Sophie, In Shadow, by Eileen Kernaghan

Sophie, In Shadow, by Eileen Kernaghan (Thistledown Press, YA, March 2014)

Two years ago, sixteen-year-old English girl Sophie survived the sinking of the Titanic, but her parents did not.  Still haunted by that tragedy, she's sent off to India, to stay with distant cousins--Tom, a zoologist working at the Indian Museum, Jean, his novelist wife, and their young daughter, Alex.  Sophie has prepared herself for "India" by reading (both non-fiction and Kipling), but nothing can prepare her for what happens once she arrives.

Tragedy and culture-shock combine to wake in Sophie a gift of sorts--her perceptions of both past and future become strangely sharpened.  And her visions will make her a player in the tail end of Kipling's Great Game--the game of intrigue, political machinations, and spying in which European powers, and now Indian nationalists, shape the future of the country.  World War I is underway in Europe, and plots are afoot in India that may well destroy both Sophie's new family and British control of the sub-continent.

I approach fiction about India, especially fiction involving young English girls with supernatural abilities, with a certain amount of caution, looking carefully for stereotypes, romanticization, and neo-colonial baggage.   Happily, Sophie, In Shadow did a good job of not bothering me!  In large part this is because we stick closely to Sophie's point of view--she is aware that she has a lot of learning to do, and is willing to question the social norms of the very tail end of the British raj.  It is still very much a European point of view, but the reader can't reasonably expect more from this particular character's story.

There was much I enjoyed--I am a huge fan of Kipling's Kim, so it was great to see Sophie becoming involved in the last years of the Great Game, including a bit where a German agent is pursued through the mountains!  And I am also a fan of being educated through historical fiction--before reading this book, I had not particular thoughts on what was happening in India during WW I.  And Sophie herself, and her cousins, are interesting characters with believable motivations, interests, and aspirations.  Added interest came from a secondary character, a friend of Jean's who was a real person--Alexandra David-Néel , a French-Belgian spiritualist, anarchist, Buddhist, writer, and explorer.  I may well have to seek out more about her!

The paranormal elements of the story are enough to add fantastic zest, but are not so much so as to make Sophie a special snowflake saving India (thank goodness!).  Sophie's visions do not take over the book--for the most part, it reads as historical fiction--so don't expect this to be full-blown paranormal fantasy.

In short, Sophie, in Shadow is historical fantasy that both educates and entertains, that I particularly recommend to fans of Kim!

(note:  Jean and Tom and Alexandra were the central characters in Kernaghan's earlier book, Wild Talent, but it is not at all necessary to have read that first).

disclaimer: review copy received from the author

Waiting on Wednesday--Dragons at Crumbling Castle, by Terry Pratchett

My eagle-eyed friend Tanita spotted this in Publishers Weekly yesterday, and sent it my way:  "Anne Hoppe at Clarion Books has bought the U.S. rights to Dragons at Crumbling Castle, a middle-grade collection by Terry Pratchett, illus. by Mark Beech. The 14 stories originally appeared in Buck's Free Press, a newspaper in Buckinghamshire; Pratchett, before becoming a novelist, was a reporter and contributed a number of stories to the paper's Children's Circle section. A publication date has not been finalized..."

Whoot!  Thanks, Tanita!

Ancient Fire, by Mark London Williams for Timeslip Tuesday

Sometimes a reader just has to ask "does the sentient dinosaur boy actually add anything to the story?"   In the case of Ancient Fire (Danger Boy, book 1), by Mark London Williams (2001), I'm happy to say that he does. But before we meet this particular sentient dinosaur from an alternate reality, a lot of other things have to happen.

It is 2019.  Physics has advanced, to the point that two scientists, husband and wife, have made a breakthrough that may allow time travel to be a workable proposition.  A secret government agency is very interested indeed in the ramifications of this...and its agents have invaded the lab where the research is being carried out, and are pushing the experiments to dangerous levels.  So much so that the female scientist disappears, as it were, in a puff of (metaphoric) time smoke.  Her husband, desperate to escape from government control, flees across country with their son, Eli, but the government agents track them, and force the work to continue.  And when Eli incautiously interferes with an experiment, he becomes unlocked in time himself!

In the meantime, a young saurian lad is headed out on a mission to an alternate earth, because this is what all young saurians do in middle school.  The physics of his journey collides with Eli's first rush through time, and they find themselves in ancient Alexandria, just in time to be attacked by an angry mob.   There they meet Thea, daughter of Hypatia, librarian of Alexandria.  After some bouncing in time/near death at the hands of angry mob/manipulation by government agents/the revelation that Eli's mom might be alive in the 1930s/a plague that might have been brought from the past/an angry rhino, the book ends....with lots more story left to be told!

Basically, the sentient dinosaur boy, Clyne, made the book for me.   Without him, it would be generic science-driven time travel for the young; with him, there's lovely cross-cultural exploration, with bonus surrealism.  He's the most engaging character, qua character, as well--perhaps because Eli and Thea are both in such unhappy and anxious states that they don't add much lightness to story (Clyne's major worry, until he's in mortal peril himself,  is the grade he's going get), but mostly because he's such a pleasant, inquisitive, optimistic sentient dinosaur that I liked him lots.

The book also offers a nice introduction to the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, for those anxious to learn about the past (harrowing, though, to watch the scrolls go up in smoke), and for those who are physics geeks, doubtless the science of nanoparticles and the nature of time and space will provide interesting fodder for critical thought.

I enjoyed this one a lot more than I though I was going to.  It is the first of a series (Danger Boy), and for Clyne's sake I'll actively look for the next book, Dragon Sword--even though the introduction of Arthur and Merlin as allies sends up even more red flags that sentient dinosaurs do! Try this one on the imaginatively adventurous nine or ten year old who enjoys a swirl of complicated plot, sooner rather than later, because 2019 is almost here....and although the book is not that dated yet, physics keeps getting stranger in real life....

