Alliana, Girl of Dragons, by Julie Abe

Alliana, Girl of Dragons, by Julie Abe (August 2, 2022, Little Brown), is a prequel to the utterly delightful Eva Evergreen series.  Though I very much enjoyed Alliana's adventures, I can't quite call it delightful--it's a Japanese-infused Cinderella story, and it was hard for me to read about Alliana being tormented by her stepmother and stepbrother.  They are truly awful to her, and she is trapped by debts she'll never be able to pay off, no matter how hard she works in the family inn.  Her one hope is to be chosen for the Royal Academy, but her stepmother will stop at nothing to keep her from leaving....

Alliana does have one person who loves her--the grandmother who lives up at the top of the inn, sewing tapestries and always ready with stories of myths and legends.  When the grandmother dies, Alliana's life seems even more hopeless, but magic is real in her world, and so are dragons....

Gathering plants as far as she can get from her stepmother, Alliana saves a baby nightdragon, and they form a strong and loving bond, though she can't possibly take it home with her.  And chance also brings her the friendship of a young witch, Nela.  And then chance pushes even harder at Alliana's life, forcing her to confront a magical danger that is threatening even the most powerful witches of the land.  She realizes, with the help of her friends, that she's a person of value, and is instrumental (along with the dragon) in setting things right.

Great for young readers who:

like kids in unhappy circumstances who not only get magical endings (this isn't a Cinderella story where the girl marries the prince, but the beautiful dress problem, which I always appreciated as a kid, is here!) but who also survive trauma and end the book starting to heal with the help of people who love them.

like stories of kids loving and caring for magical creatures

want to be friends with a witch their own age who will give them broomstick rides!

loved Eva Evergreen! (which I now want to reread* possibly then moving on to re-reading this one, which I will enjoy more than the first time around because of not being sad and anxious for Alliana. )

*I'm glad to have a solid tbr pile because there were dark years when I didn't have enough to read, but I also miss the re-reading I did back then.....

Disclaimer: review copy received at ALA

The Revenge of Zombert, by Kara LaReau

The Revenge of Zombert, by Kara LaReau (July 2022, Candlewick), is the third installment about a cat who escaped from torment in a lab and the girl who adopted him sees the two of them pitted in a final showdown against the evil corporation, YummCo, that's misusing science to take over the world.

Bert the cat escaped from the YummCo lab, in terrible shape and twisted past normal cat-ness by the experiments to which he was subject.  Mellie adopted him, and the two began to work together to uncover the dark secrets of YummCo.  It becomes an even more urgent crisis in this third book--YummCo. food products are turning everyone who eats them into zombies, desperate to consume more.  And a scratch from Bert's claw has infected Mellie with the same alterations that have made him super smart and super hungry....With the help of friends and some surprising allies, Mellie and Bert use their wits and determination to bring YummCo. down once and for all!

It's very good sci fi adventure for the younger elementary set (ages 8-10).  The cruelty of animals will fire up kids, and some might also appreciate the evil of the corporation so greedy for market control that it will stop at nothing.  The writing is brisk and to the point, capturing each moment in the adventure clearly, and dropping just information about what's really happening to keep readers on their toes.

I was very pleased indeed when this came in the mail so that I could finally find out how it all ended! When I read the first Zombert book book,  The Rise of Zombert (my review), I had the following comment:

"It was an abrupt shock to reach the end of this book only to find that we don't get the answers yet! I myself am suspicious of YummCo Foods, and their economic hold on the town....The sudden stop makes me want to read the next book, but it also was very harsh to be just left there with all the questions. This might annoy some young readers greatly."

Ha!  I was prescient re YummCo!  And now that all three books are out in the world, no annoyance is necessary, unless you read the first one and the other two are checked out or not purchased for you briskly enough....We are given a satisfactory ending, but there is room for more.....and I wouldn't say no!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

The Prince of Nowhere, by Rochelle Hassan, for Timeslip Tuesday

I feel a little bad that by making it clear that The Prince of Nowhere, by Rochelle Hassan (May 2022, HarperCollins), is a time slip book, I've spoiled it a little. But it can't be helped, and so I will bravely move on and try to explain what the book is about and why I liked it lots (in a nutshell, great world-building, great characters, a chilling moral dilemma) without spoiling it too much more!

Roda has lived a safe, snug life with her mother in a small town that's protected by an curtain of enchanted, freezing cold mist.  Her adventurous aunt Dora has ventured beyond the mist, travelling through monster-filled lands to other towns, each likewise engirdled, and even to other lands, and Roda dreams of maybe someday following in her footsteps. But adventure finds her first.

Anonymous riddling notes begin to arrive, each with a small prediction about the future that always comes true. So when a note comes instructing her to venture almost inside the mist to find a crow, she does...and brings the almost frozen crow home. It isn't an ordinary crow, but a shapeshifting boy named Ignis, whose clan has just been destroyed by monsters.

Ignis has no home anymore, and doesn't know what he was doing before he crashed in the mist. The anonymous note writer does, though, and has just set a plan in motion that will take Roda and Ignis on an impossible, irrational journey through the mist, through the monsters, to a place called Nowhere.

Nowhere is a pocket universe place, created by the same long-gone magician that set the protective mist in place, that can only be entered, and left, during the three days a great comet passes by. It also is a time portal, where Anonymous is waiting. When Ignis realizes this, he desperately wants to go back in time to save his clan, but Roda is convinced this is a mistake. The trust they've built up in their travels is threatened, as is the course of their lives, and the clock is ticking as the comet passes by...Will they be trapped in Nowhere before it comes around again? Will they be caught in a looping time slip for decades? And what does Anonymous, who (in the words of the Goodreads blurb) "threatens their past, present, and future," want from them?

It is a cracking good read--lots of good build up to the adventure, an exciting journey, a truly magical and wonderous and disturbing destination (I cannot stress enough how fascinating Nowhere is), and a really intriguing high-stakes puzzle. The author tried really hard to make the time travel elements understandable, but it still required careful thought and I'm not quite sure I firmly grasped all that preceded this episode of a story that had been playing out for years. This did not trouble me overmuch, though, because I was happily reading, and cheering for Ignis and Roda to come out of their adventure with their friendship, and futures, intact.  

Recommended to all who like middle grade fantasy (there is also a pinch of dragon, if that sweetens the pot of my recommendation), and to time travel fans who particularly enjoy one of the central conundrums of the genre--if you could go back in time to set things right, would you go?

The ending is self-contained, but there's lots of room for more, and I hope we get it!

The Shelterlings, by Sarah Beth Durst

Sarah Beth Durst is one of my favorite middle grade fantasy authors, and her new book, The Shelterlings (June 21, 2022, Clarion Books) is one of her best!  I loved it.

