The Extraordinary Book of Doors, by Anne E.G. Nydam

I'm always a sucker for magical books within books (twice the bookish fun for the reading!), and the 16th-century tome that gives its name to The Extraordinary Book of Doors, by Anne E.G. Nydam (Createspace, 2014), is a lovely one indeed, opening up fantastic adventures for two ordinary kids.

It begins with Chen Connolly finding a copy of Serlio's Extraordinary Book of Doors seemingly abandoned beneath a park bench in Cleveland.  The book is what it sounds like--Serlio was a tremendously influential Renaissance architect, and this book is essentially a illustrated catalogue of doors.  But the book is magical.  The embossed key on the cover detaches, allowing Chen to travel through the doors to the buildings that wait inside them.

And at the same time, a quirky girl named Polly in Massachusetts comes upon a second copy of the book, one that belonged to Benjamin Franklin.  Her book and key work the same way...but on the backs of each door, Franklin has left cryptic clues--and if they can be solved, they'll provide the information needed to claim a bequest Franklin established during his lifetime to be used for humanitarian and educational purposes.

Polly and Chen meet through the interconnectedness of the doors in their two books, and set off on a journey of exploration that takes them across the world as they try to solve Franklin's riddles.  But there's a third copy of the book, and its unscrupulous owner is after the Franklin fortune too.  At just about every step of their way Polly and Chen find themselves in a struggle to keep their own books from falling into his hands as they race to solve the mystery before its too late....

It is an absolutely lovey premise, made even more so by the black and white illustrations of doors drawn by the author (some based on Serlio's doors, some imaginary) included throughout!  And it's an exciting adventure, too, given depth by the friendship, at first uncertain, that grows between Chen and Polly.

It's a good one for kids who like heist stories that come with magical twists.  By the end of the book, the magical exploration of the doorways is secondary to the danger posed by the rival treasure hunter, with the excitement of outwitting him (by the skin of their teeth) and solving the clues taking center stage.

Do not be deterred by the fact that this is a self-published book--I noticed no infelicities of editing (such as are found, all too often, here at my own blog; sigh).

Bonus:  Chen is adopted, presumably from China (his given name is a Chinese surname, sometimes used in the US as a first name) making this one for my list of multicultural speculative fiction books.

Secondary bonus:  probably I was taught about Serlio somewhere back in the day, but I'd forgotten about him.  I feel better educated now.  I also feel like drawing doors.

disclaimer: review copy received from the author.

The Big Book of Superheroes, by Bart King

If you are looking for a book to give a handy tenish-year-old this summer, especially if you are anxious for a book that will lure in the "reluctant reader" and make them laugh, look no further than The Big Book of Superheroes, by Bart King  (Gibbs Smith, April 1, 2014--an excellent publication day for this!)

In a nutshell, this book is 278 pages of superhero fun, full of information on what it takes to be a superhero (stuffed with tidbits of information about the genuine articles), full of activities to help you become one, and generously sprinkled with humor.

Warning: some of the humor is of the potty kind, which strangely appeals less to the grown-up reader.  But despite that, I found myself enjoying the book so much that in the middle of my first reading I summoned my younger child to sit next to me on the sofa so that we could enjoy it together, and he was hooked, and it went off to camp with him the next day.

Sure I enjoyed learning about superheroes I'd never heard of (though I really wish the author had reassured me that they were all real.  I was so full of doubt when I hit "Squirrel Girl" I had to run upstairs to google search... "her ability to control squirrels is surprisingly effective," says Wikipedia).   But what I really loved about this book was that Bart King has a lovely dryish wit to his style, laughing at absurdities while still treating this whole superhero thing and its long history more or less respectfully (and I love that there's a generous bibliography, including secondary sources, included).

Two more good things:

--It is friendly to both girls and boys--superhero-ness doesn't default to boy-ness, and look at that pink-haired girl on the cover!  There is also room for kids of color to see themselves--the boy on the cover can be read as African American or Hispanic (kids in the interior illustrations, though drawn in black and white, also don't necessarily default to white).

--The generous inclusion of black and white comics, and the short text blocks make this a friendly one for the text-uncertain.

Just to give you a taste of the book, here's how it starts:

"I have good news.  By reading these words, you just became an honorary superhero.  Yay!

But maybe you're wondering, "What is a superhero, anyway?"  It's simple- a superhero is anyone who wants to fight evildoers and right wrongs.  These could be small wrongs, like:

"Who used up all the toilet paper?"

Or it might be a big wrong, like:

"Who used up all of the toilet paper in the Secret Lair?"

Of course, you can do things your way.  Instead of fighting evildoers, you might want to argue with them.  (I'm pretty sure this isn't as successful, though.)" (page 9)

(I love italics.)

Short answer:  it's great.  But even better than giving this one to your own child might be to give it to someone else's child.  That way you don't have to worry about the squirting toilet prank...

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

The Truth Against the World, by Sarah Jamila Stevenson

Books like The Truth Against the World, by Sarah Jamila Stevenson (Flux, June 2014, upper Middle Grade/younger YA), are exactly the reason I call it "Timeslip Tuesday" instead of "Time Travel Tuesday."    Without the concept of time-slipping, I'd have to call this one a ghost story.  And indeed there is a ghost--a sad little Welsh ghost girl--but there are also dreams that break down the barriers of past and present, and are more like windows into the past.....

The dreams are dreamt by an American girl, Wyn (short for Olwen), who's Welsh great-grandma, Rhiannon, is dying.  Rhiannon wants to go home to Wales one last time before the end, and so Wyn and her parents travel with  her.  And Wyn begins to dream, and begins, through her dreaming, to realize that her great-grandmother has been holding memories that she has never shared.    There is a mystery to be unraveled about what happened to Rhiannon in the years just after WW II....

And also caught in the same mystery is London boy named Gareth, whose Great-granddad lives in the same village where Riannon was from.   There in Wales Gareth meets a the little ghost girl...and she is very instant that he come back to keep her company.  So much so that her image, her song, her words begin to haunt him even back in London.  Her name, like Wyn's, is Olwen Nia Evans.  And thanks to Google, Gareth finds the American Wyn, and they meet in Wales.

The ghost Olwen seems desperate for them to find out her story.  But Rhiannon is dying, and has no strength to re-tell her past, and others in the village who might no the truth seem determined to keep it buried.   But the dreams keep coming to Wyn, showing her the past....and at last she and Gareth find out what really happened long ago.

(That's the part that makes this a timeslip story--they are very vivid dreams, such that she is an on-looker.  And at one point she's so almost present that someone in the past seems to see her, which clinched it in my mind).

This one was an excellent read for me this past week--enough happens in terms of the slow progression of the mystery and in the friendship between Wyn and Gareth that I was satisfied without being over-whelmed (though those who like Fast Paced Excitement and lots of onward rush might, however, find it too slow).   I very much enjoyed visiting Wales for the first time with Wyn--cool and green, which was also just what I was wanting!  Even though I guessed who the ghost girl must be pretty quickly, I still enjoyed watching the gradual unfolding of the clues.

I think this would be a lovely one to give to a dreamy 11- 13 year old girl (grades 6-8), one who's not ready for full blown YA romantic sci fi/fantasy -- and I am thinking that at that age I might well have been naïve enough not to have guessed who little ghost Olwen was.   

