Cervantes, at Pamela Kramer

Guardians of Magic, by Chris Riddell, at Book Craic

The Jumbie God's Revenge, by Tracey Baptiste, at Sally's Bookshelf

The Key of Lost Things (Hotel Between #2), by Sean Easley, at Kid Lit Reviews

The Land of Roar, by Jenny McLachlan, at Thoughts by Tash

The Last Dragon (Revenge of Magic #2), by James Riley, at GeoLibrarian and Good Reads with Rona

The Little Grey Girl, by Celine Kiernan, at Pages Unbound

Malamander, by Thomas Taylor, at PidginPea's Book Nook

Master of the Phantom Isle (Dragonwatch #3) by Brandon Mull, at Read Love

The Missing Barbegazi, by H.S. Norup, at Log Cabin Library

Rebels with a Cause (Max Einstein #2), by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein, at Say What?

The Revenge of Magic, by James Riley, at Boys and Literacy

The Shores Beyond Time, by Kevin Emerson, at Charlotte's Library

Skeleton Keys: the Unimaginary Friend, by Gus Bass, at Book Craic

Small Spaces, by Katherine Arden, at Imaginary Friends

Spark, by Sarah Beth Durst, at Dead Houseplants

Trace, by Pat Cummings, at Locus

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia, at  Paul's Picks, YA Books Central, Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Broadway World, Ashley and Company, and Charlotte's Library

Weird Little Robots, by Carolyn Crimi, at Always in the Middle

A Wolf Called Wander, by Roseanne Parry, at Redeemed Reader

Two at The Book Search--The Bootlace Magician, by Cassie Beasley, and The Revenge of Magic, by James Riley


Authors and Interviews

Katie Zhao (The Dragon Warrior) at the Barnes and Noble Kids Blog

Kwame Mbalia (Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky) at the News & Observer

Adrianna Cuevas (The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez) at Middle Grade Book Village

Nicole Valentine (A Time-Traveller's Theory of Relativity) at the Lerner Podcast

Nick Tomlinson (The Ghouls of Howlfair) at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Sarah Jean Horwitz (The Dark Lord Clementine) at Middle Grade Book Village

Paul Mason (The International Yeti Collective) at Alittlebutalot

J. de laVega (Peter Tulliver and the City of Monster) at Reading With Your Kids Podcast


Other Good Stuff

"Historical Fiction With a Touch of Fantasy" at Lyn Miller-Lachmann

at Tor--"The messy beautiful worldbuilding of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"

Not exactly good stuff, but I'm looking for new middle grade dystopia, and would welcome suggestions!  Here's what I have so far.

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia

I just read, and wrote about, Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia, for a Barnes and Noble Kids Blog post, so I'm not going to do a full review here.  But I want to talk about it here a bit too, since this is my more personal record of book reading.

Wow!  This is so powerful, and sad, and important, and funny (in places), and the sort of book one wants to give to kids Right Now.

Tristan's grief over his best friend's death, and the way he blames himself for it, and his sense of failure for loosing his first boxing match (I was cross at his dad and grandfather for being so clearly disappointed in him) set the stage for his journey into a world of magic and mayhem.  He's carrying a lot of emotional weight with him when he punches the titular hole in the sky, and once he goes through, a whole heap more is piled on him.

And it's not just personal weight, but the weight of sad and terrible history. There's the fact that the primary attacking monsters are iron fetterlings, and the land is called Midpass, evoking the Middle Passage, and more along the same lines as the story continues.

But also there are African American god heroes, West African gods, and lots and lots of story holding everything together.  And it's Tristan's affinity for stories and storytelling, learned from his grandmother, that is his own greatest power (although the magical boxing gloves he gets are pretty darn cool too!).

Looked at more dispassionately, it's a very solid story, with a familiar sort of Riorden-esque feel to it--the hero struggling to figure out just what he's supposed to do, with help, and hindrance, from lots of new characters met along the way.  It moves along at a good pace, and the writing makes everything come vividly to life.

So basically, it lives up to its gorgeous cover!

looking for recent dystopian middle grade books

Back in 2017 I wrote a post for the Barnes and Noble Kids Blog about dystopian middle grade books, and I've been asked to refresh it.  Problem is, there haven't been a whole lot of mg dystopian books published in the US since then, and it has to be something available at B and N! I think of dystopian primarily as a systemic loss of civil liberties, although environmental collapse with concomitant social collapse works for me too.

Here's what I've found so far, with help from twitter.  It isn't much, though I have combed through Goodreads and Kirkus, and have myself read about 500 mg books in the past two years. I am wondering if the fact that we are actually living in an increasingly dystopian world is making US publishers less interested in dystopian mg.....

I would love love love more suggestions of books available in the US, especially books by diverse authors!  and feel free to disagree with my classification of any of these as "dystopian."

Suggested, but problematic for my purposes:

FloodWorld, by Tom Huddlestone (Nosy Crow October 2019) only available on Nook right now, so not sure I can use it

The Middler, by Kristy Applebaum (Nosy Crow March 2019) not at B and N

Where the River Runs Gold, by Sita Brahmachari (Hachette Australia July 2019) not at B and N.

2019 Books I haven't Read, which look possibly dystopian:

Darren Simpson, Scavengers (Usbourne, March 2019)

The Rise of Winter, by Alex Lyttle (Central Ave. Publishing, May 2019) looks like it has environmental and societal collapse, but is it "dystopian?"

The Last Human, by Lee Bacon (Abrams October 2019)  Robots have eliminated almost all humans, creating a robot utopia; is it actually dystopian from a human point of view, or just an undesirable situation????

Books from 2019 that I've read:

Metl: the Angel Weapon, by Scott Wilson (Month9books, March 2019)

Rise of the Dragons, by Angie Sage (Scholastic, February 2019), is dystopian in many ways.

Wings of Fire books 11-13, by Tui T. Sutherland


Possibilities from 2018

The Turnaway Girls, by Hayley Chewins (Candlewick October 2018)

Blue Window, by Adina Rishe Gewirtz (Candlewick April 2018)

The Shores Beyond Time, by Kevin Emerson

The Shores Beyond Time, by Kevin Emerson, is the third book in the Chronicle of the Dark Star series that began with Last Day on Mars, and continued in The Oceans Between Stars (links to my reviews).   Basically the premise is humanity, and an alien race with whom humanity is at war, are out among the stars after our sun went nova (and some other stars have too), both races looking for new homes (the aliens because humanity decided the Telphon's planet would be a great new home, and essentially nuked it, so there are only about three hundred of them left).  One human boy, Liam, and one Telphon girl, who goes by Phoebe, became friends on Mars and Liam met an ancient time travelling alien of a different species (as told in the first book) and were both separated from their people on a long lonely space flight, and Liam started travelling in time himself (the second book).

In this third book, Liam and Phoebe find themselves at the heart of the mystery of the supernovas and the time traveling Liam's been doing.  Is the Dark Star, with its miraculous ability to create new universe, the answer to humanity's problems?

This took me right back to the days back in the 1980s when I first discovered science fiction--the sense of mysteries upon mysteries out in space, strange alien technology of unbelievable power, whose makers aren't necessarily friends, and the aliens and humans maybe about to kill each other, or not.  But without the sexism and imbedded racism and imperialism of much mid 20th century sci fi.

And so I recommend this series to today's middle grade readers with strong conviction.  It is a great story of friendship, action and adventure, and marvelous science fiction.

This being my time travel book of the week, I should mention that it is just full of Liam, and to a lesser extent, Phoebe, bouncing up and down timelines.  It is confusing at times, but not so much as to vex the easily confused reader (me).  The past on Mars is where Liam goes to retreat, the futures he sees are part of his path to questioning the present.  So it's good and useful time travel, and it allows for an especial bitter sweetness to the epilogue....