The Shelterlings of the title are rejected familiars, creatures that made the trek to the mountain pool that awakens magic in those who bath in it.  Wizards evaluate the magic that's sparked in each aspirant, keeping those whose new gifts are deemed useful, and dismissing the others to a home for the useless.  Holly, a squirrel, is one of the later animals.  The wizards laughed at her when she conjured pastries, and though the sting and disappointment (she longed to go on useful and exciting magical quests with a wizard partner) are still fresh in her mind, the Shelter for Rejected Familiars has become home, and it's misfit mélange of creatures, with strange and wonky powers, are her family.

Then Charlie, a rejected beaver who conjures flowers, shares his plan to redo the magic spell that gave the pool its magic, so that this time around it would give them proper gifts such as familiars should have.  He needs help from the other creatures to collect the various ingredients, and so Holly and the other animals set out on genuine quests.  Not only do their quirky magical talents turn out to be essential for the success of the various missions, but Holly starts to realize that there was nothing keeping them from venturing out any time they wanted to; quests can happen without wizards (and, it turns out, talking animals can hop on trains no questions asked to travel in search of adventure....the world is their oyster!)

After a very satisfying recounting of questing adventures and the powers deemed useless being used to great effect (I loved this part of the book especially!), things become darker.  There is betrayal, and grave danger to the Shelterlings...but then a happy ending.  

Obviously there's a message at the heart of the book, that you don't have to believe it if you are told you aren't valuable and that your gifts are worthless, and that "useless" gifts can be precious.  I also appreciated that the down side of being used by those in power, as the wizard familiars are, is presented (one of the chosen familiars quits and comes to live with the rejected).  I saw this message coming almost immediately, but that's because I'm an old and experienced reader, who loves stories in which minor magic is creatively used to save the day.  The target audience might not see the message coming.  It was all very nicely done, and I didn't find it belabored (it's also a nice message to hear, even if you aren't the target audience...self-doubt is an enemy at any age!).

Adventure, friendship/found-family, and magical fun, all described with lovely clarity meant that I read this in just about a single sitting with my mind's eye busily making it all real with no effort at all on my part!  Especially (with just tons of conviction!) recommended for the younger MG set, the 9-10 year olds.

The Sea of Always (Thirteen Witches #2), by Jodi Lynn Anderson, for Timeslip Tuesday

 

Yay me!  I have my Timeslip Tuesday book read--The Sea of Always (Thirteen Witches #2), by Jodi Lynn Anderson.   It's the second book in the series, and though it does a decent job standing alone, it  works better if you've read the first, and there's no reason why you wouldn't want to start at the beginning!  It has a totally unique time travel premise, as one of the characters points out:

"There have got to be lots of possible futures.  The time-travelling whales make that possible." (p 215). 

 Yes, here we have a time-travelling whale, who's graciously conveying our heroine, the young witch hunter Rosie, her best friend Germ, the ghost of a young boy, and another young witch hunter from the future, on an impossible quest through time and space.  The kids are desperately trying to save Rosie's twin brother, stolen at birth by the Time Witch, and, while they're at it, it would be really nice if they could foil the evil plot of the Time Witch and the other witches to destroy all that is good in the world.

Rosie's witch-hunting skills are still a work in progress, the witches are incredibly powerful, and the whale unpredictable.  And the Time Witch has set a clock ticking that will end Rosie's life if she doesn't win her brother back.  She can't directly confront the witches all at once, so she set off, with her companions, to steal their hearts, one by one, to destroy en masse when time runs out.

It's a desperate game of chance against horrible odds, but with determination and love, there's hope....

So the journey hunting witches, via the magical whale that transports them through the Sea of Always, is full of fun/disturbing time travel.  Fun because it's time travel, disturbing because the witches are really horrible.  The whale is perhaps the most entertaining part of the story though--it provides the characters with all the comforts and distractions it can, producing party decorations, snacks, music, and the like.  

The main strengths of the book are the vivid pictures it creates in the mind's eye, and in Rosie's inner journey--I really liked her character development.  In particular, it's great to see her, encouraged by her friends, embracing the weirdness of her imagination that makes her magic powerful.   

On the downside, with twelve witches to hunt down (the 13th was dispatched in the first book), there's a lot of travelling through time and place, during which the kids are primarily spectators of the past, and though I found it interesting, there may well be readers who will find it frustrating that there are no Big Happenings and Wild Excitement.  And I found the ending something of a let down--there's a bit of deus ex machina involved that saves the day, without which the kids would have been doomed, and all the hard work of heart stealing didn't, in the end, seem as worthwhile as I was assuming it would be.  

There's a third book coming, so of course not everything is resolved at the end of this one....I will look forward to it, even though it will probably not have time travelling whales!

Winnie Zeng Unleashes a Legend, by Katie Zhao

Winnie Zeng Unleashes a Legend (Winnie Zheng #1) by Katie Zhao is an excellent one for the young reader who loves their mythology and demon fighting mixed with tasty cooking!  

Winnie is anxious about starting middle school, and is dismayed when her nemesis, David, shows up in her class.  Nemesis is perhaps too strong a word; David is just utterly obnoxious, has beaten her in recent piano competitions, and is her arch rival at Chinese school.  Winnie's also dealing with a lot of pressure to succeed from her parents, and is sad that her big sister has pulled away from her.  She feels that she's never good enough, and it's eating at her. At least she still has her mother's tasty Chinese food (although the other kids at school don't react kindly to her lunches...).  

When Winnie finds her grandmother's old cook book and follows the recipe for mooncakes, all her other problems fade when her grandmother's spirit shows up and possesses her pet rabbit.  Her grandmother is a spirit hunter, and is about to take Winnie on as an apprentice shaman.  The first malevolent spirit that shows up is easily vanquished with the mooncakes she unwittingly made with magic baked in, but mooncakes aren't a match for more powerful demons.  And then it turns out that David is also a shaman in training too, and is (of course) more advanced than she is, and utterly obnoxious about it all.  But teaming up with him is the only way to keep her town safe.

Of course it's cool to be part of a magical organization, with legends coming to life around you.  Winnie isn't at all sure, though, that this is what she wants her life to be....

It is super fun!  The real world and the magical world balance each other beautifully, and Winnie is such a believable, relatable heroine!  (Especially the part where she questions whether "heroine" is what she really wants to be...).  I liked how the sister relationship played out--communication between the two girls improves, and helps them tighten their bond again. The food was great too--I now want to try red bean paste brownies, which I've never had (Winnie makes them for the class bake sale, and it's touch and go for a while before suspicious kids realize how tasty they are!).

A great "kid discovering she's part of a line of mythological heroes" story that's more firmly tied to the real world and  the day to day challenges of being a middle school kid than the Rick Riordan Presents line of books.  Also weaponized mooncakes ftw!

I'm looking forward to seeing what Winnie (and David) do next!

Freddie vs. the Family Curse, by Tracy Badua

Freddie vs. the Family Curse, by Tracy Badua (middle grade, May 3, 2022, Clarion Books) is a great one for readers who relish the intrusion of fantasy into the real world! Freddie, the titular hero of the story, does not relish this intrusion at all, with good reason.