(Speaking of naiveté-- I think it's good to have books like this that gently push young readers toward adult concepts, like sex having consequences, keeping it off to the side with secondary characters in the past, and no graphic content at all.   Some readers charge forward, others need to be nudged....and this is a nice nudge level book.)

Note: if you see a picture of this book for sale, don't be put off by its appearance of wear and tear!  That is part of the cover design--a sort of metaphoric layering of the old within the new just as happens in the story.

disclaimer:  Sarah is a friend of mine--she told me about this one way back last fall when we were room-mates at KidLitCon in Austin, and I have been dying to read it ever since!

Micronations: Invent Your Own Country and Culture, by Kathy Ceceri, for Nonfiction Monday

When I was offered a review copy of Micronations: Invent Your Own Country and Culture (with 25 Projects) by Kathy Ceceri (Nomad Press, May 2014) I jumped at it-- the topic combines beautifully my interest in fantasy world-building, and my real-life background as an anthropologist/archaeologist.   

This is a book that almost makes me want to be a teacher, either in class or homeschooling, because it would be so much fun to use as the basis for an exploration of geography and social studies!  Ceceri walks kids through all the things that go into making a modern country--the physical features of the land, the basics of government and economy, the symbolic elements of nation building, and more.  Generously interspersed with matter of fact discussions of such topics are interesting facts and activities (which seem entertaining, do-able, and useful), and I must say that I loved the interesting facts very much!  There are so many of them, and they are indeed so interesting, that the book is almost worthy reading and sharing just for their sake!

(Did you know in Bhutan there is one day every month where no one is allowed to drive, so as to cut down on air pollution?)

There's much here a young writer (or even some older writers) would find useful in fantasy worldbuilding as well--solid world-building depends on a deep understanding of how countries work from the ground-up.    That being said, the more amorphus side of a country's culture--the history, the mythology, the kinship structures--are not part of the scope of the book (which isn't criticism, just a comment).   

I appreciated that alternatives to late stage capitalism were included, such as barter economies, but couldn't help but feel that more alternatives could have been offered to push kids to question all that they take for granted about nation-hood! (Which is to say, this isn't subversive).

That being said, I enjoyed it for what it was.  It's very much worth using in an educational setting, and even worth giving in a more casual way to your kid at home who has a penchant for social studies trivia!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Still Life (the fifth and final volume of The Books of Elsewhere), by Jacqueline West

It is a very gratifying thing, though mixed with some sadness, when a much enjoyed series comes to a satisfying close.    Still Life, the fifth and final volume of the Books of Elsewhere, by Jacqueline West (Dial, middle grade, June 2014) offers a very satisfying close indeed to the story of how a girl named Olive moved into a house full of pictures enchanted by a dark magician, and how through bravery, good-heartedness, and lots of mistakes that (sometimes) worked out for the best, helped to defeat him once and for all (with the help of three marvelous cats, some good friends, and a totally unexpected source).

Here are the three main things the last book of a series needs to do:

-- Introduce new tensions, while providing sufficient backstory so that forgetful readers aren't confused.

Check.   There are new tensions here in spades (several new characters pose problems for young Olive, and there are several intriguing new dilemmas and mysteries to solve).   And the relationships that Olive's forged in the previous books continue to play important roles.

This isn't a stand-alone book by any stretch of the imagination--too much has happened!  And frankly, I was worried I didnt' remember enough for it to make sense to me.  But thanks to Jacqueline West's graceful integration of reminders within the new story, I never had that uncomfortable feeling of hopping over gaping plot holes in my mind that sometimes troubles me when reading final volumes.

-- Allow the central characters to develop, which includes giving them enough room to grow as thoughtful, brave people, so that their actions are believable when the final denouement comes and you, the reader, really care.

Check.  Olive isn't desperately intelligent, nor is she endowed with abilities beyond those of a normal young tween.   But she does get to grow lots as a person during the course of her struggles to do the right thing.  The fact that she makes mistakes of judgement makes her believable, the fact that she keeps going regardless makes her someone to cheer for. 

-- End it with an ending (that doesn't have to be an epilogue saying who married whom, naming no names).  Questions should be answered, a future for the main characters should be imaginable, and people trapped in paintings should not be left there to rot.

I have no complaints in this regard.   And here's what I especially like about this book--we get to see Olive's parents as caring people who, in their own math-absorbed way, are decent parents.   They were not good parents in earlier books, so I'm glad I don't have to worry about Olive on that account.  

A really great series will make me want to go start at the beginning all over again, and if I were still my child self, without c. 250 books on the tbr shelves, I might well do so, though I really can't right now.   I can, however, enthusiastically recommend The Books of Elsewhere to any young (or young-esque) reader who enjoys stories of fantasies and real lives intersecting, who likes their conflicts up close and personal, who likes reading about characters who mean really well and who do their best, but who aren't Chosen, who likes cats, and who has imagined walking into a painting....or the people in a painting walking out of it......... 

And if the young reader described above is struggling with parental expectations of aptitude vs actual aptitudes in something altogether different, I recommend it even more highly!  (Olive's parents are both mathematicians; she is an artist).

Added bonus:  Still Life is a nice cold book, with snow and ice and almost freezing to death.  Good for reading on a hot summer day.

(Am I missing another thing the final volume of a series should do?  Since I just came up with my three things literally ten minutes ago, I haven't pondered the question all that deeply, and I would like to be told what obvious things I'm missing!)

Just for the sake of Tidiness, I went through and found my reviews of the earlier books (although for reasons unknown to me I never reviewed the third book...)

The Shadows
Spellbound
The Second Spy
The Strangers

Cleopatra in Space, Book 1: Target Practice, by Mike Maihack, for Timeslip Tuesday (I loved it)

Cleopatra in Space, Book 1: Target Practice, a hundred and seventy page full color graphic novel suitable for young and less young by Mike Maihack (GRAPHIX, April 29, 2014).

Me, showing once again why I am not a professional reviewer:  Oh my gosh,  this was a such a fun book! I loved loved loved it!

Me, struggling to reign in my (utterly justifiable) enthusiasm:

Book 1 of Ceopatra in Space--Target Practice--gets the series off to a flying start.   Cleopatra (yes, that Cleopatra) is an ordinary Egyptian princess, more or less--she's not a model of courtly decorum, being much fonder of slingshot practice than she is of submitting to her education, and indeed ordinary princesses might not habitually dose their tutor's tea with soporific chamomile.   But her expectations of one day assuming royal obligations (though she's by no means anxious to do so) are ordinary enough.

But then!  Exploring the hidden chambers behind a mysterious door, Cleo activates a portal that whisks her far into the future, and far into space.   She finds herself in a galaxy in danger from a villainous enemy that has seized all but fraction of learning amassed during the millennia that have passed since her own time.  And she finds herself hailed as the savior of the Nile Galaxy, whose coming was foretold in a prophecy.

Cleo has doubts.  Lots of doubts.  But the sentient cats who govern the Nile Galaxy are determined to make sure she will fulfill the saving part of things.

But first, she must go to school.  Fortunately for Cleo, the horror of more algebra is off-set by new friends, and by combat practice...and when Cleo is sent on her first quest (on her utterly awesome space-travelling sphinx motorbike), it's the later that come in handy....