(The only other sentient saurian character I can think of is the one in Sherri Tepper's Gibbon's Decline and Fall, which I've whited out the title of because it is a spoiler.  And I didn't mind it there either, so maybe I am more open-minded viz dinosaurs than I think I am.  I still have no desire to read Anne McCaffery's Dinosaur Planet books though).

The Return of Zita the Spacegirl, by Ben Hatke

The Return of Zita the Spacegirl, by Ben Hatke (FirstSecond, May 13, 2014)

The moment I saw Zita the Spacegirl, way back in 2011, I fell in book love.  So did my boys.

Zita is back for her third adventure, and for those of us (me and boys) who are die-hard fans, the third book of her adventures does not disappoint.  We get to see old friends, meet new characters (some cute, some grotesque; some lovable, some despicable), and we get to Zita being her intrepid, warm-hearted, impetuous self. 

Her adventures in this book take her to pretty dark places.  She is a prisoner, sentenced to work in the mines on a prison planet, and it is rather distressing.  If you think your child is not quite ready for rather grim forced labor with shackles, hold off a tad.  I wouldn't, for instance, hurry to give this to a sensitive six or even seven year old.

But, on the other hand, if you are looking for books for eight-year-olds on up that utterly prove that boys will read books with girls, turn to Zita!  My own boys have read our copies many, many times.  Zita is pretty much the most fiercely caring heroine around today I can think of; despite the resolution to the series that comes at the ending of this book, I can't help but hope that we will see more of her.

I love Hatke's drawings, and I very much appreciated the back matter Hatke provides here which includes a lovely sample of character sketches.  He also tells the story of how Zita came to be, which was fun!


Here's a preview at Tor.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

This week's round up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs (5/4/2014)

Yay!  It is sunny and it is May.  And here's what I found in my blog reading this week of interest to us fans of middle grade speculative fiction.  Let me know if I missed yours.

The Reviews:

The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley, at Views From the Tesseract

The Cryptid Files: The Loch Ness Monster, by Jean Flitcroft, at Finding Wonderland

Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede, at Fantasy Review Barn

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Ciara Reads Books

The Dyerville Tales, by M.P. Kozlowsky, at Charlotte's Library

Half Upon a Time, by James Riley, at Tales of the Marvelous

Horizon, by Jenn Reese, at The Book Smugglers

House of Secrets, by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini, at Readaraptor

How to Catch a Bogle, by Catherine Jinx, at Good Books and Good Wine (audiobook review)

In the Keep of Time, by Margaret J. Anderson, at Charlotte's Library

The Interupted Tale, by Maryrose Wood, at alibrarymama

The Kindling, by Braden Bell, at Always in the Middle

The Lost Children, by Carolyn Cohagan, at Puss Reboots

Masterpiece, by Elise Broach, at Dead Houseplants

The Monster in the Mudball, by S.P. Gates, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

Operation Bunny, by Sally Garnder, at Booklist Online

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, by Jonathan Auxier, at The Reading Hedgehog

Project Xcaliber, by Greg Pace, at Middle Grade Mafioso

Red Riding Hood Gets Lost, by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams, at Candace's Book Blog

The Ride of Your Life (Creepover #18), by P.J. Night, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Riverman, by Aaron Starmer, at For Those About to Mock

Rose and the Lost Princess, by Holly Webb, at In Bed With Books

The Sceaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, at Hidden in Pages

Seven Wild Sisters, by Charles de Lint, at The Book Monsters

The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blakemore, at Librarian of Snark

When Did You See Her Last?, by Lemony Snicket, at Semicolon and Sonderbooks

A World Without Princess, by Soman Chainani, at A Reader of Fictions (audiobook review)

A passel of books at Ms. Yingling Reads-- The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw, The Forbidden Library, The Ninja Librarians and the Accidental Keyhand, and The Islands of Chaldea

Authors and Interviews

Marisa de los Santos and David Teague (Saving Lucas Biggs) at The Write Stuff with giveaway

Dianne Salernie (The Eighth Day) at Literary Rambles, with giveaway

Holly Webb (Rose and the Lost Princess) at Literary Rambles, with giveaway

Anne Ursu gave a great keynote speech at the year's Children's and Young Adult Literature Conference, which you can read here at The Loft .  Here's a teaser:  "This is the age where the world gets a little bigger every day, when your mind is still taking in everything it can, when adults stop shielding the hard things from you. Books are a small place to explore a big world. They are personal—for the first time, they are yours—and they are profound. They reflect and assure, they project and excite. And kids love them for it. They love them with their whole being. "  

Claire Legrand (Year of Shadows) at The Book Cellar

Jaleigh Johnson (Mark of the Dragonfly) at SFFWorld

Jennifer Nielsen (The Ascendance Trilogy) at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

The Dyerville Tours, by M.P. Kozlowsky, kicked off its tour this week--the full schedule is here, and  includes guest posts at Word Spelunking and The Book Smugglers

And Jonathan Auxier's After the Book Deal tour continues:
WEEK TWO: Your Book Launch
April 28 - “Can I have Your Autograph?” @ Haunted Orchid
April 29 –  “Cinderella at the Ball” @ The O.W.L.
May 1 – “Being Heard in the Crowd” @ The Misbehavin’ Librarian
May 2 - “The Loneliest Writer in the World” @ Shelf Employed


Other Good Stuff:

Akossiwa Ketoglo is hosting a Marvellous May Middle Grade Readathon

A list of Rick Riordan readalikes at alibrarymama

Lots on diversity this week, most notably the WeNeedDiverseBooks  campaign.