It was bad enough when he just had to endure the family curse of bad luck; not for nothing is he nicknamed "faceplant Freddie." But when he finds an amulet in the garage that comes with the trapped ghost of his great-great-uncle, Ramon, things get much worse than hideous embarrassment! Ramon "borrowed" the good luck amulet from his best friend, Ingo Agustin, back when they were teenagers fighting in the Philippine army in World War II. Instead of good luck, Ramon got cursed and died, and now that Freddie has the amulet, its angry spirits have turned their attention to him. He has only a few days to get the amulet back to Ingo, and get Ingo's forgiveness for Ramon, or he too will die...

Freddie is in a dreadful pickle. His great grandmother believes him (and enjoys getting the chance to hang out with her brother again), but his parents are deeply opposed to believing any Filipino folklore, and so won't help him find Ingo and get the amulet to him. Fortunately, he has his cousin Sharkey to help; she's related on the maternal side of the family, so isn't cursed with bad luck. And also fortunately, they find that Ingo's in a nursing home near Las Vegas, where Sharkey will be headed with her break dancing team for a competition. When Freddie's luck spills over and Sharkey sprains her angle, the cousins decide that Freddie (whose original audition for the team ended badly) will take her place.

Now Freddie has to overcome his penchant for disaster and learn the dance...and get across town to Ingo with just minutes to spare....

It's a great read, blending Filipino folklore and a nicely integrated bit of history that many kids will be unfamiliar with (I don't recall any mention of the Philippines in my WW II lessons) with real world struggles, making your own luck, and the cultural balancing act of multigenerational immigrant families. It's simultaneously a moving story and a funny, cring-ish one. Freddie is a character to cheer for, and Ingo's forgiveness of what Ramon did, and Freddie's ultimate success in the dance competition, bring the story to a very satisfying close!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Drifters, by Kevin Emerson (for this Wednesday's Timeslip Tuesday)

Drifters, by Kevin Emerson (May 10, 2022, Walden Pond Press), is a long book (592 pages), but the pages turn quickly, and before I knew it, I'd stayed up till 11:30 finishing it in that lovely reading zone where one forgets one is reading....Had I but known when I took this slot on the book's blog tour that there was time slipping involved, I'd have asked for a Tuesday (my day for time travel book) but Wednesday is pretty temporally adjacent, so here we are.

The small town of Far Haven is barely hanging on.  There was a nuclear accident a few years ago, and people who could afford to get out did.  Now a large part of its population is the team from the accident remediation and monitoring company (who are very intrusive and increasingly creepy). And for one girl, Jovie, the town became even smaller when her best friend Micah disappeared.  It's only been a few months, but everyone but Jovie, feeling lost and alone, has forgotten her...

Which they have (except for her parents...who have given up on the search).  

Searching for Micah leads Jovie down a path of every increasing strangeness and mystery.  She meets a very peculaiar boy, Mason, who gives her a spyglass that lets her see the community of lost and forgotten people living on the beach.  They are invisible and untied from ordinary life, drifting toward the pull of a mysterious vortex of light that periodically manifests off the coast, bringing storms and disasters to the town (which like the drifting people, fade from memory....).   When Jovie realizes that Micah has probably become a drifter, she becomes determined to bring her back.

With a new friend Sylvan, a younger and also lonely boy, Jovie starts to uncover the strange and shattering truth about the vortex and its potential to bring disaster not just to her town, but possibly the whole world.  Dodging the workers of the "clean-up" crew, who are determined not to let her get to close to the truth as they know it, trying to figure out what Mason really knows, trying to find clues in the town's history, she presses on, with the town's history, pockmarked with disasters, leading her to the remarkable truth.

Here's where the time slipping-ness comes in--I don't want to spoil all that is learned when Jovie passes through the vortex, as it is pretty clear quite early on that she will do, but time passes differently there, a few hours equating to several months....This happens very near the end of the story, and though the author could have added another couple of hundred pages about what happens when Jovie comes back (which I would have enjoyed), that's not the point of the story, and we only get a fairly short epilogue.

It's a slow build to full on science fiction, but when the sci fi kicks into gear it becomes remarkable! I'd recommend it to  those fans of Margaret Peterson Haddix who have the commitment to read one of her long speculative fiction series to its end.  

I'd also recommend it to those who like stories whose heart is an exploration of what it means to feel lost and drifting through life, especially during adolescence--Jovie and Micah's friendship had actually turned sour a few months before she was lost, with Jovie feeling stuck and alone and Micah seeming to be pushing fast past their shared childhood (a fairly substantial part of the story is Jovie re-examining their relationship)  Sylvan is pretty alone too, living mostly on-line, and for him, the connection made with Jovie is something of a lifeline out of loneliness. And strange, mysterious Mason has his own grief and disconnections to deal with.... lots of lovely friendship and growing up and figuring out who you are along with all the mystery and strangeness.

It links back to Emerson's trilogy that begins with the VERY highly recommended Last Day on Mars (my review), which I will now have to re-read to figure out all the connections...but you don't have to have read those books first. 

Not a book for everyone--like I said, is long, so a bit daunting, and you have to be a fan of slowly unfolding sci fi that keeps stretching further and further from ordinary world.  Which would be me.

About the Author

Kevin Emerson is the author of Last Day on Mars and The Oceans Between Stars, as well as The Fellowship for Alien Detection, the Exile series, the Atlanteans series, the Oliver Nocturne series, and Carlos Is Gonna Get It. Kevin lives with his family in Seattle. You can visit him online at www.kevinemerson.net.

DRIFTERS Blog Tour

5/9/22 Nerdy Book Club @nerdybookclub

5/10/22 Bluestocking Thinking @bluesockgirl

5/11/22 Charlotte's Library @charlotteslibrary

5/13/22 Maria's Mélange @mariaselke

5/16/22 Teachers Who Read @teachers_read

Monsters in the Mist, by Juliana Brandt--review and interview

If you (or other young readers in your life) are looking to make spring spookier, Monsters in the Mist, by Juliana Brandt (May 3, 2022, SourcebooksKids, is just the book you need!  

Whenever Glennon's dad goes away for work, his mom moves him and his little sister out of the house.  They used to go stay with their grandma, but now she has died, and their mom has taken them to stay with a relative they've never met who's a lighthouse keeper on a remote island in Lake Superior.  Glennon counts the days till they get off the island.  

With just a few more days to go, the island is slammed by an early winter storm.  A ship wrecks on the nearby coast, and the three survivors shelter in the lighthouse.  And Glennon becomes convinced that something more than an ordinary Lake Superior tragedy has happened.  One of the survivors seems horribly...not right. 

This is right at the beginning of the book, so there is no build up of suspense--it is right there at the start!  But there is definitely build up of the creepy--things are more and more Wrong, and more impossible to explain away, until Glennon and his sister realize they are in mortal peril from supernatural forces, trapped on an island that will not let them leave.   And the gothic horror ratchets up even further to a tremendous climax with twists I didn't see coming!