Cleo is great, the sentient cats are great, the premise is great, the story is great, and the art is great.  It is a great book and WHY do I have to wait till next April for the sequel??????  I want more now.

A must for fans of Zita the Spacegirl and Astronaut Academy.

A must for those who want books with strong girl characters to offer young readers of any gender, and, Cleo being a brown girl of ancient Egypt, a great diverse read!  (it isn't as clear on the cover that Cleo has darker skin,  but it does inside).

A must for cat lovers!

Here's a preview.

The Boundless, by Kenneth Oppel

In the late 19th century, a boy named Will, the son of a humble railroad worker, finds himself hammering in the gold spike that finishes the railroad line stretching across northern North America.   But he does not get to revel in the moment, for almost immediately an avalanche comes rushing down on the small crowd...and caught in the snow with them are a young Sasquatch and its mother...and things get more than a little tense.

(Yes, Sasquatches--along with other creatures of Native North America, they populate the forests of this book).

As a result of what happened that day, Will's family is elevated up and up in social status and financial security by the owner of the railroad.  And at last the day comes with the great train for which it was designed will cross the country.  The Boundless (the most extravagantly imagined train I've ever read about) stretches for miles (literally), will all sorts of fancy cars and amenities for the rich, working downward in creature comforts past the circus travelling in numerous cars of their own, to the settlers bumping along in the cars at the very back, with no amenities beyond floor boards.  Will, now a teenager, is part of the first class contingent, headed (he hopes) to art school in California, as opposed to the railroad career his father wants with him.

And on the train along with Will there are:

--a murderer, who plans to kill again
--a dead man, his body protected by booby traps of a most ingenious sort
--a young escape artist and tightrope walker; Will met her briefly long ago, and has never stopped thinking about her (and the fact that she never gave him back his Sasquatch tooth)
--a man determined to live beyond his allotted years, who will use what ever tools or people come to his hand
--several strange automatons
--an imprisoned Sasquatch

And much more.

This isn't going to be the fun journey Will had expected.  Because unfortunately for him, he's the one targeted by the killer.  Will knows much more than is safe about the secrets travelling along with the Boundless.

Though there is murderous danger on board the train, The Boundless is more an adventure story than it is a mystery.  The reader knows the identity of the bad guy from the beginning of the adventure, and so it's a game of cat and mouse with none of the tension that comes from the growing realization that there is danger.  Other tensions, like nighttime chases across the tops of the cars, scary supernatural beings, betrayals and friendships, are there in full force!

I do not introduce myself to others as someone who loves adventure stories set about trains in 19th century North America, so I approached The Boundless with some trepidation.   Happily, the fantasy twists and flowerings of imagination with which the pages are filled kept me pleasantly interested, and I ended up liking it.  And I liked Will, and his drawing abilities (which are germane to the plot and not just an add on) very much.   And as an outsider to First Class, he shares with the reader his awareness of the social injustices on which the train runs, which I appreciated.

In short, fine historical fantasy that will appeal to older middle grade readers, and younger YA ones (there's a nascent romance that doesn't go so far as to make this full YA), who like a dash of steampunk and deadly intrigue in their train travels.  I'd give this one to the quirky kids, the ones who don't like long epic fantasies but don't want straight reality either.

Turning on a Dime, by Maggie Dana, for Timeslip Tuesday

Turning on a Dime, by Maggie Dana (Pageworks Press, May 13, 2014), is a fine example of time travel for the horse-loving girl!

Samantha is just that sort of girl--her father is a horse trainer, and she's been riding all her life, dreaming of being the first African American to compete in the Olympics (her mom's African American, her father mostly Dutch).    Her mom is more interested in the family genealogy than in horses; Sam is more interested in the ancestry of her own beloved horse than she is in her own....

Sam is about to get a chance to learn more about her horse's geneaology (and her own) than she could ever have dreamt.  For when Sam and her Dad head down to Mississippi on horse business one weekend, Sam falls asleep in her bedroom of the old plantation house they're staying in, and slips through time, back to 1863.

And Caroline, another horse loving tomboy who's the daughter of the plantation owner back in the past, comes into her room to find Sam asleep on her bed.  And assumes she's a slave.

Happily, Sam's phone still works (though not as a phone!) back in the past...and it comes in useful when convincing Caroline that she's not, in fact, a slave, but a time traveler.   And happily Caroline is both open-minded and willing to confront her prejudices, and glad to meet another horse girl.   Caroline and Sam agree that Sam should take on the role of her maid, and they become friends.

But Union soldiers are advancing on this part of Mississippi, and they need horses.   Caroline's beloved mare is at risk--and without her, Sam's own horse might never exist.   Even more pressingly, Sam herself might never exist in her own time if the slave catcher who's after her has his way....

 It's a good story, gradually increasing in tension as both the Civil War and the reality of slavery impinge more and more dangerously on the lives of the two girls.   The bond of horse love between the girls helps gloss over the suspension of disbelief required to swallow Caroline's quick acceptance of Sam (Caroline is not exactly the most realistic product of 1863 Mississippi I've encountered, but she has to be on Sam's side right from the beginning to make the story work).  Both Sam and Caroline have a lot of learning to do, rather quickly, about the evils and human consequences of slavery, and happily Caroline doesn't get set up as a "white savior," -- both girls have equal agency, perhaps Sam even more.   That being said, I would really have liked Pearl, the actual enslaved girl who helps them, to be more deeply characterized--Sam and Caroline are so caught up in each other that they don't spend quite as much  time as I would have liked thinking of her as a real person (but goodness knows this is pretty true to form for young teenaged girls who are caught up in a close friendship).   

In any event, if you have a horse girl on hand, who might be ready for a change from cantering around in the present, this is a fine book to offer her (and she might well already be a fan of Maggie Dana's Timber Ridge stories of horse girls in the present).  And it gets bonus Time Travelling points from me for the clever and entertaining use of Sam's phone! 

(I love the picture of Sam on the cover of the book!  It really captures her character.  Poor Caroline doesn't come off as well--but of course she hates having to be all dressed up, as she is here!) 

disclaimer:  review copy received from the author

Dragon Keeper, by Carole Wilkinson

Question:  Can one really recommend a book about a Chinese dragon in which the dragon has wings?  Or does that throw the whole story so off kilter that all that is good gets overshadowed?

This is the question I was forced to ask while reading Dragon Keeper (originally Dragonkeeper), by Carole Wilkinson (Hyperion, 2003; winner of Australia's Aurealis Award for best YA novel, but it's really middle grade).  It's the story of a girl in the time of China's Han Dynasty who is the slave of the Imperial Dragon Keeper.   He is a nasty piece of work, and the slave girl and dragons are cruelly neglected, to the point where all but one of the dragons have died.   Now the Emperor wants to be rid of the last of them....but the slave girl, who does not at this point even know her name, saves the dragon from the hunter charged with killing it, and the dragon (though wounded in the wing) flies off with her (and her pet rat).