I wish I could offer a nice list of Diverse Middle Grade Speculative Fiction coming out this summer, but I can't--there's Infinity Ring Book 8: Eternity, by Matt de la Peña, and there's Spirit Animals Book 4: Fire and Ice, by Shannon Hale and that's all I can think of.  ARE THERE ANY MORE? Please tell me there are more. 

The Diversity Issue of SLG is up--click through for lots of good stuff, and heres a list of one ten-year-old's recommendations of fantasy and science fiction with diverse characters at Charlotte's Library

I am thinking I might be going to The Maine Comics Arts Festival on May 18th in Portland--when I told the boys that Ben Hatke and Kazu Kibuishi will be there they expressed fanchild interest, which I think should be encouraged.  Not that I myself have any interest in fangirling Ben Hatke (sarcasm font).

And speaking of comics, since yesterday was Free Comics Day, I offer (humbly) another episode in my own *exciting* series about the adventures of two Castaway Blobs, hastily drawn in the last five minutes because planning ahead is hard.

Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on Museum Mile, by Marcia Wells -- bought, read, and reviewed for #WeNeedDiverseBooks

Today is the third day of the WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, and it is the Day of Action, which is to say, the day of buying books, and asking our libraries to buy books, and even just checking out lots of diverse books from our libraries, to show they are wanted.   So I set off to my local bookstore to find a middle grade book with diversity in it that I didn't already have, preferably one that showed a kid of color on the cover which wasn't about the Civil War (because I've never really wanted to read about the Civil War). 

Upon arriving at Barnes and Nobel, I was not overwhelmed by the choices available to me, because one book is not a choice.  But at least there was one for me to buy!  And happily, Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on Museum Mile, by Marcia Wells, illustrated by Marcos Calo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), was a great book!  One that I have no regrets about whatsoever!  One that I wouldn't have picked up if it hadn't been for the campaign! (one that is making me use too many exclamation marks).

In any event. 

Edmund is an African American kid in New York city with a photographic memory.   When his talents come to the attention of the NYPD, they enlist him to help crack a case involving a ring of art thieves...and promise that if he can help solve it, they'll pay the tuition at his private school.   Since his librarian dad just got laid off (side note:  African American father, very present in son's life, who is a librarian--yay!, library lay-offs, not yay), the tuition offer is so very sweet it can't be turned down (not that Edmund wants it turned down!).  And so Edmund starts staking out the art galleries of New York...and finds himself repeatedly squelched by the officer assigned to shepherd him through the detective work.

Fortunately Edmund has a buddy, Jonah, whose ADHD and OCD nature lends itself beautifully to the restless, obsessive compiling of data and searching for patterns.  And the two of them, now maverick operators with no NYPD support, close in on the art thieves just as they are about to carry out their next crime...

This was an immensely fun book--I loved Edmund's voice and his self-deprecating humor, and I bet I was grinning as I read.   I loved the relationship between his parents, and appreciated their realistic concerns for his safety.  I can't really speak to the logic of the puzzle at the heart of the book, because I am a bad reader of puzzle books (I'm more interested in character than clues), but it all seemed to make a certain amount of (admittedly improbable) sense. 

If you have a kid around who's ten or so who loves a good urban-kid-solving-mystery book, I pretty much can't recommend this more enthusiastically (although since I don't read this genre much, I don't have a solid basis for comparison).

If you want a book that shows an urban African American family with parents who are loving, well educated, and until recently able to afford an expensive private school; a book in which race is something that comes up naturally in the protagonist's thoughts and conversations without being an issue driving the story, and if you want a book that shows the black kid right there on the cover being the hero (in the book he's more organized and never lets his pictures fall like that)--  this, I can say without any doubts at all, is a great book for you!

It is also the only book I have ever read in which the hero puts on his mom's Beyoncé wig from a costume party as the finishing touch to his disguise as a girl scout.

"I pin the hair back with one of my mom's hairclips.  Not bad, I think, turning to the side and checking out my new look.  I am innocent.  A sweet, geeky girl, perfect to let into your house and catalog your most expensive possessions.

I open the door.  Jonah stands there, eyes bulging out.  A strange noise gurgles in his throat.  Clutching his pants, he turns on his heel and sprints down the hallway.  I hear the bathroom door slam, followed by peals of laughter.  He better not have peed on the floor mid run."  (p. 200)

So I'm glad I bought it.  And here's another review, at Ms. Yingling Reads.

(Just for the record, today I also bought Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson, but that I had to order). 

And now here are my ten-year-old's favorite books with multicultural characters, plus thinking ahead to book shopping tomorrow!

Continuing the Fun with Diverse Books, here's a quick list of great books with multicultural characters to offer your ten-year-old reader of fantasy, as selected by my own dear child.

Astronaut Academy Zero Gravity (2011), and  Astronaut Academy Re-Entry (2013), by Dave Roman, are wonderfully imaginative graphic novels, arguably more sci fi than fantasy.  There's a diverse cast of characters, many of whom are deeply loveable.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin (2009)  I have yet to meet a kid (even my older very picky reader!) who didn't enjoy this lovely story set in a fantasy China.  Both the illustrations and the writing are lovely! 

Jinx (2013) and Jinx's Magic (2014), by Sage Blackwood, is one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it examples of diversity--the title character has brown skin, and it is mentioned in passing.   (I think we need lots of books in which people just happen to be all sorts of people, that can't be Labeled particular things, because of course readers are all sorts of people themselves).  It's one of my son's favorite series.

Likewise, it's mentioned in passing that the hero of  The Menagerie (2013), and Dragon on Trial (2014) by Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland, is African American.   Any reader who loves magical creatures should check out this series! 

My Neighbor Totoro (the novel), by Tsugiko Kubo (2013)-- I myself love this book tons.  It's very faithful to movie--all the gentle, sweet magic and family love is there in full force.

