This Sunday's Middle Grade Sci Fi/fantasy round-up

Welcome to this weeks MF SFF Round-up! Please let me know if I missed your post. And indeed (edited to add) I missed a whole slew of links I'd emailed myself, that got buried by subsequent mail....

The Reviews:

Aliens on Vacation, by Clete Barrett Smith, at the excelsior file and Reading Vacation

Dragonbreath: Lair of the Bat Monster, by Ursula Vernon, at Great Kid Books

Drizzle, by Kathleen Van Cleeve, at books4yourkids

Empire of Ruins: The Hunchback Assignments III by Arthur Slade, at The Written World

The Fires Beneath the Sea, by Lydia Millet, at Ms. Martin Teaches Media

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne Valente, at The Book Smugglers

Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, by Suzanne Collins, at Just Booking Around

Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow, by Nathan Bransford, at Holes in My Brain, KidsRead, Sneak Peek Preview, and Charlotte's Library

Juniper Berry, by M.P. Kozlowsky, at Book Yurt and the Book Smugglers

Keeper, by Kathi Appelt, at One Librarian's Book Reviews

The Memory Bank, by Carolyn Coman, at Elizabeth Varadan's Fourth Wish

Scumble, by Ingrid Law, at Shelf Elf

Seven Sorcerers, by Caro King, at I <:3 Reading

Tall Story, by Candy Gourlay, at Charlotte's Library (although you could argue this isn't fantasy....)

The Throne of Fire, by Rick Riordan, at Book Nut, Roof Beam Reader, and The Spotted Mushroom

TIM: Defender of the Earth, by Sam Enthoven, at Fantasy Book Reviews

The Time Traveling Fashionista, by Bianca Turetsky, at Dreaming in Books

Time Witch, by Jacqueline Corcoran, at The Tales Compendium

Under the Green Hill, by Laura Sullivan, at Lucy Was Robbed

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin, a video review at Bookie Woogie

Authors and Interviews:

Nathan Bransford (Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow) at Grab a Pen, and The Other Side of the Story

M.P. Kozlowsky (Juiper Berry) at Book Yurt, The Book Maven's Haven, and Kid Lit Frenzy

Megan Whalen Turner (The Thief et seq.) at Book Yurt

Brandon Mull (Beyonders) at Chersti Nieveen

Catherynne Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making) at Whatever

Diana Greenwood (Insight) at From the Mixed Up Files

Other Good Stuff:

The short lists for the Locus Awards have been announced; here are the "ya" contenders:

• Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
• Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
• Enchanted Glass, Diana Wynne Jones (HarperCollins UK; Greenwillow)
• I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett (Gollancz; HarperCollins)
• Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)