The dragon tells her her name, Ping, and though Ping had thought that maybe she'd simply return home, this is not in the cards.  For one thing, the dragon hunter is after them, and has spread the story that she is a witch.  For another, the dragon doesn't want her too, and is rather insistent that they do things his way.  So Ping, her rat, and the dragon head off toward the mythical ocean (on foot, because of the wounded dragon wing).   And Ping finds that the dragon is taking a rather bossy tone with her, assuming she'll be there to look after the mysterious Dragon Stone that is his chief treasure, and it's a bit hard for her to trust him entirely.  But they journey together, outwitting the bad dragon hunter who's still after them, and meeting sundry other folk (including the new young emperor), and the dragon teaches her to develop the power of her qi (which is formidable, and magically efficacious) and shares Taoist bon mots with her.  And at last, after doubts and dangers, the secret of the Dragon Stone is revealed.

In short, it's a rather engaging "girl with special gifts on journey with dragon" story.  The Chinese setting adds interest (although in that sort of "here is an exotic setting adding interest to this fantasy story" way-- such that quotation marks are called for around "Chinese").  Ping is an appealing heroine (once she gets a name) whose dilemmas and decisions and dangerous circumstances make for good reading.  It gets a few bonus points for making Ping the first ever female Dragonkeeper, and one can cheer her on as she develops self-confidence and self-respect, and one can cheer as well for the brave rat friend.  However, the main dragon character is not my favorite dragon ever-why isn't he more open with Ping?  He's basically using her.  Why does he speak fluently aloud, but in broken English when using telepathy? Why does he suddenly not trust her toward the end? Why do his magical powers never come in all that useful? Why is he keeping a comb under one of his scales (this distracted me)?

And most pressingly of all-   wings on a Chinese dragon?????

So I'm not sure I'll bother to look for the sequels, and I'm not going to bother to offer this one to my own inveterate fantasy reading child.  Though I didn't mind reading it at all-- that the pages turned nicely and I enjoyed it (except when I was being critical)--I think there are better books.

Here's the Kirkus review, if you want another opinion that is essentially the same as mine.

Dragon Girl: the Secret Valley, by Jeff Weigel -- great graphic novel fantasy fun!

If you have on hand a nine or ten year old girl who loves mythical creatures, RUN to get a hold of Dragon Girl: The Secret Valley, by Jeff Weigel (Andrews McMeel Publishing, June 3, 2014, 192 pages) .   The baby dragons she'll meet here will make her heart absolutely melt.  If you have any other sort of kid around who loves graphic novels (including, in my case, a 13 year old boy), you can also move very briskly indeed to put it into their hands.   And I myself loved it.

Dragon Girl tells how a girl named Alanna finds a dragon hatching ground, becoming the surrogate mother to one of the baby dragons after the mother is killed by a knight, Sir Cedric, who's determined to rid the world of the "scourge" of dragonkind.    Alanna loves the time she spends with her new dragon friends, befriending other hatchlings through dancing and playing, while wearing a dragon disguise she made herself to keep them from becoming too trusting of humans.  This is a wise thing for her to have done (though it doesn't work on her special dragon friend, who loves her in human form too!).   Because when Alanna's older brother spills the beans about the baby dragons to Sir Cedric (because of wanting more of a life than his home village offers), Cedric is filled with fighterly determination to kill them all....and then, when he sees that the eggs are veined with silver, greed comes into play too.

When a grown-up dragon arrives at the hatching ground to take the babies off down a tunnel to the secret valley of the dragons, Alanna's dragon costume is so convincing that she's carried off with the hatchlings.  Cedric and Alanna's brother follow, and find a world full of dragons (and lots of silver, which sets Cedric's greedy heart afire!).  There they meet a young woman named Margolyn, who studies dragons from her steampunkish airship, who helps them foil Cedric's nefarious plans.

nice bonus:  it's Alanna's cleverness that gets Sir Cedric in the end--yay for smart girls!

It is lovely, charming, exciting and moving, and great fun all around!  The illustrations, in black and white, do an excellent job of moving the story along without distracting the graphic-novel challenged of us from the words!  The baby dragons are adorable, as is Alanna in her dragon garb! And as an added bonus, pages from Margolyn's dragon-study notebook, and detailed schematics of her airship, are included.

This one is a winner, and I am sending it off with my fifth grade today to share with  his dragon-loving friends today full of the happy certainty that it will delight them.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

The Eighth Day, by Dianne K. Salerni

The Eighth Day, by Dianne K. Salerni (HarperCollins, middle grade, April 22, 2014)

Basic premise:  13-year-old kid with new-found powers finds himself a key player in an ancient magical war.

Basic reaction:  Fun, fast, gripping, lots of interesting twists.

Summary:

Jax's life pretty much sucks.  His parents are dead, and his guardian,  Riley, is an 18-year old who is failing to provide much in the way of creature comforts, cleanliness, and food.  And then Jax wakes up on the morning of his 13th birthday to find himself in a world seemingly devoid of people.  He has found himself in an eighth day, squeezed between Wednesday and Thursday.

But though, on the eighth day, houses are abandoned and cars sit empty on the highways, Jax is not alone--also awake on this eighth day are the descendants of the two sides in an ancient war.   One one side, there are the heirs to the magic of Merlin, King Arthur and the knights of the round-table.  On the other side are the Kin, magic-users who were imprisoned by the creation of the eighth day millenia ago.  Jax is a descendant of the former side, heir to magical powers of his own.  And the war is still going strong...

Jax, along with Evangeline (the mysterious girl next door, alive only on the eighth day) find themselves facing choices that may lead to the destruction of all normal people.  Jax's newly emerged powers are of little use, but fortunately Riley and Evangeline are much more complicated than they first appear....

Personal reaction:

I enjoyed it lots.  The basic premise of the eighth day was tremendously diverting, and helped make the "kid developing magical powers on his birthday" plot interesting. There's some nice obfuscation of the good guy/bad guy dynamic, with some characters in the gray area between, and some uncertainty about whether what the good guys are doing is, in fact, good.  Nicely complicated!   I liked that older characters (Riley and Evangeline, in their late teens) do most of the heavy lifting viz adversary confronting, because I prefer kids with new found powers to be realistically challenged by the difficult situations in which they find themselves.

My favorite part of the book, though, was not the larger set up with all its dangers and plottings, but the relationship between Evangeline and Jax, which is poignant, fascinating, and thought-provoking (I could have happily read a whole book just about that!).  And I liked the relationship between Jax and Riley too--it ended up going to places I never expected. 

Final thought:

This is one to give the young fan of Rick Riordan's books-real world meeting fantasy in a complicated snarl of mythology-inspired story.  The love interests that appear in the later Percy Jackson books aren't here (yet), though, so it is very much for the middle grade reader, as opposed to the teenager.  That being said, this one is not exactly wish-fulfillment fantasy, and there's a touch of real world grittiness in Jax's home life and in the actions of some of the secondary characters--it is not rainbow unicorns and great Heroics, and the magical fun is slow to really get going.  Which means it will appeal more to some readers and less to others...maybe, now that I am thinking about it more, it will appeal most to the kid who almost loved the Percy Jackson books but didn't quite.  I think the cover will do a good job helping the book find the right kids, what with its urban sci fi look, and nary a rainbow unicorn in sight!

I myself am looking forward to the sequel (The Inquisitor's Mark, coming next January) very much.

