June 1 releases of childrens/YA science fiction/fantasy

Taken from Teens Read Too, with help from Amazon.

9-12 year olds:

The Red House (The Haunting of Derek Stone, Book 3), by Tony Abbott. “Derek didn't ask for this. It's bad enough that his brother's body is hosting a dead soul. Then there's that whole business of the evil dead waging war. And don't even get him started on all the weird voices rattling around inside his head. But like it or not, the war is on. The Legion is back in full force, and they're heading for the mysterious, long-abandoned Red House. It holds a secret that could change everything. Derek doesn't know what they're after --- but he knows he has to find it first. “

Deltora Shadowlands: The Complete Series, by Emily Rodda. "The Shadow Lord's evil tyranny over Deltora has ended. He and the creatures of his sorcery have been driven back across the mountains. But thousands of Deltorans are still enslaved in the Shadowlands. To rescue their friends and families, Lief, Barda, and Jasmine, heroes of the quest for the Belt of Deltora, must find a weapon powerful enough to combat the Shadow Lord's magic on his own ground. For the first time, all three books in this follow-up to the bestselling Deltora Quest fantasy series are brought together in one action-packed hardcover volume."

The Entomological Tales of Augustus T. Percival, by Dene Low. I’m not sure if this is, strictly speaking, fantasy, but it sounds like fun! “You would think Petronella’s sixteenth birthday would be cause for celebration. After all, fashionable friends are arriving at her country estate near London, teas are being served, and her coming out party promises to be a resplendent affair. Everything is falling nicely into place, until, suddenly—it isn’t. For Petronella discovers that her guardian, Uncle Augustus T. Percival, has developed a most unVictorian compulsion: He must eat bugs. Worse still, because he is her guardian, Uncle Augustus is to attend her soiree and his current state will most definitely be an embarrassment.During the festivities, when Petronella would much rather be sharing pleasantries with handsome Lord James Sinclair (swoon), important guests are disappearing, kidnapping notes are appearing, many of the clues are insects, and Uncle Augustus is surreptitiously devouring evidence. It’s more than one sixteen-year-old girl should have to deal with. But, truth be told, there is far more yet to come . . .”

I want this one! Here are two reviews (at Bookends and The Happy Nappy Bookseller) that makes me want it more!

Mugglenet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died: Controversial Views from the #1 Fan Site, by Emerson Spartz & Ben Schoen.




YA:

Girl #3, by Nichole McGill "From the outside, 14-year-old Syd Johanssen seems like a typical teenage girl — busy delivering newspapers, training with her high school track team, and hanging out with her friends. Under the surface, though, things aren’t what they seem. Her family life leaves a lot to be desired: her workaholic mom turns up her nose at Syd’s offbeat tastes, and she hasn’t seen her dad in months. Even more troubling, Syd can’t shake her fascination with the highly publicized kidnappings and murders of two local girls. Her friends think she’s nuts to obsess over such a morbid subject, and Syd’s afraid to tell them she’s started having visions of the murdered girls. Syd’s obsession turns to terrifying reality when she realizes she’s being stalked on her paper route. Tense and fast-paced, Girl #3 is a vivid portrayal of the dangers girls have to watch out for, and how, in the darkest of hours, a friend can be found in the most unlikely of places."

Mind Rain: Your Favorite Authors on Scott Westerfeld's Uglies Series, edited by Scott Westerfeld. My review coming soon!






Sea Change, by Aimee Friedman. "16-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science...and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she's happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother's estate. There, Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can't make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew about boys, friendship...and reality. Is Leo hiding something? Or is he something that she never could have imagined?”

Gosh, perhaps the name of the island is a subtle clue.

The Secret of the Dread Forest: The Faire Folk Trilogy Book 3, by Gillian Summers. "In the third book of the popular and critically acclaimed Faire Folk Trilogy, sixteen-year-old Keelie Heartwood reluctantly joins her father in the Dread Forest, home to the elves and her fearsome elf grandmother. Keelie's budding romance with Sean is dashed, her "real" friends are gone, and her dad is preoccupied with the responsibilities of being Lord of the Forest. Except for her impossible guardian cat Knot, and Alora, a demanding and bratty little princess tree, Keelie has no one to hang with—unless you count the nasty elf-girl Elia, who suddenly wants to be Keelie's friend (or frenemy). Then Keelie discovers a mysterious boy in the woods...Both humans and dark magical forces encroach on the elves' enchanted realm, threatening to destroy the Dread Forest and all who dwell within it. Meanwhile, an age-old rift within her family and among the elven community reaches a dangerous climax."


Note:
WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON by Grace Lin, originally scheduled for release today, has been pushed back to July 1…my review will be coming soon!

Misc Things

Here's a link to an article from the Mormon Times, to an article about three excellent writers of fantasy.

This weekend is the 48 Hour Book Challenge, the amazing event that Mother Reader puts on every year!

And I got an award from the wonderful Melissa of Book Nut:


It's for "energizing and inspiring readers."

And I'm very happy to pass in on to Tasha at Kids Lit, and all the folks at I.N.K. (Interesting Non-fiction for Kids), both of whom energize and inspire me!

Any chance you could help make me, and my mother, and my husband, and my friend Els very happy?

FINAL UPDATE: The winner is San, who is thirteen years old and a moderator on the Hunger Games Unofficial Forum, and so is an excellent person to have won! Congratulations San!

If you by any chance feel that you could do a small thing that would make me and my mother and my husband and Els, aka Librarian Mom, very happy, maybe you could go leave a comment on this post at LibrarYAn (saying I sent you) and help us get an ARC of Catching Fire to read? If you haven't read it yourself, and want to, we can add you to the mailing list should I win...It ends at midnight on June 1st, which seems to mean in six hours....

