The Blood Trials, by N.E. Davenport

The Blood Trials, by N.E. Davenport, is a fierce read about a young woman consumed by grief and anger who is determined to bring her grandfather's killer to justice, and who ends up setting herself against a world controlled by rival evil (and incredibly powerful) governments.  Though readers of YA may well appreciate it, it's a book for adults--there is considerable, very detailed, violence, and a graphic sex scene. 

Ikenna was ready to give up on her ambition to become one of the elite Praetorian Guard after her grandfather's death throws her into acute depression.  But when she finds out she was murdered, she becomes fueled by rage and determination to find the killer, and becoming one of the Guard will help her do that.  The trials the would-be guard members, the best and brightest of the military recruits, are put through are brutal, and often fatal (which seemed really wasteful as a military strategy; this thought kept distracting me).   Ikenna gives and gets horrible injuries, the body count is in the hundreds, and things seem pretty hopeless for her at many points in the story.

Ikenna, having inherited the dark skin of her grandfather's family, faces awful racism, is a woman in a misogynist society, and is often self-sabotaged by her lack of emotional control born from anger and grief, but she has a secret advantage--she has a blood gift, from the old gods...one that her country's greatest enemy uses as a terrible weapon.  She can't risk having it discovered, but she can't help but uses it when needed, to ferret out secrets and heal herself from the many injuries the trials inflict on her.

In the course of the trials, surrounded by people she cannot trust, many of whom hate her (even without knowing about her blood gift) more death and guilt add to her burden, and a night of forbidden passion doesn't help.  But she perseveres, leaving a blood-stained wake, until, like opening a series of nesting dolls, she realizes at the end of the book that the fight she's undertaken for justice, and her own right to exist, is much greater than she'd imagined.

Ikenna's strong emotions are perfectly understandable, but don't leave much room in her headspace for the reader to get to know other dimensions of her personality.  (I would have liked more intelligence, and less emotional response....).  And the pretty much non-stop violence of the trials, and the hate she gets thrown, and the betrayals she endures, don't make for easy reading; it was all a bit much for me.  I didn't actually enjoy it much, though I never considered not finishing the book, because of wanting to know what happened.  But having reached the end of the book, with the stakes becoming increasingly higher, Ikenna at last has reached a point where she has people on her side, and no longer has to hide who she is, so I'm pretty willing to give the second book at try.

So not a book for me, but if you look at the Goodreads reviews, plenty of people loved it.....

disclaimer: review copy received from the publicist.

Black Was the Ink, by Michelle Coles, for Timeslip Tuesday

A sub-genre of time travel books that I quite like (becuase I like learning things) uses the time travelling to frame a history lesson.  Black Was the Ink, by Michelle Coles (November 2nd 2021 by Lee & Low Books) is one of these; it is a brilliant lesson on the Reconstruction-- the years immediately after the Civil War when black men were elected to congress, the first Civil Rights Act was signed into law, and KKK murderers were brought to trial and found guilty.  Not much talked about in school history class, and  tremendously well presented here.  

Malcolm, a black teenager, was almost shot playing basketball with his friends in Washington D.C. in 2015, and then almost arrested by the police who came to investigate.  His mother, scared for him, sends him down to Mississippi to stay with his dad's family for the summer (his dad was killed by the police a while before this story begins).  There he finds the diary of his ancestor, Cedric, who worked for many of the black representatives to Congress, recording the triumphs they achieved, the horrors being inflicted on black people in the south by the KKK, and the ultimate failure of Reconstruction to establish lasting equality.  

But Malcom isn't just reading words on the pages.  Cedric brings him literally back in time, and Malcom lives bits of Cedric's life.  He sees horrible tragedies, that amplify the ongoing horrors of the present day.  And Malcom emerges from the experience galvanized to take up the fight that Cedric had been part of, starting by trying to save the family farm, Cedric's farm, from being lost to a highway expansion project (which turns out to be the main reason Cedric is manifesting himself...) 

The heavy weight of the past is lightened somewhat by time with family and by Malcom's nascent relationship with a neighbor girl, but it is a past that is much too heavy for lifting to be possible.  It is not a fast easy read, but it sure is an important one.  The author doesn't do much in the way of condensing the history, which is makes it thorough and very real, but it does make for hard going at times. I can't help but feel it could have been just as powerful without quite so many long speeches from the politicians, while being appreciative of those speeches as important parts of history. 

That being said, Malcolm is an engaging character, and his believable teen self does a pretty good job carrying the narrative along. It takes him a while to get used to being Cedric, and it requires some suspension of disbelief that he carries that role off as well as he does when back in the past (although this was one of my favorite aspects of the book, time travel fan that I am).  And there are joyous moments of family and friendship, and lots of good food, that cheer the reader on.

Still, as a whole, it's a pretty devastating read (though the ending is hopeful), but so important and timely....

side note: speaking as someone who works for a state historic preservation office-- sadly, even if a property is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (which is a lot more time-consuming and tricky than is the case even for the conditional determination of eligibility which Malcolm achieves through a single afternoon's work) it can be bulldozed.  So I ended the story less optimistically than Malcolm does...there's going to be a struggle ahead.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

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.

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....

The Great Bear (The Misewa Saga #2) by David Alexander Robertson for Timeslip Tuesday

The Great Bear (The Misewa Saga #2) by David Alexander Robertson, this week's Timeslip Tuesday book, is a sequel to The Barren Grounds. This first book was a magnificent portal fantasy, in which two Native kids, Morgan and Eli, open a way through to the land of Misewa, and help save it, and the animal persons who call it home, from a never ending winter.  Though it's been over year since I read it, I vividly remember the cold and the hunger of the kids' journey across the barren lands, and how the animal persons they met there taught them traditional ways to be in the world.