The One Safe Place, by Tania Unsworth

The One Safe Place, by Tania Unsworth  (Algonquin Young Readers, middle grade, April 29, 2014)

Climate change has brought North America to the brink of collapse.   But shielded from the merciless sun in a remote valley, Devin and his grandfather have managed to keep a peaceful life going.  Then Devin's grandfather dies.  When the work of their farm proves too much for him, Devin sets out to find what's left of civilization.  In a wreck of a city where feral children run wild (but the rich can still afford the water to keep their lawns green) Devin is taken under the wing of Kit, a girl who's a practiced thief.   But then comes the promise of a refuge for children--a place where they will be safe and cared for--and though Devin has his doubts, he allows himself to be persuaded to enter that mysterious sanctuary.

And indeed, the Gabriel H. Penn Home for Children offers all the food, all the divertissements, and all the other creature comforts a kid might want.  But Gabriel H. Penn did not have the well-being of children in mind when he established the Home.  He was thinking solely of himself....and the rich old clients who might join him in benefiting from the "happy childhood" the Home provides for its young residents.

Devin does not fall for it.  He can't help but be appalled by the zombie-like state the children periodically fall into, and senses there is a dark underside to the whole set-up (and boy is he is right!).   And so he sets about solving the mysteries of the Home, and planning an escape.... On the plus side, Devin has perernatural gifts of memory conferred on him by his profound synesthesia, and he has allies among the kids who have their own abilities.    One the down side, the trap they are in is a pretty tight one, and it will take a whole lot of luck for the ragtag group of kids to escape the "safe place" that is their prison.

"Plucky, quirky kids working together in a fantastical setting to defeat evil adults who are keeping them prisoners" is pretty much always a good plot, as far as I'm concerned, and this one was no exception.   It's fun to see the dark side of the Home slowly becoming clear, and to get to know its young residents as they start to work together to escape.   And I don't think I'm alone in this-- there is lots of kid appeal in this portrayal of  the superficial elements that comprise "happy childhood" being horribly twisted, and the children fighting back, especially when the kids are well-drawn enough to have distinct personalities!  Devin's synesthesia is a particularly engaging aspect of the story.  Fascinating in and of itself, and allowing Unsworth plenty of scope for appealing descriptive language, it is a lot more than just an add-on specialness.  It plays a Pointful role in the plot, which I appreciated lots.

I did feel, though, that the near-future climate horror was not quite as well done as may be-- though it certainly helps set up the paradise of the Home, giving good reasons for the kids to end up there, it felt like a bit of an unnecessary dystopian accessory to the sci-fi premise of what is really happening at the Home. I questioned the premise that there still have been enough left of civilization to support an uber-rich class (though the rich certainly good at surviving), and I wasn't able to accept the kids as believable products of  catastrophic climate change.  They were just a bit too much like kids of today (would Kit, for instance, uneducated street kid that she is, really be familiar with IQ tests?).   I think that young readers won't notice or care, but it kept me personally from truly embracing the story.

Short answer--a good, solid story for the eleven year old or so who enjoys creepy sci fi suspense in which brave, resourceful kids are pitted against evil adults.

And now the part of review writing I always enjoy--going to see what the professional reviews said.

Here's the starred Kirkus review-- "A standout in the genre’s crowded landscape. (Dystopian thriller. 10-16)

Me--what's with that upper age range?  The kids are 12ish, some younger...there's no romance...the violence is muted though disturbing...I'd say 12 or 13, tops.  Any older and you run into readers of YA dystopia who will find this too tame.

No star from Publishers Weekly, but a very positive review-- "a page-turning mix of suspense, intrigue, and anxiety. The kids are genuine and quirky, just the right kind of mismatched misfits to snag readers’ hearts. This is a wholly enjoyable journey, and a dystopian vision with some great new twists."  

Me--not sure my heart ever got snagged, exactly, but I agree with the main points here (though I think "dystopian" has become somewhat overused and cheapened these days).  The major twist is indeed not one I can remember seeing before (though I'm not quite sure about this......).

Another star from School Library Journal-- "The suspense and dread build as the mystery gradually unfolds, but it stops short of becoming truly horrific. The conclusion is fast-paced and gripping." 

Me--nothing to disagree with here (although the spectre of old age trying to siphon off the vitality of the young is perhaps something that will be found truly horrific by those concerned about the collapse of Social Security as the Baby Boomers age...).

Saving Lucas Biggs, by Marisa de los Santos and David Teague, for Timeslip Tuesday

Saving Lucas Biggs, by Marisa de los Santos and David Teague (HarperCollins, middle grade, April 29, 2014), opens with an innocent man being sentenced to death.  Margaret's father was a whistle-blower,  a geologist who publicly decried the fracking that was poisoning the water of Victory.   He was accused of murder and arson, and Judge Biggs, a company man through and through, had no qualms whatsoever condemning him.

Margaret and most everyone else in town knows that the mining company is corrupt and vicious and that Judge Biggs was complicit in the plot to frame her father.   But Judge Biggs wasn't always the hateful corporate toady he became--he was once a good-hearted boy, back in the Victory of 1938,  the year when the miners, driven to desperation by unsafe working conditions and pathetic wages tied to to the company story, took a stand against the company and went on strike, using non-violent protest to press for change.    It didn't work;  two innocent men died, and the life of young Lucas was warped horribly out of true.   But in present day Victory, there's one man, Joshua (the grandfather of Margaret's best friend, Charlie) who remembers Lucas Biggs back before things went wrong.  And Joshua still has faith that his old friend can still be saved.....

The story of Joshua's  life in 1938, alternating with Margaret's in the present, tells of all the suffering of the minors' families, and the heartbreak of how close things got to a peaceful resolution.  Listening to Joshua talk of his old friend, and how he changed,  it becomes clear to Margaret that the only way to save her father is to save Lucas Biggs.

And Margaret thinks she might be able to do this, for her family can time travel.  So she goes back to 1938, and pushes against the weight of  history, as she tries, with young Joshua's help, to keep the innocent from being killed.

Saving Lucas Biggs has memorable characters, an intriguing premise in which details keep getting added to the story back in the past making it kind of like a mystery, and there is tons of truly heart-touching emotion and shoulder-clenching suspense (shoulder-clenching because that's what happens when you read about it). 

The time travelling came some ways into the book, but it was satisfying time travelling--the authors did a fine job of sending her back in time with her mission front and center, and, along with Margaret herself, they refused to get distracted by things irrelevant to the matter at hand.

 In short, I can imagine lots of kids enjoying it lots as an exciting adventure story combining past and present danger.

On the more critical side, the actual manner in which the all is resolved did not strike me as convincing; it was pretty much deus ex machina, and its lack of emotional and narrative heft 

But what I really want to say is Yes! for a book that tackles corporate greed and corruption and puts it in historical context! Yes for a book that uses a kid friendly premise and story to show the atrocities committed by the ruthless companies!  (The atrocities are described--people, just sitting in the tent camp, are gunned down, and are killed and mutilated--but they are described in a factual, un-hysterical way that makes it possible to move through the horror without nightmares).  And Yes for a book that advocates for non-violent resistance inspired by Quakerism!

Maybe it's not, you know, subtle, and the ultimate ease of the ending did kind of disappoint me more than somewhat, but still, how can I not say yes to a book that combines such powerful points with an engaging story?