LibraYAn has been on my blogroll for ages, by the way, and I enjoy reading what she has to say. So do take a moment to check out her blog!

Update at 7:56: I am two comments behind.

Update at 8:41: Aerin has just let me know there's another copy being given away by Reviewer X. A third party is now in the running. I am behind by one.

Update at 9:35: it is too close to call. But I have called my mother. This should help.

And even if I don't win, THANKS to all of you who helped my cause! You are the best.

Update at 6:16 am, Monday: Well, in the last few hours it turned into a contest between the two other people, essentially to see which of them was tied into a larger social network. So, although I didn't read and count all 432 comments, I'm pretty certain I didn't win....Oh well. I think I'm the winner in the sense that Alicia meant--sending most potential new readers her way! And it was very comforting to see readers of this blog going over and commenting for me. Thank you again! If I ever were to get my hands on an arc, I'd lend it to all of you.

Magic Keepers, Book 1: The Eternal Hourglass

Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass, by Erica Kirov (Sourcebooks-Jabberwocky, 2009, middle grade, 231pp).

Maybe you've read a few books already that tell of a boy, who, just as a significant birthday happens, discovers he is part of a magical clan who is entrusted with great powers that the dark side wants, and maybe you think that plot has been done to death. But I was quite impressed with the fresh life that Kirov has brought to it in her page-turning story.

In this case, the boy is Nick Rostov, who's spent his life living with his third (or even fourth)-rate magician father in crummy hotels in Las Vegas. On his thirteenth birthday, he discovers he is part of a great family of Russian magic keepers, disguising themselves in plain sight as the greatest performing magicians Las Vegas has ever known. He is whisked away from his father, and, ensconced in a hotel full of Russian cousins he's never heard of, he begins to learn real magic. He also begins to learn, in a much more immediate way than he would have liked, that as well as the Magic Keepers, charged with finding and protecting great talismans of power, that there are Shadow Keepers as well. Led by the insane Russian monk Rasputin, the Shadow Keepers are determined to take from Nick the magic of the Eternal Hourglass that his mother died to protect. Except that Nick has no clue what the hourglass is...

With her world of Russian magicians and Las Vagas magic shows, untamed horses and polar bears (it's a big hotel), crystal balls, and flashbacks to the life of Houdini, Kirov makes a fresh and fun story of Nick's introduction to his magical heritage. It's a fast-paced and detailed adventure, that I imagine will be enjoyed by many middle-grade readers.

But not, exactly, by everyone. Perhaps caught up by her interest and involvement with setting and story, Kirov doesn't quite develop her characters into people with whom one can empathize. Nick is not in the least an introspective, thoughtful character, and this kept me from truly enjoying the story. Why, for instance, doesn't he stop to think at all about his father, left behind in his crummy hotel? He misses pizza, but not his dad, and this seemed rather sad and inexplicable to me.

In short, a bright, entertaining book, which I think would be a great summer pick for a middle school kid (perhaps more boy appeal than girl), whose sequel I will happily read. But not one that I quite took to my heart.

Here's an interview with Erica Kirov at The Enchanted Inkpot, and here are some other reviews: Eva's Book Addiction, Cafe of Dreams, Booking Mama, The Reading Tub, The Written World, Joe Barone's Blog, and YA Books Central.

The best ghost post ever at Jenny's Wonderland of Books

I am mucking around in photoshop all day today, getting my images in order for a paper I'm giving this weekend (waves sadly to those people who didn't have papers to give and who got to go to BEA).

So I'm not posting today myself.

But, if you are looking for something really good to read, here is the best blog post ever about ghosts in children's books, at Jenny's Wonderland of Books!

No-one has ever seen ghosts at the site I'm going to be talking about, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's a 17th-century Native American fortified settlement, that was made into a monument to the Narragansett Tribe when the state decided to declare the tribe "extinct" in the 1880s.

The Treasures of Weatherby, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Isn't it nice when you go to your local library, where you've been a hundred times before, and happen across books that you really want to read, that suddenly poke their spines out at you? This happened to me last week, when I found The Treasures of Weatherby, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder* (2007, Atheneum Books, 213pp, middle grade).

It promised an old, enormous house, with an overgrown garden (I'm a sucker for overgrown gardens), and lost treasure, where a lonely boy (Harleigh J. Weatherby IV) wanders at loose ends among eccentric relatives until one day a girl flies over the wall...

Well, Allegra doesn't actually fly, in the fantastical sense of the word. But her fascination with Harleigh's extraordinarily huge and ornate house, and the thought of the lost family treasure, awaken a like interest in his mind. The only problem is that his great-aunt Adelaide has forbidden any of the relatives to ever have visitors. This does not deter Allegra, who, Harleigh is somewhat dismayed to find, will stop at nothing to enter the house.

Before Allegra, Harleigh's life was pretty empty. His heart condition had stunted his growth, and he was tormented at pubic school as a result. Homeschooled by an elderly uncle, neglected by his globe trotting father, he wandered the huge house like a disinterested ghost. Allegra's enthusiasm for both the house and its inhabitants, however, is contagious, and soon the two children are racing to solve the mystery of the family treasure before a sinister, metal-detecting cousin can get his hands on it.

It's a satisfying story, interesting in its plot, characters, and setting. Hareligh's evolution from self-centered withdrawal to engaged awareness is very satisfying, and the mysteries of both the treasure and Allegra's identity keep the pages turning at a brisk pace. A good one, perhaps, for the kid who loved the A-Z mysteries last year and now has the confidence to tackle weightier stuff. Which is to say, I'll be giving this one to my oldest next year, when he's in fourth grade.

