This week's round-up of middle grade speculative fiction from around the blogs (3/23/14)

I myself have little to contribute to this week's round-up, since I have been visiting my mama.  But there is plenty without me, and please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews:

Almost Super, by Marion Jensen, at The Book Monsters

The Art of Flying, by Judy Hoffman, at Charlotte's Library

The Blood Guard, by Roy Carter, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson, at Good Books and Good Wine

Dark Lord: School's Out, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at A Backwards Story

Dragonborn, by Toby Forward, at By Singing Light

Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities book 2), by Shannon Messenger, at Oh, the Books!

Game of Clones, by M.E. Castle, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins, at Fantasy Book Critic

The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw, by Christopher Healy, at Word Spelunking

Hunt for the Hydra, by at By Singing Light

The Islands of Chaldea, by Diana Wynne Jones, at SJ O'Hart

Jinx, by Sage Blackwood (with the UK cover!), at Wondrous Reads

The Last Wild, by Scott Torday, at Guys Lit Wire and Bookpeople's Blog

The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge, at Things Mean a Lot

Loki's Wolves, by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

Lost Children of the Far Islands, by Emily Raabe, at Word Spelunking

The Mark of the Dragonfly, by Jayleigh Johnson, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile and Galivanting Girl Books

Mary Poppins Comes Back, by P.L. Travers, at Tor

Moonkind, by Sarah Prineas, at Karissa's Reading Review

Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman, at Mom Read It

O.M.G. ...Am I a Witch?, by Talia Aikens-Nunez, at alibrarymama

The Race for Polldovia, by James Rochfort, at A Fantastical Librarian

The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, at Challenging the Bookworm

The Riverman, by Aaron Starmer, at The Book Monsters, Roro is Reading, and Alice, Marvels

Seven Stories Up, by Laurel Snyder, at Jean Little Library

Silver, by Chris Wooding, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Sky Raiders, by Brandon Mull, at Book Nut

Stolen Magic, by Stephanie Burgis, at alibrarymama

Smasher, by Scott Bly, at The Write Path and Candace's Book Blog

The Water Castle, by Megan Frazier Blakemore, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Two at Tales of the Marvelous--Any Which Wall, by Laurel Snyder, and Magical Mischief, by Anna Dale.

300 Pages has taken a look at Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series -- Sandry's Book, Tris's Book, Daja's Book, Briar's Book

Ten Irish fantasy books for kids at Views From the Tesseract

Authors and Interviews

Aaron Starmer (The Riverman) and Laurel Snyder (Seven Stories Up) interview each other at Nerdy Book Club

Aaron Starmer at Great Imaginations and Maria's Melange

Peggy Eddleman (Sky Jumpers) at Kidit, Fantasy, & Sci Fi

Audrey Kane (The Purple Girl) at Thebookshelfgargoyle

Mary Sutton (Power Play) at Word Spelunking

Maureen McQuerry (Beyond the Door) at Word Spelunking

Susan Kaye Quinn (Faery Swap) at Literary Rambles

A. B. Harmes (Bewildered) at Through the Wormhole

Other Good Stuff

The winter issue of Goblin Fruit, a fantastical poetry journal, is out (read more at Once Upon a Blog)

Not specifically middle grade spec fic related, but of interest to those looking for multicultural books--here's the shortlist for the Burt Award for YA literature in the Caribbean, found at Caribbean Children's Fiction

Cake toppers of awesome (from The Mary Sue):

Yesterday, by C.K. Kelly Martin, for Timeslip Tuesday

This review of Yesterday, by C.K. Kelly Martin (Random House, YA, 2012), is something of a spoiler by necessity--I am, after all, reviewing it for Timeslip Tuesday.  But the time travel element is pretty obvious, so I don't feel dreadfully bad.

In the world of 2063, shredded by environmental catastrophe, the rich and powerful still manage to live a comfortable life full of virtual enjoyment.  16-year-old Freya is one of these lucky ones...until her life implodes when her brother falls victim to a new and deadly plague.

In 1985, a girl named Freya has just moved back to Canada after her father's death in New Zealand.  Grief and the culture shock of starting at a new school in a new country are enough to make anyone feel that life is vaguely unreal, but for Freya, this feeling is not diminishing with time as it should.  Her memories all feel distant and shallow, and nothing seems right.  And at night, the dreams come, full of vivid horror....

And then she encounters Garren, boy who she thinks, or rather, knows, she once was close too.  Even though he has no clue who she is, she knows there is some link between them.

Turns out, Freya is right, and there were secrets back in 2063 that changed the course of her life, and Garren's too.  And there are people in 1985 who will do whatever it takes for that course, now that it is set, to remain unchanged.  With  Freya, and then Garren,  remembering their real past lives in the future, they are both in danger.

Yesterday is a slow build-up of suspense-even though it's fairly obvious that the two Freyas are one and the same, Freya's own journey to this realization is a gradually accumulating nightmare.  The first half of the book was perhaps a tad too slow--we aren't in any doubt as to Freya's feelings of disconnect because we are told about them plenty--but the whole ensemble works well enough.  Those who enjoy suspenseful speculative fiction involving teens on the run from bad guys, falling in love as they struggle to survive, will doubtless enjoy it. 

That being said, though this is clearly a time travel book, the time travel is to a certain extent a deus ex machine that allows the story to exist.  Although as Freya recovers her memories (in a truly unsubtle information dump), she is struck by the contrast between the two times in which she has lived,  the dislocation between those two lives has been soothed by mind wiping such that there isn't a huge feeling of cultural dislocation (one of my personal favorite elements of time travel).    And the explanation for the time-travel came out of left field right at the end, introducing whole new bits of possible plot.   Only at the very very very end does the time travel set up produce a real ZING!, which made me a bit sad because that whole story that we don't actually get to read about sounded much more appealing than the story I'd just read....

So I didn't mind reading it, and found the premise interesting, and now that we have gotten the slowish bit of realizing what has happened out of the way I'm rather interested in the sequel, Tomorrow --but it just wasn't quite the book I'd hoped it would be.

The Art of Flying, by Judy Hoffman

The Art of Flying, by Judy Hoffman (Disney-Hyperion, Oct. 2013, MG) is a magical adventure in which a bird is transformed into a boy, and an ordinary girl becomes his friend.

Before I begin, I want to say that though this isn't a book that worked for me, it got a good review from Kirkus, and I am perfectly prepared to acknowledge that my opinion might not be widely shared, because it's mostly based on personal taste.

