The Lost Ryū by Emi Watanabe Cohen (middle grade, June 2022, Levine Querido) is about dragons-the ryū of the title. There were once massive dragons flying over Japan, but after WWII those dragons vanished and only little companion dragons remain. Ten year old Kohei has a little dragon, Yuharu, whom he loves; the new neighbor girl, half Japanese, half Russian Isolde, who has just moved from the US, has a Yiddish speaking dragon named Cheshire. These dragons are charming.
1/5/23
The Lost Ryū, by Emi Watanabe Cohen
The Lost Ryū by Emi Watanabe Cohen (middle grade, June 2022, Levine Querido) is about dragons-the ryū of the title. There were once massive dragons flying over Japan, but after WWII those dragons vanished and only little companion dragons remain. Ten year old Kohei has a little dragon, Yuharu, whom he loves; the new neighbor girl, half Japanese, half Russian Isolde, who has just moved from the US, has a Yiddish speaking dragon named Cheshire. These dragons are charming.
12/18/22
The Jewish middle grade fantasy books of 2022
The one that is getting the most buzz is Black Bird, Blue Road, by Sofiya Pasternack (September 2022, Versify/Harper Collins) , which tells of a desperate quest by a sister to save her brother who is dying of leprosy. When he has a vision that the Angel of Death will come for him in one month, on Rosh Hashanah, Ziva persuades him to run away from home with her to find doctors who can cure him. On the journey they accidently set a half-demon boy free from servitude, and he tells them of the city of Luz, where death has no sway. The journey is long and arduous, with the Angel of Death always breathing down their necks....and in the end is up to her brother to make his own choice. Deeply moving, this is a memorable story indeed.
On a lighter note, but still with suspensefully high stakes, is Naomi Teitelbaum Ends the World, by Samara Shanker (September 2022, Atheneum). When Naomi gets a small golem as a Bat Mitzvah gift, and it comes alive, her life gets more than a little complicated. The golem needs work to do, and with every task she sets it, it grows. It's an impossible situation, so she and her friends decide to give it a job that it can never finish--saving the world. Things go very wrong indeed, and soon the kids are off chasing down the golem before its ideas about what "saving the world" entails do just the opposite. This is one for readers who like entertaining mayhem, but it is given depth when Naomi, guided by conversations with her rabbi and others, starts thinking deeply about the Torah lessons she has been learning (and this part of the book is really well done indeed, thought provoking without being at all preachy!)
In Aviva vs the Dybbuk, by Mari Lowe (February 2022 by Levine Querido), a grieving girl whose father has died and whose best friend has rejected her contends with a troublesome dybbuk who is making her life even more difficult. Her mother, deeply depressed, cannot help her. But the bond of old friendship is strong enough to bring the two girls back together in a tentative alliance to fight the dybbuk, and the antisemitism that is threatening the Orthodox community. Much more than just a story of a magical being disrupting real life, this is a powerful portrayal of a girl, and a community, who need to heal and survive.
11/10/22
Omega Morales and the Legend of La Lechuza, by Laekan Zea Kemp
10/25/22
The Rabbit's Gift by Jessica Vitalis
10/15/22
Children of the Quicksands, by Efua Traoré
10/13/22
Black Bird, Blue Road, by Sofiya Pasternack
Ziva and Pesah are inseparable twins. Even when Pesah is stricken with leprosy, and confined first to his room and then to his own small dwelling outside the main house, Ziva spends most of her time with him. She is the one who tends to his infected wounds (the first line of the story is "I have to cut off Pesah's finger today"). Pesah knows he is dying, and this is confirmed when he sees a vision of the Angel of Death. Ziva refuses to accept this. So when she finds out that her father is going to send Perah away to a leper colony, she harnesses up horses to a cart and escapes with him to set out for Byzantium to find a cure.
When robbers attack, all seems lost...except that with the robbers, bound to serve them, is a half-sheydem (demon) boy, Almas When at his urging Ziva breaks the charm that held him, he binds himself to her quest in return, agreeing to help her take Perah to the fabled city of Luz, where Death cannot enter.
Their journey really is a race against death, and they make it just in time. But is the promise of life that Luz offers one that Ziva and Pesah can live with?
Ziva is a formidably fierce character, whose single-minded determination blazes across the pages. In fact it blazes a bit too brightly, overshadowing Pesah and Almas. The scenes in which Ziva actually talks and listens to each of them are great, pushing her toward more self-knowledge and taking her out of her own headspace. But they are too few and far between.