My response was quite possible colored by the fact that I read this morning (while finishing the book), this piece of news:

"North Carolina legislators are considering a bill that would make it a crime to publicly disclose toxic chemicals that energy companies use in the hydraulic fracturing process, with offenders on the hook for fines or even jail time."  It seems like even medical and emergency personal couldn't talk about the toxic chemicals used in fracking even if they were directly copying with their repercussions.

How can this be?

And continuing with the real world connections--here's a petition to ban fracking in the area of New Mexico's Chaco Culture National Historic Park.

The Fairy Doll & Other Tales from the Doll's House, by Rumer Godden

Oh goodness, if you (or a young reader you know) are at all a fan of dolls, and dollhouses, and making tiny stuff, and like excellent stories that incorporate such things, RUN to get yourself (and the young reader) a copy of The Fairy Doll & Other Tales from the Doll's House, by Rumer Godden (out in paperback this month from Macmillan Children's Books).  This is an anthology of all of Godden's doll stories, and it contains the following stories (with original dates of publication)

The Doll's House (1947)
Miss Happiness and Miss Flower (1961)
Little Plum (1963)
The Fairy Doll (1956)
The Story of Holly & Ivy (1958)
Candy Floss (1957)
Impunity Jane (1955)

So basically what you get is 468 pages of the most beautiful doll goodness you can imagine.  And along with the dolls, you also get the stories of the children whose dolls they are.

Now, I myself had read The Doll's House back in the day, and it distressed me somewhat--one of the dolls is an evil, conniving piece of work and as a result I didn't seek out Godden's other doll books.  This was my loss, because I would have loved them, but on the other hand it meant that I had a lovely, blissful, utterly satisfying time reading all the rest of them pretty much straight through over the past two days!

I especially recommend Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, which I can safely say is the best doll house book I have ever read.  It is the story of a little girl, Nona, who's sent from India to live with London cousins, and who is absolutely miserable.   Then two little Japanese dolls arrive from an American great-aunt, and Nona, seeing in them a mirror of her own cultural dislocation, begins to plan how she can make them feel at home.  The whole family ends up being drawn in to making a Japanese dollhouse, complete with many, many beautiful accessories....and even Belinda, the youngest cousin who took a Skinner to both Nona and the dolls, ends up being won over.  It is very moving, and if you have a child who loves making small, detailed things, this is pretty much a perfect story.

And if you are at all like me, this book will make you want to start building a Japanese doll house of you own (with sliding partitions, and bonsai trees) and it was such a treat to find the story of Belinda, Nona, and the dolls continuing in Little Plum!

The Story of Holly & Ivy made me weep a bit on the bus ride home--it's a lovely Christmas story of a doll and an orphan girl finding each other, and a forever home.   And if you can find a doll with a red dress, like Holly's, I can't think of a better book and doll paring for Christmas than this one.

And I want to mention Impunity Jane in particular as well, for how often do you find the story of how a boy adopts an unwanted doll, and plays with her....while worrying about being found out by the other boys?  It ends happily, because Impunity Jane is such a lovely action figure that she fits just beautifully into games that don't involve traditionally "girlish" pursuits.  Read this one to the young boys in your life, so that they are encouraged to think outside gendered boxes, and so that, if they already have played with dolls and it has worried them, they can be comforted.  (And in Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, the boy cousin is the main builder of the doll house, allowing him to be part of the imaginative fun too!).

Of course, the cover, what with its pinkness and gold trim, is designed to appeal to girls; it would be hard to get your average boy to sit down and read them independently.  Sneaky reading out loud would have to be the way to go.....

In any event, I'm so glad I got a review copy of this one; I loved reading these lovely stories.   Except I didn't read The Doll's House again, because the evil doll was seared into my mind just plenty.

Interesting aside:  here is a description of sushi as enjoyed (!) by  a London family of the early 1960s, from Little Plum:

"She made sushi, which are slices of pressed rice with all kinds of surprises in the middle--meat, shrimps, or a slice of crystallized orange, or a dab of custard with seaweed on top."

Custard sushi....can this really have happened????  There is egg custard sushi, but what with the "dab" I don't think that's what this was....

The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw, by Christopher Healy (a response as opposed to a measured, critical review)

There are retold fairy tales, there are fractured fairy tales, and then there are stories that might once have said hi to fairy tales in passing but then went on to have rich, vivid, lives of their own.   The Hero's Guide series, by Christopher Healy, is of the later sort--sure, the characters might have started in fairy tales, but they soon transcended the destinies written for them in the original stories. 

You don't want to read The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw (Walden Pond Press,April 29, 2014) until you've read the first to books (guides to Saving the Kingdom and Storming the Castle).  And you don't want to read much about the plot of this one here and now, because it's really best just to read the book. So I shall just describe it in general terms:

Silly.  Fun. Tremendously entertaining.   Pirates, but not so much as to make those who don't like pirates feel burdened.  Likable characters who you want to shake from time to time.  And interesting adventure that asks the reader not so much to suspend disbelief, but to leave it at exit 8 of New Jersey Turnpike (that's where we stop and spend the night on the way to Grandma's at Christmas, which is irrelevant).

Oh, I was doubtful, back when I started the first Hero's Guide.  What manner of farce is this, I asked myself.   My doubts faded in the bright light (or something) of Christopher Healy's rollicking (nod to pirates, who I think of as rollicking) prose, and reading the third book was just plain old relaxing fun, interspersed by bits of me rolling my eyes at some of the characters (in a friendly sort of way).

Though the "hero" bit implies a masculine focus, it's the female characters who actually have the sense, the skills, and the smarts to get things done.  So don't be afraid to give this to handy girls as well as the perhaps more obvious handy boys.

disclaimer:  review copy received from the publisher

Mouseheart, by Lisa Fiedler (with giveaway of great summer reads-- Mouseheart, The Search for WondLa, and Belly Up!)

Mouseheart, by Lisa Fiedler, generously illustrated by Vivienne To (Simon and Schuster, middle grade, in stores May 20, 2014) is the fast-paced story of a mouse of destiny set in the subterranean depths of New York city. I'm happy to be able to offer a giveaway along with my own thoughts--scroll down for details.

When I am about to read a book in which a mouse is the hero, I ask myself my "mouse questions" (which I am actually formulating right now for the first time--they have previously been an amorphous swirl, because that's how I think). If the hero of a book were to be a fish, "fish" could be substituted for "mouse," etc.

1. If all the mice and other animal characters were people, would the plot be appreciably different?  Would my emotional response be any different? 

2. And following from that, is there any "mousiness" to the main character?   If I were never told he or she was a mouse, would I suspect that there was something not-human going on?  Does the fact that the rodents wear clothes and fight with swords distract me?

Maybe these questions wouldn't actually work for fish, because, you know, water.  But the basic point of them is that if I am to read a book in which a mouse is a hero, I want there to be some point to the mousiness.  And so, as I read Mouseheart, I pondered these questions.

Here is the gist of the story:

Down below New York city is Atlantia, small, gated utopia of rats.   It is guarded by cats, whose queen has signed a treaty with the emperor of the rats.  Up above is a pet store, from which three young mouse siblings escape.  One of these, Hopper, our hero, falls into the New York subway system, where he is taken under the paw of a young, swashbuckling rat who turns out to be the utopia's prince.