As the supernatural horror builds, so does the readers understanding of the verbal abuse and anger Glennon's gotten all his life from his father; it's clear early on that he and his sister have PTSD, and that not all is well with their mother either.  Having to deal with an unbearably awful situation on the island, though, helps Glennon start to untangle himself from years of damaging undermining from his father, and this real-world positive progress is a welcome contrast to the gothic darkness crashing around the cursed island. (There's an author's note at the end, clarifying how Glennon's memories of his father's words that surface during the story are real abuse, discussing how this has affected him and his sister, and encouraging young readers in similar positions to seek help from trusted adults).

In good middle grade fashion, Glennon and his sister are the catalyst for their escape, but they couldn't have done it without grown-ups willing to put themselves at risk to make it happen.  Also as is the case with many good middle grade books, there's an intelligent cat who helps for a given value of cat-help. Both things I liked.  I also liked all the ghost ships (what a wide variety of obsolete vessels there are in the harbor these days! think the kids, more or less,  and yet no transport is available off the island....) and the nods to real maritime misfortunes of Lake Superior.  The awful undead rats swarming around the island, are, however, not likeable....

In short, though I personally would have liked a bit more about life on the island before it became a place of nightmares, to ground the story in reality before the reality explodes, Monsters in the Mist is a powerfully spooky and thought-provoking read, and one I appreciated lots, 

Monsters in the Mist is Juliana Brandt's third book, the first two being The Wolf of Cape Fen (2020) and A Wilder Magic (2021), both from SourcebooksKids.  As well as being an author, she's a kindergarten teacher with a passion for storytelling that guides her in both of her jobs. She lives in her childhood home of Minnesota, and her writing is heavily influenced by travels around the country and decade living in the South.

And now it is my pleasure to welcome her to my blog! (my questions are in bold)

What was the inspiration for Monsters in the Mist? (hopefully not a disastrous boat trip on Lake Superior).

Goodness, the inspiration came from many places, although no, it definitely didn't come from a disastrous boat trip on Lake Superior! I did find a lot of direct inspiration from Lake Superior itself, though, mostly from Split Rock Lighthouse - a lighthouse in Two Harbors, MN. I toured this lighthouse in October on a very blustery day. I knew immediately that I needed to use this setting for a book. I created my own version of that lighthouse and stuck it on an island that is a very real (and yet very fake!) island on Lake Superior. In the 1700s, a mapmaker drew an extra island on Lake Superior. Mapmakers kept inserting the same island on their own maps, even though no such island actually existed on the lake. It took a few decades before cartographers realized it wasn't real. I thought that history was fascinating, and it made me wonder what that island would be like if it were actually real.


What bit of the book do you hope your readers will love most, and/or perhaps be most horrified/scared about?

I hope readers love the spookiness of the story. I tried to create my own monsters for this book, and I hope they're both scary and fascinating. I wanted my monsters to be sympathetic; I wanted people to understand how they'd become so monstrous and why they'd chosen the path they had. And also that while we can be sympathetic toward the monsters, it doesn't mean that their behavior or their choices are excused. I would very much like readers to walk away with the message that the words we choose to use with one another matters deeply.

I appreciated that the town librarian specifically recommends Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones, to the kids--an excellent choice. Was there a specific reason you picked this book?

Howl's Moving Castle is my absolute favorite book! It's one that's stuffed full of all the things I enjoy most about stories - magic and surprising twists and a wonderful monster. In the scene where the book is mentioned, the librarian is talking about reading what makes you happy, and for me, Howl's is a book that never fails to make me happy. I was so excited to include mention of it in my own book because of how much it's meant to me over the years.

Monsters is your first book since things are moving toward normal again, fingers crossed.... Your first book, The Wolf of Cape Fen, will always have a special place in my mind (Here's my review). Not only did I enjoy it lots, but when it came out, just a few weeks into the pandemic in the spring of 2020, it was the first book I picked to order from my local independent bookstore as a show of support for authors and indies, so I have powerful memories tied to it. What was it like, having your debut book come out at such a fraught time?

It certainly wasn't easy. The shift from planning in person events and making plans for trips and book tours to cancelling everything and switching to online events (before we really knew what online events could look like!) was a difficult transition. It certainly wasn't the experience I thought debuting would be. At the same time though, I was incredibly supported in the book community and by my friends and family. I truly felt like everyone rallied around me. It's also helped me truly appreciate everything I'm able to experience with Monsters in the mist, now that I'm able to schedule in person events again.

With your third book, are you able to get a chance to do more of the author-ish things that the pandemic shut down?

Yes! I have wonderful events planned throughout May and into the summer. This past week when Monsters in the Mist published, I was able to have my first in person book launch. It was everything I wanted to experience the first time around, and I'm so glad to have finally been able to have that! It's truly wonderful to be able to talk with people in person and celebrate books in an actual bookstore, instead of online. I have school visits and writing classes and bookstore events scheduled. It's all an absolute delight to be able to plan.  (here are her upcoming events)

and finally, what are you working on now?

Secret projects! I have a few manuscripts in the works, but as of now, they're all in the "in between" moment. Hopefully they'll become projects that I can announce publicly soon.

and even more finally, is there an interview question that you have a really good answer for that I haven't asked? 

At my bookstore event, I was asked a very good question that I've never been asked before. "How have my books changed me?" We talk about readers being changed by books, but books change authors too! I think that my books have helped me become a braver, more honest person. Writing a book is such an introspective process, for me, and with each one I write, I end up asking deep questions of myself, about who I am and who I want to be. It really can be a transformative experience.

thanks so much, Juliana!  And best of luck with your ongoing projects!  And now I shall go listen to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald--"The lake it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy..."

The Root Cellar, by Janet Lunn, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Root Cellar, by Janet Lunn (1983), is a classic Canadian time travel story....and so by rights it should have been featured here long ago.  Thing was, I had it confused with another story about a root cellar and the underground railroad and time travel that I read years and years ago and hadn't much enjoyed....I don't know what that book or mishmash of other books I was thinking of, but it wasn't this one, which it turns out I'd never read before!   (Possible I was just so turned off the the really unattractive original cover I made up a story in my mind and never read any root cellar time travel books....).

In any event, it was a lovely surprise to find myself reading a really good new to me book!

Rose is an orphaned girl,  raised, for a very paltry value of raised, by her grandmother.  She's never been friends with any children, and has never been shown any affection.  When her grandmother dies, she's sent off to live with her aunt and uncle, and their four boys, in an old house in Canada.  The aunt and uncle are well meaning, but they don't have the time and energy to help Rose start healing from her years of neglect, and Rose doesn't feel wanted, and doesn't want to be there.  Then she finds the old root cellar that turns into a gateway to the past.

