Countdown to Yesterday, by Shirley Marr, for Timeslip Tuesday

Countdown to Yesterday, by Shirley Marr (June 2024, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, middle grade) is a blend of realist fiction with sci fi (ish) time travel.  When we meet 11 James, he's feeling that things are rather off at home, though the only thing that's truly strange is his Chinese-Australian mother entering the school's cake making fundraiser for the first time and picking out the most challenging one from all on offer in the Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book.  But then things abruptly fall apart; his mother tells him she's moving out to an apartment of her own.  Suddenly, James is forced to split his life between her rather rundown new place (with new rocket cakes, all flawed, appearing regularly) and the old house, full of his father's computers and empty without his mom.  His memories of happy times in the past make him long for those days.

School is not the top thing on his mind, but it's a distraction when he meets Yan, a loner girl obsessed with vintage computer books.  Hanging out in the school library they get to talking about parents, and about time machines.  Yan says she's created one, and James' heart leaps at the idea of travelling to the past of a happy family.  But he's disappointed when it's just a wayback computer program--it's cool to see what was on the internet in the past, but not what he wants.

But then, with the help of his dad's computer bank, and pictures of the past, Yan delivers for real.  James goes back in time to relive all the precious memories he's holding onto so tightly....only to discover that they weren't quite how he remembered them....

There's lots of good details about cake and cake drama, friendship, and the emotional fallout of parents separating.  And the time travel is quite cool, and serves the emotional arc of the story well.  That being said, it took a long for this to become more than a rather sad story of a lonely boy whose parents divorce.  Yan doesn't ever become as three dimensional a character as James, but more importantly to me as a reader, the time travel doesn't get going until about 2/3 of the way into it.  When it does, things pick up considerably, and the pages turn quickly, but there wasn't quite enough of this very engrossing part for me to entirely get over the depressed feeling that James' situation left me with.

The Queen of Ocean Parkway, by Sarvenaz Tash, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Queen of Ocean Parkway, by Sarvenaz Tash (September 3, 2024 by Knopf Books for Young Readers), is a really nice book in the best possible sense of the word; I would have loved it as a ten-year-old and very much enjoyed it as a grownup.  

Roya's mom is the superintendent of a 100-year-old apartment building in Brookly, the titular Queen of Ocean Parkway.  Roya is always busy helping out her mom, while practicing to become an investigative journalist by putting out a podcast about the residents (more mystery of the clogged drain in 3B sort of thing than gossip).  And as such, she keeps her ears open for interesting tidbits.  This habit leads into a complicated mystery when she hears two new tenants, a couple, Katya and Stephanie, discussing whether or not Katya will disappear like other women in her family have had a habit of doing, never to return.  Katya does in fact disappear, and Roya is determined to find out what has happened.

With the help of another newcomer to the Queen, a boy named Amin with an eidetic memory (so helpful to mystery solving), she dives into the history of Katya's family, one that is tied to a fortune telling machine on Coney Island.  It turns out that the machine is the family's time travel device, taking one woman in each generation back in time every 25 years or so, and never returning them.  But Katya's determined to break the pattern, and bring Katya back, even if it means travelling back in time herself, along with Amin.

The trips back in time take the two kids to the point where each woman in Katya's family makes their trip.  But how to get Katya back to her own time instead of leaving her to age 25 years before the point where she is supposed to be with Stephanie? Roya's Baba, who she doesn't live with (her parents being divorced) proves to be a great help with the theoretical side of time travel (and Roya is beyond happy to find this point of connection, as Baba is undergoing cancer treatment and quite possibly dying, so her visits to him were strained before they could talk about this new subject of mutual interest).  But Roya gets a little sidetracked when it occurs to her that 25 years ago she might be able to leave a message for her father telling him to seek out help sooner when he first gets sick....

And so the reader gets what is both a fascinating time travel mystery, full of the desperate need to fix the past and save loved ones so they can have a future with their families.

It's a story full of lots of lovely details (for instance, about the mundanity of old apartment life, how each different time period 25 years apart is different yet similar), lots of great characters, and fascinating time shenanigans (rooted in science, which we learn about through Baba's academic side of things, that I appreciated lots).  It's also a lovely letter to an imaginary old New York hotel, and makes me want to visit Coney Island, where I've never been.  And it's a great read--it left me thinking that if the Newbery Committee that honored The Westing Game with its win back in 1978 were to be reconvened for this year, they might well pick this one.

 

A Twist in Time, by Jean Ure, for Timeslip Tuesday

A highlight of going to the biennial conference about 20th Century School Girls and Their Books, as I did a few weeks ago, is that there is time set aside for attendees to sell books to each other (I guess giving a talk on 20th century UK time travel books was cool too, but not quite as much fun).  I had jammed packed my bag and the lining of jacket with American books (picked up cheap at library booksales) that I thought I could sell, and I did--taking in money from sales with one hand, and giving it to the woman at the table next to me with the other (nice that her table had more books I wanted than any other one!)

What with this and vigorous visiting of charity shops, I came home with this lovely assortment of books--

--which included today's Timeslip offering, A Twist in Time, by Jean Ure (2000). Several of her books got published in the US as well as in the UK, though not this one, so you may have heard of her....

It's a pleasant, but not remarkable, story.  Cosmia (aka Cosy) has to stay with foster parents while her mother is in hospital (mental health issues).  She finds the two girls fostered there already hard to mesh with--they are louder and brasher than she is, and mock her for her posher accent and for attending a posher school. But she has her own room, and her own table for homework....and sometimes she sees another girl there, writing...a girl who was living through the London Blitz, and who can also see her across time (and who wishes very badly she could help Cosy with her maths homework....Her journal stays on the table for a while after this girl leaves the room, and Cosy learns her name (Kathleen), and the sad circumstance that brought her to this house (parents killed in Blitz).