Morgan and Eli have been continuing to visit Misewa every night, travelling through portal pictures Eli draws, and with each night in our world equaling two months there, it now feels like home. It's a place where Morgan is learning Cree ways of being in the world that she never had a chance too in "real" life, having been taken from her mother when she was two. It's a place where Eli reconnects to his own traditional childhood, and a place where being Cree is not something that gets him bullied as it does during the days at school. But their dearest friend in Misewa, the fisher animal person, Ochek, died during their first adventure, and has a left a huge hole in their hearts.

When their foster mom gives Morgan her mother's phone number, her emotions almost overwhelm her; she can't bring herself to call. Realizing how badly Eli is being bullied adds to her distress. And so when Eli draws a portal picture of a Misewa where Ochek is still a kid himself, and offers the chance to travel back to that time when he is still alive, Morgan can't resist.

It is strange and bittersweet to meet someone you know who doesn't know you yet, but gradually Morgan and Eli sink into the routines of the community and find peace. But the piece is shattered when the Great Bear moves down from the north. The bear attacks villages, taking all he wants with savage violence and destruction. And out on Ochek's family's trap line, they meet the bear face to face and recognize him as some one they love in the present time. No one has ever stood against him before, but the two kids and their adopted community find the strength to so to save their village and stop living with fear.

The first book was a journey and quest story; this one is more an emotional one (though not without tension and action). As such, it was moving and immersive and memorable. It ends with one heck of a cliffhanger, which I guess I'm cool with because I wanted more story, not just about Misewa but about Morgan in real life--the fantasy cliffhanger, frankly, interests me less than the prospect of Morgan meeting her birth family....


It works as a time travel book too--the kids openly discuss the ramifications of being in the past of their portal country, though they didn't expect what one of those ramifications would be. (Neither did I, though if I'd been trying to be clever, instead of just enjoying the book, I might have....)


This is this first time travel within a portal fantasy world that I've reviewed, and the only other similar situation I can think of is Prince Caspian, so perhaps I'll review that as time travel some Tuesday. This series gets compared a lot to Narnia, so it's interesting that both second books are time travel-ly (though one is to the past and one to the future). And it does seem that the third Msewa book will be a journey, perhaps echoing Voyage of the Dawn Treader....

The Shadow Prince, by David Anthony Durham

I read a lot of middle grade sci fi/fantasy, and it always surprises me how authors can put new twists on familiar tropes and make something that just screams "kid appeal." The Shadow Prince, by David Anthony Durham  (September 28th 2021 by Lee & Low) is such a book.

Ash lives in an alternate ancient Egypt, where the gods walk among the mortals, and where solar tech has reached great heights (literally--cool solar powered flying ships!).   But there's no reason the gods would want to come to Ash's village, out in the middle of the desert, and though there's solar tech, Ash and his guardian can't afford the cool things Ash would like.  Ash's guardian has been training him fiercely all his life, in martial arts, survival, and learning, but Ash can't visualize a future beyond the backwater village that's all he's seen of the world.

On the night of his 12th birthday, that changes.  His guardian explains that Ash was born on the same day s Prince Khufu, making him a candidate for the honor of serving as the princes shadow--a companion for life, tasked with protecting, and even dying, for the prince.  And the next day a solar barge arrives to take Ash and his mentor to the royal capital, where the candidates will be pitted against each other.  There can only be one shadow prince.

And so Ash takes part in five days of tests, each day orchestrated by a different deity.  Demon slaying, battle with monsters, and impossible tasks await.  It is expected that many candidates will be killed.    Ash doesn't give himself great odds, but he's determined to try, and as he begins to see in Khufu someone he'd be glad to serve, his resolve stiffens.

Some of the other contenders are friendly, and form an alliance with Ash. Others are determined to win at any cost.  And this group of shadow prince contenders faces an additional challenge.  The god Set does not want any of them to survive, and uses his powers of chaos to interfere with the tests, making them even more horrendous, and there's tension in the royal family that also adds to the danger the kids are in.

It's tremendously gripping and readers who love dangerous contests will of course be hooked!  The violence is not so great, though, that it will be off-putting to those who prefer more character-driven books; though the trials are violent they don't pit the kids directly against each other until the very last day, and there's plenty of time for Ash to develop the first real friendships of his life, and have his mind blown by the royal city and all its panoply.  

So basically lots of really exciting stuff happens, some of it tense, some entertaining (I loved Prince Khufu's fierce little bouncing hippo protectors), and Ash is a good kid who's easy to cheer for.  There are a lot of characters introduced, but the important ones are easy to track of.   The Egyptian gods are incredibly powerful, and idiosyncratically weird, adding entertainment value and a Riordan-esque feel to the story.  I loved the solar-punk alternate Egypt too--it was just straight out really cool.

Short answer-this book gave me Wings of Fire vibes, even though I can't do a point by point argument for this.  Give it to your sixth graders, and they will love it!

(added kid appeal bonus--one of the contenders who are Ash's friends is a young lioness....)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Time Villains, by Victor Piñeiro , for Timeslip Tuesday

Yay me!  I have my  Timeslip Tuesday act together this week, with Time Villains, by Victor Piñeiro (Sourcebooks, May, 2021). And it's an exciting one (as the title suggests)!

It starts out peacefully enough, with Javi Santiago and his kid sister Brady dragged out to yet another antique store by their dad.  But the table that comes home with them is is anything but ordinary.  For one thing, it purrs...and that's not all.

Javi needs to bring his English grade up, so he can stay in the same class as his best friend, Wiki (who came by his nickname honestly).  And so Javi needs to ace the assignment that roles around every year--if you could invite any three people to dinner, who would you invite, what would you talk about, and what would you feed them?  Javi's a great cook, so he's not too worried about the menu, but who to invite?  Brainstorming at the table they decide on  young Mozart, the Earl of Sandwich (Javi loves making sandwiches), and when Javi asks that the third guest be someone academic and historical, who sounds scholarly, Wiki picks someone named  Edward Teach.

The table is all set for the guests...and then it starts to shake, with a strange noise coming from underneath it.  Investigating, the kids find a hidden compartment, in which there's a bell, and when they ring it, something extraordinary happens. 