Back in the 1860s, Rose feels strangely happy.  She's able to make friends with two kids there--Will, the son of the house, and Susan, a servant girl.  Time in the present doesn't pass while she's in the past, but Will and Susan are older when she next visits them.  The Civil War is raging, and Will decides to go off and fight.  When Rose goes back in time again, Will hasn't come home.  So she persuades Susan that they must go look for him, and so ensues a long and arduous journey to the crowded hospitals of Washington D.C., full of the horrors of war....

And that journey helps Rose grow emotionally, can find a place in her own time, with her own family.

It's an engrossing story, and a fascinating one!  Really quality time travel, and a must read for anyone who enjoys stories of children coming to grips with what it means to be a person amongst other people.  Good Civil War history too.

(Home renovation-wise, I'm a bit appalled by the state of the aunt and uncle's house; I would have been almost as horrified as Rose was and I like old houses!  They need to get the walls fixed before winter comes!)

Elsetime, by Eve McDonnell, for Timeslip Tuesday

Elsetime, by Eve McDonnell (June 2020, Everything With Words), is a must read for time travel fans (and a very good read for middle grade fantasy fans, mg historical fiction fans, and so on....). Though it has, to the best of my knowledge, not been published yet here in the US, it's well worth getting your hands on (says one who did so!). I do have a slight caveat though--it's a book that will be most enjoyed by those able to wrap their minds tightly around the sort of twists and turns that so often happen with time travel, and if, like me, you have a tendency to gallop through good stories, you might suddenly find yourself a bit confused...I think I will enjoy it more when I reread it in two or three years!

In London in 1928, 12 year old Glory has lied about here age to get a job in a jewelry shop. She designs beautiful things, but the fact that one of her hands is wooden prosthetic means she can't always bring her creations to fruition. The rather nasty woman she works for is not sympathetic, paying Glory a pittance while profiting off her designs.

In 1864, Needle is desperately trying to keep himself and his mother fed, following in the footsteps of his father who mysteriously disappeared by scrounging in the mud of the Thames for bits and pieces to turn into saleable ornaments. Like his father, Nettle has a magical gift--he can feel the stories of the things he finds. When he finds some metal fragments from 1928, with the names of victims of a horrible flood, he travels in time to that year, determined to give a warning.

There he meets Glory, and their stories intersect. The clock is ticking, and Glory herself might be one of those who will drown...but the two kids are up against villainous characters, and the problems that come with time travel. Fortunately, a very clever crow named Magpie, Nettle's helper from his own time, is a fellow time-traveler, and gives them just the assistance they need to add to their own determination and cleverness. And though Nettle, in the end, returns to his own time, he's changed both his life and Glory's for the better, in a lovely way (and not just by saving Glory's life...).

It's a truly engrossing story of friendship and hardship and creativity, given great tension by the threat of the devastating flood to come (a real event). McDonnell paints vivid pictures and brings her characters beautifully to life. And though the twist at the end didn't quite work for me (see caveat above), because I though one of the characters was perfectly capable of being more helpful earlier on, it was still one I enjoyed lots. Since I love to read about making things, I especially loved the crafting parts of the story, of which there were a generous plenty!

A Dragon Used to Live Here, by Annette LeBlanc Cate

A Dragon Used to Live Here, written and illustrated by Annette LeBlanc Cate (April 12, 2022, Candlewick) is an entertaining story within a story that I think would make a lovely read aloud for older elementary kids and the younger end of middle grade (7-10 year olds). Older kids, on their way to teen cynicism, might have to wait till they are grown-ups before they can enjoy it....

Thomas and Emily live in their parents castle, learning castle-y things, like archery, tapestry weaving, and courtly manners.  They are also skilled at writing and illustrating, and this comes in useful when they come across the den of the castle scribes while exploring a bit of the castle they'd never gotten around to before. The scribes, under the authority of a somewhat cranky woman called Meg (is she a witch? the children wonder), are happy to let the kids help with the heavy workload of party invitations.  And while they work, Meg starts telling the story of how the kids' parents met.

It's a story of a fierce dragon, who used to live in the castle, and knights of varying degrees of bravery, and elves; their mother was the dragon's captive, and their father helps with her rescue (she also helps herself).  As Meg's story unfolds (and is she telling the truth?), the kids stop thinking of her as possible witch, and more as a friend, and hearing how Meg and their mother used to be best friends before a terrible falling out makes them want to bring the two of them back together.   

There's a somewhat refreshing? jarring? unexpected? amusing? mix of modernity with the medieval. Yes it's castle life without modern technology, but there's a real world sensibility to it.  It ended up working for the story, but don't go into it expecting high fantasy.  And the dragon may or may not have been real; readers will have to decide for themselves! 

The writing is snappy and on point, carrying things briskly along.  Thomas and Emily don't just sit passively listening and scribing, but make plans, squabble, and do a bit of (mild) adventuring to try to move Meg and their mother back to friendship.   But Meg is definitely the star of the story.  She's a great character and a great storyteller, and I loved the den of scribes who are entertaining in their own right.  They are really good with paper and ink and sharp knives too--I loved their creativity!  And throughout the book there are many funny details and bits of dialogue that readers of all ages (but especially the target audience) will appreciate. Generous illustrations, also often amusing, add to the entertainment.

Story within story isn't my favorite framework, but when done well, as I think it is here, because I liked it, it is good entertainment!  For what it's worth, me and the Kirkus review are on the same page here--"Clever, multistranded, and off the charts in read-aloud potential."

but was the dragon real????? (and will Thomas continue to let himself enjoy drawing flowers...I hope so!)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

When the Sky Falls, by Phil Earle

When the Sky Falls, by Phil Earle  (April 5th 2022 in the US by Bloomsbury Children's Books, June 2021 in the UK), is a moving book about a boy battered by life, and further traumatized by World War II.  

When we first meet 12-year old Joseph he's a kid arriving in London during the blitz; unlike the other young travelers at the station who are being evacuated out of the city, he's been sent into it after his grandmother decides she can no longer cope with him.  He's been packed off to stay with an old friend of hers, Mrs. F., who doesn't really want Joseph either.  Joseph is violently furious at his situation, and at the world, and before the reader knows his story, his frightening anger makes it hard to warm to him.

Mrs. F. is strong enough, though, to compel Joseph to some degree of cooperation, setting him to work helping keep up her family's zoo.  It's not much of a zoo anymore, thanks to the war.  Most of the animals have been shipped off to other zoos, or died.  One of the few left is a gorilla, Adonis.  Joseph finds Adonis terrifying at first, but as he sees the love Mrs. F. has for him, and learns that Adonis is grieving for the lost of his mate and his child, he opens himself to empathy and caring.  

School is a torment (again, his extremely reluctant attendance is a testament to Mrs. F.'s strong will), where his dyslexia keeps him from being able to read (he, and all the teachers he's had throughout his life, who have convinced him he's stupid, don't know it's dyslexia), and other boys make his life miserable. When the boys climb the zoo's fence to come beat him up, one gets too close to Adonis' cage, and the gorilla grabs him by the jacket.  Although the boy isn't physically harmed, he could well have been, and his father wants Adonis killed because of being a danger to the community.