Everything works out nicely, with Cosy getting a bit of gumption from the other girls, and unexpected support from the older of the two as well.  And her mother gets out of hospital and she meets Kathleen, now quite a bit older, in real life.....

I enjoyed the time slippy part of the story lots. We get to see Kathleen's point of view from her journal, and it was interesting and intriguing to see how each girl thought the other was a ghost, and how they wondered what was happening.

But I only gave it three stars over on Goodreads because in the end this proved to be somewhat pallid time slipping, with no direct communication across the years, which disappointed me. (The closest it came was when Kathleen was able to leave a helpful math note in her journal that was of great assistance to Cosy).  But it was a nice book, very engrossing and easy to read.

(And it was given additional personal interest to me in that my younger son's current girlfriend is also named Cosima, which was the first I'd heard of the name, so it was neat to see it here...and probably, since she is a fine arts major, she isn't great at math either, though I could be doing her an injustice...)

The Oracle's Door, by Zetta Elliott

The Oracle's Door, by Zetta Elliott (September 14, 2024), is a prequel to her Dragons in a Bag series, and though it stands on its own, it will bring most joy to readers already familiar with the magical world of Palmara!

In Dragons in a Bag, we meet Ma, the most powerful witch in Brooklyn, through the eyes of her grandson Jaxon.  Now we get to meet her when she was Vinny Robinson, living in the South Side of Chicago in 1919, pushing back against her mother's efforts to keep her spunkiness and curiosity in check.  And we journey with her and her best friend L. Roy Jenkins through magical portals into the beautiful land of Palmara, where they meet Sis, its draconic guardian, and try to save a newly hatched (and adorable) dragon.  

Though this is all wonderful, the baby dragon is failing to thrive, and Vinny and L. Roy grow increasingly frustrated that they can't do more to help.  And back in Chicago, tension grows between Vinny and her mother, and racial tensions are growing in the city as well.  When Vinny meets the mysterious Oracle of Palmara, she receives a frightening prophecy of fire...and when a bloody riot engulfs the city, putting Vinny and her mother in terrible danger, Vinny makes a choice that she will second guess for the rest of her life....

It is of course lovely to revisit Palmara, and lovely as well to see what Ma was like as a young girl (and to get reflections from her as an old woman, looking back at events in sections sprinkled in the main story).  But though this works beautifully as a portal fantasy and a look at a slice of the past that will be new to many readers (me included), I did have one little bit of let down.  I felt that more could have been done with some of the emotional beats within the magical world, especially one key event, which instead of being deeply powerful was quickly lost in what was happening in the real world (slight spoiler of explanation--the baby dragon and Vinny were linked together, with the well-being of one affecting that of the other, but this bit of the story didn't get developed quite enough to satisfy me....)

That being said, this is an engrossing story of black girl magic that will delight fans of the series.

disclaimer: review copy received from the author

Spy Ring, by Sarah Beth Durst

 

I love it when I gently learn bits of history I didn't know, especially while tagging along on a fun treasure hunt with companiable fictional characters, and that was just the case with Spy Ring, by Sarah Beth Durst (May 21, 2024, Clarion Books)!

Best friends Rachel and Joon, ready to spend the summer together practicing their espionage skills, are fed up with their parents keeping secrets from them--when eavesdropping, Rachel learns her mom and boyfriend are going to get married (which she fine with except for feeling left out), and Joon has just learned he's about to move.  But the eavesdropping also sets them off on a more exciting mission than they'd dreamed off--Rachel's soon to be stepdad is a descendent of a Revolutionary War spy, Anna "Nancy" Smith, and he's going to give Rachel a ring that once (according to family lore) belonged to her.

The ring has a clue to the start of a hunt set up by Nancy centuries ago, and maybe if Rachel and Joon can solve all the puzzles, they'll find actually proof that Nancy was indeed part of Long Island's Culper Spy Ring!

The kids have grown up vaguely aware of the Spy Ring, an important local driver of tourism and civic pride, but now they go into a deep dive of historical research and investigation of all the historic sites they'd never given much thought to. The clues are nicely cryptic, but believably solvable, and the adults encounter along the way are nicely varied in their responses, from skepticism to helpful eagerness.  The history of the Spy Ring, and the challenges of actually proving something in the past was true, is well woven into the modern-day hunt, and I really enjoyed learning about it.  I also appreciated that the story is about a woman whose historical importance many people were skeptical about, which is always a good chain of thought to put into young readers mind, in my opinion....

Give this one to any puzzle-loving, history loving, kids-riding-around-on-bikes loving, young readers you might have on hand, maybe paired with a trip to the actual Long Island town where the story is set, to go on a hunt yourselves for all the interesting historical places mentioned in the book! (I am rather tempted to do this myself....)

Finn and Ezra's Bar Mitzvah Time Loop, by Joshua S. Levy, for Timeslip Tuesday

Finn and Ezra's Bar Mitzvah Time Loop, by Joshua S. Levy (May 14, 2024, middle grade, Katherine Tegen Books) is a groundhog day type timeslip story that's tremendously fun (which I expected, having found the authors previous books to also be very entertaining).  And yet it's not all fun and games; there's a more thoughtful thread running through it as well.

Ezra's Bar Mitzvah is an ordeal to be endured, what with family tensions, his little sister barfing on his shoes, and the painful struggle to get through all that is required of him.  He's just glad he's reached the end on Sunday afternoon and it's over...when he finds himself back on Friday, having to do it all over again.  And again, unable to figure out how to end the madness.  

When he finds there's another boy in the same venue also caught in an endless Bar Mitzvah loop, he's relieved to have someone to join forces with. Finn has lots of ideas on things they can try to change things enough to make it out.  But efforts to make things perfect don't work, asking for help from Rabbi Neumann doesn't work (although these conversations are thought provoking and I enjoyed them), and they are running out of ideas (but not out of time.  They have lots of that.)