There at the table are child Mozart, the Earl of Sandwich, and Edward Teach--more commonly known as the most notorious pirate of them all, Blackbeard.  It's an awkward dinner party, for sure.  And when it's time to send the guests home again (at least, that's what the bell's supposed to do, they figure), Blackbeard escapes, running off into the woods.

Javi gets an A on the assignment, but to his horror Blackbeard shows up at school, determined to get the bell and summon his pirate crew!  His threats seem all to terribly real, but fortunately the kids don't have to take him down on their own.  The school is staffed with a most unusual group of teachers, and Wiki's Aunt Nancy, who the kids have known all their lives, turns out to be a personage they could never have dreamt of meeting.

Wild hijinks ensue, and Blackbeard almost succeeds in making the school staff walk the plank (the school diving board).  But Javi, though he might not be as fiercely brave as his little sister, or as fiercely smart as Wiki, has it in him to be just the hero that's needed to save the day (with the help of a handful of other allies quickly summoned with the help of the magical table and its bell). 

I appreciated that Javi and his family are Puerto Rican, and Wiki is Haitian; their diverse cultures aren't the point of the story, but come up enough in the course of events to add richness to it (especially with regards to Javi's cooking!)

It's a fun twist on time travel, with nice attention paid to Blackbeard's fiercely intelligent efforts to figure out how the modern world works.  I would have liked it better if there hadn't been fictional characters thrown into the mix as well (like Dr. Jekyll and Don Quihote).  But kids who enjoy the adventures of story characters (real or imaginary) thrown into the real world will probably not complain!  In short, a solid series opener with high entertainment value (and a bit of historical and literary education thrown in!).

Ophie's Ghosts, by Justina Ireland

Ophie's Ghosts (May 2021 by Balzer + Bray) is Justina Ireland's first middle grade book, and it is a lovely immersive read, blending ghosts and a murder mystery with the daily life of a very real and relatable girl. 

Ophelia's life was upended in November, 1922, when her home in Georgia was burned by a white mob, and her father killed; he'd voted, which in the Jim Crow south was a dangerous thing for a black man to do.  But Ophie and her mother escaped unharmed, thanks to her father coming to her as a ghost to warn her.  She didn't know he was a ghost till later...and she didn't know that she'd start to see other ghosts.

Moving in with Aunt Rose and a family of cousins up north in Pittsburgh was the only think Ophie's mother could do, and now Ophie has to go to work instead of school.  Her job is to look after a demanding and unpleasant rich white woman in her grand home, Daffodil Manor.  It turns out the manor is full of ghosts, some self-absorbed, others with whom she can speak.  Once of them, Clara, even becomes a friend....But Aunt Rose can also see haints, and warns Ophie against ever trusting one.  

Ophie's desire to help her ghostly friend is so strong, though, that she sets out to uncover the mystery of her death.  She finds a story of passion, racial prejudice, and, she begins to suspect, murder...and unwittingly she gives Clara herself the power to take matters into her own ghostly hands.  But a ghost with power, as Aunt Rose warned, is a danger to everyone around it....and things get scary.

I sat down to start reading, and when I got up again I'd been sitting so long in one position it was hard to walk, a sign of a very good read!  With books like this I kind of forget I'm actually reading, because the words are going into to my head so fast and seamlessly that I am seeing the story not the typed letters.  Ophie is one of those fictional characters who seems truly real.  I warmed to her innate compassion, and my heart ached for her at many points in the story as she dealt with the racist realities of her life, her grief over her father and her lost hope for an education, and her worries for her mother.  The book is full of minor characters, dead and alive, who have their own vivid bits of story, adding considerable interest, tugging the heartstrings, and even providing a bit of light relief.

It's not a "horror story" (the real horror being not ghosts, but the human evil with which the story begins), and things only get  supernaturally scary at the climax towards the end.  But it is very spooky, and the horrible house full of ghosts is a ghastly place, so there's probably enough to satisfy young readers who love atmospheric creepiness.   Offer it to readers who enjoyed Victoria Schwab's City of Ghosts, or readers who like stories of plucky orphans in horrible jobs (of course, Ophie still has a mother who loves her, but one who's withdrawn from her somewhat because of grief and worry, so she felt orphan-adjacent to me, and the cover has this vibe too), and since it's top notch historical fiction as well as a ghost story, it's a great educational introduction to racism in the US in the 1920s (I learned more history from children's books than I did in the classroom, though mostly about Roman and medieval England....I'd love to be able to offer this one to 10 year old me, who also liked orphans and ghosts...and who knew nothing about racism in America in the early 20th century).

short answer--highly recommended, and I hope Justine Ireland writes more middle grade!

Sisters of the Neversea, by Cynthia Leitich Smith

It sure was fun to revisit Peter Pan's Neverland in Sisters of the Neversea, by Cynthia Leitich Smith  (Heartdrum, June 2021)!  It plunges headlong into reworking the original racist and sexist story, and although it didn't quite work for me, I appreciated and enjoyed it lots! (And it had the added poignancy of a lovely cover by the late, great, and sadly missed Floyd Cooper). 

Wendy Darling and Lily Roberts are stepsisters, tremendously close to each other.  Wendy's site of the family is white, from England, and  Lily's is Muscogee Creek.  They share a little brother, Michael, who they both adore.  But Wendy's dad is moving back to New York city, taking Wendy with him, and the girls are terrified that their family won't survive.

Enter Peter Pan, looking for his shadow, accompanied by his fairy friend, Belle.  

Peter plays Wendy and Michael like the expert manipulator he is, and they fly off with him to Neverland.  Lily sees through him, but can't let her siblings go off with out her, so she follows after them on her own.  When they reach Neverland, Wendy and Michael are taken in to the community of the Lost Boys, and Lily finds the other Native kids.  Soon Wendy realizes that Peter Pan is a tyrannical braggart, and that Neverland, though it is a place of wonders and magic, is no place she wants to stay.  Belle the fairy is herself having grave doubts about Peter, who, having defeated his pirate nemesis, is savagely killing the native fauna for sport and to show off.   