Ziva is so very much the center of the story and so very, desperately, focused on saving her brother that she doesn't actually spend much time talking to him or to Almas, and so we as readers don't get to spend much time seeing anything from their point of view. This diminished my personal enjoyment of the book lots; though I sympathized with Ziva, she felt more than a bit one note to me. Pesah is shown to us through the lens of Ziva's thoughts about him, and doesn't get much page time to be his own person. Likewise half-demon Almas, literally dragged along in Ziva's wake by the binding between them, also with just enough time given to him on the page that we know he is an interesting person with his own tragic story. Ziva barely things about him at all though it is clear that there is going to be a romantic interest in their future, so we don't even get much of him second-hand,
But still the final conflict/resolution between Ziva and the Angel of Death was profoundly moving, and Pesah did get to make his final choice. The Angel turned out to be an interesting character in Its own right, which pleased me, adding depth to the final conclusion, in which Pesah, not Ziva, gets to choose the course of his own life.
It's not a fantasy for readers who like Adventure, but will appeal to those who like emotionally charged journeys through worlds rich in story, particularly those who are kicking against the injustice and pity of the world.
What I personally liked best--doing a deep dive into internet reading about the Khazars! I love it when middle-grade fantasy reading leaves me better educated!
I also appreciated that the fantasy in this story is rooted in Judaism, a very rare thing in mg sci fi/fantsy. This is one of three Jewish middle grade fantasy books that I know of eligible for this year's Cybils Awards. The others are Aviva vs the Dybbuk, by Mari Lowe, and The Two Wrong Halves of Ruby Taylor by Amanda Panitch.
None of these three have been nominated yet, so please consider adding Jewish representation to the list of Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction nominations! Cybils Awards Nomination Form. And if you know of more, please comment!
10/11/22
Thunderbird Book 1, by Sonia Nimr, for Timeslip Tuesday
A personal complaint is that the sadness with which the story begins made it hard for me to get hooked.. Noor's beloved parents died when she was 11, and for the past two years she has lived in the home of her uncle. His wife is shrewish, greedy, and unkind, but fortunately her grandmother is there to give her all possible love and comfort, and one night gives her an old ring from her parents....and then she too dies.
Noor runs away to visit an old family friend, a professor of antiquities, to try to find out more about the ring. The ring is tied to her parents research--they were convinced that the phoenix was a real bird. And they were not wrong. With its death and rebirth every 500 or so years, the phoenix maintained the boundary between the human world and the world of the djinn and other magical creatures. It is time for the phoenix to die again, but this time it might not be resurrected....and the balance between the worlds would be shattered.
And Noor finds herself, accompanied by one of the djinn (who are also worried about the boundary falling), undertaking a quest through time to recover four feathers from the phoenix's past immolations.
Arriving in 16th century Jerusalem, she meets a girl who looks just like her, who has the same ring. The two join forces to find the phoenix, and escape after being brutally captured by soldiers to make it just in time to see the phoenix burn....and this first installment ends.
I have left out many of the lovely fascinating elements of the story that made it a pleasure to read. Though there are a few uneven bits, like Noor getting a lesson in the Crusader history of the city from her new friend (interesting, but something of an info-dump), Noor was such a clearly drawn character that she carried me through the story without faltering. It was fascinating to go back in time with her, and also to see Jerusalem through her terrified, Palestinian eyes. And if I ever time travel, I would, like Noor, to have a djinn in cat form going with me to magically provide appropriate clothes!
I completely agree with the conclusion of the Kirkus review (which is how I found out about this one)--
"This richly descriptive novel paints a moving portrait of a lost, lonely girl; a historic land with a painful past and present; and an enchanting magical world. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers eager for more."
Book 2 comes out this November, and I will be buying it.
Thunderbird is eligible for this year's Elementary/Middle Grade Cybils Awards. Two other Muslim fantasies that have also not yet been nominated are Nura and the Immortal Palace, by M.T. Khan, and Amira & Hamza: The Quest for the Ring of Power, by Samira Ahmed. If you know of others, please let me know! And please consider nominating one of these books (here's where you go to do that), to uplift middle grade Muslim fantasy!
10/9/22
Windswept, by Margi Preus
10/8/22
This Appearing House, by Ally Malinenko
So today I found amongst the electronic detritus of my gmail a B. and N. gift card I hadn't used, went out to spend it, and after much thought and wandering came home with This Appearing House, by Ally Malinenko (August 2022 by Katherine Tegen Books). And then I neglected household tasks and read it, so yay for me!
