A Dreidel in Time, by Marcia Berneger, for Timeslip Tuesday

A Dreidel in Time, by Marcia Berneger, illustrated by Beatriz Castro (2019, Kar-Ben Publishing), is a short (88 pages) chapter book that tells the story of Hannukah through the eyes of two American kids who travel back in time to live through it, helping the Maccabees in their fight. When we first meet Devorah and Benjamin, their minds are preoccupied with the thought of Hannukah presents, and when their grandparents give them a large old dreidel instead of shinning expensive new gifts, they are disappointed.

But the dreidel is magic, and when they spin it, they are transported back in time, and find themselves in the community of the Maccabees, who are getting ready to escape the religious persecution of Syrian ruler King Antiochus.

The time travel is rather easy--they find themselves dressed appropriately and speaking Hebrew. Though they quickly make friends with other kids, it's a bit of a challenge getting the community to trust them. But it's important that they do, because what the kids remember about the Hannukah story is crucial to making sure it happens as it's supposed to. The dreidel spins again, and the kids find themselves a few years further on in the story, and again, until the final spin take them home again.

It's an interesting and entertaining read, though the teaching the story part (and the there's more to the holiday then presents moral lesson) overshadows the time travel and character development parts, and the dialogue was a bit awkward at times. But the illustrations add charm, as do the elephants, and it was a very entertaining way to learn more about a story I didn't know that well. 

This week's round up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (8/27/23)

Here's what I have this week; please let me know if I missed your post!

first--it's Cybils Time!  please consider reading Elementary/middle grade sci fi and fantasy with me this year (or applying for another category....).  It really is lots of fun, and I would love to welcome new folks!

The Reviews

Abeni’s Song, by P. Djèlí Clark, at Locus Online  

 Beadbonny Ash, by Winifred Finlay, at Charlotte's Library

Clarity Jones and the Magical Detective Agency, by Chris Smith, at Book Craic

Disconnected, by Riley Cross, at Carol Baldwin's Blog

Gossamer Summer, by H.M. Bouwman, at Mark My Words

Grayling’s Song, by Karen Cushman., at Pages Unbound 

Izzy Hoffman is Not a Witch, by Alyssa Alessi, at Mark My Words

Kevin the Vampire: A Most Mysterious Monster, by Matt Brown, at Valinora Troy

Mermedusa, by Thomas Taylor, at Vicky's Never Ending TBR 

 Molly and the Mutants (Far Flung Falls #2), by Eric Jon Slangerup, at Ms. Yingling Reads:

Read, Scream, Repeat, curated by Jennifer Killick, at Scope for Imagination

Rewind, by Lisa Graff, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Scariest. Book. Ever. (Goosebumps House of Shivers 1), by R.L. Stine, at Mark My Words: 

Terra Ultima: The Discovery of a Hidden Continent, by Raoul Deleo, at Library Girl and Book Boy

Too Many Interesting Things Are Happening To Ethan Fairmont, by Nick Brooks, at Bookworm for Kids

Totally Psychic, by Brigid Martin, at Cracking the Cover 

A War of Wizards by Margaret Storey, at Staircase Wit  

The Wrath of the Woolington Wyrm, by Karen Foxlee, at Book Craic

Yesterday Crumb and the Storm in a Teacup, by Andy Sagar, at  Laura's Bookish Life  

The Unsuper Adventures of Norma, by Mark Svartz, at  Log Cabin Library

Authors and Interviews

Patricia C. Wrede (The Dark Lord's Daughter) at Publishers Weekly 

Julie Abe (Tessa Miyata is No Hero) at Readers Digest

Emma Greville (Raine in the Underlands), at Kids' Book Review

Two at A Library Mama --  Ghosts, Toast, and Other Hazards, by Susan Tan, and Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind, by Misa Siguira |

Other Good Stuff

"Middle Grade Inspired by Folk & Fairy Tales" at Literacious

It's Cybils Time!

It's Cybils Time! The Cybils are awards bestowed on worthy, kid-friendly children's and YA books by us, the readers and reviews, and I think this produces the best shortlists of any awards around--I have yet to read a Cybils shortlisted book that disappointed me.

Since the books are chosen by readers and reviews (on any online platform), such readers are needed to take a deep dive into the books in all the various genres covered (YA, Middle Grade, Easy Reader, Poetry, Sci Fi/Fantasy, Picture books, Non Fiction). The call has gone out, and now is the time to submit an application if you would like to be one of the panelists (first round, who create the shortlists) or second round (who pick the winners).


Overview
There are two rounds of judging, and two types of panelists.