Fortuna, an ordinary girl, embarks on a most extraordinary adventure when her mom sends her to help out two old ladies nearby.  Turns out the ladies are witches, and one of them has just committed one of the worst magical crimes there is--she's turned three birds into people.    When Fortuna arrives at their home, only one is still there, a boy the witches are calling Martin.   The witches plan to rope Fortuna in to keep Martin safe, so that he can be re-transformed, but Martin has a mind of his own--he must find his brother, who is also a boy, and he takes off into the woods.

And Fortuna, somewhat to her surprise, finds herself his ally, and possible friend, bringing him home with her.   Martin's brother has been befriended as well, by Fortuna's old best friend, Peter.

But in the meantime, there is trouble:

--The third bird transformed was a sadistic owl, and now that he is human, he relishes the thought of having more scope for his nefarious pleasures. 
--a third witch wants to get the fist two witches into trouble
--the council of birds hopes to find all three ex-birds, and foil the bad ex-owl
--if Martin and the other two aren't transformed back in time, they will be human forever.
--Fortuna isn't sure she wants Martin to be a bird again.  As a boy, he still has the power of flight, and shares it her in a most magical way....

So.  There are many lots of bits happening, and the result was that I wasn't reading the book I thought I was going to read.  I thought I was going to read about a friendship between boy/bird and girl that was going to be a slow burn, introspective kind of story, but instead the feel of The Art of Flying tilted much more to magical happenings of an exiting sort.   It's the sort of book that really should have a more colorful cover with witches and brightness to it, like an Eva Ibbotson middle grade fantasy, or an E.D. Baker book.   And fans of those two authors should enjoy it lots.

For me, it wasn't a great fit.   The story felt a tad scattered, rather than reading as an organic whole.  There were many point of view shifts, sometimes the particular words used to describe the characters' reactions seemed odd to me, and there were details that didn't help the world of the story come alive.  The council of birds, or "feathren" as they call themselves, didn't appeal to me--the almost comic way in which they are portrayed diminished the gravitas of Martin's situation, which interested me much more.  And I was deeply disappointed by Fortuna...

That being said, I thought the author did a lovely job with her portrayal of Martin as bird learning to be a boy, and I enjoyed that aspect of the book lots.

If you think "magical fun with witches and birds, in which a girl learns to fly" sounds good, give this one a try; if you think "character-driven novel about identity and learning what it means to be human" sounds good, this might not be what you are looking for.

This week's Round-Up of Middle Grade Sci fi/fantasy from around the blogs

Another week, another round-up-please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

The Alchemist War, by John Seven, at Sharon the Librarian

The Aviary, by Kathleen O'Dell, at Great Imaginations

The Black Cauldron, by Lloyd Alexander, at Hope is the Word

The Bridge to Never Land, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson at Fyrefly's Book Blog

The Creature Department, by Robert Paul Weston, at Good Books and Good Wine

Dark Lord: School's Out, by Jamie Thompson, at Charlotte's Library

Dogsbody, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Here There Be Books

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Readaraptor
 
Earthfall, by Mark Walden, at Fantasy Book Critic

The Finisher, by David Baldacci, at On Starships and Dragonwings

The Forbidden Library, by Django Wexler, at Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books

Fortune's Folly, by Deva Fagan, at Small Review

Game of Clones, by M. E. Castle,  at Mom Read It

Grimmtastic Girls, by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams, at The Write Path

How I Became a Ghost, by Tim Tingle, at By Singing Light

The Iron Empire, by James Dashner, at Charlotte's Library

Lord and Lady Bunny- Almost Royalty, by Polly Horvath, at Book Nut

The Mark of the Dragonfly, by Jaleigh Johnson, at Word Spelunking (also an interview)

Mary Poppins, by P.L. Travers, at Tor

The Mythomaniacs, by Jules Bass, at The Children's Book Review

The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier, at Fuse #8

Operation Bunny, by Sally Gardner, at the New York Times and Wondrous Reads

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, by Karen Foxlee, at My Precious  and Word Spelunking

The Orphan and the Thief, by M. L. Legette, at The Ninja Librarian

The Prince Who Fell From the Sky, by John Claude Bemis, at Dead Houseplants

The Purple Girl, by Audrey Kane, at thebookshelfgargoyle

The Quirks in Circus Quirkus, by Erin Soderberg, at Story Time Secrets

The Real Boy, by Anne Ursu, at Batch of Books

The Ruby Pendant, by Dorine White, at Laurisa White Reyes

Rump, by Liesl Shurtliff, at Jean Little Library

Sky Raiders, by Brandon Mull, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Spell Robbers (Quantum League 1), by Matthew J. Kirby, at The Hiding Spot

Switched at Birthday, by Natalie Standiford, at Charlotte's Library

The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket, by John Boyne, at Nerdy Book Club 

Tesla's Attic, by Neal Shusterman & Eric Elfman, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop, by Kate Saunders, at The Book Monsters

Witch Week, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Tales of the Marvelous

A World Without Princes, by Soman Chainani, at The Social Potato Reviews

Pushing YA-wards, and not exactly spec. fic., but of great interest--three books about kids creating imaginary worlds at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles  --Peter's Room, by Antonia Forest, They Do Things Differently There, by Jan Mark, and The Traitor Game, by B.R.Collins.

And at Views from the Tesseract, a threesome of aliens

Authors and Interviews

Maureen Doyle McQuerry (Time Out of Time: Beyond the Door) at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia

Lauren Magaziner (The Only Thing Worse Than Witches), at Word Spelunking

M.P Kozlowksy (Dyerville Tales) at Middle Grade March 

Rachel Searles (The Lost Planet) at Middle Grade March


Other Good Stuff: 

"The 10 best fictional evil children" at The Guardian

Jim Hensen's Creature Shop Challenge premieres on SyFy March 25; read more at Once Upon a Blog

And also from Once Up a Blog, Snow White in her glass casket is on display at the Museum of Natural History in NY, as part of their "Power of Poison" exhibit.

Death Sworn, by Leah Cypess

I have just read, with much enjoyment, Death Sworn, by Leah Cypess (Greenwillow, March 2014, YA).   It is the story of a teenaged girl, Ileni, who once had prodigious magical ability, and a bright future as a leader of her people, the Renegai.  Now Ileni's magic is deserting her, and soon will be gone entirely.  So her elders send her to teach magic to a clan of assassins, uneasy allies united against a common enemy.  Now Ileni, from a people who abhor violence, must spend the rest of her magic-less life trapped in an all-male world of trained killers, brainwashed to be loyal to their Master (who is fiendishly smart and scary).

Her life, however, might not be long.  Someone murdered her two predecessors, and she might well be next.

She is not sure she cares.