(I thought, at first, that the jacket of the book said "illustrated by Lemony Snicket." Checking more carefully, after failing to find any pictures inside, I see that it actually reads: "Loathed by Lemony Snicket." I am not quite sure what to make of this).

Exciting News for Snyder Fans: Three of her early books, The Velvet Room, The Changeling, and Black and Blue Magic, are back in print. So is her science fiction trilogy, which I highly recommend- Below the Root, And All Between, and Until the Celebration.

My Rathersting Warriors

My boys have joined the clan of Rathersting Warriors! Laini Taylor sent us these tattoos to celebrate the upcoming release of Silksinger, the second book of her Dreamdark series that began with Blackbringer (now out in paperback).

My older son represents Blackbringer (he chose first). My younger son has Silksinger (or, as he calls it, Silkstinger). They took their characterization as Fairy Warriors very seriously (until they cracked themselves up).

May 26 releases of science fiction and fantasy books for kids and teens

A rather nice day.

My information comes from the list at Teens Read Too; blurbs are from Amazon unless otherwise mentioned.

For 9-12 year olds:

Any Which Wall, by Laurel Snyder. Here's what I said in my review: "Henry and his little sister Emma, Henry's best friend Roy and his big sister Susan (who has to "look after" the others) are not particularly looking forward to a long, hot, Iowa summer. Then they find the Wall, a wall in the middle of a cornfield, a wall that isn't walling anything...a wall that is magic, and will take them to any other wall that ever might have been. Wizards, pirates, outlaws, a lovable, and enormous dog who needs a home, and more, await them, in a splendiferously fun journey through time and space in the best Edward Eager tradition of great characterization, brisk writing, and snappy dialogue among the children."

The Deep, by Helen Dunmore. "Sapphire lives in two worlds. On land she walks the rocky shores of the Cornwall coast—but under the sea she can swim like a seal by the side of her Mer friend Faro. Now both of Sapphy's worlds are threatened. In the profound depths of the ocean, where the Mer cannot go, a monster called the Kraken is stirring. He has the power to sweep Ingo away and shake the land from its foundation."


The Dragon Diary: Dragonology Chronicles Volume 2 (Ologies), by Dugald A. Steer. "Fresh from recovering the Dragon’s Eye, apprentice dragonologists Daniel and Beatrice Cook eagerly await the hatching of the dragon’s egg in their care. But just as the shell begins to crack, their mentor, Dr. Ernest Drake, is called off to India to look for their missing parents and tend to the gravely ill naga dragons they’ve left behind. Meanwhile, the siblings receive a tip that the secret to curing dragons may lie in an age-old Dragon Diary, if only they could decipher it!"

Oracles of Delphi Keep, by Victoria Laurie. "Along the southern coast of England, atop the White Cliffs of Dover, stands a castle. And at that castle’s old keep is an orphanage. Delphi Keep has seen many youngsters come and go through its gates, and Ian Wigby and his sister, Theodosia, are happy to call it home. Life has always been simple at the Keep, and the orphanage safe, until one day, Ian and Theo find a silver treasure box. And within the box, a prophesy."


The Warlock Diaries vol. 1 (Avalon: Web of Magic), by Rachel Roberts. A manga adaptation of the Web of Magic novels. "Teenage mages, Emily, Kara, and Adriane have their hands full monitoring the portal at the Ravenswood Preserve. The portal has become the "Grand Central Station" of the Magic Web, with magical creatures and animals stopping by on their way to otherworldly destinations. But matters become really complicated when a new student, a handsome young warlock named Donovan, shows up at Stonehill High. When monsters start attacking Ravenswood looking for Donovan, the mages realize he may be trouble. But Donovan shows them what he has brought, a fairy map with the portal sequence that will lead the mages right to Avalon, the source of all magic."

YA:

The Twilight Zone: Deaths-Head Revisited, by Rod Stirling and Mark Kneece, illustrated by Chris Lie. "[This] entry in the Twilight Zone series of graphic novels follows former SS captain Gunther Lutze as he returns to Dachau to visit the concentration camp where he murdered hundreds decades earlier. He is soon met with the ghosts of the persecuted, who try him for his crimes."

And another Twilight Zone graphic novel, The Twilight Zone: The Midnight Sun (Rod Serling's the Twilight Zone).

Gorgeous, by Rachel Vail. "...when the devil shows up and offers to make her gorgeous, Allison jumps at the chance to finally get noticed. But there's one tiny catch, and it's not her soul: The devil wants her cell phone. Though her deal with the devil seems like a good idea at the time, Allison soon realizes that being gorgeous isn't as easy as it looks. Are her new friends and boyfriend for real, or do they just like her pretty face? Allison can't trust anyone anymore, and her possessed phone and her family's financial crisis aren't making things any easier. Plus, when she finds out that she might be America's next teen model, all hell breaks loose. Allison may be losing control, but how far is she willing to go to stay gorgeous forever?" Sequel to Lucky.

Hunger: A Gone Novel, by Michael Grant. "It's been three months since everyone under the age of fifteen became trapped in the bubble known as the FAYZ. Three months since all the adults disappeared. Gone. Food ran out weeks ago. Everyone is starving, but no one wants to figure out a solution. And each day, more and more kids are evolving, developing supernatural abilities that set them apart from the kids without powers....But a larger problem looms. The Darkness, a sinister creature that has lived buried deep in the hills, begins calling to some of the teens in the FAYZ. Calling to them, guiding them, manipulating them."

Jennifer's Body, by Audrey Nixon "...after that night in the woods, Jennifer was different. She looked different. And then the killings began. . . .A lot of people ask me if I'm sorry I did it. I'm only sorry I didn't do it sooner." Jennifer has been possessed. Based on the screenplay of the movie by the same name.