And finally, my son wants to make sure I include the Spirit Animal series (the first of which is Wild Born by Brandon Mull (2013), staring a group of kids that includes a girl from a fantasy China and one from a fantasy Africa, and they are shown beatufully, though not very large, on the covers (of books 1 and 3, respectively):

And even more finally, I just want to sneak in a mention of Dragonbreath, Book 2: Attack of the Ninja Frogs, by Ursula Vernon, because even though the main character, Suki, is a salamander, she is a really really cool salamander from Japan.

My ten-year-old will be an eleven-year-old next Wednesday...and for tomorrow's challenge of putting our money where our mouths (or fingers, since we're typing) are, I am walking up the hill to the closest bookstore (B. and N.) to buy a multicultural fantasy book or two for him because I am sure there will be lots to choose from ha ha and if that fails I will have to buy something on-line.  I say "ha ha" because every anniversary of my decision to look for multicultural books I go to the bookstore and last year I managed to happily buy The Summer Prince but it is not as though there are scads of mg sff books that we don't already have with kids of color on the covers....

But in any event,  if B. and N. has a copy of Nightingale's Nest, by Nikki Loftin, I will buy a copy of that because I think its publisher, Razorbill, should be rewarded to the gills for this cover, in particular because no particular ethnicity was specified for the character by the text.

Here are the details for tomorrow from the We Need Diverse Books website:

"On May 3^rd, 2pm (EST), the third portion of our campaign will begin. There will be a Diversify Your Shelves initiative to encourage people to put their money where their mouth is and buy diverse books and take photos of them. Diversify Your Shelves is all about actively seeking out diverse literature in bookstores and libraries, and there will be some fantastic giveaways for people who participate in the campaign! More details to come!"

My most favorite sci fi and fantasy books with diversities of various sorts

Mostly when I blog about diverse science and fiction and fantasy for kids, the books are about characters who don't happen to be white, because other diversities (LGBT protagonists, and kids with disabilities that aren't magically cured being somewhat thin on the ground in speculative fiction books for kids and younger teens).   So just for kicks, here are my favorite spec fic books that including those diversities.

The first book I ever read (I think I was 15) in which the hero was in a loving, committed relationship with another man was The Door Into Fire, by Diane Duane, and I pretty much read this fantasy epic to pieces.  Herewiss is a magic user, his loved, Freelorn, is the exiled heir to a kingdom, and there is just tons of great fantasy world build and sexy times of all sorts.  I myself thought Freelorn was kind of wet (I think I just took against the name right from the beginning), and I was rooting for Herewiss' relationship with a really wonderful fire elemental being (who sometimes took male form, sometimes female, for the sexy good times)....because really a self-confident but poignantly vulnerable shape shifting elemental love interest is more interesting. The other two books in the series that were published (Door into Shadow, and The Door Into Sunset, are fine too, but not quite as preconception-of-sexuality shifting as this one was!

And at the same time, I was reading to pieces many of Marion Zimmer Bradely's Darkover books.  Thendara House, in which two women from different patriarchal societies (one is from Earth and one from Darkover) come to love each other, was a particular favorite, and can be read a stand-alone just fine.  I think I liked this one because I've always enjoyed reading about close communities of women--there's often a comfortable safeness to this sort of book, that in no way precludes emotional and external tensions and adventures, and I also love to read about struggles to navigate social norms in alien cultures.

My favorite spec fic protagonist with a disability (a damaged leg that causes him considerable pain) is Alan, from Sarah Reese Breennan's Demon's Lexicon series because I love him and he is wonderful and he is kind and smart and loves books and I love him.  And the books in which he appears are pretty darn good too.

My second favorite spec fic protagonist with a disability is Eugenides from Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series, who has only one hand.  He is awesome, and the books are awesome (especially The King of Attolia).   I am putting him after Alan because he is so awesome I can't even imagine crushing on him from afar in real life (perhaps in part because the relationship that he's actually in is so perfectly tight that there's no room for strangers to crush on him much).

For cultural and ethnic diversity reimagined in speculative fiction, Ursula le Guin is my go-to author.  Always Coming Home, is an novella set in the future that's situated within an anthropological framework based on Le Guin's extensive knowledge of Native North America.  It's taken me some years to realize how much I appreciate it, but after reliving it countless times while weeding the garden (a benchmark by which I measure books is how clearly and how often my mind offers them back to me again while weeding), I've realized that I truly love it. 

And the other Le Guin I must include is Four Ways to Forgiveness, four stories set on a planet and its moons where dark skinned people enslaved pale skinned people.  In order for this world to become part of the galactic community, the inequities of this culture must be resolved, and it's a difficult and painful process.   The characters in these stories are some of Le Guin's most memorable, which is saying  a lot.   And I'm also fond of this one for personal reasons--when I first met my husband, it had just come out, and both of us had it on our respective nightstands.

We Need Diverse Books!

The We Need Diverse Books Campaign is off and running!  Today folks are sharing there reasons why, and here is my younger son with his own sign--"We need diverse kid's books because it's easy for me to find kids like me in books but it's not easy for my friends!"

 

I've been trying to blog about books with diversity for the past five years (here's the post in which I get started), hunting out fantasy and sci fi books for kids in which the protagonists are kids who don't default to white. I want my boys to take it for granted that any kid, from any part of the world, can be the hero or heroine of a story. I've kept a list of the multicultural books I've reviewed here, and I've just started a new blog, Diversity in Science Fiction and Fantasy for Kids and Teens, where I'm posting them all in one place, to make them easier to find.  (I'd hoped to have more of reviews up there by today, but I found too many typos to make it go as quickly as I'd hoped!)