Panelists:

Duties:

Panelists are the first-round judges. You start work when nominations close on Oct. 15th, sifting through scores of nominated books in your chosen genre. [if you are reading something like middle grade/elementary speculative fiction, there will be about 125 books).  You start reading and requesting library holds the moment you find out you are a panelist, and as nominations start rolling in, you gather as many together as you can. It is a commitment, but a fun one! 

You’ll join a gmail group or similar list and use a database to keep track of what you’ve read.
Although we make every effort to obtain review copies for books not in your local library, you may have to track down some copies via interlibrary loans. The group chat part is the BEST-so much fun talking books with other fans of the genre; it's a nice mix of intense enthusiasm, critical thought, and a touch of snark! You don't have to talk about every book you've read, but the comments group members make, the more rewarding it is for their co-panelists who procrastinate by checking their email too often. 

 Each panel commits only to making sure every nominated book is read by at least two people, but if you don't like a book, you don't have to finish it! The panelists agree on a shortlist of 5-7 titles in late December. The intense chat at the end, where you make hard choices about beloved favorites, is great fun!

[there's no requirement that you have to blog about the books you read, but I myself try to make an effort to do so, especially for books that were sent by the publishers.  Reviews are linked over at the Cybils website if you want them to be.]

You can also be a second-round panelist, who has to make the really hard choice about which book should be the winner.

Duties
Judges pick up where panelists leave off. You start work on Jan. 1, and have the winner picked by the middle of February.

While we make a Herculean effort to get review copies to you extra speedy fast, it is up to you to make sure you read EVERY SINGLE BOOK ON THE SHORTLIST in a timely fashion. 


And here's what we look for in a panelist--

Thoughtful enthusiasm for the genre, demonstrated by on-line reviews is the big thing; other expertise/experience counts too!

Only books published in the US and Canada are eligible, but you don't have to be in North America to be a panelist.  Most of the review copies are electronic.  I had an Irish panelist one year in EMG spec fic who was able to keep up with the reading, thanks to ebooks, pretty well.


So, if this sounds like something you'd like to do, head here to apply!

Beadbonny Ash, by Winifred Finlay, for Timeslip Tuesday

Oh the pleasure and excitement of finding a new to me vintage time travel book by a new to me author! Beadbonny Ash, by Winifred Finlay (1973), started out very promisingly indeed--with three children (two siblings, boy and girl, and one visitor) and an older brother studying medicine, out in the Scottish countryside...They are all quickly characterized, and it's clear that Bridie, the visiting child, is badly traumatized by a past tragedy and having a hard time being part of family life, and then, suddenly and strikingly, Bridie hears strange music, and 

"Slowly, almost against her will, she left Kenneth, walked up to the crest of the hillock, and there, in the hollow, she saw them." 

The them are a crone singing in gaelic and playing the harp, and two men, in strange clothing, staring down at a third man, lying still.  The crone switches to English, with a sound of calling that begins thus

"We call from the star-heart of Dunadd

We call the Healer from the Unborn Years"

and the reader knows they are in for a nice timeslip back to the ancient past of Scotland.

And then there was a bit I enjoyed about the family and Bridie travelling to the family's summer cottage on the island of Mull, and we get some nice Scottish island and some good tension between Bridie, with her troubling tendency to retreat into fantastical imaginings of her dead father, and the other kids.

Then the time travel kicks in for real.  All four kids travel back to the 6th century, where the three youngest of them slot into the roles existing persons in the kingdom of Dunadd, retaining at first dreamlike memories of their own time.  The oldest, training to be a doctor, boy, stays himself and is faced with the nightmarish task of healing the badly wounded prince.  And since he still has all his memories of his own time, this is very good medical time travel.

But things go badly south for me after this.  Bridie becomes the sole pov character and in her aspect of living Dark Ages goddess (believing she had magic powers and was the most important person around), she wasn't as interesting a character to me as troubled modern Bridie was.  She becomes immersed in the tensions of the past, with no memory of the present.  And what I find most interesting in time travel is the tension between the two, I was both resentful and disappointed.  Even the looping around of her experiences in the past to starting to heal her troubled mind in the present wasn't enough to make past and present work in tandem for a better story.

There were moments of interest, beauty, strange Celtic magic, and character development, and it is so easy to imagine it being one I really loved.  And Finlay does a fine job bringing Dark Age Scotland to life, and I appreciated Saint Columba showing up and adding a bit of Pagan vs Christian tension--old gods giving way to the new and all that.  If the time in the past had been presented to me, somewhat expanded, as a book on its own, I would probably have enjoyed it.  