Killer Pizza, by Greg Taylor. "Learning to cook pizzas is one thing, but killing hideously terrifying monsters? That’s a whole other story. Still, if Toby quits Killer Pizza, will monsters take over his town?"

Once Dead, Twice Shy (Madison Avery, Book 1), by Kim Harrison. From the Booklist review: "Madison is dead. After she fled her prom with a mysterious guy and ended up in a crashed car—only to survive and then be struck down by this guy’s magical sword—she has existed in a curious state of purgatory. She still walks around, interacts with others, eats, and sleeps, only now she does so in the company of Barnabas, a light reaper—a kind of angel who fights off dark reapers trying to harvest the souls of people about to make fate-altering decisions."

The Sorceress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel), by Michael Scott In the third book of this series, Nicholas Flamel, the immortal alchemyst, and human twins Sophi and Josh, are "confronted with a demonic bounty hunter that immortal magician John Dee has sent their way. At the same time, Dee's occasional cohort, Niccolo Machiavelli, decides to focus his energy on Perenelle Flamel, the Alchemyst's wife, who has been imprisoned at Alcatraz since the beginning of the series. In this book, Perenelle gets a chance to show off her sorcery and resourcefulness, fighting and forging alliances with ghosts, beasts, and the occasional Elder to try and find a way out of her predicament and back to Flamel."

Vacations from Hell, by Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Claudia Gray, Maureen Johnson, & Sarah Mlynowski. "...supernatural tales of vacations gone awry. Lost luggage is only mildly unpleasant compared to bunking with a witch who holds a grudge. And a sunburn might be embarrassing and painful, but it doesn't last as long as a curse. Of course, even in the most hellish of situations, love can thrive. . ."

Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea for Non-fiction Monday

Some non-fiction books are best read out loud to wide-awake children--the sort of books with lots of sidebars, jammed packed with information, color, and detail. Other non-fiction books work beautifully at bedtime--the sort of books where the non-fiction is presented in a coherent narrative, with the facts part of a story.

Narwhal Unicorn of the Sea (Smithsonian Oceanic Collection), by Janet Halfmann, illustrated by Steven James Petruccio (Soundprints, 2008, 32pp) falls into the later category. It tells of a baby narwhal, growing up in the cold arctic ocean, in clear prose with pleasantly detailed, yet unfussy, pictures. There's is danger in these waters, not just from predators, such as polar bears and killer whales, but from the ice itself. The narwhal pod becomes trapped in a small patch of open water by thick ice, and it's not clear that they ever be able to reach the open ocean. But instinct and luck save the day, and the young narwhal makes it to adulthood.

We've read and enjoyed other animal books by Janet Halfmann (about polar bears and alligators, and, my favorite, hermit crabs). If you have an animal-loving child, about five-years old, with an appetite for non-fiction, her books are the best I know of for peaceful, shared learning at the end of the day.

On the other hand, because of the narrative style of these books, without all those fact-packed sidebars, the curious adult reader might be left with questions. How, for instance, did the narwhals know the ice extended further than they could swim?

The Non-fiction Monday Roundup is at The Miss Rumphius Effect today!

Any Which Wall, by Laurel Snyder

I've revisited this post--here's the more current version!

Fans of Edward Eager who might be reading this, run, don't walk, to get your hands on this book when it comes out on May 26, in both the US and the UK! Eager might have written his last book (Seven Day Magic) back in 1962, but Any Which Wall, by Laurel Snyder (Random House, 2009, 242pp, middle grade), continues Eager's tradition in really delightful way.

Since Eager, and before Snyder, there don't seem to have been any books written about common, ordinary magic--books with normal, everyday children stumbling across magic in the everyday world, and gradually learning its rules, and taming it, and bending it to their wills...Laurel Snyder set out to pay homage to Eager by writing just such a book, and succeeds brilliantly.

Henry and his little sister Emma, Henry's best friend Roy and his big sister Susan (who has to "look after" the others) are not particularly looking forward to a long, hot, Iowa summer. Then they find the Wall, a wall in the middle of a cornfield, a wall that isn't walling anything...a wall that is magic, and will take them to any other wall that ever might have been. Wizards, pirates, outlaws, a lovable, and enormous dog who needs a home, and more, await them, in a splendiferously fun journey through time and space in the best Edward Eager tradition of great characterization, brisk writing, and snappy dialogue among the children.

Any middle grade kid, boy or girl, with a sense of humor and a sense of adventure should enjoy this lots.

I was reading the book so briskly that I skipped the illustrations, which are by LeUyen Pham. Like the words, the pictures are both contemporary, and slightly old-fashioned, and suit the story beautifully. Here's the picture of the kids meeting Merlin:

But there is more to this book than the fun of the magical adventure, and I'm not quite sure what kids will make of this other aspect. It is, almost, a moral.

Keen readers will notice that the oldest girl, who is "friends" with the beautiful girls of her middle school, and who disposed of her unicorn collection a while ago, is named Susan--shades of other fictional Susans who were also the older, less imaginative, and less fun girls (Narnia, Swallows and Amazons). Before the magic entered her life, this Susan was well on her way to becoming a boring, normative, and judgemental wearer of lipstick (like the Narnia Susan). In the course of the various adventures, she realizes that she can be, once again, an imaginative child, and that this might be a better thing to be. She is keenly aware of this transformation in herself, and Snyder, authoritatively, makes sure the reader is aware of it too.

An audience of folks in their forties (or so), with families and jobs who nonetheless love children's books, will cheer for Susan and think fondly of their own unicorn (or zombie?) collections. I dunno what a kid, unencumbered by any grownup-ness, would make of this. Will it knock them out of the story? Will they be oblivious? Will they say, Yes! Let me have fun, and believe, and enjoy life....I still had my unicorn collection until I was 15, so maybe I would have found this part of the book validating. I don't think, though, that I would have appreciated Snyder's somewhat intrusive authorial aside (several pages in italics) toward the end of the book, in which she extols the importance of plain old fun (even though I agree with what she says).

