This Sunday's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi

Every week, I scour the blogs (at least, those that are in my reader, a list that is getting longer and longer) to extract posts of interest to fans of middle grade fantasy and science fiction. Here's what I found this week (please let me know if I missed your post, or the posts of your friends and family! Send me links at any time during the week!)

But first. Nominations for the Cybils close on the fifteenth of October. Many fine books have been put forward in middle grade sci fi/fantasy, but I've pulled together a list of books that haven't been nominated, just to remind people who might love them passionately that they aren't on the list yet.

The Reviews:

Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel, at The Secret Adventures of Writer Girl

The Apothecary, by Malie Meloy, at Karissa's Reading Review, Shall Write, and Boomerang Books

A Beautiful Friendship, by David Weber, at Book Aunt (Kate, aka Book Aunt, wrote to tell me that this is a good one for middle grade readers, even though it's listed as YA, so here it is)

Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld, at YA Bibliophile

The Blue Umbrella, by Mike Mason, at Back to Books

Bigger than a Breadbox, by Laurel Snyder, at Stacked

Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu, at A Backwards Story, The Book Rat, Galley Smith, and The Book Smugglers

The Cheshire Cheese Cat, by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright, at My Reading Frenzy, Random Musings of a Bibliophile, and There's a Book

The Crimson Shard, by Teresa Flavin, at Nayu's Reading Corner

Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact, by A.J. Hartley, at Lucy Was Robbed

Diamonds and Doom (The Raven Mysteries) by Marcus Sedgwick, at Wondrous Reads

Down the Mysterly River, by Bill Willingham, at The King of Elfland's Second Cousin

Flood and Fire, by Emily Diamond, at Charlotte's Library

The House of Arden, by E. Nesbit, at Tor

Icefall, by Matthew Kirby (it might not be fantasy, but it sure reads like it) at Charlotte's Library, Cracking the Cover, Figment, and Fuse #8

The Inquisitor's Apprentice, by Chris Moriarty, at Boing Boing and The Scattered Bookshelf

Liesl and Po, by Lauren Oliver, at Candace's Book Blog, Karissa's Reading Review, A Backwards Story, and Reading Vacation

The Obsidian Dagger: Being the Further Extraordinary Adventures of Horatio Lyle, by Catherine Webb, at Bart's Bookshelf

Sally's Bones, by MacKenzie Cadenhead, at We Be Reading

Sea of Trolls, by Nancy Farmer, at One Librarian's Book Reviews

The Secret War, by Matt Myklush, at Reading Vacation

Secrets of the Crown, by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, at Shannon Whitney Messenger

The Shadows (Books of Elsewhere 1), by Jacqueline West, at Jean Little Library

The Storm Begins (History Keepers) by Damian Dibben, at Nayu's Reading Corner

A Tale Dark and Grimm, by Adam Gidwitz, at My Reading Frenzy

The White Assassin, by Hilary Wagner, at Shannon Whitney Messenger

Authors and Interviews:

Maile Meloy (The Appothecary) at Boomerang Books

Matthew Kirby (Icefall) at Cracking the Cover

Margaret Peterson Haddix (who has a story in Guys Read: Thriller) at Literary Asylum

R.A. Jones (The Obsidian Pebble) at The O.W.L.

Matt Myklush (The Secret War) at Reading Vacation

Clete Barrett Smith (Aliens on Vacation) at The Enchanted Inkpot

Teresa Flavin (The Blackhope Enigma, and its sequel, The Crimson Shard, just released in the UK) at Nayu's Reading Vacation

Hilary Wagner (The White Assassin) at Literary Rambles

Erin Mcguire (illustrator of Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu) at A Backwards Story

Patrick Ness was on a blog tour to celebrate the US release of A Monster Calls; Tasha at Waking Brian Cells was the last stop, and has the full list.

Anne Ursu (Breadcrumbs) was also on tour; here are some stops--Galley Smith, at Book Rat, and at The Book Smugglers, where you can find more links.

And Galaxy Games, by Greg Fishbone, was also on tour--you can find the stops here , and here's a guest post by Greg Fishbone at Susan Kaye Quinn

At her blog, Illustration Matters, Joan Charles talks about her work in progress--illustrating The Ice Castle, by Pendred Noyce.

Other good stuff:

At SF Signal, Simon Haynes (Hal Junior: The Secret Signal) asks "Where all the junior science fiction has gone"

The Canadian Children's Book Centre announced a new award: The Monica Hughes Award will honour excellence in the children’s science fiction and fantasy genre and comes with a $5,000 cash prize which will be awarded annually beginning in October 2012. And the winner of the Canadian Children's Literature Award was Plain Kate, by Erin Bow (thanks to Cynsations for the news).

You've probably heard this already, but The Washington Post has announced that Rick Riordan will be working on a new series based on Norse mythology.