The 200th round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs!

Welcome to the 200th round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs!  I started doing this because I wanted such a thing to exist--middle grade sff reviews are scattered around so many blogs, it's hard for a person to find them all on their own.  So now I follow about 500 blogs (which is why I don't comment much, because of being busy skimming for mg sff), and busily google search several times a week.  I'm sure I miss lots of posts, so please let me know if I miss yours!

I'd hoped the 200th post would have a book for every letter of the alphabet, but it was not to be.  But--if I can achieve that dream in next week's round-up, I will pick a contributor to win any mg sff book they want from the Book Depository that's $15 or under, with an extra entry for books beginning with j, k, o, q, u, y, and z; I have an x in reserve (and I reserve the right, as always, not to include posts that I find too slight in substantive content to include).

The Reviews

Blue Moon, by James Ponti, at The Book Smugglers and Kiss the Book

Constable and Toop, by Gareth P. Jones, at Evil Mutant Librarian

Empire of Bones, by N.D. Wilson, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Exile, by Shannon Messenger, at Carstairs Considers

Fortunately, the Milk, by Neil Gaiman, at Sonderbooks and Reading is Fun Again

The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong, by Shweta Taneja, at Literary Grand Rounds
(I'm not quite sure the ghosts are real, but I'm including just because I've never included a book published by Hachette India before...) 

Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by Barry Moser, at Book-A-Day Almanac

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamilo, at Book Nut

Fyre, by Angie Sage, at alibrarymama (audiobook review)

A Hero for Wand-La, by Tony DiTerlizzi, at Madigan Reads

The High King, by Lloyd Alexander, at Tor

How to Catch a Bogle, by Catherine Jinks, at Bluerose's Heart

The Last Enchanter, by Laurisa White Reyes, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

The Last Present, by Wendy Mass, at Secrets & Sharing Soda
and Not Acting My Age

My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending, by Anna Staniszewski, at Sharon the Librarian

Noah Barleywater Runs Away, by John Boyne, at Becky's Book Reviews

The Old Powder Line, by Richard Parker, at Charlotte's Library

On the Day I Died, by Candace Fleming, at AJ Cattapan

Parched, by Melanie Crowder, at Charlotte's Library

The Peculiar, by Stefan Bachmann, at Le' Grande Codex

The Real Boy, by Anne Ursu,  at Sonderbooks and A Foodie Bibliophile in Wanderlust

The Rock of Ivanore, by Laurisa White Reyes, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

The Secret Museum, by Sheila Greenwald, at Charlotte's Library

Seventh Grade (Alien) Hero, by K. L. Pickett, at The Ninja Librarian

Sky Jumpers, by Peggy Eddleman, at LiterariTea

The Spindlers, by Lauren Oliver, at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia

Texting the Underworld, by Ellen Booraem, at Book Nut

The Twistrose Key, by Tone Almhjell, at The Book Monsters

Villains Rising (The Cloak Society 2), by Jeramey Kraatz, at Superhero Novels

The Witch's Curse, by Keith McGowan, at Charlotte's Library

Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George, at On Starships and Dragonwings

"When Did You See Her Last?" by Lemony Snicket, at Tor and Wandering Librarians

The Wolf Princess, by Cathryn Constable, at On the Nightstand 

Zombie Baseball Beatdown, by Paulo Bacigalupi, at Charlotte's Library


Authors and Interviews

Laurisa White Reyes (The Last Enchanter) at The (Mis)Adventures of a Twenty-something Year Old Girl

Matthew Kirby (The Lost Kingdom) at Fantasy Literature

Tone Almhjell (The Twistrose Key) at Tidy Books

Morgan Keyes (Darkbeast Rebellion) at Maria V. Snyder's blog
and the post Morgan Keyes/Mindy Klasky didn't want to write about how these series fared in the hands of Barnes and Noble after Borders closed (not pretty).

Caroline Carlson (Magic Marks the Spot), at Cynsations

Anne Ursu (The Real Boy) at Heise Reads and Recommends


Other Good Stuff

A short but solid list of steampunk books for youngish readers at Forget about TV, Grab a Book

Ten post apocalyptic science fiction books (new and classic) for younger readers at Views from the Tesseract

Top ten books about mice, at The Nerdy Book Club 

Other Worlds, Part 2, at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

And finally, yesterday was International Uilleann Piping Day, which I think is one of the most steampunky instruments going, what with all the brass fittings (making it round-up relevant), and so here is my husband playing my favorite tune (it's a teaching video at Na Píobairí Uilleann, so he just plays it through once before breaking it down.  He's off teaching pipes this weekend, so I had to scramble to find something that was in the public domain).