But that being said, it is so awfully nice to have books like this one, that are themselves good, plain fun (and smart and funny). And I hope it sells really really well so that the vague promise of more to come at the end (in the best tradition of this sort of book) becomes reality.

Mini Author Interview (thanks Laurel!)

Me: Did you name Susan "Susan" on purpose?

Laurel: Yes, and no. Susan was named for my best friend, since the others were named for my own sibs. At the same time, I thought a lot about Lewis' Susan, and about how kids always have to "outgrow" magic. So I think the name actually affected the story...

Me, hopefully: Sequel????

Laurel: Sequel, yes, in the planning stages. I'm not really a sequel person, but I feel tempted to follow Susan and Roy (as their father gets a job) to Baltimore. If the sequel happens, it will be about how an older kid might "use" Common Magic, when confronting a more adult view of a new (problematic) place. It's (in my head) called "Anywhere Green" and hops around the parks of Baltimore City.

Me: Yes, please.



If anyone can think of any other fantasy books that are ordinary in the same sense, where the magic doesn't have anything to do with good and evil, or strange realms beyond our own, or children with magical gifts, do let me know. I want to read them).

Links:
Here's a link to an article that Snyder wrote about Jewish Kid's Lit, and her own last minute change to Any Which Wall that resulted from her thoughts on the matter.

Here's a link to an interview with Snyder from this week's Summer Blog Blast Tour, that tells how A.W.W. came to be written.

Here's another review of A.W.W. at Jen Robinson's Book Page, and another at Never Jam Today.

Disclosure: copy received from the publisher at the request of the author, who knew I was an Eager fan and therefore predisposed to like the book already--but I think I would have anyway!

Summer blog past tour posts of particular interest to readers of fantasy

The Summer Blog Blast Tour is an organized cluster of author interviews at various blogs that lasts for a week.

Here are the interviews of particular interest to me, and presumably to other readers of fantasy! The full tour schedule can be found here.

Monday:
Carrie Jones at Writing & Ruminating

Tuesday:
Carolyn Hennesy at Little Willow

Wednesday:
Maggie Stiefvater at Writing & Ruminating
James Kennedy at A Fuse Number 8 Production

Thursday:
Alma Alexander at Finding Wonderland
Laurel Snyder at Shaken & Stirred
Cindy Pon at The Ya Ya Yas

Friday:
Jenny Davidson at Chasing Ray
Lauren Myracle at Little Willow
Friday: Kristin Cashore at HipWriterMama

A fantasy prize pack to beat all fantasy prize packs at Presenting Lenore

I tried not to drool on the keyboard. I knew that this would be bad for it. But looking at the list of books in the Penguin Fantasy Prize Pack being given away by Presenting Lenore, it was hard not to. It ends June 3rd.

May 19th releases of children's and ya science ficiton and fantasy

Two new releases of YA paranormal fantasy today:

Vampire Kisses 6: Royal Blood, by Ellen Schreiber
"Summer break is over, and Raven is hardly eager to be returning to Dullsville High. Not only does school mean daily interaction with preppy pest Trevor Mitchell, but her sleep-filled days and romantic nights with her immortal boyfriend, Alexander, must come to an end. Plus the shock of morning classes isn't the only change in store.

An unexpected letter turns up at Alexander's mansion—announcing his parents will be coming to town. And once they arrive, just about everyone has had a sighting of the macabre couple except Raven. What could be delaying Alexander from introducing Raven to them? Could Alexander be hiding something about his parents' homecoming?"


Swoon, by Nina Malkin
"Torn from her native New York City and dumped in the land of cookie-cutter preps, Candice is resigned to accept her posh, dull fate. Nothing ever happens in Swoon, Connecticut...until Dice's perfect, privileged cousin Penelope nearly dies in a fall from an old tree and her spirit intertwines with that of a ghost. His name? Sinclair Youngblood Powers. His mission? Revenge. And while Pen is oblivious to the possession, Dice is all too aware of Sin. She's intensely drawn to him -- but not at all crazy about the havoc he's wreaking."

There's a review of this one at The Story Siren today.

May 26 is going to be a good day, though. However, it is rather daunting, the way all the books that I want to read are snowballing....

An effort to add color to my son's book shelves

I spent yesterday in a different online world from my usual kidlitosphere. My review of Thirteenth Child got picked up in a gathering of online comments concerning "mammothfail," the name that's been given to Patricia Wrede's decision to keep Native Americans out of her alternate America. Reading all the various reactions-- thoughtful, enlightening, contentious, and extreme--led me to thinking about race in children's fantasy and science fiction, and, more specifically, that particular sub-genre's overwhelming whiteness.

This led me to my eight-year old's bedroom. I stared at his bookshelves. The picture book collection, which is beautifully multicultural, has been passed on to his brother, leaving him with hundreds (literally) of books that used to be mine (like my Nesbits, and Edward Eagers), and a few shelves of his own books-- Dragon Slayers Academy, A-Z mysteries, some graphic novels, like Jellaby and Bone, and lots of non-fiction.

There were two books with African-American characters, from Lerner's Graphic Myths and Legends Series--Marwe: Into the Land of the Dead: an East African Legendand Sunjata: Warrior King of Mali: a West African Legend. There was one book set in China, The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen, by Lloyd Alexander, which he hasn't read yet (Prince Jen never struck me as particularly Chinese, anyhow). There was also a book about ancient Nubia, that he picked up at a library book sale, but it's in French, which is not much use.