But the Darling-Roberts family is up for the challenge of finding their way home again, and even Peter, in the end, finds a most unlikely family.

There's lots to like here, most notably the power of family.  The bonds between the siblings not only held them together, but tied all the threads of adventure and magic into a moving story.  And it sure was great to see the problematic issues of the original destroyed!

One aspect of the didn't work for me was the style in which it is written.  There are frequent authorial intrusions, and some jarring ways of talking about the characters that threw me out of the story--at one point well into the book, for instance, Wendy is referred to as the "Darling girl."  Additionally, there were many point of view shifts amongst the primary, secondary and even tertiary characters.  Some were simply brief flashes, others lasted for longer chunks, and quite a few included back-story thoughts, and this made the story flow a little roughly for me.  I don't like it when I'm constantly made aware that an outside person is telling the story; it makes the characters feel more like puppets than part of a reality I'm absorbed in (wondering, as I type this, if introverts are bothered more by intrusive narrators than extroverts?)

That being said, this is definitely worth a read! (Kirkus thinks so too, for what that's worth....and their review appreciated "the wry voice of the omniscient narrator."

No Ordinary Thing, by G.Z. Schmidt, for Timeslip Tuesday

 

As readers of my blog know, I'm a sucker for good middle grade time travel, and No Ordinary Thing, by G.Z. Schmidt, was a very nice one indeed!

When his parents died when he was very young, Adam went to live with his uncle.  Life in the Biscuit Basket, his uncle's bakery, is (literally) sweet, but Adam is withdrawn (never talking at school unless he has to, and with no friends) and worried about his dying pet mouse.  Business is very bad indeed, and the bakery's future looks grim.

Then a stranger arrives, and greets Adam as if they know each other, pulling out a lovely snow globe in which is the cityscape of Manhattan.  He offers no explanations, just the  enigmatic words "great things are in store for you" and "Tonight, go up to the attic."  Adam does, and finds a snow globe of his own.  But there is nothing in it other than a layer of snow.

This soon changes, and when the cityscape appears in it, Adam is transported back in time to a winter's day in New York of the 1930s.  Other journeys await, falling within the years between the first journey and Adam's present of 1999, both within the city and to a smaller town some ways away. The people Adam meets are all connected to the time magic of the snow globe, and to two other talismans of time, one tied to the present, the other to the future...

Life for Adam is now full of mystery, danger from an enemy who wants the magic for his own greedy purposes, and snatched friendships in other times.  And with his adventures in time, his desire to fix things, not just for himself but for those he meets, grows.  But the gifts of time magic are tricky things....

So clearly I'm not going into lots of detail here.  Suffice to say--good characters, good mystery to be unraveled, lots of difficult choices, interesting visits to the past, and an a satisfying (though somewhat rushed) ending.  I especially liked Adam's connection to Victor, one of the homeless men in the nearby shelter where Adam takes unsold baked goods--Victor was once a mathematician, and I like his thoughts about time lots (Victor is also the hero of the final confrontation....).  The time travel is interesting--Adam never stays very long in any place or time, and his visits to the same places are sometimes out of chronological order.  I'm not quite sure why the snow globe took him when and where it did, but it all ties together (clever snow globe!).

If you love time travel stories that are centered on making meaningful connections across time, this is one you'll like lots!

note re diversity--Adam's mother was from China, and the author likewise was born in China but grew up in the US.

Glitch, by Laura Martin, for Timeslip Tuesday

 

I really enjoyed Glitch, by Laura Martin (Harper Collins, June 2020)--not only was there fun time travel, but it was also a school story with an enemies into friends twist, so it was right up my alley!

Regan and Elliot both have the gene that lets them time travel, and both are students at the Academy which trains kids like them to be Glitchers, going back in time on missions to keep history safe from interference by those who would alter what actually happened.  They don't have a choice about this--all kids with this gene are gathered in by the Academy as infants.  Regan's mom happens to be the director, but Elliot has no memories of his family.  

The two of them dislike each other lots--Elliot thinks Regan is a spoiled princess, and Regan thinks Elliot is a know-it-all jerk.  Neither is entirely wrong.  But fate throws them together when Regan finds a note left to her by someone from the future, and Elliot intercepts it.  It's a crypt note warning of things to come and things that must be done, and both kids are appalled to find themselves entangled in one of the very butterfly effects they are supposed to be working to stop.  

Not content with implicating the two kids in an illegal manipulation of time, fate throws another wrench in their lives.  Competing in a stimulated mission challenge, they unwittingly demonstrate that to the Academy staff that they make a great team.  And so, with no say in the matter, they are shipped off to an even more secret campus of the Academy to train together.  For the rest of their lives as Glitchers (which won't be that long, because time travel burns a person out, forcing adults to retire early), they will have to work together.

But to do that, they will have to figure out how to get along, and figure out the clues given them from the future in order to save the Academy and the Glitchers from a threat to its very existence by their enemies who want to change the past.

It beautifully vivid time travel to a variety of periods (mostly simulations sending them into pivotal moments of American history, like Gettysburg and Lincoln's assassination).  The task in each mission is to identify and foil the person trying to change the past.  Regan has almost preternatural intuition when it comes to identifying that person, and Elliot has a wealth of knowledge and a respect of the rules, so they do actually complement each other.  

The time travel is brisk and to the point; the kids can't interact with the past for fear of changing it themselves, so it's more a matter of observation, survival, and capturing the enemy.  There's enough consideration about the ethics of the whole set-up to give the Glitchers the moral high ground, while being thought provoking.   And it was a fun story in its own right, with the threat to the Academy giving the story dramatic forward progress while still leaving lots of room for the more personal story of Elliot and Regan figuring things out.

