This Sunday's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (9/30/12)

I'm on my way back from Kidlitcon today...with 26 middle grade fantasy and science books to read!   Later this week I'll do a recap post of the two publisher previews I went to on Friday, from whence about twenty of these books came (the others came from the ARC swap trolley on Saturday).  But in any event, Kidlitcon was as fun as ever, and every year there are more lovely people who I know who I'm so happy to see again, and every year I make new friends.  It is good. 

So here's this week's roundup of what I found in my blog reading viz middle grade sci fi/fantasy.  Please let me know if I missed your post! (it somewhat more likely than usual that I did because of being at Kidlitcon)

First, an news item:  Nominations for the Cybils open tomorrow, Oct. 1.  At midnight, Pacific Time.  Go forth and nominate!

Second:  the reviews this week are slightly more diverse (ie they have characters who aren't white and they are written by authors of color) than usual.  This is entirely due to this blog event--A More Diverse Universe-- which I hope we see again! (It was a week long carnival gathering reviews of speculative fiction by authors of color, so there are lots of books for older readers too!)

The Reviews:
 
3 Below, by Patrick Carmen, at Good Books and Good Wine

Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor, at Jenny's Books and Starmetal Oak Reviews

Ante's Inferno, by Griselda Heppel, at Fantastic Reads

Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress, by Sarwat Chadda, at BookLust and The Novel Life

The Atomic Weight of Secrets, by Eden Unger Bowditch, at Charlotte's Library 

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, by Claire Legrand, at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia

Claws, by Mike Grinti and Rachel Grinti, at Small Review 

Dust Girl, by Sarah Zettel, at library_mama and Oops...Wrong Cookie

Emily Knight I AM, by at A. Bello, at The Children's Book Review

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Lead the Revels There, by Catherynne M. Valente, at Karissa's Reading Review

The Golden Door, by Emily Rodda, at Charlotte's Library

Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie, at Reading on a Rainy Day and Iris on Books

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, by Christopher Healy, at Semicolon and  library_mama

The High Skies Adventures of Blue Jay the Pirate, by Scott Nash, at Ms. Yingling Reads 

The Hunt of the Unicorn, by C.C. Humphreys, at Book Sake

Justice and Her Brothers, by Virginia Hamilton, at Charlotte's Library

Keeper of the Lost Cities, by Shannon Messegner, at The Book Cellar

Knight's Castle, by Edward Eager, at Tor

Look Ahead, Look Back, by Annette Laing, at Charlotte's Library

Mutiny in Time, by James Dashner, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Professor Gargoyle (Tales from Lovecraft Middle School, 1) by Charles Gilman, at The Elliott Review and The Reading Date

The Robe of Skulls, by Vivian French, at Wandering Librarians

Rosemary in Paris (The Hourglass Adventures), by Barbara Robertson, at Time Travel Times Two 

The Sea of Monstors, by Rick Riordan, at My Precious

The Second Spy, by Jacqueline Wilson, at Michelle Mason

The Serpent's Shadow, by Rick Riordan, at Biblio File

The Spy Princess, by Sherwood Smith, at Sonderbooks

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin, at I Make Up Words 

Authors and Interviews

A.J. Hartley (Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact) at A Thousand Wrongs (giveaway)

Shannon Messenger (Keeper of the Lost Cities) talks about books she loved as a kid at Project Mayhem

Other Good Stuff:

All Hallow's Read approaches.  Neil Gaiman explains it.

There's a fiftieth anniversary celebration of The Wolves of Whilloughby Chase, by Joan Aiken, coming up in NY toward the end of October.

And finally, haven't we all wished, at one time or another, that we had an inflatable unicorn horn to tie onto our cat?

Now we can live that dream.

If I want to make my 12 year old son shriek, all I have to do is say, in a cloyingly sweet voice, "rainbow unicorn kittens."  So when I saw this, I thought of him...(thanks to Tor).