When I asked him if he could think of a book in which a character's skin color happened to be different than his own (the inside of a plain bagel, untoasted), he suggested an aberrantly white character in the V book of the A-Z mysteries, who is taken for a vampire.

Gah. On so many levels, gah.

My son suggested that I write a series of books about an African boy who battles dragons, but this is not practical. Nor is it feasible for me to start publishing multicultural fantasy books for the third-grade reader. However, I have a credit card, and the possibly naive belief that if people buy books with non-white characters in lucrative droves, publishers will publish more, and better.

Ready to do my bit, I went first to my local independent bookstore, and started looking for fantasy books for third graders that have central characters who aren't white. Here is what I found.

Time Surfers #1: Space Bingo (The Time Surfers), by Tony Abbott (author of The Secrets of Droon), 1996. Not quite what I was looking for, as the white boy in the center overshadows the other girl and boy. Although the girl is identified as Japanese by her last name, Naguchi, the boy isn't described, so making him dark skinned seems to have been the publisher's decision.


I also bought Ghost Island, a Choose Your Own Adventure for the young, based on the cover, which shows two kids, one black, confronting a ghost together. False advertising. I am returning this. The black kid is not a character, just a trick to make shoppers like me buy the book. It is neo-colonialist garbage.

That was it for the reading level I wanted.

Later I visited Borders. where I bought Tiger (The Five Ancestors, Book 1), by Jeff Stone, the first in a series about five young Chinese (?) masters of different fighting styles.

End result: just one degree from complete bookshopping-fail.



I also asked the Child Lit group if they had any suggestions. Here are the responses:

Raising Dragons, by Jerdine Nolen and illustrated by Elise Primavera (a longer picture book)
The Wizard of Washington Square, by Jane Yolen
The Dragon and the Unicorn, by Lynne Cherry (another longer picture book)

I will look for these.

And I know that there are various early chapter fairy books with faeries of color. I cannot, in conscience, buy these for my boys (because they wouldn't read them).

And this is all I could come up with. If anyone can think of anything else, please let me know. Things get a little better for fourth-grade readers, I think--I'll be revisiting this again next year!

I wrote this post to support Fen of Color United (Fen being the irregular plural of fans). I learned yesterday that today is a day of protest--a day to listen to the voices of people of color in science fiction and fantasy, to speak out against making people invisible.*


Please, can't we add a bit more color in our fantasy early reader and chapter books? Fantasy is such an important gateway into bigger books for so many children, and it is much too monochromatic.

When my six-year old brings book bags home from school, there's a box of skin color crayons for the kids to use in their pictures. The colors range from a deep dark brown to a pinkish peach (and a white, which is odd. Possibly to color melanin-challenged people who are mistaken for vampires).

The major publishers of fantasy for kids, on the other hand, don't seem to be coloring with a full set of crayons.

Here are some good kidlitosphere places that promote reading inclusively: The Brown Bookshelf, Paper Tigers, Mitali's Fire Escape, American Indians in Children's Literature, and Black Threads in Kid's Lit.

And you could also go to the Happy Nappy Bookseller, to read this beautiful and powerful rant.

*From the live journal community organizing today's event:

"On Monday May 18, 2009, we are asking anyone who identifies as a POC/non-white to post this banner, their speculative short stories, artwork, poetry or simply write a post on their favorite fandom on their blogs as an act of protest to show we will not be silent or invisible. The day of protest is entitled Fen Of Color United or more aptly, FOC_U.

White allies can also show solidarity for this event by posting this banner and expressing the need for diversity and speaking out against the bigotry in the genre, through posts and/or their creative work as well."

I've never lusted after stamps before today

But I've never seen mythological creatures stamps before today either. And, if you order the presentation pack, it comes with a short story for each creature written by Neil Gaiman...

They are UK stamps. But if you do not live in the UK, do not worry--they can be ordered internationally. I have unselfishly done this, so as to be able to share my experience with any others who might want to order them. I do not yet know, on the other hand, if they will, in fact, arrive.

Thirteenth Child, by Patricia Wrede

Thirteenth Child (Frontier Magic Book), by Patricia Wrede (Scholastic, 2009, 344 pp, upper middle grade to YA).

Little Eff is the thirteenth child, and that means she's walking bad luck, according to some. Her extended family sees Evil manifesting itself in every accident of her childhood. She doesn't feel particularly bad, but she can't help but worry that there's some truth in what they say. After all, it's true that the seventh son of a seventh son, like her twin brother, Lan, will have great magical prowess and good luck all his life. So when her father takes a job teaching magic out in the Wild West, leaving several older siblings behind, Eff's relief at being able to hide her secret knows no bounds.

In the western frontier of 19th-century Columbia, an alternate United States, mammoths and saber-tooths co-exist with magical and dangerous creatures. No-one has made it to the Rockies and come back to tell about it. The Lewis and Clark expedition was doomed. The university town, however, is safely behind a great magical barrier, created by Jefferson and Franklin, and so Eff and her family are hardly touched by what lies beyond. Stampeding woolly rinoceri might destroy settlements, swarming weasels and spectral bears might kill the unwary explorer, but life for a child living behind the Great Barrier is just school (which includes learning magic) and chores (made easier by magic). Lan is a powerful wunderkind at the magic part of life, being a double 7th, but Eff's anxiety about her possible propensity for ill-luck keeps her from realizing that her brother is not the only talented one.

I enjoyed reading about school and chores, a sister getting married, friendships developing (although Eff is always something of a loner, being unable to shake her feeling that she is cursed), another sister eloping, learning "Aphrikan" magic as well as "Avropan," and having rheumatic fever. I liked this aspect of the book--it was pleasant reading, in much the same way that many 20th-century books about a upper middle-class girl growing up, with little of the external world impinging on her life, are pleasant reading. (I thought of the Betsy-Tacy books, and tried to unthink it, because there are so many, many differences, but couldn't, quite, because the chummy sort of voice seemed so similar to me).