The House appears one day, at the end of a cul-de-sac. Jac tries to accept without question that it is there, when it wasn't the week before.
And what with the tensions already in her mind--the ordinary new kid in school sort, and the bigger trauma of her five year anniversary of cancer diagnosis, with a mom who's constant concern is becoming smothering. Every clumsiness, every nervous shaking of her hands, could be a sign that she isn't free and clear after all.
The House calls to her.
Two of the boys who are class bullies dare Jac and her friend Hazel (a boy named after the rabbit, which the bullies have a field day with), to go inside. All four end up going in. They find nightmare built on nightmare.
Jac knows the House wants something from her...and until she figures out what that is, it won't let her go.
Was it pleasure reading? Not exactly--horror isn't my thing, and the House is a horror-poloza. It is a good mix of the profoundly disturbing, the terrifying, and the repulsive. I think young horror lovers will enjoy it. I have to admit I didn't linger on all the different nightmarish encounters, because my mind has a bad habit of playing disturbing images from horror books and movies back to me in exquisite detail which I don't appreciate. (content warning--tooth trauma)
Before I could turn off the keen, alert, reading part of my mind, though, there was a tooth thing. If you, like me, knocked your front teeth out at a young age and subsequently had recurring nightmares where you bit into apples and saw your teeth imbedded in them, be warned! This is the closest I can remember to feeling physically ill because of a scene in a book.
But behind the smoke-screen of the grotesque, this is a moving and thought-provoking story, about acknowledging trauma, but not letting that be all-defining. Being angry, sad, and terrified about having gotten a crap deal, but being able to start letting life flow onward is good to think about. I rarely call books "heartfelt" because it seems a nebbishy thing to say, but in this case it feels valid-- Jac's story came from the author's heart and her personal experience, and it resonated with my heart and my personal experience (the teeth aren't my only past trauma--I had a bad patch of way too many MRIs myself. Seven months pregnant, told I had a tumor behind my right eye, no way to know till baby was born if it was benign or not.....then baby and brain surgery simultaneously. All better now, I hope, knock on wood....)
However, all that being said--short answer is that this is a good mix of horror, a really strong MG friendship (Hazel is great) and good and useful things to think about when one feels introspective.
This Appearing House is eligible for this year's Cybils Awards in Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction, and is still waiting to be nominated! If you would like to take care of that, here's the nomination page--Cybils Awards Nomination Form
9/29/22
The Fire Star, and The Wolf's Howl (Maven and Reeve, books 1 and 2), by A. L. Tait
The Fire Star and The Wolf's Howl are the first two books of a new series by Australian author, A. L. Tait (August 2022, Kane Miller in the US), and since I'd enjoyed others of her books, I was very pleased when they arrived in the mail.. And then I was very sad when I got to the end of book 2 and there was no book 3. Here's an image of them from the author's website (and I totally agree with the Kirkus quote!)
Two young teens--Reeve, a new squire, and Maven, the companion/servant of a noble lady==are thrown together in a castle full of secrets. When a precious jewel goes missing, they both are desperate to solve the mystery; Reeve because his new lord has told him to find it, and he's desperate not to be dismissed, Maven because the jewel was to be her ticket to freedom. Even though it takes a while for them to trust each other, and to learn each other's secrets, they make a great team (sparks fly, mutual respect grows), and it was delightful seeing all the intrigue and deception swirling around them through their eyes.
The Wolf's Howl sends them on a journey, accompanying Reeve's lord and Maven's lady (newly married) to demesne off in the cold and windy wilds. There they find another mystery to solve, and once again I enjoyed them doing so lots!
I just hate it when I have a really solid book comparison to offer, and then I see the clever little marketers have beat me to it-- "39 Clues meets Ranger’s Apprentice in bestselling fantasy author A. L. Tait's new medieval adventure series. " But then I read this in my own review of Tait's earlier duology, The Ataban Cipher--"Especially recommended to younger Ranger's Apprentice fans." I am the winner, and can now say how very much Ranger's Apprentice fans might enjoy this new series--likeable, smart main characters who are clearly the good guys being brave and having adventures and solving mysteries in an alternate medieval Europe-ish sort of place. The Ranger's Apprentice books have better food and their main characters have better fighting skills than Reeve, but Tait's books take a deeper dive into the oppression of women in a patriarchal society. And though I'm sad to reject the food, I'll take actively subverting the patriarchy.