The We Need Diverse Books campaing continues tomorrow and the next day.  From the site:

 

"On May 2^nd, the second part of our campaign will roll out with a Twitter chat scheduled for 2pm (EST) using the same hashtag. Please use #WeNeedDiverseBooks at 2pm on May 2nd and share your thoughts on the issues with diversity in literature and why diversity matters to you.

 

On May 3^rd, 2pm (EST), the third portion of our campaign will begin. There will be a Diversify Your Shelves initiative to encourage people to put their money where their mouth is and buy diverse books and take photos of them. Diversify Your Shelves is all about actively seeking out diverse literature in bookstores and libraries, and there will be some fantastic giveaways for people who participate in the campaign! More details to come!"

The Dyerville Tales, by M.P. Kozlowsky

I read The Dyerville Tales (Walden Pond Press, middle grade, April 2014) avidly, with interest and enjoyment (though not true love), and usually when this happens it's easy for me to prattle on about the book's pleasing qualities.  But I find myself somewhat stuck as I try to write about this one, because I'm not entirely sure I can define why I enjoyed reading it, nor am I entirely sure I could successfully pick the young readers who would love it (though I'm sure they exist).

Vince Elgin has lived in an orphanage ever since the terrible fire that destroyed his home.  He knows it killed his mother, but nothing of his father was ever found....leaving Vince with horrible, desperately comforting, faith that his father will someday come back for him.   He tells the story of the fire over and over again to the other orphans, with its ending he has to keep believing--the arrival of the fiery dragon, and his father's disappearance in pursuit of it.  When word arrives at the orphanage that Vince's paternal grandfather has died, Vince knows he must go to Dyerville for the funeral--surely his father will be there.   And so he absconds from the orphanage, with little in the way of a plan, but with lots of hope.

He has something else as well.  The friend of Vince's grandfather who sent the death notice sent something else as well--a book in which he'd recorded all the grandfather's stories.   And as Vince makes his way through the cold winter to Dyerville, meeting friends and foes along the way, he reads these stories to himself and to others.   The fantastical journey described therein can't possibly be true, what with the evil witch, the blinded giant, the enchanted beasts, and the magical book.  But Vince has been practicing his belief in the impossible as hard as ever he can, and so he takes from his grandfather's story an answer, of a magical sort, that will finally give him peace.

The Dyerville Tales is two stories--the mundane world of Vince's journey, and the fantasy journey of his grandfather.  Both are somewhat episodic--Vince's journey in the real world less so--which I was perfectly comfortable with during the reading.  But I think that my reservation about the book comes from a sense that the thematic links aren't quite strong enough to ever make the two strands of stories, and even the stories within those strands, work together to make a coherent whole.  

And I was left with doubt about Vince's grandfather, as opposed to finding him and his life convincing emotionally--he must have been a real person, because there Vince is, but his life as told in the fantastically stories can't have been all there was to him, and we don't quite get to see any of that "real" person in our "real" world.  

I think, having now writing this, that the young reader I'd give this to would have to be one who loved fairy tales, who isn't the sort to come back to a parent after reading and say "but...but...."  A trusting sort of child, who doesn't have to have things make Sense.  Which, at this point in my life, isn't exactly me.

Here's another review, with fewer reservations, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.

Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

In the Keep of Time, by Margaret J. Anderson, for (the Wednesday's) Timeslip Tuesday

At first glance, In the Keep of Time, by Margaret J. Anderson (1977) seems like a standard time travel story--four siblings, unwillingly spending the summer with a great aunt in the Scottish boarderlands, explore the ruined castle nearby.  Their aunt is its chatelaine, and has given them the key to the tower...and when they turn it (after it starts glowing, the way magic keys do), they travel back in time to the 15th century.   But soon a twist appears--the youngest child, Olivia, has no memory of her contemporary self.  Instead, she is Mae, grand-daughter of the castle's lord, with a family who loves her, and absolutely no inclination to trust her three siblings. 

And to make things even more exciting, the castle is besieged by an English army, and its own fighting men are away on a cattle raid.  Andrew, with Mae as his guide, is sent to warn them  (exciting adventure in the past bit happens, including a battle between James II of Scotland and the English).  

But for me, things really picked up when the three older kids drag Mae/Olivia back into the present with them.  They had expected her to become Olivia once more, but to their consternation, she remains Mae.  Child of the middle-ages that she now is, she is terrified and wonder struck in turn by the marvels of the present.   And her siblings, seeing no other recourse, desperately work to make Mae into a child of the 20th century who their parents might not realize is someone who misses her "real" mother back in the past....In the process, the siblings come to appreciate each other more (which was something their parents were hoping to accomplish by sending them off together for the summer).

Then the key glows again...and the kids head back to the keep.  Once more they travel through time, but now they find themselves several centuries in the future, and this might be the earliest example in a children's book of a future that imagines the consequences of sea-level rise from global warming caused by over-reliance on technology.   The only inhabitant of the keep in this time period is an old, mysterious woman....who is able (off-stage) to return Olivia to herself (at least, enough so that she isn't Mae anymore....).

This book is the sort to knock the socks off the nine or ten year old who's never read a time travel book, the sort of book they might well remember for life.    It's one that is best read as young as possible, though...I found it a pleasant read, but certainly it was not as emotionally powerful as it would have been to a younger me, whose relationships with siblings and parents were of primary importance. 

I had read Margaret J. Anderson's Searching for Shona, but had not realized she'd written time travel books, two of which appear to be connected to this one.   I'll be looking out for them!

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

If The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner, met the City Watch books of Discworld and Bitterblue, by Kristin Cashore, the resulting book might remind one of The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison (Tor Books, April 1, 2014).  Basically, it's about a decent young man (who reminded me of Sam from Discworld, because both have compassion that transcends social boundaries), thrust into a world of dysfunctional corruption and political intrigue, who is lonely, and trapped by power, who has to learn really really quickly who he can trust and how to get things done....