Still, I was very glad when I got to page 245, and Eff, now a teenager, finally crossed the Great Barrier and had an adventure involving magical creatures and her own untested abilities. The 244 pages before this point had begun to seem like a very long world-building and character-building preamble, and although (as I said), I enjoyed it, I was ready for Happenings to happen to make all of this world building and re-naming and wooly rhino-ing mean something, as opposed to being very interesting, but under utilized, bagatelle.

But you know the problem with many 20th-century books about white upper-middle-class girls growing up with enough money and education and all? They aren't the sort of books that open the eyes of the white upper-middle-class girls reading them to what other lives are like. They don't care to disturb the universe by raising difficult questions of a social justice sort, and, instead, sweep things under the carpet.

The Thirteenth Child suffers sadly from this, and, as a result, it's generating a fair bit of controversy. In Wrede's alternate United States, there's a pretty big erasure. There are no Native Americans. None. I hope I would have noticed this myself, but I'll never know- - I found out when I was only on page 20 after reading the comments on Jo Walton's review.

The erasure of an entire continent's worth of native peoples is disturbing in fiction, because it is too scarily close to what happened in fact (both in the past and in the educational/cultural system of the present). It is especially jarring in this book because people like Jefferson, Lewis, and Clarke are named by name, tying this alternate America inextricably to our own. If only this story were set in a place more elsewhere, one could enjoy the basic "settling an empty world with hostile magical creatures" premise, without the troubling elimination of all the many peoples living here, who were, for whatever reason, deemed irrelevant to the story.

It is possible that beyond the Rocky Mountains there are Native Americans, with their own type of magic, and that Eff will meet them in subsequent books. I would like this. It is also possible that there aren't, based on hearsay in one of the comments on Jo Walton's review.

Other reviews: Eva's Book Addiction, Bib-Laura-Graphy, Abby (the) Librarian, Book Aunt, and Persephone Reads.

Win a copy of Luke on the Loose, my favorite TOON book!

A while ago, I wrote the following review of one of this year's TOON books (easy readers in hardcover comic book format).

"Luke On The Loose, by Harry Bliss, is a wild and wacky pigeon chase through the streets of New York. In Central Park one day, young Luke's father strikes up a boring conversation with another adult. A flock of pigeons catches Luke's eye, and with a blood curdling YAAH! he sends them flying. Off he goes in pursuit-YAAH! YAAH! flap flap flap through Manhattan and into Brooklyn, leaving a trail of feathers and startled byststanders. His father and the police and the firefighters set off to the rescue...Fun!"



I love this book (YAAH! YAAH!). So do my kids. It has a great, fast moving plot, it's an Easy Reader that's easy to read, and it's funny.


And TOON Books has given me a copy to give away! Just leave a comment, making sure there's a way back to you) by May 21st (a week from today).

Some of the recent contests I've seen have asked that participants make videos of baking disasters, write their own short stories, or hunt through all the local bookstores with camera in hand, looking for a particular book that isn't released yet (and wouldn't the bookstore think you were some sort of spy for their enemies?). I just ask for comments. However, anyone who promises to send me an ARC of Fire, by K. Cashore, will get 1,000 extra entries (just kidding. But I do wish I had one).

AND THE WINNER IS: Aerin!

My boys have enough books, but these guys don't.

My boys are probably going to be drowning in books for the rest of their lives. Other boys aren't as lucky, book-wise, and life-wise. Guys Lit Wire is urging all of us who care about books and helping boys to put our money where our mouths are. Please visit their Book Fair for Boys to help the teens incarcerated in the LA County Juvenile Justice System get books. There you will find instructions on how to buy something from the Guys Lit Wire wishlist at Powells, and the address to which the books should be sent.

I have been visiting the wishlist on and off through the course of the day (it beats checking my blogstats), and it is great to see more "fulfilled" notices next to great books, and to know that those books are going to readers who need them so very much. This runs for thirteen more days, and I am looking forward to continued checking on it.

I bought My Family and Other Animals, and Holes. I do hope that the boys who read the first one, in particular, will enjoy it as much as I do. Who knows, maybe it will inspire someone to be a zoologist.

New releases of chidren's and ya fantasy/sci fi for May 13,14,and 15th

Here are the children's and YA fantasy and science fiction releases for May 12,14, and 15th, taken, as always, from Teens Read Too, with blurbs from Amazon.

9-12 year olds:

Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, by Tim Byrd. "There is never a dull moment when it comes to Doc Wilde and his family of swashbuckling explorers. Brian and Wren have been trained from an early age to keep up with their worldfamous father. With their driver Declan mac Coul and their butler Phineas Bartlett in tow, there is no obstacle they can’t overcome, no evil they can’t defeat, including mutant frogs from another dimension."


Gods of Manhattan II: Spirits in the Park, by Scott Mebus. "A month has passed since Mannahatta—the spirit city that coexists alongside Manhattan—was revealed to Rory, when an earthquake rocks New York. The island itself is attempting to shake off the Trap around Central Park, and only Rory has the power to open it before even greater catastrophe strikes. But centuries-old wounds must be healed before Rory turns the key. With New York’s most notorious figures—including Captain Kidd and Bill the Butcher—at his side and on his trail, Rory discovers that the answer to peace lies with the one man he never wants to see again: his father."