But it wasn't, and so I am a bit reluctant to spend more money on Finlay's books because what if this sort of bait and switch is something she does in all of them?  (that being said, the The Castle and the Cave, which isn't time travel, looks very appealing, but at $728, is not obtainable at this time....)

no round-up this Sunday

 Taking a kid to college Sunday, so no round-up....

But just as a heads up, the call for Cybils Awards Panelists opens Tuesday!  Come join the reading fun!

Vermilion Sunrise, by Lydia P. Brownlow

It was a nice change for me to read an engrossing YA sci fi story that checked lots of my reading boxes--Vermilion Sunrise, by Lydia P. Brownlow (May 2, 2023 by Warren Publishing).  

17-year-old Leigh has no memory of volunteering to be one of the first colonists on a watery world far from Earth, and so it is more than a bit of a shock when she wakes from cyrosleep and is shuttled down to the planet with very little in the way of a briefing.  The cyrosleep technology is flawed--killing adults.  So her new home is inhabited only by teenagers.  Hers is the third shuttle of kids arriving at a small island outpost.  The earlier arrivals, from countries all around the world, have no answers for Leigh's many questions--why does none of the technology that came with these first settlers work?  Why were these kids selected to be colonists, and why do none of them remember volunteering?  Why have none of them been told what to do? And she has her own demons to struggle with, hoping to put her traumatic past behind her and start again, with a new name and identity.

I was worried that it might become a Lord of the Flies scenario, but happily for my reading pleasure, the kids that were already there included some great leaders, who had made their settlement into a functional sort of found family.  And much of the book involves the dynamics of this group as they work together to make their outpost a place to call home.  Another mystery quickly intrudes, though--bits of a broken shuttle are washing ashore.  Could there be survivors beyond this one island?

A perilous voyage through stormy seas is the only way to find answers...but will the answers they find destroy the tenuous peace of their home?

So the pacing won't be for everyone--for much of the book, there are few Exciting Happenings (there are some very exciting ones towards the end though).  You have to be a real lover of character driven survival stories to fully appreciate this one, which I am, so I did! I really enjoyed the group dynamics as they worked through practical and ethical problems together, and the romance was sweet.  The only thing that would have made me like the book more would have been more time spent by the kids trying to figure out the ecology of the world.  One of the things I immediately found disturbing about this already disturbing situation (and the wrongness of it all is clear from the get-go) was that the colonist kids didn't include anyone with biology experience, and so there wasn't much attention paid to the specifics of flora and fauna (and fauna, especially, was given short shrift).  

I will happily read more about these kids and their new world!  The book ends at a good stopping point, but I want more answers (why, as Leigh herself asks, are there no Canadians? Has something bad happened to Canada? And even more pressingly, why the heck weren't the kids briefed and trained?) and more attention paid to the ecology (the ready-made "food" supplies they arrived with won't last forever....).

disclaimer: review copy received from the author.

Whisper Falls, by Elizabeth Langston, for Timeslip Tuesday

 

A YA romance for this week's Timeslip Tuesday--Whisper Falls, by Elizabeth Langston (2013).  Out mountain biking in the North Carolina woods, Mike sees a girl in strange clothes standing behind a waterfall.  Susanna is an indentured servant in 1796, bound to a cruel master.  Susanna and Mike discover they can cross through the waterfall to each other's time, and as Mike learns about Susanna's harsh life and researches what happened to her and the family she serves, he becomes desperate to save her.  And he does, bringing her back to the present, which is where this first book of their story ends.

Most of the story takes place in the past; and basically, it is historical romance, with lots of good details and descriptions of the past.  The time travel adds some additional interest, though Mike has too easy a time passing in the 18th century (language, for instance, isn't a problem, though idioms are different).  I was much more interested in Susanna's reactions to the modern world, which is a story that continues in the next book, A Whisper in Time.  

Short answer--it was fine, but not quite my personal cup of tea--a kind of boring boy saves a more interesting girl from a predictable situation thanks to a magical waterfall and they are in love. I had trouble caring as much as I knew I was supposed to, and the central conflict was so predictable there was no tension.  If I had lost the book halfway through reading it, I wouldn't have cared over much.  