Then they notice that they are sharing the hotel with a convention of physicists, who surely must be able to help figure out how to break a time loop.  And indeed, Dr. London is interested, once they've convinced her (by knowing things they couldn't know, learned in previous iterations) that they are telling the truth.  It's tricky for Dr. London, because she has to keeping starting over and over every Friday, but the boys become skilled at helping her remember.  (I really liked that the scientist who cracks the case is a woman, who's not eccentric or weird but just a good scientist).

To save her notes, she needs gold to build a science cage to keep her data safe from vanishing every Sunday, and with lots of repeated practice, Finn and Ezra carry out a bank heist, and things seem hopeful.  But as they loop, not only are they getting to know each other really well, envious of things each has in his life that the other doesn't, they learn more about the people around them, most importantly, their families.  And what they learn makes them uncertain that they are ready for time to start moving forward again....

 The two boys are clearly defined characters, not just in the externals (Ezra lives in an Orthodox household crowded by siblings, making do but with no safety margin, and Finn is an only child of comfortably off parents, for whom religion is somewhat tangential) but in their personalities--Finn is a mad whirl of idea, and Ezra is a more thoughtful observer).  This difference keeps each time loop feeling fresh for the reader, and Finn's wild ideas keep things fresh(ish) for the kids too, although they had to put in a lot of practice weekends for more complex undertakings, like the bank robbery....

There's a lot of entertainment to be had in the looping, with many days seen in detail, and others, that don't progress the story, tidily recapped.  Some loops have poignant realizations, some have humor and excitement, and it's all good reading, although considerable suspension of disbelief is (not surprisingly) required (I had no trouble suspending mine). The kids have the freedom to waste their time, to savor moments while knowing they aren't going to be lost, to experiment with how what they do affects others. And so when time starts running normally again, they are prepared to live each day as if it will never come back again...which of course it won't.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Puzzleheart, by Jenn Reese

It's always a happy thing when a favorite author has a new book!  And indeed, Puzzleheart, by Jenn Reese (May 14, 2024, middle grade fantasy, Henry Holt and Co.) rewarded me with several happy hours of reading.

Twelve-year-old Perigee is worried about their depressed dad, and so they set in motion a visit to their grandmother's, where they have never been, which they hope will mend both the family and their dad's spirits (and maybe alleviate Perigee's growing concerns about finances...). And Perigee is eager to see for themselves the puzzle house bed and breakfast that their grandparents built between them, a house that is now sad and neglected with no new puzzles being added to its repertoire.  (Literally the house is feeling this, as it is a self-aware being).

Though Perigee is happy to find a girl their own age, Lily, staying at the house to be a new friend, Grandma does not welcome them.  She shows no interest in reconnecting with her son, who she sent off to live with relatives when Grandpa died, or in getting to know her grandchild.  But the house is very interested, and Perigee quickly becomes aware that there some things in this house of puzzles that their science-loving brain will have to file on a new "unexplainable" shelf...

Grandma wants to shut the house down and sell the place.  But to do so means solving the last of the house's puzzles, one that Grandpa set up to lead to the shut-off point.  And Perigee and Lily set out to do this.  The house is (understandably) not happy at the prospect of being shut down, and starts to fight back.  The puzzles become deadly as the house literally starts tearing itself apart to save itself.  But it's also figuratively doing the same--it is almost killing its family, and it can't stand what it is doing...or stop doing it.  

The puzzles and traps and tricks, and wonderous rooms of marvels, make for great reading, brought to vivid life by great descriptive writing.  But it's the emotional struggle of the book--to mend broken family ties, to see a path forward to a happier future, and in Perigee's particular case, to accept the mending other people isn't a burden they should be tearing their own self apart in order to bear--that gives the book it's powerful and moving heart.  

So come for death puzzles (with bonus kittens), enjoy picking which of the marvelous bedrooms you like best, and stay for hearts healing. Also, if you are me, enjoy the metaphors wrapped into the Puzzle House itself (if I had to write an essay for class on this book, I'd write about this).  Reese's A Game of Fox and Squirrels is still my favorite of her books (my review) but I like this one lots and lots too!

disclaimer-review copy received from the publisher.

The First State of Being, by Erin Entrada Kelly, for Timeslip Tuesday

The First State of Being, by Erin Entrada Kelly (March, 2024, Greenwillow Books) is a delightful and heartwarming middle grade time travel book that I enjoyed lots.

In August, 1999 (which will seem very strange and far away to the target audience), 12-year-old Michael prepares for the potential disaster that is Y2K.  When we first meet him, he's shop lifting a can of peaches to add to his survival stash kept under his bed--his mom is working three jobs and can't give him the money he'd like to spend getting properly prepared.  Though money his tight, his mother insists on paying 15-year-old Gibby to keep an eye on him, and though Michael feels confident he'd manage find without her, he still enjoys her company, both because he has a crush on her and because his anxiety and social awkwardness has made it hard for him to have friends. His only other friend is the old maintenance man for the apartment complex.

But then into the mediocre life of Fox Run Apartments, in Red Knot, Delaware, comes a teenaged boy, Ridge, strangely dressed and disoriented.  He's a time traveler from the future, and when Michael learns this, he's desperate to know what happens with Y2K.  But Ridge isn't telling.  He's in enough trouble already, as we learn from glimpses of what's happening in the future.  He wasn't supposed to be the first time traveler ever, and he's not going to risk spoiling the future by letting on all he knows.  He just wants to experience life in 1999, especially seeing what a mall is like....

There aren't any dramatic happenings in Ridge's time in 1999, although there are many complexities that Gibby and Michael must deal with.  And although Ridge doesn't tell all he knows, the time Michael spends with him gives him confidence not just about the future but about the present.  And it all ends in a beautiful, time travel wonderful way!