Dunno about the 39 Clues comp. though...seems a bit of a stretch to me, and my elation of just a moment ago changes to disappointment as I fail to think of a better comp of my own. I can't think of any middle grade books that have illicitly educated girls solving mysteries in medieval court settings (but with no magic, dragons or ghosts). Surely more must exist? I shall ask twitter.
In any event, The Wolf's Howl ends up setting the next book up beautifully, and I hope I get to read it sooner rather than later.
disclaimer: review copies received from the publisher
9/28/22
Eden's Everdark, by Karen Strong
Eden's mother never took her to visit Safina Island off the Georgia Coast, home to generations of her family who were first enslaved there and then made it their own place, where they owned land and became a strong community. But after her mother dies, her father takes her to see her family there. Not only does Eden find love from her kin in this beautiful island full of history, but discovers it's dark side, a darkness that was the reason her mother and grandmother left when her mother was still a girl.
Her mother left behind a sketchbook full of terrifying images--monsters, strange and spooky children, and more. And Eden discovers these weren't drawn from imagination, but from real life. When she finds a rift into the darkness, she feels strangely drawn to it, and goes through. Just as the witch who rules this land of ever darkness, where the sun never shines, wanted.
The Everdark is a spectral overlay on the real world, and in the grand house built by the descendants of the plantation owners, the witch, who calls herself Mother Mary, exercises near total control of the ghosts she's captured. Two ghost girls have been made her children, and she want's Eden to be her third dear daughter. Eden is still alive, though...though possibly not for long....and she's determined to escape.
But getting free means figuring out the sources of Mother Mary's power, and how to break it before she herself is broken. And it means uncovering the secret of her mother's magic--the family gift of making things grow--and finding it with herself as well.
The warm and loving first section of the book is a sharp and very effective contrast to the horror of the Everdark, with its creeping rot, trapped ghosts, Mother Mary being terrifying inside, and monsters lurking outside. But her survival and ultimate escape comes in no small part from the warmth and love in her own self. Added interest comes from the identities of all the ghosts (who come from many different times) that Eden meets. Mother Mary's backstory packs an especially intense punch--she isn't just a cardboard villain, but someone who was badly wronged who really does want her "children" to love her.
There's no miraculous end to Eden's grief as a result of her sojourn among the dead, but the story does end back in a place of warmth and light. It's gorgeously atmospheric and enthralling, so much so it kept my mind firmly its grip, which is especially noteworthy because I read it in a single sitting while my car was failing inspection and The Price is Right blared very loudly over my head.....
9/24/22
A Taste Of Magic (Park Row Magic Academy #1), by J. Elle
12-year-old Kyana is pretty happy with her life in her neighborhood of Park Row. Sure, her mom has to work way to hard because money is tight, and she's under pressure to well at school, even at math...but she has her very dear best friend, Nae, to make school better, and her very dear grandma to love and cook with at home. Then she discovers she has magic, and she has to spend every Saturday at Park Row Magic Academy, even though the first day of class there is Nae's birthday party....and she can't tell anyone about the magic.
Kyana is determined to excel at magic, especially the Charms part of it, which seems most likely to help her mom out financially. But even as she gets better at magic, she gets deeper into a web of lies with Nae about where she is on Saturdays, pushing their friendship to the breaking point. To add to her worries, her grandma's mind is slowly being swallowed by Alzheimer's. And then the bomb drops--the Park Row magic school is going to be closed due to lack of funding. The other city magic schools, in whiter and richer neighborhoods, will stay open, and if Kyana can come up with several thousand dollars, she can finish her initial training at one of them. If she can't (and her mother can't work any harder than she does, so it seems impossible) she'll loose her magic, just as she's finding out what her own special gift is and overcoming her self-doubt.
So wining a city wide baking contest with a sweet cash prize seems to be the obvious answer, and her grandma's recipes, which have a magic of their own, are perfect for it. But when Kyana inadvertently contaminates her first round entry of cupcakes with inadvertent magic, she creates a problem she can't fix alone. She'll need every friend she has--old, new, and unexpected--and a bit of help from magical (and adorable) cat-like beings to fix things. And she has to keep on baking, because she's not about to loose hope.
The various very relatable tensions in Kyana's life, with their real world echoes made me anxious at times. But they are lightened beautifully by the wonder of her entry into a world of magic, by friendship and love, by delightful cooking, and of course magical "kittens." And I was left feeling warm and cozy, so excited by the #1 in the title -- I can't wait for more!