But Ileni refuses to succumb to despair, as slowly begins to unravel the threads of the plot in which she is ensnared.  Though her magic continues to fade, her determination to understand the machinations that surround her grows, and even as she greives for her lost love back home, she finds herself drawn to the young assassin, Sorin, who's been assigned to her as her guide and guard.  And Ileni finds that she can't stop caring about not just her own fate, but about the larger struggle in which she has become embroiled.

And I just ate it all up, because I love character-driven fantasy and really liked Ileni, from whose close point of view the reader sees the story.  I thought her reactions utterly believable, even her feelings for Sorin, which she herself realizes are, uh, complicated by the fact that he is her de facto jailor, and a brainwashed killer.   But Sorin is actually not unsympathetic, and is (possibly) more than just a tool of the assassins' Master....and as the days pass he is shown to be rather likeable (though still, as Ileni reminders herself often, a killer)... and I can understand how a 17-year-old in traumatic circumstances whose life has imploded might not feel like resisting her feelings.  And it is 100% her choice, not his.

The reader does have to make a certain leap of faith viz the whole underground assassin society set up-- it is a wonder that they don't all go more insane than they do, and in retrospect I worry about ventilation and vitamin D deficiency and fresh fruits and vegetables and that sort of thing (presumably the handy underground rivers carry the sewage away, so that's ok).  But I was caught up enough in the story that I refused to let this bother me while reading.

So in any event, I liked Death Sworn lots.

Those who do not like character-driven fantasy set in a rather limited physical environment with only teasing glimpses of the larger political/social point of it all in which there's not much that Happens in an exiting sort of way probably won't like the book as much.  There are maybe forty pages that are Exciting Happenings, but since I have a tendency to skim Exciting Happenings so as to quickly get back to the thinking and feeling part,  this was fine with me.

Do you recognize this time travel book? Now Solved.

A blog reader wrote seeking book identification help that I can't provide; maybe you recognize it?

"I originally read it in the UK back in the late 80s/early 90s and it involves time travel (via a magic door?) to a house during world war 2. The home was populated by two children (a boy and a girl) with their dog called Blackie and a housekeeper who looked after them.  The boy used to step through a door in the modern era and end up back in this house where he couldn't leave the home and neither could the children (or they would cease to exist).

The main tension point of the story was where the dog escaped one night during heavy bombing and the children were frantic and desperate to get outside to save the dog leading to some chicanery by the time travel to remedy the situation."

It sounds like one I'd like, and I wasn't able to find it through google....

Update:  a friend recognized it, and it's not a time travel book after all.  It is Nicholas Fisk's "A Rag, A Bone And A Hank Of Hair." My friend described it thus: "It's about a boy at the end of the 22nd century who is employed to help with an experiment involving "reborns" - a family from the 1940s who have been cloned. He can only interract with them in their house, because they aren't allowed to know that they're not still in their own time."

Dark Lord: School's Out, by Jamie Thomson

Dark Lord: School's Out, by Jamie Thomson (Walker Childrens, Feb., 2014 in the US)

Give these books to any young fantasy gamers in your  life.  Give them to any Goth Girls you know who don't mind a bit of fun being poked at them.  Give them to any fantasy reading kid who wants a break from the serious side of the genre.  Give me the third book, even though it's not even out yet in the UK, let alone over here....

As was told in book 1, Dark Lord: the Early Years (my review),  the Dark Lord of the Dark Lands has been defeated by the power of Good, and sent into another realm--our world.   No longer a fearsome being with terrible powers, he's now a kid in foster care named Dirk Lloyd.  His powers are (for the most part) gone, and more importantly, much of the vile evil ichorosity inside him ended up spewing forth onto the parking lot where he landed.  But he still knows who he really is....and he won't let his foster brother, Chris, and the Goth girl Sooz, their good friend, forget either (and  happily all of Dirk's posturing and threats and Dark Lordliness stay this side of funny).

But in any even, an effort to restore Dirk to the Dark Lands at the end of Book 1 went wrong, and Sooz was the one who travelled there!  But fortunately, Sooz (thanks to her Goth proclivities) is undaunted (though with nicely contrasting moments of daunted homesickness and despair, which I liked--so often young heroes are just too brave for me to take).   And fortunately Sooz is in possession of Dirk's dark ring, which gives her magical powers.  She finds Dirk's  Dark Tower, gathers together his minions, and sets herself up as a Dark Queen.  Only, because she'd not actually evil, her rule is more benevolent than not.

(I really really loved this part of Sooz's story.  The exploring of the tower, the redecorating, the henchman befriending, the wardrobe choices she makes-- all delightful).

And in the meantime, Chris and Dirk are working on rescue plans, including the transformation of Chris' cell-phone into a dark phone that can call Sooz....

And also in the meantime, the "good" guys are trying to kill Dirk in our world, destroy Sooz in their world, and throw into prison anyone who disagrees with them...

So basically the tremendously fun premise  of book 1 (Dark Lord in kid's body) is now part of a richer, bigger story that is still tremendously fun, but with more depth to it.  There's a dash of serious-ness viz friendships, loyalty, and the blurriness between good and evil.   Dirk is one of those delightfully ambiguous anti-heroes, and the tension between Dirk the Friend and Dirk the Dark Lord is nicely tense. 

The Iron Empire (Infinity Ring Book 7), by James Dashner, for Timeslip Tuesday

And so at last the story of the Infinity Ring comes full circle--with The Iron Empire, we are once more back with James Dashner, who wrote the first book of the series (A Mutiny in Time).   Sera, Dak, and Riq have travelled through the centuries fixing Break after Break--all the bits of history that didn't happen as they should have.   Now they have travelled to the time when it all began.  It is the age of Alexander the Great, and the time of Aristotle--who founded the league of Hystorians who sent the threesome off on their quest.

The mission seems simple.  If Sara, Dak, and Riq can keep Alexander from an untimely death, they will have healed the last break, averted the cataclysm that will otherwise engulf the earth, and they'll get to go home to a better world (except, perhaps, Riq, whose future might have been lost due to the changes in the past*).  But to their horror, they find their old nemesis Tilda has gotten to Greece before them....and nothing is going to be easy.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit--perhaps because I knew that Finally there would be an end to all the trials and tribulations and excitements, which, though exiting, had filled the previous books almost to the point of saturation.   I liked seeing Aristotle play a real role, and Alexander was rather fun to meet as well.  And it did indeed all resolve in a satisfactory way...and although this isn't actually the end of the series, at least there's a bit of a breather! (edited to add: the eighth book, Eternity, by Matt de la Pena, comes out in July).