I enjoyed it very much.  The time travel has just the right amount of sci fi to it to make it if not plausible at least acceptable, and the repercussions of Ridge's trip to 1999 are lovely. It will bring that long lost time vividly to life for young readers, and the interpersonal dynamics and tension will keep the pages turning for them very nicely indeed.  I even grew a bit at one particularly poignant point in the best possible way.

Too Many Interesting Things Are Happening to Ethan Fairmont, by Nick Brooks

I very much enjoyed meeting Ethan Fairmont and his friends, including the alien they call Cheese in his first outing (my review) so I dove into Too Many Interesting Things Are Happening to Ethan Fairmont, by Nick Brooks, (middle grade, November 2023, Union Square Kids), with pleasure, and was rewarded by a good read.

Ethan is happily planning interesting inventing and pleasant hanging out at the old industrial building now turned maker space where he met Cheese, and foiled the other hostile aliens hunting down Cheese and his people.  And he's happily looking forward to the start of sixth grade.  Less happily, he misses Cheese lots, and he and his family are still cooping from the trauma of the local police and the feds threatening the black community of Ferrous City and his family in particular.  And then school gets off to a rocky start, when a new girl, Fatima, threatens his self-worth with her own inventor smarts, and Ferrous City is experiencing a population boom that's raising real estate prices, and Ethan's parents, who are doing fine but aren't well off, are considering cashing in. On top of all this, the feds are back in town (and what are they up to?)

Turns out, though, that Fatima is just the new team member Ethan needs to re-establish communication with Cheese.  And Fatima is even more needed when the evil aliens renew hostilities....

It's not a comfort read; as the title suggests, too many interesting (and not very joyous) things are going on in Ethan's life.  But it's a gripping read, and a thought-provoking one, and I enjoyed it. The young characters are believable and very relatable, as is Ethan's growing maturity about teamwork and living in the moment instead of what if-ing, the tension builds at a nice pace, and the ending is satisfactory!  The social justice theme of the first book is here as well, as is an age-appropriate romance.  And of course a lovely alien friendship! 

If there is a third book, I'm there for it!

The Lovely Dark, by Matthew Fox

I loved Matthew Fox's first book, The Sky Over Rebecca, so much that I ordered The Lovely Dark (July  2023 in the UK, Hodder Children's Books) from Blackwells (free shipping from the UK!) and read it pretty much in a single sitting yesterday. I meant to review it, but it felt too raw to do so immediately, so I'm squeezing it in before today's round-up post.

The Lovely Dark is a middle grade reimagining of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, with a dash of Sleeping Beauty. It begins with sadness, when Ellie's grandmother dies alone of Covid during the height of the pandemic. and it quickly becomes fantasy, when her grandmother's ghost pays Ellie a cryptic visit. As covid restrictions lift, Ellie becomes great friends with Justin, who's just moved in across the street. Justin takes her to see a newly discovered mosaic of the Orpheus story, found deep underground....and disaster strikes when the walls around the excavation give way, and the two children are trapped by the inrushing water.

They find themselves in the underworld, determined to stick together and find a way home. But they each have a different path to follow, and are forced to split up. Ellie's path takes her to Eventide, a sort of school (but with no lessons) filled with other children, with tasty food, pleasant grounds, and secrets. The other children are all dimly content there, despite having died, but Ellie is determined to find Justin again. In her explorations, she finds that in the locked library another girl named Ash is hiding in a secret room behind the books, which are themselves somewhat haunted--fairytales in particular keep being pushed off their shelves.

(This is where the Sleeping Beauty part enters into it--Ash and Ellie agree to give themselves permission to kiss each other if they ever need to be awakened from a cursed sleep, and this is an important plot point later).

Ellie keeps exploring, and finds much that discomfits her, and then she and Justin make contact again, and he helps her go home. And Justin, unlike Orpheus, doesn't look back and I wept.

Slight spoiler--Ellie's experiences could all be written off as a dream, but I am so glad Matthew Fox doesn't throw this in our (tear-streaked) faces. And since the ghost grandmother can't be explained way, the story gets to stay fantasy.

In short, Matthew Fox is now firmly an auto-buy (as expenses allow) author for me.  And I am determined that next time I won't peak at the ending halfway through, concerned though I may be for the fate of characters I am deeply invested in!

Field of Screams, by Wendy Parris

If you are looking for a middle grade ghost story that's spooky and scary but not so horrifying as to be disturbing, Field of Screams, by Wendy Parris (August 2023 by Delacorte Press), is a great pick!

Rebecca is a would-be ghost hunter who hasn't yet managed to actually see a ghost.  When her mother decides the two of them are going to spend the summer with her deceased dad's family on a farm in Iowa, the only comfort her best friend (who she was hoping to go to camp with) can offer is that an old house in the middle of nowhere sounds like a great place for ghosts.

And indeed, this proves to be the case.  The mundane world of family time, including reminiscences about her dad that make her feel closer to him (he too believed in ghosts, for instance), is disturbed by creepy happenings.  They are small at first, and possible to for Rebecca dismiss with intense logical thought, and certainly nothing anyone else takes seriously.  Not even Nick, the cute boy who is willing to at least consider the possibility that ghosts are real, is convinced at first.  But the creepiness turns into a genuine haunting that can't be dismissed.  

Rebecca, now certain there is a real ghost, struggles to keep investigating like a good paranormal researcher while becoming increasingly frightened.  The ghost is getting stronger and more terrifying every day.  It becomes a race to find the clues to who the ghost is and what they want, before a tragedy from long ago strikes again.