Plot Summary:

Maia never expected to be Emperor--his father, ruler of the Elflands, had other sons much more pleasing to him then the despised child of a despised goblin wife.   And so, after the death of his mother when he was eight, Maia lived far from the imperial court, abused both physically and mentally by a bitter, drunken guardian.

Then the Emperor's airship explodes--and Maia is the only son left.  Half-goblin though he is, he becomes the Emperor, and all unprepared he's forced into a world of daunting etiquette, court intrigue, power struggles, corruption, and treason.   Still a teenager, innocent in many ways, Maia is at first at sea in the swirling morass of the court, and he struggles to shake the viciously critical voice of his abuser from his head.  But as Maia grows in confidence and power, he must, for the sake of his own sanity, cling to the core of his self--and it is his compassion and basic decency that bring the greatest ripples of change to his empire.

The Fantasy Elements

The fantasy elements are pretty straightforward.  The world is at a nascent industrial revolution stage(airships and mechanical are being build).  There's some "magic," most obviously in the ability that some individuals have to communicate with the dead. 

But of course the main fantasy element is that the people of the world are elves and goblins, and both have ears that convey body language (this disconcerted me right to the end).  The elves and the goblins differ from each other in appearance (the goblins have dark skin and red eyes, and are more robust, the elves white skin and blue/green eyes) and in culture, but they intermarry, and there's a lot of that on the boarder between the two realms.    Maia's mother was despised by the emperor not because she was the dark-skinned daughter of the Barizhan goblin king, but because he had dearly loved his previous wife, who died in childbirth.  That being said, Maia's abusive guardian did not spare him racial taunts.   

Issues of race and identity

I'm always a tad  leery of books where the characters are "elf" or "goblins," words so loaded with preconceptions.   And I make a habit of asking "Is it really necessary for these characters to be "elves/goblins?"  In this case, it's not actually crucial; this could have been an alternate Europe/Africa world, with human people who had different skin tones. But I appreciated how the choice to make the characters "fantasy others" allowed Addison to come at issues of race and identity from a different direction.  Fantasy such as this allows the familiar to be remigned afresh and strange, which, done well, is thought-provoking. 

In any event, Maia is a dark-skinned person in a court where everyone else in power is light skinned, and he'd keenly aware of it.   And it's not just mentioned once--his self-consciousness about his physical appearance, his observations of others, a large part of his sense of self,  are shaped by this fact and it keeps coming up in his mind.   Here's an example, when Maia is at a reception hosted by the Barizhan ambassador:

"It was the first time in his life Maia had been surrounded by people who were like him instead of only snow-white elves with their pale eyes, and he missed several names in the effort not to faint or hyperventilate or burst into tears." (page 195)

So in a nutshell, the issue of race pervades the story, and it's pretty thought-provoking. 

(Here's what I'd like to see someday--beautiful dark-skinned elves and short, stocky white goblins.  Because if your using fantasy to confront racism, why not go all the way.  Except then the main character would be white, so it wouldn't be confronting racism in the same way.  And without the negative-ness of "goblin" a lot of who Maia is in relation to the elves would be lost....)

This is also the only fantasy book I can think of in which a young male character is traumatized by an occasion when he was almost very horribly raped.   It is also a book in which there are characters who are gay, and characters who might well be gay (or not).  Sometimes in some cases this leads to complications.  Heterosexuality is the norm, but it's nice to see some diversity.  The role of women in a patriarchal society is also addressed, and very nicely too.  Maia, himself oppressed and denied an education, is sympathetic to the women he meets who want more than marriage and children.

A specific criticism (or, how my personal reading experience could have been better)

It is a very complicated world that Katherine Addison has created here, not so much in terms of the big picture, but because there is a very large cast of characters, many of whom are related to each/plotting against each other/with complicated backstories.   And her world comes with complicated naming conventions--perfectly believable, but rather hard to pick up quickly.   Fast readers like me, who are bad at names in general, will be confused.   I wish the explanatory note and the index had been put at the beginning instead of at the end, and I wish Addison had not relied on names as identifiers, but put in helpful phrases like "his father's aunt" or "the woman he would marry." 

The book would have been a more pleasantly immersive experience if I hadn't been reading slowly because of not being at all sure who people were.

(In fairness, the confusion occasioned by naming conventions worked beautifully to make me empathize with Maia, who was experiencing his own confusions right along with me, so as a rhetorical device I can't really fault it.)

And finally, my Final Thought:

I liked it a lot.  I don't have the urge to turn around right this sec and re-read it, but I can imagine I will want to in the future.   I imagine I might enjoy it more a second time, knowing who everyone is.

This week's round-up of middle grade science fiction and fantasy from around the blogs (4/27/14)

Welcome to the last middle grade sci fi/fantasy round-up of April, a month in which I reviewed fewer mg sff books than I have for years, and I am really glad I have nothing to do other than go to work (hopefully without calls from the medical examiner's office this month; even deer bones can suck up time) and clean/repair the house/children (can we fix the leak ourselves, or will it require costly repairs?  Will my ten year old let me cut his hair?) and do an unending amount of yard work and run the library booksale in the next month. and probably other things, like maybe BEA, and so I am sure I will have hours and hours of time in which to read and review.

In any event, I didn't have time to search as hard as I might have for posts this week, so please let me know if missed your post this week!