Indeed, every night there's an air raid, which is most nights, Mrs. F. sits outside Adonis' cage with a gun to shoot him if he's ever freed by an explosion, because of the threat a free, angry gorilla would pose.....even though she loves him. (This part is based on a true story).

Gradually we learn details of Joseph's past--how his mother abandoned the family when he was five, and how his father went to war. Gradually Joseph becomes able to accept help, both from Mrs. F. (espeically when she's found the strength to share her own past tragedy with him) and from a girl who's just been orphaned by a bomb; neither will give up on him.  But it is his growing bond with Adonis that helps him most.  Part of it is the warmth of growing trust, that makes Jacob feel like a person worthy of trust.  I'm wondering a bit as well, though it's never stated, if Jacob gets a bit of help with anger management from the dreadful possibility of what Adonis, with no control over his own anger, is capable of.  The book is thought provoking like this, which I appreciated.

In any event, I found their relationship nicely convincing; I'd been afraid that my suspension of disbelief re human/primate friendships was going to be put to the test.  I needn't have worried; it was a plausible relationship, not a sentimentally idealized anthropomorphic one.  

There is not a happy ending.  But though it is sad, it is an ending that give hope for a new beginning, as Mrs. F. and Joseph become family. 

It's a grimly vivid picture of life in a city being destroyed, with a protagonist on the verge of destroying his own life.  When I reached the end, it took me a while to shake of the tension of it all; like all really good and engrossing books, I'd been living it.  A truly powerful read.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

 

Healer and Witch, by Nancy Werlin

I just gave five stars on Goodreads to Healer and Witch, by Nancy Werlin (mg* Candlewick, April 12, 2022).  I am chary with my stars--only 6 out of the 92 books I've read so far this year have gotten 5 of them--all books that not only are very good books, but very good reads that make reality vanish and remind me why I love reading!  Such as Healer and Witch.

Sylvie is a girl learning healing from her mother and grandmother in Renaissance France.  Her mother's skill as a healer is based on knowledge and understanding, but her grandmother can do more, to the point of being magical.  When Sylvie gets her first period, her own gifts blossom, and like her grandmother there a magical twist to them--she can enter peoples minds, and tweak their memories.  When her grandmother dies, Sylie can't stand to see her mother suffering in a morass of grief, and so tries to help with a bit of memory removing.  It goes horribly wrong, and her mother doesn't remember her own mother, or even Sylvie.

So Sylvie sets out alone into the world to try to find another wise woman who can teach her how to use her gifts, so that she can fix what she broke, and never make such a mistake again.  She is both healer and witch...and the later is a dangerous thing to be when suspicions of witchcraft can lead to death.  A much younger boy, the blacksmith's son whose always getting into trouble, follows her out of their village, and refuses to be sent home, and proves to be an important part of her journey (and a nice part of the story!).  A meeting with a wise woman in the nearest town sets her off to the city of Lyon, as part of a wealthy young merchant's caravan.  

But neither the wise woman or the young merchant are exactly who they seem, and Sylvie's gifts place her in great danger.  She must fight fiercely for her right to use her powers as healer/witch as she sees fit, figuring out how to use them ethically, and making sure she is making decisions for herself in a time and place that's often unkind to young women.  There's a nice romance too-- the powerful young merchant offers to protect her by marrying her, and she declines (and figures out how to protect herself), but in the course of travelling together they start trusting each other enough to share their darkest secrets.  It's a slow romance, but a sweet one.  

It's not a swirling fast-paced book full of Things Happening, and indeed a lot of what happens takes place in Sylvie's head, which was fine with me!  Sylvie is beautifully thoughtful and intelligent, and I appreciated her lots. There is trauma (in the young merchant's past too, from his desperate childhood as a thief "and worse") and of course in Sylvie's life--her love for her mother is unchanged though her mother doesn't know who she is.  But there is healing too, and (slight spoiler) I appreciated that magic isn't the answer for this.

It's good historical fiction too, with enough of the history part (especially social and economic history) to be interesting without info dumping on the reader. My only gripe is that the blurb says this is medieval France.  Not.  Clearly it's Renaissance- Henry VIII is on the throne in England, and the Medici family is busily doing their Medici thing down in Italy....

short answer--I really liked it!  

*note about target audience--recently there was a lot of chat on twitter from folks wanting more books for the 12-14 year old kids who are leaving middle grade (9-12 years old) but who aren't the target audience just yet for much of Young Adult. This is a book for those in-betweenish sort of readers, who want a bit of romance, who want books about independent young women (the heroine here is 15) figuring out what sort of person they want to be.  This isn't a book that I'd give to a 9 or 10 year old, but I'd give it in a flash to 11-13 year old me and other dreamy kids who aren't quite ready to grow up but are enjoying starting to think about it from the safe perspective of fantasy....and I think the cover does a great job at targeting this group of readers!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Meant to Be, by Jo Knowles

Though most of my middle grade reading is sci fi/fantasy, I also enjoy escaping into other peoples reality with good non-magical mg fiction!  Case in point, this weekend's read--Meant to Be, by Jo Knowles (March 22, Candlewick).

We first met sisters Rachel and Ivy in Where the Heart Is, which ends with the family loosing their home out in the country and having to move to an apartment.  That book was mostly Rachel's story; this is Ivy's, and it stands alone just fine.

Ivy is happy with the new apartment home.  For the first time in her life, she has friends close at hand--Lucas and Alice, two other kids the same age as her.  Together they religiously watch a cooking show, and try to use the ingredients the contestants use in their own culinary experimentation (which is mostly successful).  She is not happy, though, that the her sister and parents can't see that the apartment, though small, is a great place to live. She just doesn't empathize with them.

And when Alice, who lives with her grandmother, gets sad news about her absent mother, whose troubles with addiction lead to her leaving Alice behind, Ivy missteps her response, straining their friendship almost to the breaking point.

With the help of the building superintendent, who's teaching Ivy how to fix things, she starts to realize that helping other people with their problems doesn't always mean doing what she, Ivy, things is best for them.  And though she still, at the end of the book, likes living in the apartment, and is still anxious because she doesn't want things to change, she's become quite a bit wiser and more considerate of other people's feelings.

Which isn't to say this is a preachy book!  It all happens naturally and warmly, and although I imagine that if I'd read this when I was ten or so I might have taken the message to heart, there's definitely enough happening (small things, but interesting ones) to make this a good story and a good read.  

Definitely one for kids who like sort of quite slice of life books, particularly for young foodies!  I myself would have put a cupcake prominently on the cover if I'd been designing it...the eggs and mixer do indicate the cooking, but not as appealingly, perhaps, as a nice cupcake!

short answer--I enjoyed it lots, and perhaps am an even more thoughtful person than I was before (?)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher (thanks!)