(there was only thing that bothered me--as an adult, I was rather distressed about kids being taken in as babies, and how little the Academy does to be a warm and nurturing place, which explains a lot about poor Elliot!)

But in any event, I would definitely read another book about the Glitchers!

(Elliot is described as dark-skinned, and shown on the cover thus, and so I'm counting this as one for more list of diverse middle grade sci fi/fantasy).

Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls, by Kaela Rivera

I find, as I get older, that there are fewer books that keep me reading past my bedtime.  So it's always a great treat when that happens, as it did most recently with Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls, by Kaela Rivera (middle grade, April 13th 2021, HarperCollins Children's Books).

Cece's home town of Tierra del Sol isn't very big--most people don't want to live on the edge of the desert that is home to deadly criaturas.  When her big sister, the fierce and fiery Juana, is stolen away by el Sombreron, one of the most feared of the dark criaturas, Cece blames herself (with some reason).  So she becomes determined to get her sister back from the stronghold of the dark beings out in the desert.  

The only way she can think of to do this is to become a bruja, one of the witches who have animal criaturas (beings who shapeshift between human-like and animal form) under their control, and then win the competition in which they pit their enslaved captives against each other.  This would win her the chance to enter the strong hold of the dark beings like el Sombreron.  It's a daunting proposition, as she doesn't have a criatura, or the heartlessness required to control one and make it battle to the death.  Fortunately, she has a compassionate heart.  And this is enough for the Coyote criatura to agree to help her.

Things snowball, and Cece is in way over her head, appalled by what the brujas are doing, and desperate to save her sister.  How can she, a girl with with no fire in her blood, like Juana, succeed?

It's an excellent story, with lots of adventure (kids who love reading about fantastical competitions will love the fights between the criaturas) The dangers are real, and have a more complicated backstory than Cece had realized.  Those who like rich world building will find it entrancing to watch her understanding of the history of her world broadening.   There's lots of heart here as well.  Cece's innate goodness is what lets her succeed, and her found family of not just Coyote but other criaturas as well is utterly charming.  That being said, she's not at all sappily good; she's scared, determined, and fiercely using every big of agency at her control.  She's also dealing with tension within her family; her father's grief and worry has manifested as abuse toward her, the less valued daughter.

The criaturas are drawn from Mexican-American stories, and the sort of reader who loves Rick Riordan-esque books with their wealth of mythological background should be very taken with the mythology of Cece's world!  I certainly was, and I will most definitely be looking out for more by Kaela Rivera (a sequel, for instance, would be nice--although Cece's story stands alone, I'd like to spend more time with her and her criatura friends!

(Here's my one small niggling doubt that was not germane to my reading enjoyment, but which I was bothered by--what with all the battling to the death, the brujas seem to be burning through the criaturas pretty fast, and this morally reprehensible practice doesn't seem to be isn't sustainable.  Unless of course more are somehow being generated....)

Last Gate of the Emperor, by Kwame Mbalia and Prince Joel Makonnen

A mythical Ethiopian empire in space....a deadly enemy that has almost defeated it...a boy who might be its last hope...this is what you will find in Last Gate of the Emperor, by Kwame Mbalia and Prince Joel Makonnen (middle grade, May 4th 2021, Scholastic).

Yared and his uncle have moved around the city of Addis Prime more often than he really remembers, never with enough money to live comfortably, and so his life has been a little lonely--his only friend is a mechanical lioness, Besa, with no head for heights.  Addis Prime has a lot of rules, and lots of drones to enforce them, but it also has, for Yared, a great redeeming feature--a fantastical, and illicit, augmented reality game-- The Hunt for Kaleb's Obelisk.  If he can win the next big game, and his chances are good, he'll get enough money to pay his school bills...

But the rules of this game are different.  He has to use his real name for the first time, and instead of playing solo, everyone has to have a partner.  Yared is not happy to be paired with his greatest rival, a girl known as the Ibis...how can he beat her if he has to join her?   

These concerns, though, soon fade to total insignificance when the city is attacked.  Yared's uncle has told him countless stories of a fearsome monster created for a rebellion against the ancient ruling power at the center of the galaxy.  Now that monster, and the enemy forces commanding it, have disrupted his game...and his life.

Yared's old life was based on a lie, and now he must frantically try to find out the truth of who his enemies are, and what role he's destined for in this war that has come to his city.  Together with the Ibis, who's thrown her lot in with him, and with his faithful lion guardian, he journeys to the heart of the old empire, and then back to his city, to save it.

It's a wild and wonderful great game of a setting; a vibrant chaos of extraordinary technology and fearsome foes.  Lots of touches of Ethiopian culture (including tasty food) add to the rich sensory wealth of this world.  Those who love stories that propel them from one excitement to the next will enjoy it lots.   Kids who love game battles will be hooked especially quickly!  (I myself loved how the obelisk hunting game actually was designed with a purpose).

For the first two thirds of the book, though, I felt somewhat disconnected from the story.  Partly this was because Yared had been thrown into a cataclysmic situation, and had little agency to shape the course of events, and neither he, nor the reader (me) fully understood what was happening.  

On top of that (which is simply a reading preference, and not a critique of the book), I was somewhat disappointed with the character side of things.  Yared is, rather understandably, living moment to moment, and doesn't have much time to reflect on things, (and one gets the sense that he a sort of sass and smart answer kid of kid in any event, not given to introspection), and being on the run there were few quiet bits to the story that could have shows the reader more depth of personality.    Fortunately, the final third of the book was great on all counts, and Yared really comes into his own as both hero and person.

My disappointment with the Ibis, however, was never quite dispelled.  She is pretty much a stereotype of the kick-ass girl, a fine stereotype, but not enough to make her a person to care much about.  She says very little, and we never even learn her name.  

But though it wasn't the perfect book for me,  I'm absolutely certain there are plenty of young readers who will love it for the high tech adventures and unlikely and indefatigable young hero!  It's a stand-alone story, though there's set up at the end for more adventure...