Young Adult:

Academy 7, by Anne Osterlund. "With a past too terrible to speak of, and a bleak, lonely future ahead of her, Aerin Renning is shocked to find she has earned a place at the most exclusive school in the universe. Aerin excels at Academy 7 in all but debate, where Dane Madousin—son of one of the most powerful men in the Alliance— consistently outtalks her. Fortunately Aerin consistently outwits him at sparring. They are at the top of their class until Dane jeopardizes everything and Aerin is unintentionally dragged down with him. When the pair is given a joint punishment, an unexpected friendship—and romance—begins to form. But Dane and Aerin both harbor dangerous secrets..." This is on my wants list.

The Doomsday Mask, by Simon Rose. "The legendary crystal ceremonial mask of Kulkaan, high priest of Atlantis, was believed to have been endowed with incredible powers. During the destruction of that ancient civilisation, the mask was thought to have been shattered and irretrievably lost. Eventually, the mask was forgotten and considered a myth - but its crystal fragments have now been found by the shadowy Crystalline Order. In a wild race against time, it is now up to two children, Josh and Erica, to prevent the mask from falling intact into their hands - and to save the world from catastrophe.

Dull Boy, by Sarah Cross. "What do you do if you can deadlift a car, and you spend your nights flying to get away from it all? If you’re fifteen-year-old Avery Pirzwick, you keep that information to yourself. When you’re a former jock turned freak, you can’t afford to let the secret slip. But then Avery makes some friends who are as extraordinary as he is. He realizes they’re more than just freaks—together, maybe they have a chance to be heroes. First, though, they have to decide whether to trust the mysterious Cherchette, a powerful wouldbe mentor whose remarkable generosity may come at a terrible price."

The Hourglass Door, by Lisa Mangum. "Abby's senior year of high school is going according to plan: good friends, cute boyfriend, and college applications in the mail. But when Dante Alexander, foreign-exchange student from Italy, steps into her life, he turns it upside down. He's mysterious, and interesting, and unlike anyone she's ever met before. Abby can't deny the growing attraction she feels for him. Nor can she deny the unusual things that seem to happen when Dante is around. Soon Abby finds herself drawn into a mystery whose roots reach into sixteenth-century Florence, and she uncovers a dangerous truth that threatens not only her future but the lives of those she loves."

Quantum Prophecy: The Reckoning: Book Three, by Michael Carroll. "Not long ago the world thought its superhumans dead.... Now, new heroes—and new villains— have miraculously emerged in the form of teenagers. The new heroes find themselves on the cusp of WWIII, caused by their very existence. One hero is torn between right and wrong as he falls under the spell of a former ally turned villain, while another must come to terms with his dark role in the battle, as predicted by Quantum’s prophecy years ago. If the planet is to survive, our new heroes will need to prove stronger than even they can imagine."

Strange Angels, by Lili St. Crow. "Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called “the touch.” (Comes in handy when you’re traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.) Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she’s next."



A few more to come on the 19th.

The Book of Time, for Timeslip Tuesday

Wandering through the most recent Scholastic book fair at my sons' school, my eye was caught by Book Of Time, by Guillaume Prevost (2007, 213 pp, originally published in France). I have been thinking for a while that I needed to throw more modern stories into my timeslip mix, and so here I go.

Fourteen-year old Sam is not happy. In the immediate future, he has to face the brutally tough kid Monk in the upcoming judo tournament. In the larger scheme of things, his life has been depressing since his mother's death. He's had to move in with his grandparents, aunt, and twelve-year old cousin Lily, while his father, an antiquarian bookseller, disappears for days at a time. But never for as long as the most recent disappearance has lasted...

When the judo tournament is unexpectedly postponed, Sam heads over to the empty bookstore. Looking for something that might shed some light on his father's whereabouts, he finds a hidden room in the basement. There he discoverers a keyhole shaped stone, decorated with a carved stone. When he fits an old coin into the slot, he begins an adventure that will take him through time and space, into a quest to save his father, a prisoner hundreds of years in the past.

His journey takes him to a monastery in Scotland, about to be raided by the Vikings, to a World War 1 battlefield in France, to ancient Egypt, and to renaissance Belgium. Gradually Sam begins to learn the secrets of the stone, but will he be able to learn enough to find his father before time runs out?

It's a fun adventure. I had no problem reading briskly to the end, and I am sure that there will be plenty of kids, looking for a fast-paced and exciting story, who will like it lots.

But. The vignettes of times past almost all passed too quickly--there was little of the full immersion in the past that I particularly enjoy. Because Sam stays so briefly in each time, the people he meets don't have a chance to come alive vividly. The author is a history teacher, and I felt there was a touch of didacticism in the book--of the "lets encourage kids to learn about history by putting it in an adventure story!" kind (and in the author interview included in the Scholastic edition, he makes no bones about this being his hope).

The characters in the present aren't particularly three-dimensional either, and I found them, at times, unconvincing. For instance, when Lily (a bit of a brat when we first meet her) finds Sam in the bookstore, and he explains that he has been travelling, she accepts it quickly and without question, and right away is being helpful and supportive. I think a real twelve-year old might have found it just a bit harder to swallow than she does.

So this is one I'll keep for my boys, and which I would recommend for a ten or eleven-year old who likes fantasy and history, and is looking for an adventure story, but not one I would recommend to any of the grown-ups I know. For me, that is the real test of a book, regardless of the age of its intended readership.

The Book of Time is the first in a series. The second, The Gate of Days (which, according to Wikipedia, was more favorably received by the critics), came out last October, and the third, The Circle of Gold, comes out in September.

In an amazing coincidence, Becky happened to review this one today too--here are her thoughts.

This is, incidentally, the first modern French fantasy adventure for children that I've ever read, as far as I know (the original French cover is shown at right. I like it). I wonder what else is out there. What, for instance, are they writing in Italy these days?