The Reviews:

Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson, at Views From the Tesseract

Constable and Toop, by Gareth P. Jones, at Sonderbooks

The Curse of the Thrax (Book 1 of the Bloodsword Trilogy) by Mark Murphy, at thebookshelfgargoyle

Dragon on Trial (The Menagerie, Book 2), by  Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen, at Guys Lit Wire

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, at Rcubed's Reads and Reviews

The Foundry's Edge (The Books of Ore, Book 1), by Cam Baity and Benny Zelkowicz, at Librarian of Snark

The Ghosts of Trupelo Landing, by Sheila Turnage, at Reads for Keeps

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, by Catherynne M. Valente, at Speculating on Spec Fic

The Gliter Trap, by Barbara Brauner and James Iver Mattson, at Wandering Librarians

Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins, at SW Lothian

Heir Apparent, by Vivian Vande Velde, at Leaf's Reviews

Horizon, by Jenn Reese, at On Starships and Dragonwings

The House of Arden, by E. Nesbit, at Becky's Book Reviews

How to Catch a Bogle, by Catherine Jinks, at School Library Journal (audiobook review)

Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel by K. A. Holt, at Original Content

The Nightshade Chronicles Books 2 and 3 (The White Assassin and Lords of Trillium), by Hilary Wagner, at Log Cabin Library

The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand, by Jen Swann Downey, at The Book Monsters, Charlotte's Library, and Word Spelunking (with interview)

Rose and the Lost Princess, by Holly Webb, at The Emerald City Book Review (with giveaway)

Rump, by Liesl Shurtliff, at Becky's Book Reviews

The Search for WondLa, by Tony DiTerlizzi, at The Overstuffed Bookcase

The Song of the Quarkbeast, by Jasper Fforde, at Geranium Cat's Bookshelf

Sky Raiders, by Brandon Mull, at Fantasy Literature and The Write Path

Switched at Birthday, by Natalie Standiford, at Not Acting My Age

Unforseen, by Ridley Pearson, at Manga Maniac Café

Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George, at Tales of the Marvelous

The Wells Bequest, by Polly Shulman, at Time Travel Times Two

A World Without Princes, by Soman Chainani, at AP Book Club

Two at Supernatural Snark--Bite Size Magic, by Kathryn Littlewood, and The Finisher, by David Baldacci

Two by Diana Wynne Jones at The Book Smugglers-- Homeward Bounders, and Black Maria

Authors and Interviews

Maureen Doyle McQuerry (Beyond the Door) on Why Kids (and Parents!) Need Myths, at Working Mother

Diane K. Salerni (The Eighth Day) -- Heroes and Villains #3: The Evolution of an Antagonist, at Project Mayhem, and also interviewed at Project Mayhem

Jonathan Auxier (The Night Gardener) is on tour, discussing what happens "After the Book Deal." You can find all the stops at his site.

Soman Chainani (A World Without Princes) at A Backward Story


Other Good Stuff

At Tor, you can browse a selection of the best Clone Trooper action figure pictures ever, from artist ZahirBatin

A Tuesday Ten of environmental spec fic for kids at Views from the Tesseract

Shannon Hale talks about Altered Perceptions, an anthology in which she has a story written to support Robison Wells, beset by the financial difficulties that have come with his struggle against mental illness.

Some folks have organized a call for action regarding the lack of diversity, and the lack of attention paid to diversity, in children's book publishing.  The first three days of May has been set as a time for readers and reviews to raise their voices to make a difference.  More detailed information can be found here at weneeddiversebooks

In which Kate Milford talks about self-publishing, Bluecrowne, and working with young artists

For my 2,500th post (!)  I have the pleasure welcoming Kate Milford, sharing her adventures in self-publishing.   Her latest venture, Bluecrowne (Arcana Project #2) takes place in and around the world her traditionally-published novels The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands (which I loved; here's my review), and the forthcoming Greenglass House (Clarion, August 26, 2014, and I can't wait!) and The Left-Handed Fate (Holt, 2015--this is the first I've heard of this one!  Exciting!).  

Kate is self-publishing Bluecrowne with the help of a Kickstarter campaign, which runs through tomorrow, April 25th.  Here's the description over at Kickstarter:  "Bluecrowne is a work of moderately frightening historical fantasy rooted in folklore. In it you'll meet villainous itinerant peddlers, young fireworks prodigies, privateers, and even the odd immortal or two. You'll learn why ship's biscuit is awesome, especially if it's stale (spoiler alert: WEEVILS). You'll learn the properties of cald-fire and lyke-fire, and the Chinese term for red massicot, just in case you ever need to know."

It sounds great.  And now, here's Kate, explaining more about it, with illustrations by some of the young artists involved in the project.

What I Learned While Self-Publishing (and it isn’t what you think)

            There are a lot of reasons to self-publish, even if you already work with publishers you love. But whatever the reason or reasons, you learn things in the process. Here are some of the things I learned with the first volume of the Arcana Project, and the reason I decided to do it again.   

            I wrote The Kairos Mechanism in February and March of 2012 and published it in September after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Part of the project was the reader-illustrated edition, which was something I’d added to the whole thing as sort of an afterthought. It turned out to be my favorite part of the project. The idea was that I’d find young artists to illustrate the book, one per chapter, and with their work we’d create a special ebook and that edition would be free or pay whatever, and that way the artists could share their work with their friends and family at no cost. Any money made from folks who did buy the edition would go toward the next volume of the project.

            I spent half of 2012 assembling the group of artists. Some I had known through social media, some were referrals from teachers and librarians, from friends and friends of friends. The youngest artist was eleven; the oldest had just turned twenty. The rest were everywhere in between. I sent each a copy of The Kairos Mechanism and asked them to send their top three choices for chapters they’d like to illustrate, then I went through and made sure I had each chapter and each scene covered that I felt really needed to be represented.

           

     We corresponded on and off throughout the summer. Some of that correspondence was for purposes of clarification about practical details. Sometimes I got communications that weren’t about input, just about excitement. I decided to use this style, and I did research about it. I picked this moment to illustrate because I wanted this character to have something beautiful. And, of course, I got a few emails asking for feedback about what they’d done. I learned a lot about my own shortcomings, artistic and otherwise, as I tried to be cautiously helpful.