And in this book, the bickering and tensions between the three kids was diminished--they've come to rely on each other, accept each other, and work as a team.   Since I'm the sort of reader who doesn't thrive on interpersonal stress, I appreciated this.

This isn't a series that is deeply educational--although young readers will acquire a few basic facts (such as Aristotle being Alexander's tutor), it's not the sort of time travel that gives a rich and detailed picture of the past (not a complaint, just saying).  But for those who love action and adventure given point and zest by time travel, these books should be just right.

Nice detail in the cover art I appreciated:  it's not always the white boy (Dak) who's shown front and center in the picture of them that's on every back cover.   On this one, it's Riq:

disclaimer:  review copy received from Scholastic for review

*When reading this, my little one, already wise to the ways of stereotype, said cynically "Oh, the black kid dies."  In case you are worried about this too, he does not die, but stays with Alexander, renamed Hephaestion.

Switched at Birthday, by Natalie Standiford

Switched at Birthday, by Natalie Standiford (Scholastic 2014, Middle Grade).

Through magical happenstance, two girls who share nothing but their birthday are switched into each other's bodies when they turn 13.  Lavender is an schulmpy, clutzy, poorly-groomed outlier, who  makes no effort to practice any sort of middle school social graces, in part as a gesture of defiance against the taunts and torments she receives from the Beautiful Girls.  Scarlet is the leader of those girls, star of the soccer team, polished to a shiny gloss, and seemingly safe from all the vicissitudes of life.   But when the girls start living life in each others bodies, they both grow wiser, and when they switch back, their lives are changed for the better.

Although I did appreciate the fact that neither of the two girls ended up perfect in every way.  They are still themselves, just with more self-awareness, open-ness, and empathy.

Here's what I enjoyed--the difficulties the two girls had convincingly living each other's lives.   Among other difficulties, like finding something to wear in each others closet, poor Lavender has to take to the soccer field, and poor Scarlet has to deal with the mean-ness that's part of Lavender's daily life at school, forced to endure harassments of that she had once had a role in inflicting.

I must say that the mean-ness of this particular middle school made the book hard going--I don't like to read about cruel girls throwing chicken pot pies at those they despise (and surely this is exaggeration?  It doesn't really happen, does it????).   Of course, the mean and beautiful girls had to be hateful to make the plot work, but still...

More interesting. though less graphically brutal, than the plot line of outcast girl bespattered by lunch were the familial problems that Scarlet, though apparently perfect, is dealing with.  She suffers from a manipulative, domineering step-father whose main point in the story is to put Scarlet, her mother, and her step-brother down.   Again, his antagonism is not limed with too subtle a brush, but it's not a subtle book, so I wasn't expecting nuance, and was not bothered.   Scarlet actually enjoys the warm family dynamics of Lavender's family, unpolished as they are...

A good one for girls who enjoy reading about the turmoils of middle grade life (and though I am against gender marketing in general, some books just will appeal more to girls, in as much as they are solidly from the girl point of view).   The fantasy premise (explained just enough to make the reader not whiningly question what happened) makes it fun, and the ending is comforting (spoiler--Lavender and Scarlet are now friends, and there's a nice little bit of romance).

Here's another review at Ms. Yingling Reads

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs

Another week (minus an hour), another collection of links.  Please let me know if I missed yours!

The Reviews

The Cabinet of Wonders, by Marie Rutkoski, at Log Cabin Library

Dogsbody, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Views From the Tesseract

The Finisher, by David Baldacci, at Pissed Off Geek and Reader, Writer, Critic (and not a review,  but if you want my take on the first 119 pages, here it is)

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, at alibrarymama

Garden Princes, by Kristin Kladstrup, at Jean Little Library

Gideon's Spear, by Darby Karchut, at Middle Grade Ninja

How To Catch a Bogle, by Catherine Jinks, at The Book Monsters

The Hypnotists, by Gordon Korman, at That's Another Story

The Icarus Project, by Laura Quimby, at The Book Brownie

Janitors, by Tyler Whitesides, at Bookshop Talk

Jinx's Magic, by Sage Blackwood, included in a round-up post at Chapter Book Explorer

Magic Marks the Spot, by Caroline Carlson, at The Book Monsters

Mary Poppins, by P.L. Travers, at Fantasy Literature

Midnight for Charlie Bone, by Jenny Nimmo, at The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow

Mindscape, by M.M. Vaughan, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Neversink, by Barry Wolverton, at Bound By Words

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, by Karen Foxlee, at Sarah Monsma

The Peculiar, by Stefan Bachmann, at Log Cabin Library

The Riverman, by Aaron Starmer, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile and Megan Likes Books

Rose and the Magician's Mask, by Holly Webb, at Charlotte's Library

Sabotaged (The Missing Book 3) by Margaret Peterson Haddix, at Time Travel Times Two

The Shadow Throne, by Jennifer Nielsen, at The Book Monsters, She Has Left the Room, and proseandkahn

Simon Bloom: The Gravity Keeper, by Michael Reisman, at Madigan Reads

Sleeping Beauty's Daughters, by Diane Zahler, at Pages Unbound

The Slither Sisters, by Charles Gilman, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

A Snicker of Magic, by Natalie Lloyd, at proseandkahn, Welcome to my (New) Tweendom, and Waking Brain Cells

The Wells Bequest, by Polly Shulman, at Leaf's Reviews

Three adventures at sea, at Views from the Tesseract:  Deadweather and Sunrise, by Geoff Rodkey, Magic Marks the Spot, by Caroline Carlson, and Oliver and the Seawigs, by Philip Reeve.

Authors and Interviews:

Natalie Lloyd (A Snicker of Magic) at Literary Rambles (with giveaway)

Laurisa White Reyes (The Celestine Chronicles) at Word Spelunking (with giveaway)

Suzanne de Montigny (The Shadow of the Unicorn) at One Writer's Journey

Other Good Stuff

If you want to go into MG SFF tbr overload, here's a list I compiled of forthcoming books--lots and lots of beautiful forthcoming books--at Middle Grade March, with a bonus giveaway of and ARC of A Hero's Guide to Being and Outlaw!

At GreenBeanTeenQueen, the most recent guest post in the "So You Want to Read Middle Grade" series is Stephanie Whalen, offering lots of MG Sci Fi book suggestions. 

And Stephanie's Tuesday Ten at Views From the Tesseract is "Birds of a Feather."

And for more listy fun, at SF Signal, the current "Mind Meld" asks a variety of great folks what sci fi or fantasy books they'd recommend for kids under ten.