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

It Doesn't Take a Genius, by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich (middle grade, April 13th 2021, Six Foot Press), is a great read for anyone who loves stories of kids figuring out who they are.  It makes it even more must-read-y (in my opinion at least) that it's set a tremendously interesting camp (established years ago for the purpose of enriching the lives of Black kids), full of super gifted kids, and that it's both a celebration of, and exploration of, what it means to be a smart/nerdy/talented Black kid in today's world. 

Emmett has always known that his super cool big brother, Luke, was there for him, and now that's Luke's off to boarding school on an art scholarship for his last year of high school, Emmett is sure that he and Luke will at least get one tremendous summer together, even though Luke won't be around to watch out for him at school anymore.  But then Luke gets himself a job as a junior councilor at Camp DuBois, off in rural New York state, and Emmett is crushed.

But soon he's hatched a plan to get his summer with Luke back--he sends in an application to the camp, and amazingly he's accepted with a scholarship!  His mother is furious that he went behind her back like this, but still it's a great opportunity for him (and for her, a widowed mother studying for medical school, it will be a welcome chance to focus)....and so Emmett gets to go.

Emmett has always known he's pretty darn smart; he's got a long list of academic achievements and debate club wins. The kids at Camp DuBois, though, have taken achievement up several more notches, and Emmett quickly feels utterly inadequate.  Luke wants nothing to do with him, and indeed, his job responsibilities don't leave him time for giving his little brother special attention.  But almost despite himself, Emmett makes friends, discovers his talent for dance is greater than he thought, and starts to grow up.  

He also learns tons about famous Black people, the cultures of the African Diaspora, and is forced, as part of the planned curriculum of the camp, to think hard and seriously about what it means to be Black (though the book doesn't include specifics of current events).  The way all this information was presented will especially appeal to smart kids who like to know things--I bet, based on my own reaction, that they will feel, like the kids at camp, appreciation and interest, rather than a feeling of being lectured to.

My one regret is that Emmett's time at camp is such a whirl of experiences and learning and food and fellow campers and movie making and dance practice and the disaster of swimming lessons etc. that there's no down time for either him, or the reader, to take a break to think and process.  Though a lot of the goings-on are presented in a light-hearted, even humorous, way, Emmett could have used more thinking and processing.  He is rather selfish and thoughtless at times, and even does something really cruel.  Though this is believable, it was disappointing, but Emmett's welcome growth by the end of the book mostly makes up for it.  

Apart from that reservation, I just turned the pages quickly, learning and enjoying this extravaganza of Black excellence alongside the campers!  

(This was written as a sequel to the movie, Boy Genius, which I have not seen, and so I can't speak to how it works as such).

(review of ARC provided by the book's publicist)

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents, by Roopa Raveendran-Menon, for Timeslip Tuesday

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents, by Roopa Raveendran-Menon (middle grade, Regal House Publishing, Feb. 5, 2021), is the 450th book I've reviewed for Timeslip Tuesday.  In the course of reading lots and lots of time travel books, I've generally thought of them falling into two main camps--Time Travel tourism/education, in which the time travel experience serves to teach lessons about past or about life, and Time Travel for profit, which is mostly heists of things from the past and future.   There are other smaller camps, like Time Travel to right old wrongs, and then there a very small sub-category, of Time Travel that doesn't actually drive plot or characters in any way on its own, but enables it (or small bits of it, like Hermione's Time Turner....).   There might be more of these than I'm aware off, because they don't get catalogued as "time travel," but I count them for my own purposes, which is to have a book to write about on (most) Tuesdays!

So in any event, Chandu and the Super Set of Parents is a book in which a time travel device is a key mechanism in the story; it's also, and more importantly, a whacky adventure full of wild imaginings and vivid descriptions.

Chandu is fed up with his parents' expectations and hopes for him--his engineer father expects him to be a great mathematician and engineer, and his mother hopes he'll just be safely ordinary.  Chandu doesn't exactly know what he wants himself, but neither of the two parental options appeal.  When he does well, but not well enough, on a math exam, the threat of a boarding school even stricter and more demanding than his current school looms--and both his father's pick and his mother's are equally dreadful.  

That night, sore at heart and feeling unloved, he sneaks out of the house, and finds himself lost on a forest path he's never seen before.  It leads him to The Exchange Your Parents Shop, and the strange proprietor offers him the opportunity to enroll in the Happily Ever After Program, that finds kids their perfect parent.  And so Chandu sets out to spend a day and a night with a series of utterly extraordinary parents.

(This is where the time travel comes in--he takes with him a device that resets time after each visit, with no time passing in his own life....)

Traveling by elephant, peacock, hot air balloon, and tiger, Chandu is taken from one set of parents to the next. He gets to be (briefly) the child of math geniuses, movie superstars, famous athlete, extraordinary crafters, and parents who are utterly obedient to his every whim. All the parents are over-the-top extremists-- entertainingly, and rather horrifically, so--and in the end, he realizes that he prefers his own parents after all.

It's a bit slow to get going, mainly because it doesn't focus on Chandu's point of view for the first few chapters. But once he starts visiting parents, it becomes lots of fun! There's tons of vivid description, not just of the parents and their peculiar set-ups and expectations, but of more mundane things, like food--delicious Indian food appears throughout!

Chandu does get the chance at each visit to realize that he has his own particular strengths and interests, and returns to ordinary life with more confidence. He also returns to parents who act a lot more supportively than they did at the beginning of the book, when they really were awful (so much so that I couldn't quite believe they were so decent at the end).

Not quite to my own personal taste, though I did enjoy the various parents, but is one I can recommend  as a read-aloud for an elementary school aged kid (the first few chapters, in particular, I think, would be more likely to hook a young reader if read out loud to them).

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Root Magic, by Eden Royce

Root Magic, by Eden Royce (Walden Pond, January 2021), is a must-read middle grade fantasy book of 2021! It's a gripping mix of historical fiction (1963 South Carolina), magic that's a part of the author's culture, and family joy (mixed with sorrow and worry).  But what it is most of all is the story of a girl growing up, realizing her power and recognizing where where it comes from and the responsibilities it brings.