A sweet treat of a book!
disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
9/21/22
The Girl in White, by Lindsay Currie
I am back from vacation--a week and a half in Montana, mostly spent volunteering with the Forest Service fixing up some old buildings at a history tree nursery, and less time visiting used bookstores. In case anyone is interested, here is my haul (the books whose titles can't be read are Great Day in the Morning, by Florence Crannell Means, and Janine, by Robin McKown).
More books coming home than I took with me (8 ARCs, mostly mg fantasy), and I enjoyed reading them. The result is that I am now behind on reviews....so I hope to review lots in the coming week.
First up is The Girl in White, by Lindsay Currie (September 6th 2022 by Sourcebooks Young Readers), a nice ghost story with which to kick off the spooky season of Fall!
Mallory has been uprooted from Chicago to Eastport, MA--a quaint ocean town. There's a twist to the quaintness, though--the town capitalizes it reputation on being a spooky hotspot. Mallory's parents have plunged into the thick of the spooky stories, opening a restaurant in a building where a casket came tumbling out of a collapsing interior wall. The horror of it is embraced by her parents, and the restaurant is thriving, but Mallory is almost completely fed up with non-stop ghost stories all the time, and totally fed up with the town's fetishization of one legend in particular--that of Sweet Molly, whose brother Liam was lost at sea in the 19th century when the townsfolk forced him to set out on a fishing voyage (for economic reasons) in stormy weather. After he was quickly lost at sea, Molly swore she'd get revenge on the town, and now she's become one of its most popular (aka moneymaking) cursed legends.
The anniversary of Liam's death is approaching, the town is planning one of its biggest ever Sweet Molly extravagances, and Mallory, to her horror, is being haunted by Molly's ghost. It stinks to be Mallory, sleep deprived, even less in control of her life than being uprooted, to the point where she literally is in danger (the ghost makes her sleep walk) and forced to endure all the Sweet Molly madness of the town.
Mallory can't explain away her terrifying encounters with Molly, and she has no idea how to get them to stop. Fortunately, she has good friends, one of them a earlier victim of Molly's harassment, and in a race against time, as strange and terrifying weather hits Eastport, and the climax of the festival approaches, they work together to find the true story of Molly and Liam....
The mix of very creepy ghost, local history gone out of control, and real world complexities of loyalty to family and friends make this one I'm sure will please its target audience lots! It's all woven together very well, with both the spookiness of Sweet Molly strong enough to satisfy young horror readers, and the new kid in town story satisfying those who aren't reading it for the scares.
As a grown-up reader, I appreciated that Mallory and her parents and friends were able to work through the wrinkles in their relationships with good faith and little drama. I respected the horror element of the plot; it was very vividly described in good mg horror fashion. That being said, I wondered, as I often do, why ghosts have to be so gosh darn mean when communicating with the living. If you are a ghost who can write messages in blood red paint etc. why not just be explicit? But I guess Molly's one weapon in her quest to change the narrative was her ability to terrorize....peaceful protest wasn't an option, which is an interesting thing to think about.
Which leads to what, to me, an even more interesting aspect of the book--at the heart of the plot is the need to question established narratives, and to revise accepted history. And even though this particular revision is not actually all that weighty, it does matter to Molly, and to the town. It's the sort of book that might well put thoughts into kids' heads that will lead them to become good critical thinkers as they get older, which is a good thing!
disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
9/11/22
Charlie Hernández & the Golden Dooms, with an interview by author Ryan Calejo
No MG sci fi/fantasy round-up today, as I am on vacation. But I'm thrilled to have author Ryan Calejo visiting me here today!
Charlie Hernández & the Golden Dooms, by Ryan Calejo (September 13, Aladdin), is the third installment of the adventures of an ordinary kid who finds that all the many magical stories from the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries his grandmother told him are true. Not only that, but he has a starring role in an epic clash between order and malevolent chaos, he has the power to morph into animals, and he has no clue how to control his power or even, really, what he's supposed to be doing. Happily, he has his friend Violet, a keen young journalist who more than pulls her weight figuring things out. He also has the powerful witch Queen, Joanna of Castile (who you might know as Joanna the Mad), leader of the League of Shadows who try to keep the world from being overrun with monsters, on his side.If you enjoyed the wild ride of the first two books, full of mythical monsters that sent Charlie and Violet bouncing on perilous adventures, this one will not disappoint. Its small, relatively mundane beginning in which Charlie is trapped by a skeletal girl begging for his help in the girl's bathroom of his middle school moves steadily on to its full blown mythologically murderous monster chaos of an ending, when Charlie and Violet must defeat a truly formidable foe in order to keep the border between life and death secure. And all the while, in a rather endearingly clumsy middle school way, Charlie and Violet are falling for each other, Charlie's mother is going ballistic, and the reader gets a trip to Florida like no other!