The Canadian Children's Book Centre has announced its shortlist for the 2014 Canadian Literature Association-- which includes Curse of the Dream Witch, by Allan Stratton,   And The Accidental Time Traveller, by Janis Mackay, is the winner in the Younger Readers category of the Scottish Children's Book Awards.

There's a petition at change.org asking publishers to stop labeling children's books as "for boys" and "for girls."  My ten-year-old son, who is personally affected by this issue, has signed, and is very proud of his first foray into activism!

If I win the lottery I shall go to this September's Diana Wynne Jones conference in Newcastle, UK.  

But even without winning the lottery I will probably make it to Boscon (the Boston Sci Fi convention) in February of 2015 because Robin McKinley is the guest of honor....

There's a new issue of Middle Shelf Magazine up, with lots of mg sff goodness in it.

Movie News!  The Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness, is coming to the big screen, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona.

Living in a sci fi world back in the 16th century-- rocket cats (and birds) as weapons of war.  If only the rocket cats (and birds) could escape afterwards....

The Kombat Kittens, on the other hand, seem to be willing participants...

I made a list of Middle Grade Speculative Fiction books coming out this spring for Middle Grade March

Over at Middle Grade March you can find a lovely long list I made of MG speculative fiction books coming out this spring!  I'm sure I missed many great books, so do feel free to add them in the comments.

A few that I am personally making puppy-eyes about, that I hadn't heard about before starting my compilation efforts:

 The Forbidden Library, by Django Wexler (Kathy Dawson Books, April 15)
"Alice always thought fairy tales had happy endings. That--along with everything else--changed the day she met her first fairy When Alice's father goes down in a shipwreck, she is sent to live with her uncle Geryon--an uncle she's never heard of and knows nothing about. He lives in an enormous manor with a massive library that is off-limits to Alice. But then she meets a talking cat. And even for a rule-follower, when a talking cat sneaks you into a forbidden library and introduces you to an arrogant boy who dares you to open a book, it's hard to resist. Especially if you're a reader to begin with. Soon Alice finds herself INSIDE the book, and the only way out is to defeat the creature imprisoned within.

It seems her uncle is more than he says he is. But then so is Alice."

The Glass Sentence, by S.E. Grove (Viking Juvenile, June 12)
"She has only seen the world through maps. She had no idea they were so dangerous.

Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World—a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods.  Eight years ago, her parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Life with her brilliant, absent-minded, adored uncle has taught Sophia to take care of herself.

Then Shadrack is kidnapped. And Sophia, who has rarely been outside of Boston, is the only one who can search for him. Together with Theo, a refugee from the West, she travels over rough terrain and uncharted ocean, encounters pirates and traders, and relies on a combination of Shadrack’s maps, common sense, and her own slantwise powers of observation. But even as Sophia and Theo try to save Shadrack’s life, they are in danger of losing their own.

Lost Children of the Far Islands, by Emily Raabe (Knopf, April 8)
"Twins Gus and Leo and their little sister, Ila, live a quiet life in Maine—until their mother falls ill, and it becomes clear her strength is fading because she is protecting them from a terrible evil.
Soon the children are swept off to a secret island far in the sea, where they discover a hidden grandmother and powers they never knew they had. Like their mother, they are Folk, creatures who can turn between human and animal forms.
Now they must harness their newfound magic for a deeper purpose. The ancient, monstrous King of the Black Lakes will stop at nothing to rise to power, and they are all that stands in his way. Their mother’s life hangs in the balance, and the children must battle this beast to the death—despite a dire prophecy that whoever kills him will die.
Can Gus, Leo, and Ila overcome this villain? Or has he grown too strong to be defeated? Lost Children of the Far Islands is a story filled with magic, excitement, and the dangers and delights of the sea."

Saving Lucas Biggs, by Marisa de los Santos (HarperCollins, April 29)
"Thirteen-year-old Margaret knows her father is innocent, but that doesn't stop the cruel Judge Biggs from sentencing him to death. Margaret is determined to save her dad, even if it means using her family's secret—and forbidden—ability to time travel. With the help of her best friend, Charlie, and his grandpa Josh, Margaret goes back to a time when Judge Biggs was a young boy and tries to prevent the chain of events that transformed him into a corrupt, jaded man. But with the forces of history working against her, will Margaret be able to change the past? Or will she be pushed back to a present in which her father is still doomed?
Told in alternating voices between Margaret and Josh, this heartwarming story shows that sometimes the forces of good need a little extra help to triumph over the forces of evil."

Why I'm not going to finish The Finisher, by David Baldacci

I tried.  I really did, to read The Finisher, by David Baldacci (Scholastic, 2014, upper MG/YA).   But I can't go on--119 pages was plenty, and I just could not press on toward page 497. 

Here's what didn't work for me; of course, your mileage may vary and this is all just Personal Opinion.

The World Building.   The story takes placed in an isolated community ringed by a wilderness full of scary monsters, who seem, for the most part, to stay in their wilderness (there are exceptions, like the two that mysteriously show up in the factory at night, or possibly they lived in the factory and only came out at night?  But then whose job was it to shut them in?  But if they came from the wilderness,  why didn't they monstrously rampage en passnat as they made their way to the factory?  or perhaps they appeared and disappeared magically.  If any of you all have in fact read the book to the end, let me know).   

But in any event, if you are offering me a fictional closed community, I want to rest assured that you have have thought out all the logistical implications of education, family structure, supply and demand, and how big your community is. Is inbreeding a problem?  what are the sources of raw materials?  that sort of thing.   If you offer me a priest-equivalent, I want some assurance that you have thought about just who the gods (or whatevers) are, and if you call your community Wormwood, I'm wondering if that's a reference to the Book of Revelations (waters turning bitter, and people dying thereby), because nothing should be just chance in creating a world such as this, but though here are lots of bits of Strange Things all thrown in the pot together, there is nothing as thematically coherent as this as of Page 119.

 I do not think that saying "canine" instead of "dog," and other such substitutions, actually in and off itself makes a world beautifully fantastical, even if you tell me point blank that the horse-equivalents once had wings.    Having the women referred to as "females," as in "his female," doesn't go all that far to convincing me you are constructing a rich and deeply textured fictional society.   And just a minor point--calling your beautiful anti-heroine of great power Morrigone makes me think you haven't read enough King Arthur stories, or Celtic-inspired fantasies, because otherwise you'd have realized that this name has baggage.

But above all  I couldn't stand that the people are called Wugs.  I was not sure they were human for quite some time (and there are still lingering doubts)--I was picturing greenish simians that looked a bit like carpets.

