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

Welcome to this week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction links that I clicked on this week!

If you happen to be a new visitor-I gather links during the course of the week to reviews, interviews, etc. of mg sff, and then plop them all down here. I tend not to include posts that are very short, or that cover older, familiar books (like Harry Potter). I miss posts every week--feel free to email me links at any time (charlotteslibrary at gmail dot com).

If you'd care to mention these round-ups on your own blog, I'd appreciate it.

The Reviews:

43 Old Cemetery Road, by Kate Klise, at Geo Librarian

The Alchemyst, by Michael Scott, at Fantasy Literature

Bigger Than a Breadbox, by Laurel Snyder, at The Excelsior File and at the NY Times

Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu, at Bookends and My Precious

The Cheshire Cheese Cat, by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright, at Kid Lit Reviews

The Dragon's Tooth, by N.D. Wilson, at Charlotte's Library

Goliath, by Scott Westerfeld, at My Reading Frenzy

The Hidden Gallery (Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place) by Maryrose Wood, at Wandering Librarians

The Inquisitor's Apprentice, by Chris Moriarty, at Madigan Reads

Liesl and Po, by Lauren Oliver, at Bookworm1858 and the NY Times

The Midnight Zoo, by Sonya Hartnett, at books4yourkids

The Moon Coin, by Richard Due, at The Bookscape Report

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, by Jonathan Auxier, at Great Kid Books and Library Mama

The Secret Country, by Pamela Dean, at Tor

Son of Neptune, by Rick Riordan, at Ex Libris and at Becky's Book Reviews

Tales of a Sixth Grade Muppet, by Kirk Scroggs, at Charlotte's Library

The Thirteenth Princess, by Diane Zahler, at Library Mama

We Dine With Cannibals (an Accidental Adventure #2) by C. Alexander London, at Boys and Literacy

Wet Magic, by E. Nesbit, at Tor

Wildwood, by Colin Meloy, at Barbara Ann Watson

You Have to Stop This, by Pseudonymous Bosch, at Charlotte's Library

Two of this year's mouse books, Secrets at Sea, and The Cheshire Cheese Cat, at the NY Times

At Book Aunt, Kate looks at graphic novels, including The Last Dragon, by Jane Yolen, and The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg et al.

I'm including to Arabian Nights posts this week, although one skews younger than mg and one much older. Colleen at Chasing Ray looks at Ludmilla Zeman's retellings of Sinbad (beautiful picture books that are going on my present list for the boys), and The Guardian has a review of "a scholarly work that often reads like a fireside conversation" about the Arabian Nights that looks fascinating--Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, by Marina Warner. Here's the gorgeous illustration from Zeman's book Colleen used:


And there's a lovely list of dragon books here at The Mixed Up Files

Authors and Interviews:

"Take Five" with Matthew Cody (The Dead Gentleman), at Suvudu

Ian Beck (The Haunting of Charity Delafield) at The Book Zone

Katherine and John Paterson (Flintheart) visit the Shelftalker's book store

Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson (Secrets of the Crown- Book 2 of the Familiars series) at Literary Rambles

Kathleen O'Dell (The Aviary) at Maine Living (in The Bangor Daily News)

Other Things of (possible) Interest:

Andy Mulligan (Trash) has won the Guardian children's fiction prize for an "anarchic" school story that sounds almost fantasy-esque in its oddness--Return to Ribblestrop

Alan Rickman shares his thoughts on being Snape, at Mugglenet

Finally, my husband and I have been disagreeing on the pronunciation of the dwarves names in The Hobbit--Bifer and Bofer in particular. I go with short vowels, he with long vowels (Bomber we say approximately the same way). That's them at right, from the new Hobbit movie.

I've heard that somewhere Tolkein was recorded saying the dwarves names, but wasn't able to find it--anyone ever seen or heard it? I did find this interview with Tolkein, and this recording of him reading from the Hobbit; interesting, but not what I wanted....