Highly recommended to kids who enjoy mythological adventures, particularly because the myths and stories that come to life here I haven't seen in anywhere near so much detail and diversity in any other book series!
Not recommended to those traumatized by crocodilians....
And now it is my pleasure to welcome Ryan Calejo to my blog!
1. How did the idea for Charlie and his adventures first come to you? Did you have any idea that this would be the start of a series, and if yes, how far into it could you see?
Folklore and legends have always fascinated me. I like to think of them as the original Latinx superheroes/supervillains. So that was where the inspiration came from. My idea for the series was basically to create a big superhero royal rumble—something like the Avengers movies. I wanted to bring together all the coolest legendary beings/creatures, and just let them run wild down here in South Florida, because I was really excited to see how a story like that would play out. And one of the main reasons the idea appealed so much to me is because most of these characters originated in different countries and at different periods in time, and almost all of them only appear in their own stories, meaning there’s hardly any crossover. So that crossover potential, the idea of these legendary characters running into other legendary characters and trying to one-up and outsmart one another, I thought would be a lot of fun. When the idea first came to me, I was very hopeful that it would be the start of a series. I knew there was just no way I could cram all these wonderful characters into a single book! I always had a loose outline in my mind of what the overall series might look like. But the more books I’ve written, the more concrete the ideas for the future books have become.
2. Did you yourself grow up, like Charlie, with stories of the folklore and legends of South and Central America and the Iberian peninsula? If yes, did you have a childhood favorite? Or one that terrified young you the most?
3. Your descriptions are incredibly vivid, and I’m curious about how this ties in to your writing process--do you see it all in your mind's eye in advance?
Thank you so much! Yes, I do usually see the story playing out in my mind’s eye. I’ve always had a pretty vivid imagination. I was most definitely a day dreamer growing up! I can’t even begin to count how many times someone had to snap me out of a daydream in the middle of math class (math and me don’t really get along). But that’s always been a big part of the fun for me—seeing the characters and story in my imagination.
4. Places that are the foci of legends and myths are immensely important in Charlie’s adventures. I just paid an online visit to the ancient monastery where Charlie first meets up with the League of Shadows. Was that near to where you grew up? Have you visited any other real world places that appear in your books?
Thank you so much, Ryan! I will look forward to your next books!
9/6/22
Lark and the Wild Hunt, by Jennifer Adam, for Timeslip Tuesday
Lark has grown up along the border of the Fae world, helping her mother raise strange, part Fae, shadowy horses that carry the human riders who are brave enough to join the Wild Hunt each year. She's watched her brother, her sister, and her mother ride off in the grand company of the Winter King of the Fae, following the White Stag along the boundary between worlds and driving back Fae who are trespassing on the human side. But one hunt goes horrible wrong, and Lark's brother doesn't come back.
Lark is determined to bring her brother home. First she must trust the Fae boy and his raven, who set her to work assembling a mysterious silver timepiece, while the border starts to fray and the land of the Fae falls under the rule of the malignant Briar King. And then she must cross into the land of the Fae herself, pitting her wits against the entrapments and entanglements the King throws her way, to save not just her brother, but balance between the realms...
It is a good story, but a long one--480 pages, and I feel it could have been condensed somewhat, with a tighter focus on getting from one plot point to the next. That being said, although I didn't read it in a single sitting, and it took a week of dipping in to it to finish, there were always beats to the story that kept my interest going, the atmosphere and growing tension were great, and the final obstacle that Lark has to overcome was excellent. All the details hang together, many vivid descriptions stick in my mind, and I was also, of course, interested in the silver timepiece.
It turns out that the flow of time doesn't work in the land of the Fae, and only time slipping in from the human world allows change to happen there. Which would have been time slippish enough for my Tuesday purposes, but Lark also is able to use the device at a key moment in the story to actually go back in time. I was pleased.
Give this to dreamy kids already hooked on fantasy....10 year old me, untrammeled by the outside world, would probably have loved it.