The Writing.   Now, maybe some of the infelicities of tense awkwardness were caught and changed.  But sometimes the writing is short sentences.  That go like this.  And sometimes there's more verbosity in describing things than necessary, and sometimes the Wug female who is the heroine, Vega Jane, uses kind of contemporary slang, and sometimes less so, and to put it in a nutshell, I was burning through a lot of post-it notes.  Once I start noticing that someone's writing isn't working for me, I just start noticing more and more things that kick me out of the story.

The Difficulties of Suspending Disbelief.  There were lots of moments when this just wasn't possible.

Example 1 (fairly minor point):  Vega Jane, in her tree top retreat, draws a map on herself.   Problem 1:  where did she get the pen? This is not the sort of place where Wugs of the lower sort have lots of pens on hand (I think).  Problem 2:  I have written things on myself with Sharpies, and there has been no trace of them  within a few hours, no water applied.  Problem 3:  She's able to read the map, and books she encounters, because she is literate--why are lower order Wugs being educated?  It doesn't make sense. (See World Building, above).

Example 2 (much more major):  I am actually just fine with a main character suddenly and with no explanation being washed out of a building down a secret tunnel thing in a river of blood and being saved by a magical chain, and then the blood becoming imaginary or something.  These things happen. 

But I expect the main character to wonder a bit about the whole ensemble.  Though porcelain toilets are nifty when you've never seen one before, are the hygiene standards of the wealthy really enough to make you not wonder about a river of blood (the Book of Revelations again?) that almost drowned you before disappearing just a few pages ago?  The chain she does think about (because with its help she can fly!), but as of page 119, it was as if the blood never happened and we've moved on to the threat of attack from potentially invasive outlaws (who didn't get eaten by monsters), with concomitant Rabble Rousing and community wall-building etc.  As well as Vega Jane's visit to the house with the nice bathroom. 

Basically, I did not feel the plot and the characterization were meeting my needs as a reader.

Final thought: 

Writing a good middle grade or young adult fantasy is not easy.  The ability to write best-selling adult thrillers doesn't mean you'll be able to pull it off successfully.  

But of course I did not finish the book, and maybe it would have all made beautifully coherent sense at the end, and so feel free to disagree with me  utterly and completely.

Here is the Kirkus Review.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

Bad Norse god and goddess puns

I have been blessed with the ability to make bad puns, and when you have such a gift, it should be shared.  My bad Greek god and goddess puns have proved popular, and so today I offer bad Norse god and goddess puns.   This is quite challenging, much harder than with the Greeks, but I've bravely done my best, although I realize, after having posted this, that I don't actually have any good ones for any of the goddesses.  Sorry. 

Scroll over the blanks to see the answers...

There's the obvious:

Which Norse god had less hair than you?  Baldur.

Which Norse god shows up on a crying baby's face?  Tyr.

And of course one can do unraveling puns with Frey and Freya.

But here are the two that I'm actually rather pleased with:

Why is the Norse god of thunder the best hitchhiker of all?  Because nothing sticks out like a Thor thumb.

Which Norse god is the most relaxed?  Loki (Low Key).

I do not, however, think I will ever get a good, quality, pun for Odin. 

Hilda and the Troll, by Luke Pearson

Hilda and the Troll, by Luke Pearson, is a hardcover reprint from Flying Eye Books (Sept. 2013) of the first graphic novel about an adventurous Scandinavian girl named Hilda (originally titled Hildafolk).  Hilda lives up in the mountains, with all sorts of magical persons for neighbors.  This particular installment of her adventures (there are two others--Hilda and the Midnight Giant, and Hilda and the Bird Parade) is my favorite, quite possibly because it has the thinnest plot of the three, and one can enjoy the magical world free of any particular anxiety as to outcome!

Hilda and her blue, horned, fox friend (so adorable!) are having a peaceful time of it--sleeping out in a tent when it rains (so as to appreciate the snugness of it more), exploring the hills and sketching interesting things.  But then Hilda comes across a troll rock--will it come alive at night and come down the hill, with ravenous intent?  So she hangs a bell on its long stone nose, to give warning.   And then falls asleep at its feet, and is woken much later by the bell as the troll starts to move!  Dark  is falling fast...can she make it home through the snowfall?

It all works out in a very satisfying way, and though I liked the other two Hilda books just fine, I loved this one.

Like I said, this is the lightest of the series in terms of plot, and in terms of illustration too--literally, as there is more color and more daylight and warm interior firelight!  It's also the most amusing and most charming.  I loved the map-reading giant, the wood person who keeps coming to Hilda's house, and all the interior details of Hilda's house that we get to see.  I am also biased in favor of characters who have meaningful hobbies, so I loved to see independent observer of the world Hilda set off with her sketchbook. 

Hilda and the Troll is the best book in which to meet Hilda, though it is the most recent hardcover of the three.   Seven year olds (or even kids a bit younger) and kids on up as far as you want to go should enjoy it very much indeed.

Why it's a good time to buy a paperback of Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, by Laurel Snyder

Way back in January of 2010, I reviewed Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, by Laurel Snyder. 

Here's what I said back then, which you can skim; I've highlighted where The Important Part begins.

If you are looking for a nice (in all the good meanings of that word) fantasy adventure type book to give to an 8 or 9 year old kid, Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, by Laurel Snyder (2008, but just reprinted as a Yearling Paperback) is one I'd recommend. It is a lovely quest fantasy for the beginners, with little Darkness but lots of fun.

Lucy, a milkmaid, and Wynston, a prince, are best friends. But suddenly one day Wynston's life as a prince interferes with their friendship, and Lucy takes off in a huff (accompanied by a young cow named Rosebud--one of those things that just sometimes happens). She's going to climb the Scratchy Mountains, and find her mother. No-one has actually come out and said she's dead, after all.

But what she finds up in the mountains isn't all fun and games...her path leads to the village of Torrent, a strange dystopia whose strict rules may mean the end of the small wild animal Lucy befriended on her journey. So even though Lucy is as tough a young heroine as they come, it's a good thing Wynston has taken off after her. Two friends working together can do things that one person can't...and adventures are much more friendly with two!

Snyder tells her deceptively simple story with verve and zest. Sprinkled with amusing tidbits, the action swings along swingingly. It is a book that a moderately confident reader could read to themselves, and it also is a great book to read out loud, to boys or girls (tip on reading out loud to your boys-- if you make sure you are holding the book you want to read face down as you approach them, they might not notice covers that look like girl books).

But I think it is more than just a good story, well-told. In a non-preachy way, and almost as an aside, it has messages of the sort I, for one, want my children to internalize. Things like "don't judge people by their status in society," "Question idiotic laws and governments that think themselves perfect," "Have the courage to go off and look for things that are important to you." Things that I want my kids to do (as long as they don't take the cow up the mountain with them).