Hopper wants to find both his siblings and a safe home, but he finds himself drawn deep into the world of those who want to bring down Atalantia.   He does not want to be drawn into revolution and rebellion--he wants to believe in the utopia.    Nor is Hopper enthusiastic when the rebel mice hail him as a chosen mouse of destiny, savior of the rebellion (that bit about him believing in the utopia makes being a hero of the  rebel cause tricky).  But destiny can be hard to avoid...especially once you realize that the utopia comes with a terrible, terrible price (that whole bit about the treaty between the cats and the rats?  It has a Dark Underside of a not unexpected, biologically-sound, sort).

So the fact that the main characters are rodents is absolutely essential for the plot to work, and to have powerful emotional heft when the Dark Underside is revealed.   And allowing the rodents and cats to be rather advanced, viz trappings of civilizations, lifted the above animal adventure into the territory of fantasy epic, that I thinks adds to its kid appeal.   Perhaps more could have been made of the physical qualities that distinguish rodents from people (like keen sense of smell, and the use of whiskers), but I felt I was at least getting a mouse-perspective on the New York subway system, which made up for that.   Though there was a sense that the characters were simply small people, it was not so much an issue that it broke my suspension of disbelief.

Mouseheart is one I'd recommend to readers seeking an animal-based entrée into the world of false utopias--it has engaging main characters, dark undercurrents, and a vivid setting.  That being said, I do have a rather strong reservation about making a blanket recommendation.   In the very first scene, the actions of a mouse and a rat end up causing a hostile cat's eye to be graphically impaled on a spike.  I think many readers, especially those who love cats, will put the book down right there.  I myself was worried that there would be more graphic violence, but this was the worst, and was much more horrible than the confrontations to come (also involving the dark side to rodent/cat relationships, but less specifically so).

I have another minor reservation, that's more something that didn't work for me personally--Hopper's sister ends up messing up their escape from the pet shop because she can't control the desire to bite its owner.  But she blames Hopper, and he just takes it.   This made her totally unsympathetic, and Hopper seem a bit wet.

In any event, Mouseheart has gotten excellent reviews from Publishers Weekly--  "For those who love an underdog and some romping good battles, Fiedler thoroughly entertains" and from Kirkus--"Riddled with surprises, the fast-paced, complex plot features a host of vivid, memorable rodent and feline characters.... Another stalwart mouse with a brave heart will win fans in this captivating underground adventure."  I agree that many young readers will enjoy this lots (just so long as they aren't too terribly fond of cats.....).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Fiedler is the author of several novels for children and young adults. She divides her time between Connecticut and the Rhode Island seashore, where she lives happily with her very patient husband, her brilliant and beloved daughter, and their two incredibly spoiled golden retrievers.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Vivienne To has illustrated several books, including The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins and the Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective series by Octavia Spencer. As a child, she had two pet mice escape. She currently lives in Sydney, Australia, with her partner and her ginger cat. Visit her at VivienneTo.com.

Courtesy of the publisher, I'm happy to offer this great giveaway of Mouseheart plus The Search for WondLa and Belly Up!  Just leave a comment (perhaps sharing your own favorite mouse fantasy) between now and 8:30 am Monday morning and you'll be entered!

Ancient Fire, by Mark London Williams for Timeslip Tuesday

Sometimes a reader just has to ask "does the sentient dinosaur boy actually add anything to the story?"   In the case of Ancient Fire (Danger Boy, book 1), by Mark London Williams (2001), I'm happy to say that he does. But before we meet this particular sentient dinosaur from an alternate reality, a lot of other things have to happen.

It is 2019.  Physics has advanced, to the point that two scientists, husband and wife, have made a breakthrough that may allow time travel to be a workable proposition.  A secret government agency is very interested indeed in the ramifications of this...and its agents have invaded the lab where the research is being carried out, and are pushing the experiments to dangerous levels.  So much so that the female scientist disappears, as it were, in a puff of (metaphoric) time smoke.  Her husband, desperate to escape from government control, flees across country with their son, Eli, but the government agents track them, and force the work to continue.  And when Eli incautiously interferes with an experiment, he becomes unlocked in time himself!

In the meantime, a young saurian lad is headed out on a mission to an alternate earth, because this is what all young saurians do in middle school.  The physics of his journey collides with Eli's first rush through time, and they find themselves in ancient Alexandria, just in time to be attacked by an angry mob.   There they meet Thea, daughter of Hypatia, librarian of Alexandria.  After some bouncing in time/near death at the hands of angry mob/manipulation by government agents/the revelation that Eli's mom might be alive in the 1930s/a plague that might have been brought from the past/an angry rhino, the book ends....with lots more story left to be told!

Basically, the sentient dinosaur boy, Clyne, made the book for me.   Without him, it would be generic science-driven time travel for the young; with him, there's lovely cross-cultural exploration, with bonus surrealism.  He's the most engaging character, qua character, as well--perhaps because Eli and Thea are both in such unhappy and anxious states that they don't add much lightness to story (Clyne's major worry, until he's in mortal peril himself,  is the grade he's going get), but mostly because he's such a pleasant, inquisitive, optimistic sentient dinosaur that I liked him lots.

The book also offers a nice introduction to the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, for those anxious to learn about the past (harrowing, though, to watch the scrolls go up in smoke), and for those who are physics geeks, doubtless the science of nanoparticles and the nature of time and space will provide interesting fodder for critical thought.

I enjoyed this one a lot more than I though I was going to.  It is the first of a series (Danger Boy), and for Clyne's sake I'll actively look for the next book, Dragon Sword--even though the introduction of Arthur and Merlin as allies sends up even more red flags that sentient dinosaurs do! Try this one on the imaginatively adventurous nine or ten year old who enjoys a swirl of complicated plot, sooner rather than later, because 2019 is almost here....and although the book is not that dated yet, physics keeps getting stranger in real life....

(The only other sentient saurian character I can think of is the one in Sherri Tepper's Gibbon's Decline and Fall, which I've whited out the title of because it is a spoiler.  And I didn't mind it there either, so maybe I am more open-minded viz dinosaurs than I think I am.  I still have no desire to read Anne McCaffery's Dinosaur Planet books though).

Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on Museum Mile, by Marcia Wells -- bought, read, and reviewed for #WeNeedDiverseBooks

Today is the third day of the WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, and it is the Day of Action, which is to say, the day of buying books, and asking our libraries to buy books, and even just checking out lots of diverse books from our libraries, to show they are wanted.   So I set off to my local bookstore to find a middle grade book with diversity in it that I didn't already have, preferably one that showed a kid of color on the cover which wasn't about the Civil War (because I've never really wanted to read about the Civil War). 

Upon arriving at Barnes and Nobel, I was not overwhelmed by the choices available to me, because one book is not a choice.  But at least there was one for me to buy!  And happily, Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on Museum Mile, by Marcia Wells, illustrated by Marcos Calo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), was a great book!  One that I have no regrets about whatsoever!  One that I wouldn't have picked up if it hadn't been for the campaign! (one that is making me use too many exclamation marks).

In any event. 