The mystery is a satisfying one, leading down an interesting path of Rebecca's family history to a really great abandoned (and haunted) house (I liked the abandoned house exploring bits lots!).  The haunting is also satisfying, and the ghost makes sense--there's a reason they are still around.  The writing is very vivid; it is easy to feel Rebecca's fright and admire her determination to keep going.  Real world tensions (is Rebecca's mom falling in love with Kelsie's dad?  And why is Kelsie so awful to Rebecca?) play on Rebecca's nerves alongside the strain of being haunted, adding to general discomfort that's looming like an approaching storm.

And then when then the storm breaks, all the pieces come together very nicely indeed in a tense and moving climax.

Don't expect, though, all the jump scares and bloody horror the title might conjure up; there's actually no running-while-screaming through a corn field, and the field is only a minor part of the haunting.

But you can expect to be gripped and entertained by the supernatural mystery, that touches on themes of loss and change that are very relatable to the target audience!

Ways to Build Dreams, by Renée Watson

Though I mostly review middle grade sci fi/fantasy here, I do actually read other genres too! And Ways to Build Dreams, by Renée Watson, illustrated by Niña Mata (October 17th 2023, Bloomsbury), was just the right heartwarming read for this difficult week.

This is the fourth story about Ryan Hart, and in this outing she is on the cusp of change.  Starting middle school next year, quite possibly without her best friend at her side, is a daunting prospect.  And it feels like she's being pushed to figure out not just who her future self will become, but how she will make change for good in the world.

The story is full of lots of small moments in ordinary life; there's nothing dramatic, but it's all interesting, and there's enough going on, and enough food for thought, to invest the reader in Ryan's world. 

But most of all the story is full of love --from her parents, from her friends (with empathy even coming from a boy she hadn't before been able to quite trust), from her teacher, and from herself--not just love back to all those people, but loving herself, and believing, as the title promises, that she will keep on building dreams. Though the honor of being her class valedictorian comes with the horror of public speaking, Ryan rises to the challenge.  And her speech, which brings this part of her life, and the book, to a close, says something many of us need to be reminded of--

"So, instead of telling you to dream big and change the world, I want to say, go change your world--your family, your neighborhood, your community.  I've learned that it's not only important to dream of doing big, big, big, things, it's also important to dream of simple, everyday things we can do to make the world a better place."

Yes. I needed to hear that.

disclaimer--review copy received from the publisher.

The Little Match Girl Strikes Back, by Emma Carroll, illustrated by Lauren Child

 I read and reread Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales as a child, with more morbid fascination than true enjoyment, although I did appreciate how very good he was at making pictures in the mind.  The little match girl's frozen body, for instance, is still distressingly clear to me.  So it was somewhat cathartic to read Emma Carroll's re-imagining of the story, The Little Match Girl Stikes Back (Sept 2023 in the US, Candlewick), in which she isn't just a pathetic victim. 

Bridie comes close, though.  She is out in the snowy misery of 19th century London, desperately selling matches to help feed her little family (mother, herself, and her younger brother).  Her mother works at the match factory, which is its own hell of physical misery, pathetic wages, and phosphorous poisoning (not quite as bad as the poor radium girls, but close....).  And one day everything goes wrong for Bridie--hit by a carriage, all but three of her matches are ruined.  And one by one she lights them....and wishes.

The first match gives her a luxurious meal in a grand house, that leaves her no better off than before (the food not being real).  The second wish, though, is a catalyst for actual change.  She wishes "that rich people....didn't have everything while poor families like mine have nothing."  And magically, she meets in her dream a woman who is in real life a fierce advocate for the poor, and together they visit the match factory, where her mother is being fired.  The match fizzles out, but not the spark that has been lit, and the third match gives Bridie a vision of a possible future without desperate poverty and her mother's phosphorous poisoning that gives her hope that change is possible.

And so Bridie galvanizes the women of the factory to strike, and the advocate she met in her vision takes the cause up to a national level, and it succeeds. It's based on an actual strike, discussed in a non-fiction coda at the end of the book, and the mixing of this real and important history with the fantasy and reality of Bridie makes for an engrossing and memorable story.  The illustrations and decorations add beautifully to the fierceness and desperation of Bridie's life.

It's not your regular sort of fantasy--the magic is real, but, like the matches, burns only in flashes.  But they are very bright flashes.  And it's not your regular sort of straight historical fiction, because the story depends on the magic.  Offer it to young readers who like both, especially if they happen to be fascinated by labor horror stories of yesteryear, and love reading about kids who make change happen.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

The Little Match Girl Strikes Back is eligible for this year's Cybils Awards in Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction and has not yet been nominated.  Here's where you go if you want to show love for this one, or many of the others still waiting for their call....

The Ghost Job, by Greg Van Eekhout (with interview!)

Greg Van Eekhout is one of the authors who gets shelf space in my much beloved, still new and shiny, built-in bookshelf of which this is only a small section:

(Although this post is supposed to be a book review with bonus interview, I'd like to take the time to note the pleasing progression from Kelly Barnhill to William Alexander to Greg's books....Stephanie Burgis is perhaps not the right continuation, though, and I may have to tweak...and of course all of these authors are still writing (yay!) and I need to go back and buy the ones I don't already have when funds allow (built in bookshelves aren't cheap) so in a few years someone will have to be moved in any event...I can imagine, for instance, a whole Stephanie Burgis shelf which would take care of the question about who should go next to her.)

In any event, the newest arrival in the very choice Greg Van Eekhout section is The Ghost Job (Sept 26, 2023, HarperCollins), which I enjoyed very much!  It's the story of Zenith and her three best friends who fall victim to a freak middle school science lab accident.  Although being dead stinks, at least they have each other. 

 But when they hear of a machine that might be able to bring them back to life, they are determined to steal it from the unscrupulous necromancer using it for his own financial gain.  But not only is the machine well-guarded, they soon realize the necromancer wants to bottle their own ghostly essences for his stockpile of spirits....