Now The Important Part

Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains has just gone out of print in hardback. And rather than see the book pulped, Laurel has bought all the 800 copies that were left, and given them away so that kids who might not have enough books of their own to love will now have one.  And she did this at her own expense--read all about it here.

The book is still available new in paperback....and would make a nice addition to any library....

Since I already have a copy, I won't be buying one right now myself, but I am pretty sure that my next bookstore trip will involve buying Laurel's new book, Seven Stories Up, just by way of thanking her for her generosity (and helping, somewhat obliquely, to pay for what she's done!), and of course since I want to read it, it will be nice for me too!

The Mysterious Manuscript, by Lars Jakobsen-- a graphic novel for Timeslip Tuesday

The Mysterious Manuscript, by Lars Jakobsen (Graphic Universe 2012), is Book 1 of Mortensen's Escapades, a graphic novel series for older middle-grade readers.  Mortensen is a young (early twenties type young) time traveler from Denmark, one of a group of secret agents trying to keep history in order, and keep important artifacts in the time in which they belong (this is explained in an one page introduction). 

When we meet Mortensen, he is on his way to an assignation with an antiquarian bookseller, who has found a book that should not exist--no book from 16th-century Scotland should include a picture of a bi-plane.  So Mortensen time-travels off to Scotland to try to destroy the book....

And ends up crashing around a castle, being thrown in jail, loosing his time travel device, being rescued by a mysterious ally, and taken to the home of a mute young woman (named Blossom, which I am dubious about) who turns out to have been the one who found the plane.  It becomes clear that the book with the plane picture is not all that's going to have to be "fixed"-- for one thing, the young woman is now in danger of being burnt as a witch thanks to Mortensen's arrival in her time.

It was an interesting story, plot-wise, and time-travel-wise as well, but I found the action to be just too quick.  The characters never had a chance to breath, and the story never had the chance to expand into something truly engrossing. I am left utterly confused about many plot points.  It really does not help that the young woman who helps Mortensen and who seems to be the only person who actually knows what's going on can't talk.

So though I almost liked the premise, and the art style was just fine (except for Blossom's fire-engine red lipstick), it didn't quite click for me.  My handy 13 year old graphic novel fan had the same feeling (but didn't notice Blossom's lipstick).

Rose and the Magician's Mask, by Holly Webb

I am currently in the middle of four books I am not enjoying--I have started to question too much, to talk back snippily to the words on the page, and once that happens, all escapism is lost. Happily, there was a fifth book in active play--Rose and the Magician's Mask, by Holly Webb-- which was much nicer to read.  My questions were all internal to the story, of a wondering, speculative kind, and I never once was kicked out of the narrative by infelicities.

Rose and the Magician's Mask is the third book about Rose, an orphan girl with magical powers in an alternate 19th-century England. The first, Rose, was published here in the US in 2013 (and was shortlisted for the Cybils), the second, Rose and the Lost Princess, comes out here this April. Some of us couldn't wait, and me and my boys went and ordered all four Rose books and the first book in the spin-off series about Lily from the UK.

In any event, in Rose and the Magician's Mask, a powerful mask is stolen by a magic-wielding antagonist, and taken off to Venice...a city steeped in magic.  And Rose and her cohert, including Gus the cat, set off to find the mask and thwart the antagonist.   It is a lovely magical Venice, full of creepiness and mysetery.  And though I would have liked slightly more forward progress with Rose's magical education, and slightly brisker character development (both are happening, but not very fast!) it was, all in all, satisfying.

If you have an eight to ten year old reader of fantasy around, do try Rose (and its sequels, as they come out) on him or her.  The US covers are happily more gender neutral than the very girl oriented UK ones; none of the kids in my ten year old's class batted an eyelash at the cover of Rose, but apparently some boys asked my son why he was reading this one (not that he cared).  

This week's round-up of Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction from around the blogs

Another week, another round-up!  Let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews:

Canary in a Coal Mine, by Madelyn Rosenberg, at The Book Monsters


The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, by Charles de Lint, at Jean Little Library

Charmed Life, and Conrad's Fate, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Tales of the Marvelous

The Copernicus Files: The Forbidden Stone, by Tony Abbot, at Boys Rule Boys Read!

Fireborn, by Toby Forward, at Batch of Books

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, at Great Books for Kids and Teens

Found, by Margaret Peterson Haddix, at Time Travel Times Two

Grave Images, by Jenny Goebel, at Charlotte's Library

The Impossible Boy, by Mark Griffiths, at Wondrous Reads

Keeper of the Lost Cities, books 1 and 2, by Shannon Messenger, at Jen Robinson's Book Page

The Land of Stories, by Chris Colfer, at ACReads

Magic Marks the Spot, by Caroline Carlson, at GreenBeanTeenQueen

Nightingale's Nest, by Nikki Loftin, at Fuse #8, The Book Smugglers, Nerdy Book Club, and Charlotte's Library

Oksa Pollock Book 1: The Lost Hope, and Book 2: The Forest of Souls, by Anne Pliochota, at Nayu's Reading Corner

The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, at The Book Monsters

The Riverman, by Aaron Starmer, at Great Imaginations

The Ruins of Gorlan, by John Flanagan, at Guys Lit Wire

The Rule of Thre3, by Eric Walters, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The School For Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, at Great Imaginations

The Shadow Throne, by Jennifer Nielsen, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia, The Hopeful Heroine, The Geek Girl Project, and Kid Lit Geek

A Snicker of Magic, by Natalie Lloyd, at Paper Breathers, Mother.Gamer.Writer. and The Hiding Spot

Space Rocks, by Tom O'Donnell, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Switched at Birthday, by Natalie Standiford, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Texting the Underworld, by Ellen Booraem, at alibrarymama

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt, at Reads for Keeps (audio book review)

Watermusic, by Sarah Sargent, at Charlotte's Library

Zoe and Zack and the Yogi's Curse, by Lars Guignard, at Mad Steam

Zombie Baseball Beatdown, by Paulo Bacigalupi, at Guys Lit Wire


Authors and Interviews

Peggy Eddleman (Sky Jumpers) at Cynsations

Robert Gray (The Nightmare Series) character interview and giveaway at Word Spelunking

Claire Legrand (The Year of Shadows) writes about "the importance of the unlikable heroine."

Nikki Loftin (Nightingale's Nest) at Charlotte's Library


Other Good Stuff

R.J. Anderson on Middle Grade Romance at GreenBeanTeenQueen

Diversity links from Feb. 2014 at Diversity in YA

Sherry at Semicolon has shared 30 bits of wisdom and advice from mostly Cybils book sources

Middle Grade March Madness has started at Word Spelunking. where you can find the full schedule of interviews and reviews

And it's Middle Grade March at the Middle Grade March website too!