Jez and her twin brother, Jay, have had a mostly happy childhood, playing in the marshes and fields around their home in the Carolina low country. But just before they turn 11, their beloved grandmother dies. She was a cornerstone of the Gullah Geechee community, a practitioner of Root Magic that had been passed down from ancestors captured in Africa. The kids' uncle, Doc, is also a practitioner, and begins to teach Jez and Jay.

Rootwork has protected Jez's community for generations, and she's excited to be part of it. They need protection as much as they ever have--the Sheriff's deputy is a nasty piece of work, terrorizing her family. Jez has a great gift for Root, but will it be enough to keep her family safe?

Throw in some ghosts, a witch, some red wolves (in true fairytale fashion, Jez saves a trapped wolf, who later helps her when she needs it most), and then add more ordinary school troubles (Jez is the target of mean girls, and this is the first year she's every made a good school friend, a friendship that brings its own complications), and some sibling tension (Jay is not as skilled at Root or at school as Jez, and worries he's being left behind, while Jez in turn feels he's turning away from family in favor of friends) and you have a great book!

Jez is a great character, sad and anxious at times, but full of joy at others. Though there is trauma and tension, her family is warm and loving, and those who are tired of dead or absent mothers will love Jez's mother! Her father is missing, and the kids don't know what became of him, and this small piece of the plot comes in at the end, part of the closure after the nasty Deputy comes to terrorize the family one last time.

The idea of a kid learning her family's magic is a solid middle grade fantasy plotline, but this is not ordinary fantasy. Eden Royce drew on her family's tradition of Rootwork, and their experiences in the 1960s, in writing the story, and though some things read as fantastical fantasy (like the witch), mostly this reads as real world magic, and her writing makes it all come to vivid life.


A lovely book! (for what it is worth, Kirkus agrees with me...which isn't always the case....)

Flood City, by Daniel José Older

Flood City, by Daniel José Older (Scholastic, middle grade, February 2, 2021), is a wild, and (I say this after much careful consideration) rambunctious science fi fantasy that entertained me greatly!

Flood City is the last bastion of humanity on Earth.  Epic floods have covered all of the planet except for this raggedy conglomeration mostly made up of old buildings.  Off in space are the Chemical Barons, a powerful force (responsible for the floods in the first place) that wants to return to Earth by taking over Flood City.  The intergalactic Star Guard is protecting, and feeding, the Flood City folk, but it's the sort of protection that's essentially a totalitarian government (and the food tastes like wet towels).  The Chemical Barons are white, the Flood City folk various shades of brown.

Max's Mom was a kid when the floods hit, on a school trip in space.  But the flooded ruins are all Max has ever known.  He and his big sister know all its nooks and cranies, except for the parts where no one ventures (the electric ghost graveyard, and the ocean liner that's home to the mysterious Vapors).  Ato, a young Chemical Baron who's part of what's ostensibly an information gathering mission to Flood City, has only known life in space.

When Ato finds there's a nuclear warhead on board his ship, ready to be dropped on Flood City, he can't stand the thought of the resulting death and destruction, and sabotages the mission.  Surviving the crash landing, he's found by Max, and the two boys form an alliance to keep the other surviving Chemical Barons and their increasingly crazed leader from recovering, and using, the warhead.  Joining them is the daughter of the city's holographer, Djinna, who's mad drumming skills are matched by her technical abilities.  Yala, meanwhile, has joined the Star Gaurd, and is off in space, struggling to survive the hostile environment of her training (human recruits are not treated well at all).

And, skipping to the end,  the four kids (with some help from grownups and a friendly alien) save the day after much action and adventure and tension! The reign of the Star Guard is ended, the Chemical Barons are foiled (for the moment....)

I must confess I was confused as heck at first.  And I will further confess that there are lots of things that aren't explained (like the one magical bird that can carry messages from Earth to Space).  But when I realized that this wasn't a straight up sci fi future environmental apocalypse story, but rather a zesty mix of sci fi and fantasy of the rollicking sort, I relaxed and went along for the ride.  There are magical things alongside jet propulsion boots and space travel, and the reader must just nod in agreement.  I was nodding my head off by the end of the book, because of enjoying it so much!  (Although when I reached the end, I wanted very much to have someone else on hand who had also reached the end to talk too; I still have several "but what about xyz" sort of questions.....).

So there's a lot that's strange, but also a lot that's relatable even for kids living mundane lives, such as Max's crush on Djinna and his desire to break free of the boring sameness of music as proscribed by Star Guard (he's a trumpet player).  Seeing Ato and Max being able to work together after being on different sides, and Ato being able to rethink the stories he's grown up with, is also applicable to our own lives.

My personal favorite part of the book was the regular inclusion of the daily Flood City Gazette.  Though this Star Guard publication annoys the citizens (one of the first things they do when Star Guard pulls out, leaving them (maybe) to starve to death, is figure out how to get rid of the caps lock in which it is printed), I loved it, and always looked forward to the "Iguangull Ahoy!" section in particular. It amused me very much. (Yes there are iguana/gull hybrids with savage beaks and claws that can cut through metal flying around... ).

Strongly recommended to readers who have a tolerance for the somewhat complicated peculiar! (Star Wars fans, for instance, might well enjoy it lots).  That being said, this isn't how I think of myself, and yet I enjoyed it lots....so who knows?

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

Amari and the Night Brothers, by B.B. Alston

Happy release day eve to Amari and the Night Brothers, by B.B. Alston (Jan 19, 2020)! It's the start of a middle grade fantasy series that might well become the childhood defining magical reading for current 9 -12 year olds (there's already a movie in development).

