This Sunday's Round-Up of Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction

This week's round-up was compiled last Friday, just before I headed out to Kidlitcon 2010 in Minneapolis...I'll update it on Sunday night (or, more likely, Monday morning....)

Here's what's new since I posted this on Friday:

Kate Coombs has a fascinating, utterly fascinating, post about trends in mg sff using the Cybils Nominees as a data set--check it out here at Book Aunt.

Reviews:

Alex Van Helsing: Vampire Rising, by Jason Henderson, at Booked Up.

Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce, at Booked Up.

The Guardians of Ga'Hoole: The Capture, by Kathryn Lasky, at The O.W.L.

The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall, by Mary Downing Hahn at Lucy Was Robbed.

Halt's Peril, by John Flanagan, at Ms. Yingling Reads.

Heart of Glass, by Vivian French, at Back to Books.

The Lost Children, by Carolyn Cohagan, at Charlotte's Library.

The Lost Hero, by Rick Riordan, at Ms. Yingling Reads, Essa Pamandanan, and The Book Zone

The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan, at One Librarian's Book Reviews.

On the Blue Comet, by Rosemary Wells, at Charlotte's Library

Takeshita Demons, by Cristy Burne, at Great Kid Books.

The Thirteenth Princess, by Diane Zahler, at Biblio File and Booked Up.

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, by Alan Garner, at Bart's Bookshelf.

Zombiekins, by Kevin Bolger, at Cloudy With a Chance of Books.

A three for one at Ms. Yingling reads--Princesses, Fairies, and Basilisks...and do spend some time browsing Ms. Yingling's other posts from this past week--lots of good mg fantasy sprinkled among them!

Interviews:

Panama Oxridge (Justin Thyme) at The Book Zone
Penny Noyce (Lost in Lexicon) at Author.
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero etc) at Wired

And an interview with Stacy Whitman, editor of Tu Books (an imprint of Lee & Low dedicated to publishing multicultural fantasy/sci fi for kids and teens) at Cynsations.

Katherine Roberts is this week's contributor to Katherine Langrish's Fairytale Reflections series.

There's a guest post J.S. Lewis (Grey Griffins books) at Reading Vacation

News:

J.K. Rowling is the first winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Prize, which comes with a prize of slightly over $93,000. This prize is given to an author comparable to Anderson, and is not the same award as the Hans Christian Andersen medal, which was first awarded in 1956). I am still mulling over ways in which Rowling is comparable to Andersen...and not quite coming up with much that satisfies me, apart from "famous" and "memorable." In Andersen's case (for me at least) too many horrific details are all too memorable....

And other, sad, news:

Eva Ibbotson, great creator of magical stories, has died...here's an interview from the Guardian with her from earlier this month, where she talks about her life as a writer, and her most recent book, The Ogre of Ogglefort-- "When I get stuck in a book now, I usually try putting an aunt in," says Eva Ibbotson, matter-of-factly. "I find it difficult to write a book without aunts. With The Ogre I had to put in three aunts, if I remember rightly." Ogre was shortlisted for the 2010 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and will be released in the U.S. by Dutton in summer 2011.