8/16/22
The Glen Beyond the Door, by Meta Mayne Reid, for Timeslip Tuesday
Lisa's parents have just moved from Belfast to her grandfather's old home after his death. She's recovering from polio, which has left her with a weak leg. Soon her cousin Andrew comes to stay--his parents are off in America, and he's basically been dumped on them. She's thrilled by the idea of having an almost brother, but Andrew is miserable. Then, up in the attic of the house, where one wall is wood that burned in a fire centuries ago, the two kids find time travel magic.
Together they explore the history of their family home, from the Stone Age up to the arrival of the Planters from Scotland, who took the Irish land for their own. Each visit to the past gives them not just food for thought and wonder, but strengthening gifts--literally a stronger leg for Lisa, and a dog for Andrew, but Andrew is also helped make it through the bewildering mix of sadness and anger he's feeling. And they are left with a tight connection to their family's home, where Planters and native Irish blended their lives together, and Andrew becomes officially welcomed into Lisa's family.
The time travel is the somewhat distant sort, in which the modern kids are mostly spectators, overlapping into kids from the past, but not changing what happened. This made it feel more like a history lessons than part of a whole story (and I much prefer time travelers with independent volition), but it was not without interest. Both the events of the past and the reactions of Lisa and Andrew were good (though not great) reading. Andrew's present day emotional turmoil take center stage more forcefully than the past does, and although this too was good reading I was a little disappointed that Lisa becomes a secondary character.
What I really liked was the layered past of this bit of Northern Ireland--there was a lovely sense of place.
So although I read it happily, and have added another of Reid's more affordable books, The McNeils at Rathcapple) to my Amazon cart, it might be a while before I use my hard won gas rewards points, Bing rewards, and Swagbucks gift cards for it. I can actually afford to buy myself books with real grown-up money (and use this for new books), but I try not spend my wages on vintage books, because if it is too easy to buy them, I might well start buying too many.....and that way lies madness and penury.
8/4/22
Alliana, Girl of Dragons, by Julie Abe
Alliana, Girl of Dragons, by Julie Abe (August 2, 2022, Little Brown), is a prequel to the utterly delightful Eva Evergreen series. Though I very much enjoyed Alliana's adventures, I can't quite call it delightful--it's a Japanese-infused Cinderella story, and it was hard for me to read about Alliana being tormented by her stepmother and stepbrother. They are truly awful to her, and she is trapped by debts she'll never be able to pay off, no matter how hard she works in the family inn. Her one hope is to be chosen for the Royal Academy, but her stepmother will stop at nothing to keep her from leaving....
Alliana does have one person who loves her--the grandmother who lives up at the top of the inn, sewing tapestries and always ready with stories of myths and legends. When the grandmother dies, Alliana's life seems even more hopeless, but magic is real in her world, and so are dragons....
Gathering plants as far as she can get from her stepmother, Alliana saves a baby nightdragon, and they form a strong and loving bond, though she can't possibly take it home with her. And chance also brings her the friendship of a young witch, Nela. And then chance pushes even harder at Alliana's life, forcing her to confront a magical danger that is threatening even the most powerful witches of the land. She realizes, with the help of her friends, that she's a person of value, and is instrumental (along with the dragon) in setting things right.
Great for young readers who:
like kids in unhappy circumstances who not only get magical endings (this isn't a Cinderella story where the girl marries the prince, but the beautiful dress problem, which I always appreciated as a kid, is here!) but who also survive trauma and end the book starting to heal with the help of people who love them.
like stories of kids loving and caring for magical creatures
want to be friends with a witch their own age who will give them broomstick rides!
loved Eva Evergreen! (which I now want to reread* possibly then moving on to re-reading this one, which I will enjoy more than the first time around because of not being sad and anxious for Alliana. )
*I'm glad to have a solid tbr pile because there were dark years when I didn't have enough to read, but I also miss the re-reading I did back then.....
Disclaimer: review copy received at ALA
7/12/22
The Button Box, by Bridget Hodder and Fawzia Gilani-Williams for Timeslip Tuesday
The Button Box, by Bridget Hodder and Fawzia Gilani-Williams (April 2022, Kar-Ben Publishing), is a lovely time travel story for upper elementary/younger middle grade readers (which is to say 8-10 year olds). It entertains, it educates, it offers wisdom and promotes tolerance, and it has a cat...