At Random Musings of a Bibliophile there's a nice graphic of the line-up for a March Madness YAMG Book Battle; lots of books I love here!

If you want to cast your vote for best MG YA vote in what is essentially a trial run for a MG YA Hugo Award, you can do so here at  Detcon 1 2014.

And finally, I was reading up on the Crimean War so that I could explain to my boys what was happening in Ukraine...and was happily diverted by this charming story of Timothy the Tortoise, a naval mascot in the 19th century who lived until 2004.    The tag attached to her (she's a she) reads: "My name is Timothy. I am very old - please do not pick me up"

Watermusic, by Sarah Sargent

Watermusic, by Sarah Sargent (1986, back when a book could have as few as 120 pages), is the second book I finished for today's middle grade readathon.   It came home with me from the library discards I was sorting for the booksale.   It is the sort of book that just goes to show that the 1980s were a strange time and it is not my fault I turned out the way I did.  I am breaking my thoughts on this book into very short paragraphs for clarity's sake.

Our heroine, Laura, is a a mopey/day dreamy 13 year old flute player with no close friends and a neurotic/sensitively perceptive sense that there is more to life than meets the eye.

Laura's mother has a job, but keeps her house spotless.  She is proud of her synthetic wall to wall carpet, her distressed coffee table that came with scratches already in place.  She is quick to wield the "Gleam and Go" and the bug spray at the first sign of trouble (Hint: Laura's mother is a metaphor for "modern humanity distanced from nature).

The batty anthropologist who doesn't keep the shrubs outside her Victorian house pruned hires Laura to help unpack ethnographic collections from the mountains of Peru.  She choose Laura because of Laura's sensitivity; she herself is all about sensitivity to higher thought etc.

Except that she is NOT SENSITIVE to the fact that people living in the mountains of Peru might want to keep their ancestral sacred artifacts.   Good anthropologists don't excavate their own tunnels into secret shrines to steal people's sacred giant bats that are sleeping in suspended animation and that are really seraphs (beings of pure thought, who fly singing purely through the sky when not in suspended animation in caves, or being stolen by anthropologists).  Wanting to take the bat/seraph home to the US and have fun with pure thought does not, strangely, seem to me like a good enough reason to dig tunnels and pillage sacred places.

But Laura doesn't grasp this, and plays along (literally, on the sacred flute also pinched from the bat/seraph cave), and the bat/seraph wakes up, and it and the anthropologist go off to the realm of pure thought or something which involves flying together over the Andes.

Leaving Laura to deal with the Antithesis of Pure Thought--the swamp thing/monster that the flute music has summoned up out of the drain!!!!!

Happily it turns out the swamp thing is actually the Mermaid of Fecundity and Love and giving it fruit and a knife sends it home again.

There is more to the book, but not much more (an Indian doctor, for instance, gets to add a touch of Eastern Wisdom).

In case you ever want to write a high school essay on this book, I will help:  Laura's mother and the anthropologist are both, in different ways, making bad choices by distancing themselves from the world of insects and over-ripe cantaloupe (which is what the swamp mermaid smells like).  One can assume that the writer thinks the eighties are/were bad and we are/were killing too many insects with our household toxins, but also thinks that pure thought, devoid of emotion, is bad and we must embrace as well the Mermaid of Fecundity or something.  Which I agree with, but gee, this is a weird book.

I turn now to see what reviews in the 1980s though of it: 

Publisher's weekly:  "a strange but gentle metaphysical story of a young girl's discovery of the different planes of human existence.....Deep and haunting, this story can be enjoyed both for its fine fantasy and its delicate symbolism." 

If that review thinks the symbolism is delicate, I shudder to think what overt would look like.

School Library Journal:  "As one of the characters comments, "This has to be one of the most amazing things I've ever heard of." Sargent's slender novel almost defies description, but it is so beautifully written that it's worth making a little extra effort to suspend disbelief....Watermusic is recommended for private enjoyment and reading aloud with thoughtful young teens."

I do not think I would want to try reading it aloud to even the most thoughtful of teens today.  I think you would loose them at giant bat/seraph.

Note on cover:  I showed it to my 13 year old son, and asked if he could imagine the girl showing up at his school.  I got a loud No in response.....but the hairstyle sure is accurate.  I have the pictures to prove it.  Sigh.

Grave Images, by Jenny Goebel

Today I'm taking part in the readathon that's kicking off this year's Middle Grade March, and finally, after months of book guilt, I have finished Grave Images, by Jenny Goebel (Scholastic, November 2013).  The book guilt comes from the fact that when Grave Images arrived in my life, I was right in the middle of reading for the Cybils Awards...and though Grave Images travelled with me to Austen for last fall's Kidlitcon, and though I kept moving it to more conspicuous places within my house, I just never got to it till now.

In one sentence--Gothic-esque horror for the young (probably girl) reader who likes creepy but who doesn't actually want to be scared too much.

Bernie (short for Bernadette) helps her dad out as much as she can with his gravestone carving business.  She's never felt it was morbid at all--it's just a trade, allowing for some artistic creativity (which she values).  But then a mysterious stone carver knocks on their door.  His artistry at etching portraits into stone is astounding, so good it seems almost impossible that he could have done it by hand with his old tools.  The man and his tools give Bernie the chills...and rightly.   For there is Dark Evil afoot, and the beautiful stone carvings the man makes hide a terrifying truth!!!!  (cue sinister music.)

So.  Bernie and her annoying not a friend but of course really a friend Michael start to probe into the past of the mysterious artist, uncovering much creepiness.   Bernie's dreams become haunted.  And finally, in a cemetery at night Bernie must confront the evil that's invaded her life...and not give into the temptation it offers. (Gothicly, it involves an apparition in a white flowing gown.)

This one is just fine to give to a ten year old girl looking for a bit of a chill that won't actually lead to nightmares.  There is death, but it's people dying of magically induced heart-attacks, as opposed to more troubling dismemberment by hell hounds or some such.   There's a bit of budding kid romance, but Bernie and Michael are 13, so I guess a kiss on the cheek and some hand holding isn't that shocking.  

It didn't quite work for me--the horror wasn't particularly subtle or chilling, and I could have done without the underlining of lessons learned that we get at the end.   On the plus side--religion as part of ordinarily life is scarce in kid's fantasy; here Catholisism is a part of the way things are (though not involved in the horror element of the story).   

Short answer--the target audience might well enjoy it; grown-ups, not so much.

Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher