The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away, by Ronald L. Smith (review and interview)

I first had the pleasure of meeting Ronald L. Smith at Kidlitcon back in 2015 (PSA--come to Kidlitcon 2020 in Ann Arbor next March!).  His first middle grade book, Hoodoo, a tale of supernatural horror in the south, had just been published, and I enjoyed it very much (my review).  I likewise enjoyed The Mesmerist (2017), about kids fighting evil in 19th century London (my review).  I never reviewed Black Panther: the Young Prince (2018)….someday I will.  So in any event, I was very excited about his most recent book, The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away (Clarion Books, February 2019).

This is the story of an air force kid, Simon, son of a black mom and a white dad, who's obsessed with aliens.  He's convinced owl-like aliens have arrived, watching and experimenting on humans.  His family has no time or patience for aliens, so Simon is alone with his fears of the Grays, as he calls them.  When something very strange happens on a camping trip with his dad, Simon is convinced he was targeted by the aliens, and that a chip has been implanted in his stomach.

Are the aliens a projection of Simon's own anxieties (he feels his father is disappointed in his lack of athleticism, fondness for gaming, and his social insecurity), or are they a real threat, that no one else around him believes in?  His parents think his fears are psychological, and take him to a psychiatrist who medicates him, but Simon doesn't cooperate.   Readers must keep guessing; Simon's other obsession, the fantasy book he's writing, makes it clear that he's a tremendously imaginative, creative person, and are the Grays simply another story he's telling himself?

Whether or not the aliens are real, Simon's distress certainly is, and the scary tension keeps growing throughout the book!  Young fans of sci fi horror creeping into our world will love it, especially those who feel that the grown-ups don't take them seriously.

Here are some questions I had for Ronald L. Smith, that he graciously answered.

What inspired you to write Owls? 

Well, I have a lot of ideas brewing in my brain. I thought it would be cool to try something more contemporary than my other books. I have an unhealthy fascination with UFOs and aliens so I thought it would be a good subject. Also, the book is set on an Air Force base, which is where I spent my life growing up. There is a whole subculture around military bases that people don’t know about. It’s a certain way of life. Since I know it well I thought it would provide a good backdrop. Also, aliens and UFOs are a timeless subject.

Part of what makes Owls so interesting is the uncertainty about the whether the aliens are real or not.  When you started writing Owls, did you know which way you were going to go?

Yes. But the book also changed a little in edits. The big idea stayed true to what I envisioned. 

Likewise, although Owls is a middle grade book (9-12 year olds) it felt to me like it could easily have been born a Young Adult book....did you always think of it as middle grade, or were there times it wanted to be YA?  (would you like to write YA?)

I always thought of it as MG. That’s the category I like most. It would be a little different, though, if it were YA. My main character, Simon, would have had different hopes and fears. A younger protagonist allowed me to tap into the mind of a twelve-year-old and imagine how he would handle such a weird subject. As to writing YA, I have some ideas. Maybe one day!

(a question for those of us who have read the book...) Do you think the ending is entirely happy?  

Well, I’ll leave that one up to the reader. It’s hopeful but also kind of disturbing! 

Which of your books did you most enjoy writing, and what are you working on now?

Oh, wow. I’m sure you know the answer, as you’ve interviewed a lot of writers. I can’t really say which is my favorite. They all have their challenges and bright spots. I really enjoyed writing Owls. It was fun to write something contemporary but with one disturbing—albeit big—element to it. My next book is called GLOOMTOWN. It’s a fantasy novel about two kids named Rory and Isabella who live in a town called Gloom. The sun never shines there. But there’s a reason for that. There’s also a creepy mansion called Foxglove Manor, Black Sea mariners, a carnival and a scary group called Arcanus Creatura. It’s gonna be fun! 

Finally, any advice for young writers and/or young believers in aliens? 

For young writers, read a lot. Fiction. Nonfiction. Comics. Graphic novels. Memoirs and biographies. Newspapers. Just read. Reading is your best teacher. Share your work with like-minded friends and writers. Try to write a little each day, even if it’s just your own thoughts. And if you believe in aliens, you’re not alone! (See what I did there?) 

Thank you, Ronald!  I'll look forward to Gloomtown.  I love creepy mansions!

The Ghosts in the Castle, by Zetta Elliott

The Ghosts in the Castle, by Zetta Elliott (2017), is the author's latest book giving black city kids a place in both fantasy and history.  It's the story of a Brooklyn girl, Zaria, who goes to London with her mother when her grandpa suffers a stroke.  Zaria is thrilled to be in England, and she's pleased that Winston, a cousin she's never met before, shares her love of fantasy.  When she and Winston visit Windsor Castle together, they find a fantasy adventure of their own when they meet two 19th century African ghosts (who were real people).

One of the ghosts is Prince Alemayehu of Abyssina (Ethiopia), and the other is a young woman named Sally (aka Sarah Forbes Bonetta Davies) daughter of a chief in Nigeria.  Both were taken from Africa when they were children, and ended up living in England during the reign of Queen Victoria (I'd assumed they lived at Windsor Castle, but the author has clarified that this wasn't the case).  In a series of encounters with the ghosts, Zaria learns bits of their stories--both were taken to England as colonial possessions.  Alemayehu died when he was 18, and was buried at Windsor Castle.  Sally had a longer happier life, and can come and go between Windsor Castle and other places from her life, but Alemayehu is stuck, and cannot visit the one place he wants most to see again--his home in Africa.  With a bit of help from Sally, Zaria and Winston find a way to free Alemayehu's ghost.

It's good story for any young (nine or tenish, I'd say) fantasy reader who loves ghosts and mysteries and castles.  What makes it special is that Zetta Elliott is unapologetic about directly positioning both modern and historic characters of the African diaspora in a fantasy novel.  She raises issues of colonialism, both its past and its present reverberations (including Zaria's own family history), while keeping Zaria's particular story going at a nice pace, so that the message doesn't overwhelm the reading experience (in large part because Zaria is utterly relatable to any young Anglophile fantasy reader, and also in large part because it's a neat ghost story).

The result is a fascinating, moving story that not only adds diversity to the genre but makes for good reading.  It's just the right length for older elementary grade readers; if you are older than that, you might be left wanting more (which isn't a bad thing....)

There are discussion questions at the end; it would have been icing on the cake to have had more historical information about the two ghosts included in the backmatter as well, but if you go to the links above, you can see pictures of both Alemayhu and Sally and learn more about them.

OMG...Am I a Witch?! by Talia Aikens-Nunez

OMG...Am I a Witch?! by Talia Aikens-Nunez (Pinwheel Books, October 2013) is, a fine choice for the 8 or 9  year old girl who loves dogs (especially small white fluffy ones), thinks it would be fun to have a magical powers, and who isn't quite ready for bigger, more complex books.

April, justifiably annoyed by her older brother, Austin, searches the internet for a spell to turn him into a dog.  And much to her surprise, it works!  Now instead of a bothersome brother, she has a fluffy white dog, whose justifiably annoyed at her!  In the course of the breathless OMG hours of text messages, desperate plotting, secretive sleepovers, and google searches that follow, April and her friends Grace and Eve have to figure out how to turn Austin back...and keep April's parents from finding out.

It's one I think has a lot of appeal for its target audience...and not quite so much appeal for older readers, who might want more of the backstory to the magic (April's new gift is not given much page time, what with all the shenanigans of Austin's dogginess), and it's not desperately complex in terms of plot.    On the plus side, though, it has a nice emphasis on friends helping each other, offers a relatable look at sibling tensions, and the magic (though not fully developed) is entertaining.

Short answer- if they like the cover, they'll like the book!   

disclaimer: review copy received from the author

Wish You Weren't, by Sherrie Petersen, for Timeslip Tuesday

Wish You Weren't, by Sherrie Petersen (Create Space, March 2014).  (nb:  I was surprised just now, putting in the publishing information, to see that this was a self-published book--it struck me as perfectly professional in packaging and edited, so have no worries on that account).

Marten is fed up with his parents' plan to move to Texas, with the way they ignore him in favor of his little brother Aldrin, and most of all, he's fed up with Aldrin himself.  So when a shooting star whizzes by overhead, just after Aldrin inadvertently breaks his collectible Han Solo action figure, Marten lashes back--and wishes his brother wasn't there.

Nothing happens at first.  But the next day, in a museum gift shop, Marten watches as Aldrin vanishes before his eyes.  His wish has come true.

And in the confusion of search for Aldrin, Marten and his friend Paul are visited by a mysterious stranger, Tor, the personification of a star in the constellation of Orion.  Time stops for all those around them.  Tor has come to review Marten's wish (one he's already regretting, and which he'll regret more before things are done), and perhaps, if things go well, Tor can help Marten reverse it. 

So Marten and Paul are sent back in time, first as spectators of Marten's early life.  But Tor's grasp on time is weakening, and Marten and Paul find themselves actually travelling back to the recent past.  There they must use the power of wishing to set things right--or Aldrin will be lost for ever, and the lives of all involved will be irreversibly changed....

Petersen ratchets up the tension very nicely indeed as Marten and Paul progress from passive spectators of the past to desperate adventurers very much present in the past searching for the thing that can restore the present (and Aldrin).   And though I was somewhat taken aback by the arrival of the star dude (as one so often is when star dudes appear), Tor added both a fantastical element to the story and structure and impetus to the plot.   The result was a crisp story, rooted in reality but pleasingly interspersed with the impossible.

As an added bonus, Marten's mom is a scientist who's just been accepted into the astronaut training program--yay for moms breaking from stereotypes! 

It's a good one, I think, to offer to the older elementary school/younger middle school kid (ie, 9-10 years old) who likes reality twisted by unexpected, magical consequences. 

The one thing that kept me from personally loving the story is that Aldrin really is an utterly annoying child.  I am a middle child myself, and so I can, in general, sympathize with both oppressed younger siblings and much put upon older siblings.  Here my sympathies are entirely with Marten; I think Petersen went a bit too far with the awfulness of Aldrin.  He is a brat, and his parents need to work on effective disciplinary techniques (such as I practice in my own parenting life cough cough*).

(As far as I know (based on pictures) Sherrie Peterson is an author of color....I didn't find any descriptors of Marten and his family that made me think they were POC, but because of the author's picture, that's how I imagined them.   In any event, I've decided to make a new label for "diverse authors"--and I'm sure (not) that I will find the time any day now to go back through my almost 3000 posts to add this label when appropriate.  And I'm sure that it will be easy (not) to figure out which authors should be included!)

*just for the heck of it, here is my primary disciplinary technique--the bestowal of imaginary walruses on my children when they are good, and mass walrus death/departure when they are bad.  They are both down several million departed walruses each...