Edmund is an African American kid in New York city with a photographic memory.   When his talents come to the attention of the NYPD, they enlist him to help crack a case involving a ring of art thieves...and promise that if he can help solve it, they'll pay the tuition at his private school.   Since his librarian dad just got laid off (side note:  African American father, very present in son's life, who is a librarian--yay!, library lay-offs, not yay), the tuition offer is so very sweet it can't be turned down (not that Edmund wants it turned down!).  And so Edmund starts staking out the art galleries of New York...and finds himself repeatedly squelched by the officer assigned to shepherd him through the detective work.

Fortunately Edmund has a buddy, Jonah, whose ADHD and OCD nature lends itself beautifully to the restless, obsessive compiling of data and searching for patterns.  And the two of them, now maverick operators with no NYPD support, close in on the art thieves just as they are about to carry out their next crime...

This was an immensely fun book--I loved Edmund's voice and his self-deprecating humor, and I bet I was grinning as I read.   I loved the relationship between his parents, and appreciated their realistic concerns for his safety.  I can't really speak to the logic of the puzzle at the heart of the book, because I am a bad reader of puzzle books (I'm more interested in character than clues), but it all seemed to make a certain amount of (admittedly improbable) sense. 

If you have a kid around who's ten or so who loves a good urban-kid-solving-mystery book, I pretty much can't recommend this more enthusiastically (although since I don't read this genre much, I don't have a solid basis for comparison).

If you want a book that shows an urban African American family with parents who are loving, well educated, and until recently able to afford an expensive private school; a book in which race is something that comes up naturally in the protagonist's thoughts and conversations without being an issue driving the story, and if you want a book that shows the black kid right there on the cover being the hero (in the book he's more organized and never lets his pictures fall like that)--  this, I can say without any doubts at all, is a great book for you!

It is also the only book I have ever read in which the hero puts on his mom's Beyoncé wig from a costume party as the finishing touch to his disguise as a girl scout.

"I pin the hair back with one of my mom's hairclips.  Not bad, I think, turning to the side and checking out my new look.  I am innocent.  A sweet, geeky girl, perfect to let into your house and catalog your most expensive possessions.

I open the door.  Jonah stands there, eyes bulging out.  A strange noise gurgles in his throat.  Clutching his pants, he turns on his heel and sprints down the hallway.  I hear the bathroom door slam, followed by peals of laughter.  He better not have peed on the floor mid run."  (p. 200)

So I'm glad I bought it.  And here's another review, at Ms. Yingling Reads.

(Just for the record, today I also bought Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson, but that I had to order). 

The Dyerville Tales, by M.P. Kozlowsky

I read The Dyerville Tales (Walden Pond Press, middle grade, April 2014) avidly, with interest and enjoyment (though not true love), and usually when this happens it's easy for me to prattle on about the book's pleasing qualities.  But I find myself somewhat stuck as I try to write about this one, because I'm not entirely sure I can define why I enjoyed reading it, nor am I entirely sure I could successfully pick the young readers who would love it (though I'm sure they exist).

Vince Elgin has lived in an orphanage ever since the terrible fire that destroyed his home.  He knows it killed his mother, but nothing of his father was ever found....leaving Vince with horrible, desperately comforting, faith that his father will someday come back for him.   He tells the story of the fire over and over again to the other orphans, with its ending he has to keep believing--the arrival of the fiery dragon, and his father's disappearance in pursuit of it.  When word arrives at the orphanage that Vince's paternal grandfather has died, Vince knows he must go to Dyerville for the funeral--surely his father will be there.   And so he absconds from the orphanage, with little in the way of a plan, but with lots of hope.

He has something else as well.  The friend of Vince's grandfather who sent the death notice sent something else as well--a book in which he'd recorded all the grandfather's stories.   And as Vince makes his way through the cold winter to Dyerville, meeting friends and foes along the way, he reads these stories to himself and to others.   The fantastical journey described therein can't possibly be true, what with the evil witch, the blinded giant, the enchanted beasts, and the magical book.  But Vince has been practicing his belief in the impossible as hard as ever he can, and so he takes from his grandfather's story an answer, of a magical sort, that will finally give him peace.

The Dyerville Tales is two stories--the mundane world of Vince's journey, and the fantasy journey of his grandfather.  Both are somewhat episodic--Vince's journey in the real world less so--which I was perfectly comfortable with during the reading.  But I think that my reservation about the book comes from a sense that the thematic links aren't quite strong enough to ever make the two strands of stories, and even the stories within those strands, work together to make a coherent whole.  

And I was left with doubt about Vince's grandfather, as opposed to finding him and his life convincing emotionally--he must have been a real person, because there Vince is, but his life as told in the fantastically stories can't have been all there was to him, and we don't quite get to see any of that "real" person in our "real" world.  

I think, having now writing this, that the young reader I'd give this to would have to be one who loved fairy tales, who isn't the sort to come back to a parent after reading and say "but...but...."  A trusting sort of child, who doesn't have to have things make Sense.  Which, at this point in my life, isn't exactly me.

Here's another review, with fewer reservations, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.

Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

In the Keep of Time, by Margaret J. Anderson, for (the Wednesday's) Timeslip Tuesday

At first glance, In the Keep of Time, by Margaret J. Anderson (1977) seems like a standard time travel story--four siblings, unwillingly spending the summer with a great aunt in the Scottish boarderlands, explore the ruined castle nearby.  Their aunt is its chatelaine, and has given them the key to the tower...and when they turn it (after it starts glowing, the way magic keys do), they travel back in time to the 15th century.   But soon a twist appears--the youngest child, Olivia, has no memory of her contemporary self.  Instead, she is Mae, grand-daughter of the castle's lord, with a family who loves her, and absolutely no inclination to trust her three siblings. 

And to make things even more exciting, the castle is besieged by an English army, and its own fighting men are away on a cattle raid.  Andrew, with Mae as his guide, is sent to warn them  (exciting adventure in the past bit happens, including a battle between James II of Scotland and the English).  

But for me, things really picked up when the three older kids drag Mae/Olivia back into the present with them.  They had expected her to become Olivia once more, but to their consternation, she remains Mae.  Child of the middle-ages that she now is, she is terrified and wonder struck in turn by the marvels of the present.   And her siblings, seeing no other recourse, desperately work to make Mae into a child of the 20th century who their parents might not realize is someone who misses her "real" mother back in the past....In the process, the siblings come to appreciate each other more (which was something their parents were hoping to accomplish by sending them off together for the summer).

Then the key glows again...and the kids head back to the keep.  Once more they travel through time, but now they find themselves several centuries in the future, and this might be the earliest example in a children's book of a future that imagines the consequences of sea-level rise from global warming caused by over-reliance on technology.   The only inhabitant of the keep in this time period is an old, mysterious woman....who is able (off-stage) to return Olivia to herself (at least, enough so that she isn't Mae anymore....).

This book is the sort to knock the socks off the nine or ten year old who's never read a time travel book, the sort of book they might well remember for life.    It's one that is best read as young as possible, though...I found it a pleasant read, but certainly it was not as emotionally powerful as it would have been to a younger me, whose relationships with siblings and parents were of primary importance. 

I had read Margaret J. Anderson's Searching for Shona, but had not realized she'd written time travel books, two of which appear to be connected to this one.   I'll be looking out for them!