Each of the kids has their own particular ghostly ability that makes them a great time to carry out this heist of a death-time.  Zenith can move physical things, Nicholas can make himself heard by the living, Vanessa can send her vision into the eyes of paintings and photographs from outside of buildings, and Eddie, who already had an affinity for the mechanical, now feels electric currents and the like in his ghostly body.  But even with these helpful heist advantages, it's touch and go....

There is great ghost action and adventure here, but there's a thoughtful, heart-tugging side of it too.  The kids, after all, are ghosts, and though they have each other, it is fundamentally a sad situation.  Ethical and moral questions are raised as well, giving the reader interesting food for thought.  All in all, an excellent read!

I got to ask Greg some questions about the book, which was nice for me.

How did the premise of Ghost Job come to you?

I was hard at work lying on the couch with my eyes closed, trying to decide if I wanted to write about heists or ghosts, and then the first line of the book came to me: "Ghosts are great thieves" and it was like boom, there's the book. Then I started working even harder and an hour later I woke up and had a glass of milk.

These are your first middle grade ghosts, and I'm wondering if the ghostly part apparated in your mind more or less intact, or if it required deep thought about things ghosts can make and do. And speaking of what ghosts can do, each character has a unique skill, with Zenith, the pov character, having poltergeist powers. It's essential for the plot that this is her skill, and I'm curious about whether you had to do a lot of making power fit plot, or vice versa, or if you knew from the start that Zenith would need to be able to do what she does? (and if you were a middle school ghost, which of the skills would you pick as your own?)

Ghost powers are pretty straightforward -- being invisible, walking through walls, etc. But stories about thieves who pull complicated heists generally feature specialists. You need a mastermind, you need muscle, you need a tech nerd, and so on. So I chose the specialities my ghost crew needed, assigned each character one of those roles, and then crafted their personalities to fit.

The main character, Zenith, is the muscle. She's a poltergeist who can move objects in the physical world. If I were a middle school ghost I'd want Zenith's powers just because there's so much potential to help people lift heavy objects, plus pranks.

One of the things that doesn't get a lot of explicit page time is the crushing grief of being sundered from family, though it's clearly something Zenith is feeling. Was the process of grief titration (enough so that it's there, not so much that readers get bogged down in a morass of sadness) tricky for you?

The grief and loss were the trickiest parts to write. I wanted to write a fun story about ghosts who steal stuff, but I couldn't ignore that a ghost is someone who's died, and death is horribly sad for those left behind, and if there is such a thing as a ghost, it must be sad for them too. So I aimed to find the right mix of jokes and adventure and hijinks while also respecting the emotional consequences of the concept.

There are so many themes and metaphors and messages that can be found in the story....do you have any such thing in particular that you hope young readers can take away?

Nobody gets through life without some hardship and loss, and I know of nothing that alleviates pain better than friends and love and laughter. Everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends. Just like the REM song.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Do I believe in spectral presences that visit us and speak to us and interact with our physical environment? No. But do I believe our bodies and minds and the environments around us can combine in ways that make us feel like there are ghosts messing around with us? Absolutely. Unless it's Halloween. On Halloween I totally believe in ghosts. Especially when I'm alone. In the dark. In a graveyard...

Thanks Greg!

nb--The Ghost Job is eligible for this year's Cybils Awards, and hasn't been nominated yet.  Here's where you can go nominate this one or many other fine books still awaiting their nod!  Cybils nominations are a great way to show love for your favorite books and authors!

disclaimer: review copy recieved from the publishers 

Rewind, by Lisa Graff, for Timeslip Tuesday

Despite not having finished preparing the talk I'm giving tomorrow (on shipwrecks and archaeology, which I've done before but it needs work), I'm here with a Timeslip Tuesday both again!   And it's a fun one--Rewind, by Lisa Graff (August 22, 2023 by Philomel Books).  

An annual highlight in 12-year-old McKinley's hometown is the Time Hop--everyone dresses up in clothes from the chosen year, and parties to that year's music.  It's about to be Time Hop 1993, and McKinley works hard on her outfit.  But the happiness of the day is spoiled when her father tells he she has to stay home to look after her grandma, who had a stroke a while back.  She sneaks out anyway to join her best friend Meg, but they have a falling out.  And then her father shows up in the middle of the party to drag her home.  But that's not all--McKinely, devastated, rushes away...and travels back in time to the real 1993!

It's the same town, and she's quickly befriended by Meg's mom.  Her grandmother hasn't yet had her stroke, and her dad and Meg's dad are two utterly obnoxious pests.  She and Meg's mom join forces to try to figure out how to get McKinley home--does she have to change something?    Like, perhaps, make the two dads less obnoxious so that Meg stands a chance of being born, and McKinley's own home life is more pleasant?  And some research in the library (microfiche ftw) results in the two girls learning that others in the town have travelled back in time as well- adding an interesting twist to the puzzle of getting back to the present.

(Meg's mom is just the sort of new friend one wants to make when time traveling!  She accepts the situation, is tremendously helpful, and very practical, keeping McKinley safe and fed).

It's fun, and I'm sure the target audience will love all the details of 1993, and be taken aback, as McKinley is, at some of the cultural nuances of that long ago time  (including more overt misogyny and racism than kids today maybe, I hope, experience).  There's some food for thought gently folded in, like this quote-“Not mentioning the bad stuff, doesn’t make it go away,” McKinley had explained. “It just makes it so kids like us don’t know what really happened. And talking about the awful stuff doesn’t mean you can’t talk about the good stuff that happened that year, too.” (pp 150-151).  And there's a subtle but strong message that changing other people isn't the way to solve problems.

It wasn't quite a book for me, as I have no interest in the 1990s, and didn't much like the characters (especially the two boys, who I found unbelievably horrid), but still I read it with enjoyment.