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (8/13/2023)

 Here's what I found this week!  Please let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews

Deadly Deep, by Jennifer Killick, at Scope for Imagination

 Estranged, by Ethan Aldridge, at Pages Unbound

Field of Screams, by Wendy Parris, at Ms. Yingling Reads 

The Fox’s Tower (Wolfstongue 2), by Sam Thompson, at  Mark My Words

Gallowgate , by K.R. Alexander, at Ms. Yingling Reads 

The Ghost Job, by Greg van Eekhout, at Mark My Words

Great Texas Dragon Race, by Kacy Ritter, at Cracking the Cover

The Girl in White, by Lindsay Currie, at Geo Librarian 

Hamra and the Jungle of Memories, by Hanna Alkaf, at PBC's Book Reviews 

 Hansel & Gretel, by Neil Gaiman, at Mark My Words:

The Ice Children, by M.G. Leonard, at Scope for Imagination

The Lost Library, by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass, ar Log Cabin Library

The McNifficents, by Amy Mckechnie, at Redeemed Reader

Meesh the Bad Demon, by Michelle Lam, at Vicky's Never Ending TBR 

Mia and the Traitor of Nubis, by Janelle McCurdy, illustrated by Ana Latese, at Book Craic

Mr Tiger, Betsy, and the Golden Sea Horse, by Sally Gardner, at Sifa Elizabeth Reads

Quest Kids and the Dark Prophecy of Doug, by Mark Leiknes, at Bookworm for Kids 

The Raven Throne, by Stephanie Burgis, at Cracking the Cover and The Story Sanctuary

Shiver Point: It Came from the Woods, by Gabriel Dylan, at Library Girl and Book Boy

Wider than the Sea, by Serena Molloy, at Valinora Troy

The Wrath of the Blob, by Dashe Roberts, at Book Craic

Two at The Breadcrumb Forest: Crookhaven: The Forgotten Maze, by J.J. Arcanjo, and Ember Shadows and the Lost Deserts of Time, by Rebecca King

Four at Ms. Yingling Reads:  Grumbones, by Jenn Bennett, The Raven Throne (The Raven Heir #2), by Stephanie Burgis, The Nameless Witch (Devouring Wolf #2), by Natalie C. Parker, and The Fury of the Dragon Goddess (Adventures of Sik Aziz #2), by Sarwat Chadda

Authors and Interviews

Elf Dog LaRue: A Guest Post by M.T. Anderson, at Fuse #8

Refe Tuma (Frances and the Werewolves of the Black Forest) at MG Book Village

Other Good Stuff

New in the UK, at Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books 

If you love reading mg sci fi/fantasy (which you probably are if you are reading this), you would love being a Cybils Awards panelist in the Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction category, and I, in my role of category chair, would love to welcome new folks! The Call for Judges begins on 8/21/2023 and runs through 9/8/2023.  Please let me know if you have any questions..

this week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction (8/6/2023)

Good morning, all!  Here's what I found this week; let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

Batu and the Search for the Golden Cup, by Zira Nauryzbai and Lilya Kalaus, at Always in the Middle…  Cracking the Cover, and Geo Librarian.

Dead Good Detectives Ghost Rescue, by Jenny McLachlan, illustrated by Chloe Dominique, at Book Craic

Elf Dog and Owl Head, by M.T. Anderson, at Semicolon 

 Elsetime, by Eve McDonnell, at Valinora Troy

The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers, at Redeemed Reader

The Golden Frog Games, by Claribel A. Ortega, at Puss Reboots 

The Great Texas Dragon Race, by |Kacy Ritter, at Always in the Middle… , The Story Sanctuary, and Ms. Yingling Reads

Hansel and Gretel, by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti, at Sharon the Librarian: 

The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall Book 1, by Ali Standish, at Mark My Words

Kelcie Murphy and the Hunt for the Heart of Danu, by Erika Lewis, at Cracking the Cover

The Last Elder King, by D.B. Collins, at YA Books Central

The Light Thieves Search for the Black Mirror, by Helena Duggan, illustrated by Katie Kear, at Book Craic and Vicky's Never Ending TBR 

The Sinister Secrets of Singe, by Sean Ferrell, at Mark My Words

Skellig 25th Anniversary Edition by David Almond, illustrated by Tom de Freston, at Magic Fiction Since Potter

The Spaces In Between (Exit 13 #2), by James Preller, illustrated by Kevin Keele, at Ms. Yingling Reads 

(Super Secret) Octagon Valley Society, by Melissa de la Cruz, at Mark My Words

Mr Tiger, Betsy, and the Sea Dragon, by Sally Gardner, at Sifa Elizabeth Reads 

A Vanishing of Griffins, by S.A. Patrick, at Log Cabin Library

Willodeen, by Katherine Applegate, at Book Craic

Authors and Interviews

Julie Abe (Tessa Miyata Is No Hero) at The Nerd Daily

Kacy Ritter (The Great Texas Dragon Race) at Mindy McGinnis

Katrina Leno (The Umbrella Maker's Son), at Smack Dab in the Middle

Wendy Parris (Field of Screams) at From The Mixed Up Files

Frantz Charles (New Watchers: The Dead Sea Scroll) at Literary Titan