Out of Time, by Peter Lerangis, for Timeslip Tuesday

I just this minute finished Out of Time (Throwback #3) by Peter Lerangis, this week's Timeslip Tuesday book...I am not very good at keeping my own personal time well managed, and am always scrambling to do what needs doing.  In this case, the scrambling to finish the book (155 pages to go an hour ago) was actually very easy, since I was nicely absorbed.  It was certainly nothing compared to the desperate scramblings through time of the two main characters!

This is the third book of a series about a kid from New York, Corey, who finds out he's a time traveler, like his grandfather (there are more time travelers around than one would think...), as told in Throwback. Corey turns out to be a one of a kind time traveler, though--he can alter the past.  And so he does.  In the second book of the series (The Chaos Loop), he traveled to Germany right at the end of WW II to save his great uncle...but in doing so, he changed the past by keeping his grandparents from meeting, and so he was never born. The Corey who time travelled makes it back to his own present day in New York....but changed into a wolf.

His best friend, Leila (another time-traveler), is the only one who remembers the Corey who no longer belongs in the current time line, and she's determined to help him figure out how to become himself again.  They find help from a secret society of time travelers, who are able to take the gene that gives Corey his unique ability and transfer it to her.  Now the two of them, wolf and girl, head back to the cold winter at the end of Nazi Germany, hoping to give Corey's grandparents their chance to meet, while still keeping his great-uncle alive....

It is tremendously tense!  Wolf Corey's health is failing (a side effect of his situation), and Leila isn't certain she can change the past...but it all works out in the end, mostly thanks to Leila's bravery.

I didn't register it at the time of my reading, but the secret society of time travelers, which includes "trackers" who can tell when the past has been changed, shouldn't really want to be able to create other's with Corey's gift--they are creating for themselves the problem of altered realities that they are contending with (unless Corey and Leila are responsible for them all)....but no matter.  The story at hand is well worth reading regardless!

Time travel-wise, not only to we get to go back to Nazi Germany, but we also get a solo trip by Leila to witness the building of Central Park, and learn a bit of its history, which was very interesting.  

short answer--a solid series, that I can easily imagine middle grade kids loving!

Cameron Battle and the Hidden Kingdoms, by Jamar J. Perry

Cameron Battle and the Hidden Kingdoms, by Jamar J. Perry (February 1 2022 by Bloomsbury Children's Books) is a middle grade fantasy inspired by West African and Igbo history and mythology that I added enthusiastically to my tbr list when I first heard of it months ago.

It's the story of a boy whose mother read to him the magical Book of Chidani, full of stories about a kingdom whose queen called on the gods of the Igbo people of west Africa to seal themselves off from the world in order to save her people from the slave trade.  But Cameron's mother and father disappeared two years before the book begins, and his grandmother has hidden the book. 

But Cameron finds it, up in the attic, and when he and his best friends Zion and Aliyah open it again, the magic of the book draws them into Chidani.  All the magical stories are true, except that Chidini is in danger.  The three talismans that kept the queen and her people from aging, part of her bargain with the gods, have been stolen by her sister, and without them, Chidani will collapse, and be open to the world again.   Not only that, but the dark powers that the queen's sister has bargained with will flood into our own world.

And in true middle grade fantasy style, Cameron, heir to the magic of the book, must train to be a warrior and find the three missing relics.  He did not want to be a hero, but here he is.

So yes, this is familiar ground--the magical fighting, the griffins with whom the three kids form telepathic bonds, the chase after stolen objects of power while fighting terrifying wraiths.   But it's engrossing, and even if this was all there was to the story, it would be a fun (though not deeply memorable) read.  Several things, however, give depth and heart to the story, making it more than generic mg fantasy.

First there's the premise, that the magical kingdom was created in response to the horror of the slave trade,  that took Cameron's ancestors from their homes.  This weighted past, tied to the real world, makes it a place the the reader must come to with a certain gravitas, a taking-seriously-ness that most portal fantasies don't have.

Second, the queen's sister has at least one good reason to want to break down the bubble protecting Chidani--time stopped for everyone living there when it was formed, and no one has aged.  Four hundred years of stasis is not a pleasing thought; it is basically a prison.  I was hoping that the sister, once she made this point, would go on to have more nuance to her villainy than she did, but there was enough doubt in my mind to start questioning everything that was supposedly so wonderful, which added lots of interest!  There's a  goddess, for instance, who is basically the patron of the Chidanians, that I have my suspicious eye on.....

Thirdly, Cameron's parents died fighting in Chidani, failing to do what Cameron must now attempt.  Echoes of their struggle keep bringing his grief, anger, and frustration welling up, and make his assigned task as Savior and Hero a burden he's even more unwilling to bear.  There's a horrifying twist toward the end, too, which ups the dead parent stakes even more!

And Fourthly,  there's his friendship with Zion.  Are the two boys just really close and affectionate friends, like two brothers who love each other, sometimes even holding hands for mutual reassurance  (which would be great, because this sort of boy friendship is rare in fiction) or do all the possible hints mean its going to turn into more than friendship (which would also be great, because MG fantasy with gay boys is really rare!)?  

So yes, much of the story runs along familiar rails (which won't, of course, be as familiar to the target audience as they are to veteran MG fantasy reader, me, and so this is not a criticism but a personal statement), and I would have been happy with some of the fantasy filler descriptions and such pared down a bit (again, I'm not the target audience),  but seeing where  plot bits 2, 3, and 4 go next will have me come back eagerly for the next book!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

A Comb of Wishes, by Lisa Stringfellow

A Comb of Wishes, by Lisa Stringfellow (February 8th 2022 by Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins), is a truly enticing mix of grief and magic.

Kela and her mother collected sea glass together on the beaches of their Caribbean island home of St. Rita.  Then her mother died.  Stuck in her grief, and with her last angry words to her mother playing on repeat in her head, she pushes away her best friend, Lissy, and gathers the "mermaid's tears" (as the bits of glass are called) alone, but the joy has gone out of making them into lovely jewelry for sale to tourists.  Lissy is the kind of awesome friend who keeps showing up though, and it's on a day when she goes to down to the beach too that Kela finds an old wooden box that pulls her.  It's on a protected part of the beach that's strictly off limits.  So when Kela take the box home, she knows she's transgressed, but can't imagine the supernatural and real world problems that are about to make her life very complicated indeed.

Inside the box is an old comb, beautifully made.  And out in the ocean is the mermaid whose comb it is, who desperately needs it back in order to stay immortal.  Ophidia, the mermaid, will stop at nothing to retrieve it.  And when she tracks Kela down, she offers a bargain, a wish in exchange for the comb.  Though Kela has grown up on stories of mermaid magic (her mother was a folklorist, and keeper of the island's stories), and knows that bargains with mermaids are tricky, her wish to have her mother back is irresistible.  But in making the wish, the comb breaks in her hand....and then is stolen from her.  