The Destiny of Minou Moonshine, by Gita Ralleigh

I first heard about The Destiny of Minou Moonshine, by Gita Ralleigh, when I was compiling a list of debut middle grade fantasy books for 2023, and I immediately wanted to read this historical fantasy set in an alternate India!  I was fortunate to have that pleasure this weekend, and it was a lovely read!

Minou is a foundling who has lived for all her 13 years with her adopted grandmother in a ramshackle boathouse shelter in Moonlally, a queendom colonized by foreigners (the British Raj with different names, and slightly different culture and technology...).  Her grandmother has raised her to be fierce, smart, and respectful of the Dark Goddess who, despite the efforts of the colonizers, continues to be worshiped by the local people.  Thirteen years ago, the last Queen died, and now a wicked General rules by fear and force.

When her grandmother is killed in suspicious circumstances, Minou joins the rebels bent on overthrowing the General....and so her adventures begin, taking her into the secret heart of the old palace, the jungles beyond Moonlally, and even the skies above it in the general's own airship.  The Queen still lives, and can, perhaps, be found.  With true friends at her side, a marvelous mechanical elephant to help considerably with travel through the jungle, and only a few derailments when her kind and generous heart threatens the quest to find the Queen, Minou succeeds in her quest...only to find that she's also found her own unexpected path forward.

A great read for middle grade readers who love stories of plucky girls vs tyrants, with action that zips briskly along.  Sometimes the resolutions to dangers seemed too easy to me as an adult reader, but this I think actually adds to the appeal of the book to those of its target audience who are in the market for fun reads and not doorstoppers.  Even so I found the adventure part of the story to be lots of fun, especially the steampunk-esque elements, and Minou is certainly a character to cheer for.  

That being said, what I enjoyed most were the pictures the words made for me.  It was a lovely trip to an alternate India!  

Out now in hardcover in the UK from Zephyr, an imprint of Bloomsbury, available also as an ebook in the US.  

Ravencave, by Marcus Sedgwick, for Timeslip Tuesday

I am determined to get back into the swing of blogging now that both kids are back from college and I have a long month ahead with no particular busyness planned.  That being said, Ravencave, by Marcus Sedgwick (March 2023, Barrington Stock), although a really good book, and perhaps the last children's/YA book of his to be published (he sadly died in the fall of 2022 at a much too young age) is a slightly questionable Timeslip Tuesday book.  It is actually a ghost story, but there is, toward the end, enough timeslipping that I am going ahead and using it today.

The story takes place in a single day, though it is a day is suffused with memories.  Jamie and his family (two parents, older brother) are on a rather miserable family holiday in Yorkshire.  The main point of the trip is to scatter his grandmother's ashes in the region where she was born, and the father is also keen to visit places where his ancestors lived and worked.  But the weather has been awful, the father has lost his job, and the mother, a published author, is suffering from writer's block.  No one is paying any attention to Jamie, not even his brother, though they used to get along really well.

And then Jamie sees a ghost, a girl who wants his help.  She's not just any ghost, but a family member from a hundred odd years ago, and she leads him away from his family, underground where a terrible tragedy occurred.  In the shock of what Jamie learns, his spirit briefly slips through time, visiting his long ago family in the places important to their lives.  It's no more than a few pages, but it serves to connect Jamie to the land and its history, and learn how he fits into it, in a way that's very meaningful, and rather comforting.

Sedgwick did a top notch job of building the suspense of the story.  It's not just a story of the supernatural, but a story of a hurting family and their relationships to each other.  And its the story too of the injustices experienced by the ancestral family--there's a thread of socialism that will appeal to progressive young readers (it's an 11-14 year old book, I think) without being too heavy handed to disrupt the flow of the story.

Knowing that the author was facing death while writing this incredibly poignant story makes it even more powerful.  One of the most memorable of the 100 books I've read so far this year.  It's only out in the UK at the moment, but if it sounds at all appealing, it's worth heading over to Blackwells and ordering a copy (with free shipping to the US and a favorable exchange rate), which was what I did, very soon after reading this review at Magic Fiction Since Potter.

The Golden Frog Games (Witchlings #2), by Claribel A. Ortega

The Golden Frog Games (Witchlings #2), by Claribel A. Ortega (May 2, 2023, Scholastic), begins soon after the tumultuous events of the first book. Seven and her two best friends, Valley and Thorn, are still well aware that they are "spares"--young witches not chosen for one of the covens,  looked down on by most, and held in utmost contempt by too many- but they are not letting that stop them from living their own magical lives. 

There's lots of stress for all three. Seven, who has found herself an Uncle (in charge of her town's magical relationship with and care of magical creatures), is terribly worried about her magic--it isn't considered right for an Uncle to communicate with monstrous creatures as well as ordinary ones, but that's what Seven is doing.  Valley's coping with the fallout from the collapse of father's reputation, and is embarking on a very sweet relationship with another girl witch.  Thorn has put her shy self out front and center, competing in the Golden Frog Games, where witches from all the twelve towns compete for glory.  It's almost unheard of for a Spare to be a strong contender, but Thorn's skill with magical clothing is hard to beat.

And then the tension gets worse when someone starts using forbidden, archaic magic to attack Thorn.  It's only chance that the magic attacks harm others nearby...and since they aren't stopping, and no one in authority is able to figure out who is behind them, Thorn is in grave danger.

Seven is determined to solve the mystery.  In order to do so, she'll have to embrace the part of her magic that scares her most, and she'll need her friends.  But their tight bond is in danger of breaking.  And the dreadful Nightbeast of the first book calls to her from its magical prison....

This is a book that starts with a focus on magical extravaganza--the Golden Frog Games are lavish and lushly described, and will hook young readers who love to read of marvels.   The friendship tension, and Seven's anxiety that her magic is wrong, make it relatable.  But as the danger grows (and it gets very real and close to home), the tension of the mystery takes center stage.  There's still plenty of neat magical detail, and Seven's ability to communicate with animals adds lots of delightful moments, but the plot really starts boiling. 