When we meet Amari, her scholarship at a snooty private school is about to be taken away, after she snapped when, not for the first time, a classmate was an elitist, racist piece of work. Amari and her mom live in subsidized housing, but Amari knows that doesn't define her. After all, her big brother Quinton was wildly successful in school, and could have gone to an Ivy League college. He didn't though; instead he got a mysterious job and then disappeared without a trace. Amari refuses to believe he won't come home again. And so she's grounded, depressed, and sad about letting her hardworking mother down, and angry about it all.

Then there's a mysterious delivery of a message from Quinton himself, of the best fantasy sort, that sends Amari off to the same "leadership camp" Quinton went to a few years back. And again it is the best fantasy sort of summer camp--a training ground for magical youth, who will as adults be tasked with keeping ordinary humans safe from magical entities, working for the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Quinton ended up being one of the most famous agent of them all, and Amari is sure that the Bureau knows a lot more than they are telling her about what happened to him. But in order to stay at the Bureau's school long enough to find the truth, she'll have to prove her magical worth.

Most of the other kids are legacies, raised with privilege by families associated with the Bureau, so Amari's at a disadvantage. And many of the kids are just as nastily elitist as her old antagonists. Fortunately, her room-mate, a technologically brilliant were-dragon girl (nice STEM focused girl rep!), is a lovely and loyal friend, and one of the most golden boys of them all extends his friendship and support.

Amari needs all the support she can get when it turns out that she is one of the rare people born with a forbidden level of magic. She knows she's not a threat, but many in power at the Bureau, and many of the kids, aren't convinced. Especially since there is a real threat, one that is growing dangerously close to toppling the Bureau and destroying the détente between humans and magical beings....And since Quinton's disappearance is linked to this threat, Amari's search for answers puts her very deep in harms way....

There's obviously a familiar pattern here--kid with difficulties in the real world turns out to be magically special, goes to a magic school that is flamboyantly full of wonders, is faced with a series of trials that have to be passed, makes friends and enemies with the other kids and confronts evil in a way that leaves room for more books.   It's a type of story I like, and B. B. Alston does a great job making this version of it entertaining and amusing and fascinating, with lots of the small quirky details. And so just at this level it was a book I enjoyed very much.

Three things make this rise to the top of this particular sub-genre in my mind. The first is that Amari's primary motivation isn't to be best or most heroic (having grown up in the shadow of a brilliant older sibling, she's in the habit of selling herself short). Instead, she is focused on finding her brother, which gives the story a nice touch of emotional weight, while also adding mystery to the mix. 

The second is that the book includes contemporary social issues of racism and discrimination, and how these effect kids.  Not in a preachy way, but as a matter of fact. For instance, Amari is frustrated by how little effort has been made by law enforcement to find Quinton--because he's a young black man who sends home money but has no documented job, the authorities are comfortable assuming the worst about him and writing him off.

But of course, on a happier note, the main thing that sets this apart is black girl magic, plain and simple--a black girl being the best and most magical of them all for the first time (I'm pretty sure it's the first time) in this sort of middle grade fantasy. I can't wait for the next book!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Hide and Seeker, by Daka Hermon

If you are on the look out for middle grade (9-12 year olds) horror, do not miss Hide and Seeker, by Daka Hermon (Scholastic, September 2020)!  It's a page-turner full of scary.

Justin's best friend, Zee, disappeared just a week after Justin's very much loved mom died. Now a year later, Zee is back...but is not himself.  Something horrible happened to him, and he can't slot nicely back into Justin's circle of best friends (he can't even talk coherently, and his mother locks him in his room when she must leave him so he doesn't go on destructive rampages).  But regardless, his mother is throwing him a welcome back party.

As well as Justin and the two other members of the former foursome, Nia and Lyric, a couple of other neighborhood kids show up.  Zee's unable to hang out like he used to, so it's pretty depressing.  Lacking anything better to do, the kids start a game of hide and seek, but quit before it's finished.  And this seemingly harmless choice dooms them.

Because the Seeker comes for any kid who breaks the rules of the game....just like he came for Zee last year.

One by one, the kids are sucked into an evil other world, Nowhere.  Justin is the last to go, and therefore the most prepared.  He's determined to save his friends, and they have more information about the Seeker (from both Zee's incoherent snatches of rhyme and from another former victim who made it out) than most kids who are taken.  But will the camping supplies he's packed actually help against a being who makes your worst fears come true, feeding off your fear to become ever stronger?*

Nowhere is home to several hundred kids, some captured almost a century ago.  They live in constant fear, hiding from the Seeker, because at any moment whatever they are most afraid of can become real.  One girl, Mary, for instance, is constantly made to relive the horror and physical pain of being trapped in an old well with hungry rats--she is hunted by rat-snake hybrids.  Other kids are burned, stung by swarms of insects, and struck by lightning.  Some have internal fears that come true, over and over; Justin is plagued by his dead mother, a ghastly facsimile who torments him, Lyric becomes unable to find his friends, and is invisible to them, and Nia, who delights in her encyclopedic knowledge, starts to forget everything, like her grandmother has. 

Justin finds his friends, and they resolve to somehow escape the Seeker's horrible game.   Since this is a kid's book, of course they do, by being smart and working together.

After just a few chapters, it was unputdownable, and I can see this delighting its target audience lots and lots!   I myself prefer more creeping psychological horror to in your face worst fears come true, and I would have appreciated more depth to the Seeker's story, but still I was totally gripped.   I appreciated that the kids aren't little privileged white saviors--all but one of the four main kids is black, and there's a touch of racial profiling by the police, Lyric (the one white kid) has a father in jail, and Justin and his big sister are in pretty desperate financial straights.  I also appreciated what a good kid Justin is; he's being going through a horrible time even before the nightmare begins, but he's still able to look after others. 

In short, definitely offer this one to a kid who wants a terrifying trip to a hellscape of nightmares!  And when they've finished it, and are maybe ready to move past middle grade books, offer them The Call, by  Peadar Ó Guilín, which has a similar vibe.

*the camping supplies, and Lyric's more idiosyncratic packing choices (which include silly string) do indeed come in useful.