Waiting on Wednesday--The Brixen Witch

I sure do miss the Books by Release Date Calender at Teens Read Too (why, why did it go dark?), my primary source for Waiting on Wednesdays, but it occurred to me this morning to check Kirkus, and I found a book which I am happy to anticipate: The Brixen Witch, by Stacy DeKeyser, illustrated by John Nickle. Kirkus gave it a star, and it does indeed sound good.

Here's the Amazon blurb, with my thoughts added:

"When Rudi Bauer accidentally takes a witch’s coin, he unleashes her curse. [you don't see curses much these days in mg sff. A good curse can drive a plot nicely]. Accident or not, he knows he’s got to fix things [yes! Good role model for my boys!], so he tries to return the coin, only to lose it on the witch’s magic mountain just as the snows come [this sounds like something that would happen to me...]. Plagued all winter by terrible dreams, Rudi tries to find the coin again in the spring, but it has vanished—and a plague of rats [I'm not desperately drawn to rodent plagues, since I'm living that particular dream (old house and all that) but I don't mind a few rats] has descended on his village. [At this point my eyes prick up (or whatever the ears pricking up equivalent for eyes is) when I realize this is a Pied Piper retelling. Fairy tale retellings = books I want.]

Then a stranger arrives and promises to rid the village of rats—for the price of the missing coin. Desperate to get rid of the rats, the villagers agree [silly villagers--bad role models for my children]—but when they cannot pay, the stranger exacts a price too terrible for anyone to bear. Now Rudi is going to need all his courage—and some help from his savvy grandmother [yay for savvy grandmothers!! We need more of them in mg sff] and a bold young girl [can't go wrong there, although I also am fond of shy young girls]—to set things right in this fast and funny adventure." [hmm. Funny sometimes doesn't work for me; it becomes silly all to easily. But hope on, hope ever...]

Back in the day (ie, 2007) before I started specializing in sci fi/fantasy, I was on the YA panel for the Cybils along with Stacy, which was a pleasure. So I'm looking forward to her new book with personal interest, as well as just because it sounds good.

It comes out June 26, from Margaret K. McElderry Books.

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.