7/7/22
Valentina Salazar is Not a Monster Hunter, by Zoraida Córdova
Val has grown up in a family of monster protectors, dashing across the country with her parents and three older siblings whenever they hear of a sighting. Her father was raised to be a monster hunter, dealing with incursions by killing the monsters, but rejected that. Instead, he has taught his family to trap the creatures and send them back to their home world. But when he's killed by an ora puma (a mountain lion with wings and a scorpion tail), her mother takes the family to a small town where they can have a normal life. Andie, the oldest sister, leaves home almost immediately to join the monster hunters in a betrayal Val can't wrap her head around. Lola and Rome seem to be cool with going to school. But Val is a frustrated, miserable mess, and gets herself into heaps of trouble when she tries to deal with monsters she thinks she sees at school.
But on the last day of school, there really is a fire breathing lizardish chipmunk up a tree...and the situation that ensues not only gets Val one last detention, but it brings her and her siblings a little bit closer. Then Val sees an online clip of a kid showing off his "dragon" egg, and recognizes it as an ora puma egg. Determined to live up to her family's creed, she decides, in good middle grade fashion, that she will drive the family monster hunting van cross country to get hold of the egg, and send it back where it belongs.
Fortunately, Lola and Rome aren't going to let her go alone.
And this is really where the book gets going! Lots of adventures, new friends, narrow escapes, magical creatures, and more, and it is all most satisfactory. Val's determination and zeal might get her into trouble at school, but it is just what is needed to not only bring her family back together and hold them to the ethical standards by which they were raised, but also to take down a nasty organization that wants to profit from monsters, and will stop at nothing to do so.
Sweetening the pot for the target audience is Val's guilty secret. She has befriended a cute little sugar loving monster instead of sending it home, and it is rather adorable.
In short, lots of magical creatures and lots of heart! I enjoyed the whole ensemble lots, especially once the road trip started.
disclaimer: review copy received (aka snatched by my greedy little paws) at ALA for review.
6/28/22
The Prince of Nowhere, by Rochelle Hassan, for Timeslip Tuesday
I feel a little bad that by making it clear that The Prince of Nowhere, by Rochelle Hassan (May 2022, HarperCollins), is a time slip book, I've spoiled it a little. But it can't be helped, and so I will bravely move on and try to explain what the book is about and why I liked it lots (in a nutshell, great world-building, great characters, a chilling moral dilemma) without spoiling it too much more!
Roda has lived a safe, snug life with her mother in a small town that's protected by an curtain of enchanted, freezing cold mist. Her adventurous aunt Dora has ventured beyond the mist, travelling through monster-filled lands to other towns, each likewise engirdled, and even to other lands, and Roda dreams of maybe someday following in her footsteps. But adventure finds her first.
Anonymous riddling notes begin to arrive, each with a small prediction about the future that always comes true. So when a note comes instructing her to venture almost inside the mist to find a crow, she does...and brings the almost frozen crow home. It isn't an ordinary crow, but a shapeshifting boy named Ignis, whose clan has just been destroyed by monsters.
Ignis has no home anymore, and doesn't know what he was doing before he crashed in the mist. The anonymous note writer does, though, and has just set a plan in motion that will take Roda and Ignis on an impossible, irrational journey through the mist, through the monsters, to a place called Nowhere.
Nowhere is a pocket universe place, created by the same long-gone magician that set the protective mist in place, that can only be entered, and left, during the three days a great comet passes by. It also is a time portal, where Anonymous is waiting. When Ignis realizes this, he desperately wants to go back in time to save his clan, but Roda is convinced this is a mistake. The trust they've built up in their travels is threatened, as is the course of their lives, and the clock is ticking as the comet passes by...Will they be trapped in Nowhere before it comes around again? Will they be caught in a looping time slip for decades? And what does Anonymous, who (in the words of the Goodreads blurb) "threatens their past, present, and future," want from them?
It is a cracking good read--lots of good build up to the adventure, an exciting journey, a truly magical and wonderous and disturbing destination (I cannot stress enough how fascinating Nowhere is), and a really intriguing high-stakes puzzle. The author tried really hard to make the time travel elements understandable, but it still required careful thought and I'm not quite sure I firmly grasped all that preceded this episode of a story that had been playing out for years. This did not trouble me overmuch, though, because I was happily reading, and cheering for Ignis and Roda to come out of their adventure with their friendship, and futures, intact.
Recommended to all who like middle grade fantasy (there is also a pinch of dragon, if that sweetens the pot of my recommendation), and to time travel fans who particularly enjoy one of the central conundrums of the genre--if you could go back in time to set things right, would you go?