Her mother is back, and everyone but Kela seems to take it for granted.   It's as if she never died.  But she's not herself; she's tired and sad....and Ophidia is furiously trying to get her comb back, threatening Kela and lashing the island with storms.

Together Kela and Lissy set out to get the comb back from the thief....and find themselves not just in danger from Ophidia, but from a desperate man who has gone so far wrong that their lives are in danger.

(And then a sea monster, summoned by Ophidia, attacks...)

Reading this avidly, my mood vacillated between wonder and enjoyment of the mermaid magic and the folk tales of the island, with light touches of great fondness for Lissy (currently in 1st place for middle grade supporting friend of the year!) and anxiety and sadness for Kela, mixed with horror/sadness when her dead mother returns.  It says a lot for Lisa Stringfellow's writing that these two sides of the story stayed beautifully balanced, with scene shifts from one aspect to the other just when I as a reader needed them. It's told both from Kela's point of view and Ophidia's, which adds considerable interest--Ophidia is much more than a one-dimensional angry magical villain.

There's a touch of horror (the sea monster attack is rather gruesomely fatal), but there's so much warmth in the story that the horror fades like a bad dream.  Grief stays, as it must, but life and love go on.

side note--I loved that Kela's mom was both a keeper and teller of stories of  the island, and an academic folklorist (not something I can recall every seeing in a mg book before).  One of my favorite parts of the story was Kela and Lissy sneaking into the mom's office at the island's museum, and going through her files.  It was a nice way of showing young readers that stories aren't just for kids, but valuable parts of history and heritage, worthy of museum archives! One of my other favorite bits was when Lissy's grandmother tells a story, using the same traditional call and response beginning and end that frames the book's narrative, that draws the listeners (and readers) in....

I say Crick, you say Crack.

Crick.

Crack.

This is a story.

and ending thus--

Crick.

Crack.

The story is put on you.

It will stay with me for a long time.

Thirty Talks Weird Love, by Alessandra Narváez Varela, for Timeslip Tuesday

Thirty Talks Weird Love, by Alessandra Narváez Varela (January 1st 2021 by Cinco Puntos Press), is a stunning book, combining a vividly real slice of life story of a girl on the brink of suicide with time travel, set in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico in the 1990s, when girls  are being murdered with horrible, terrifying regularity.

Thirteen-year-old Anamaria is academically driven, and has messed up being a friend.  Lonely and stressed, and scared by the terror stalking her city, she's at a breaking point.  Though her parents love her and care about her well-being, they have no idea how bad things are getting.  There is someone who knows, though--Anamaria's thirty-year-old self, who come back to get her younger self through this bad time.

Anamaria is understandably unwelcoming, and doesn't want to hear what this stranger tries to tell her.  But "Thirty" is able to nudge her, changing enough of the time line to make things better for her past self, but failing in the other task she had travelled through time to set right.

Though this is a  hybrid verse/paragarph novel, and there aren't lots and lots of words, Varela manages to convey an astoundingly vivid and rich picture of Anamaria's thoughts, her daily life, and her experiences at school.  I'm not sure I've ever used the word "masterful" in a review before, but I shall do so now--this is a masterful story.  It twists the heart something fierce.

The time travel part is strange, and never explained (which is a tad frustrating), but very interesting.  Thirty is not a dea ex machina, but she is able to push in just the right places to get Anamaria on a healthier path--mostly, and most importantly for young depressed readers, by getting her to tell her parents that she is depressed and needs help.   It was satisfying, as a Time Travel pureist, to read in the epilogue that briefly lays out what happens to Anamaria in the following years, that she doesn't in fact time travel again--her other self had changed enough so this was no longer necessary.

One of the things that made this such a believable book is that Anamaria thinks in both English and Spanish, and so there is considerable untranslated Spanish in the text.  I don't speak Spanish, but context and generic familiarity were enough to understand what was being said.  And, on the subject of this being clearly a Mexican book, one of the things that made it a viscerally appealing reading experience was all the delicious food!  Though Anamaria is prone to unhealthy comfort eating (so relatable), food is still integral to her loving relationship with her parents (who have a small restaurant)  and with the coffee shop owner next door, a loving uncle figure.

The title, "Thirty Talks Weird Love," refers to Thirty's main message that Anamaria must find a way to love herself, but it's not heavy handed or preachy.  I can imagine many 11-14 year-olds really seeing themselves in this one, and quite possibly being not just entertained by a good story, well told, but helped to be more compassionate to themselves and to others.  

The book is being marketed as YA, but I do think it counts as upper middle grade just as much--a 13-year-old with friendship drama is more middle grade to me than a 14-year-old with relationship drama would be.

Highly recommended.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Girl Giant and the Jade War (Girl Giant and the Monkey King #2), by Van Hoang

Girl Giant and the Jade War (Girl Giant and the Monkey King #2), by Van Hoang, is not so much as sequel to Girl Giant and the Monkey King (2020) as the second half of the story.  In the first book, eleven-year-old Thom Ngo accidently frees the Monkey King, who promises to help rid her of her incredible strength.  Thom learns the hard way that the Monkey King can't be trusted, and learns as well that her father, from whom she inherited her preternatural strength, is one of the powerful Immortals.  The first book ends with the Monkey King, who has used Thom to bring back the full extent of his powers, about to attack the realm of the Immortals, Thom appalled by the mistakes she's made, and her mother transformed into a cricket....It's a gripping, fast-paced story that I enjoyed very much!

So I was eager to rejoin Thom as she tries to stop the Monkey King in his tracks.  It is a pretty difficult proposition--she has to find her way back into the Heavens, and figure out if there is any weakness she can use against the Monkey King.  Much of the story involves a quest for allies.  Accompanied by her dragon friend, Kha, and a fox demon who was once a fairy, Thom tries to find someone who will help her get back to the Heavens before the Monkey King and his demons take over...though she's not at all sure what she'll do when she gets there!

Interestingly, the more she thinks about what the Monkey King wants--respect, and a place for demons in the Heavens--the more she can understand his point of view, though she can't condone his approach.  Adding to her confusion are visits from the Monkey King's magical doubles--she can remember trusting him (though memories of betrayal are sharper).  Her friendship with Kha is strained, and when she gets to the Heavens, she has to get the person she herself betrayed most unforgivably, the daughter of the Jade Emperor, to believe she knows what's she doing.

There's all the cultural richness that filled the first book, and plenty of adventures, but it's a bit more thought-provoking, in a good way.   An excellent series for middle grade readers who enjoy kids having their lives upended by magical figures of legend, and a nice addition of Vietnamese mythology to the "books for kids who love Rick Riordan" genre. Thom is a very relatable kid (though the universal "finding one's self" middle school ARC is of course complicated by being the child of a deity, and also complicated by Thom's feeling out of place as a Vietnamese American kid) and even her sometimes questionable choices make sense for someone her age, and work well within the framework of the story.  

This second book closes everything nicely, but I wouldn't mind more....