I (a non-target audience reader, in case you didn't know that), liked the last third of the book best (I prefer reading about people figuring things out than about people being anxious)...and enjoyed it even more than I did the first one.  I continue to be a bit uncertain about the world building-- what lies beyond the twelve towns? How does their economy function?  but again--not the target audience.  And I continue to cheer for the struggle of the three Witchlings against prejudice, and am happy to cheer for the LGBTQ inclusion.

The book ends at a reasonable point, I guess, but also no it is not reasonable because there's a very big tense thing unresolved and there's clearly lots and lots more of the story to come.  It looks like there will be plenty of more dangerous and twisty plot to look forward to and of course big tense thing had better not stay that way!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

The McNeills at Rathcapple, by Meta Mayne Reid, for Timeslip Tuesday

The McNeills at Rathcapple, by Meta Mayne Reid (1959), is a lovely vintage time travel book set in Ireland, and I wish I'd had it to read as a kid (although I still enjoyed it as a grownup).

When we meet Sandy and Richard, they are living in rented rooms in a city in Northern Ireland without their beloved dog and their slightly less beloved cat while their father searches for a new job (he's a historian) and recovers from being ill.   They have an uncle, holed up in the family's ancestral home, Rathcapple, but there was family unpleasantness, and they've never met him.  But the uncle is getting old, and their mother decides that they shall foist themselves on him, and live in a few rooms of to the side, until their father is better and has a solid job.  The uncle is not welcoming, but doesn't forbid this, as long as his work on his book about local history and nature isn't disturbed.

Sandy and Richard are delighted to be in the country, with their pets.  The old, ruined fortification, the rath that the house is named for, is a thrilling place, and there they meet a young horseman, Angus, who seems almost magical.  They are determined to make their uncle want them to stay by helping him find the last bits of information he needs for the book--the story of the fiddler who played a role in a long-ago Irish rising against the English, and the story of a young nursemaid to the McNeills accused of stealing a family treasure.  

And this is where the time travel comes in (if you don't want spoilers, skip to the next paragraph) --Richard visits the fiddler, and inhabits the Mcneill boy his own age fleeing for his life, and Sandy in her turn lives the crucial day of the young nursemaid's life.  But though they know what really truly happened, they have to find proof, and their quest to find corroborating evidence through material remains and historical documents was as interesting to me as the time travel itself.  They are encouraged in their efforts by the horseman, Angus, who is himself unmoored in time and who I assume is the instigator of their time slipping...

There are more quotidian doings and happenings of the sort you'd expect from two kids moved to an old house in the country, and this was very enjoyable as well.  There is, for instance, a lovely pageant that is quite amusing, jam making, exploration of the countryside, and shenanigans with a local boy who becomes their friend (one such episode is shown on the cover, which I find an odd choice, when the illustrator had the big old house and the ruined rath and the heroic figure of Angus on his magnificent horse on hand; perhaps "boy riding cattle, seen from behind" seemed more Exciting and Likely to Appeal to Boys....).

It didn't quite reach the numinous heights I wished it would have, possibly because there wasn't quite enough emotional tension, but it came close, and I am pleased that there is a second book about the family for me to look forward to.

Speculation, by Nisi Shawl

My recent middle grade fantasy reading has been mostly mythology infused quests, and although it's great to have such a wealth of diversity, it was refreshing to read Speculation, by Nisi Shawl (Feb 2023, Tu Books), set firmly in our own world, albeit back in 1962.

I fell hard for Winna, the young heroine, who when we first meet her is reading Edward Eager, a favorite fantasy author of my own youth, and dreaming of magic.  I  thought how very nice but odd it was to see a contemporary character reading vintage books, and it wasn't until it was spelled out for the reader that this was 1962 that I realized I was reading a historical fantasy.  Indeed I also had been struck by Winna's grandfather using the term "colored" in relation to the family, who are Black, but being engrossed I didn't stop to think about it.  But in any event, I knew I'd enjoy spending time with her, and I did.  

Winna and her little sister are at their grandparent's house while their mother is in the hospital.  When her sister breaks her glasses (by accident), Winna is crushed; new glasses are both expensive and inaccessible.  So her grandfather gives her a pair that belonged to her great aunt Estelle. The glasses make her vision even sharper than her old ones, and there's a glimmer to what she sees...and so on the off chance that it's magic, she speculates-what if they show her ghosts?  And they do.  Generations of ghosts, including Estelle, haunt the family cemetery.  

Winna learns from Estelle's ghost about the curse on her family.  Winona, Estelle's mother, escaped slavery and while still moving toward freedom, gave birth to a baby boy, Key.  But Key vanished, or was taken from her, and Winona's grief stayed with her all her life.  So much so that when dying she unintentionally cursed her family, a curse that can only be broken if she and Key can be reunited.

Winna is sure her mother, getting worse in the hospital, is a victim of the curse.  So joining forces with a boy cousin she can't stand, she sets out to solve the mystery of what happened to Key.....and if he's still alive, to bring him back to the family. 

It's a great story, full of dualities that balance each other beautifully-- past and present, magic and reality, the loving family and the racist world.  I loved the historical and genealogical research that Winna and her cousin undertake, I loved how the magic wasn't just seeing ghosts with magical glasses but was aided and abetted by Winna's grandfather's affinity for African infused magic (for lack of a better word) of his own.  And of course I hated the racism that Winna and her family face, and hated too that this part of the book didn't read as much like historical fiction as it should.

Spoiler-- Key was raised as white, with a white family.  And so one of the horrors of chattel slavery, rape, is there in the story, not explicitly discussed by name but an unavoidable fact of what happened.  I'm all in favor of fiction that kids to think about the painful parts of the past and how they affect the present, and sure do hope this one gets to stay on the shelves....

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