            My feeling is that it’s my responsibility to be as clear as possible about whatever needs to be clear in the text for purposes of the story, but details beyond that are up to the reader. I don’t want them feeling like they have to fill in the blanks just to make the story make sense, obviously; but I want them to feel empowered to make interpretations and create mental pictures for themselves—to own the story as they read it and afterward. The last thing I wanted to do was have any of the artists involved in the illustrated edition not follow his or her instincts because I had weighed in and changed their minds or made them question their own interpretations.

            But in at least one instance I caused just exactly that situation to occur. The artist had emailed me a draft and asked my opinion, and although I loved it I’d posed some food-for-thought questions anyway, and taking those questions for instructions, she re-did her work. Both versions were wonderful, but it hadn’t been my intention to make her second-guess her first instincts. I learned my lesson and tried to do better after that. I wanted the art to reflect the text accurately, but beyond that, I wanted the artists to make their own choices.

 

           Another thing I learned is that everything takes longer than you anticipate. A dozen-plus kids and young adults having to work around summer travel, summer reading and summer projects of their own? (This is not a complaint.) But the point when art started arriving was up there with the highlights of 2012, which had already turned out to be a good year. Some sent their pieces by mail, others emailed them. They were all so different from each other—of course, it couldn’t be otherwise, with so many different people at work, but it was still fascinating. There are several variations on Natalie, the main character, and several different versions of the villain, Trigemine; but each interpretation reveals something unique and special about those characters.

            The original plan was to have one illustration per chapter, but some of the artists lobbied to be able to do more than one (and some just went ahead and sent more than one), and since a couple folks had to withdraw due to scheduling issues, that worked out well. Still, as the project neared its end, I had to find one more kid. That last artist to join was a referral from my cousin, who works with inner-city Baltimore youths. Hassan, who was twelve at the time, is a gifted artist, but my cousin had hinted that he might not be a big reader. When I asked him how he’d like to work, what we settled on was that I’d mark suggested scenes in the book, then he could pick which ones he wanted to do and I’d clarify as needed. My first set of notes involved highlighted sections in the paperback and post-it notes with what amounted to TL;DR summaries. Old-timey bar; a man sits with his head on the bar. Statues: an African man with a candle, and old woman with a harp, a young woman with long hair and a ring on one hand. Hassan’s was among the art that just showed up, and I wound up asking him a couple of times to redo one of the scenes he’d settled on, for the sake of accuracy. We wound up doing research more or less together in order to get Hassan the information he needed to be able to complete a piece that matched the text, and the result is one of my favorite images, the statue in Chapter Ten, which he signed along the ragged edge where he’d torn the page from his sketch book.

            By the time I finished the first completed draft of Bluecrowne, I had enough in the bank from sales of The Kairos Mechanism and from royalties from an anthology to know that even if the Bluecrowne Kickstarter failed, I could afford to pay the cover artist, designer, and editor. But what I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford was the illustrated edition, and it was that more than anything that made me decide to attempt crowdfunding for the second time. Now that the campaign has reached its goal, I know I have another illustrated edition to look forward to, and I absolutely cannot wait.

 Thank you Kate!  Though the Kickstarter has been fully funded(congratulations!),  contributions are still welcome, and will allow Kate to keep working on more awesomness.

AFTER THE BOOK DEAL, Day Three: "I Hate Networking" - Guest Post by Jonathan Auxier, author of the forthcoming The Night Gardener

Today I'm pleased to welcome Jonathan Auxier for Day Three of his After the Book Deal blog tour! Jonathan is the author of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, and The Night Gardener, which I'll be reviewing closer to its May 20th release date. 

AFTER THE BOOK DEAL - Guest Post by Jonathan Auxier

The Internet is full of great advice about how to sell a book, but what about after the sale? When my first book came out, I found it was surprisingly hard to find answers to some basic questions. Like most authors, I learned most of the answers through trial and error. And so in anticipation of the launch of my new novel, The Night Gardener, I’ve decided to write down everything I learned so I don’t make the same mistakes twice!

AFTER THE BOOK DEAL is a month-long blog series detailing the twenty things I wish someone had told me before entering the exciting world of children’s publishing. Each weekday from now until MAY 20, I will be posting an article on a different blog. Follow along and please spread the word!

 

 

DAY THREE - I Hate Networking

Yesterday we discussed how to craft your online identity, and today I want to look a little more closely at how to navigate the world of social networking. There is no shortage of advice about online marketing, so I won’t waste time trying to convince you that it’s important. Instead I’ll just list a few things I have observed that might be helpful.

 

TWITTER – The first thing you should do is read author Nathan Bransford’s excellent post on how to use Twitter. Twitter is an invaluable tool for connecting with strangers. It was through Twitter that I discovered my favorite bloggers. It was through Twitter that I met authors, booksellers, teachers, and librarians who shared similar interests—in short, it helped me find my tribe. Case in point: when I was registering for my first ALA conference, someone shouted my name from across the room. It was an author I knew from Twitter who introduced me to a whole group of other authors, who ended up becoming friends (more on that in Week Two).

 

FACEBOOK – Now that I’m a bit more established, I have found that Facebook has become a more valuable tool than Twitter—it’s a way to maintain and deepen the connections that I made through Twitter. Think of Facebook as “phase two” of your social networking plan. The easiest way to do this is by accepting friends on your private Facebook account. I would recommend that you NOT make a separate “author page.” Managing two different pages can be a hassle—plus with new changes to Facebook, author pages no longer reach a wide audience (unless you pay an advertising fee!). If you worry that your current Facebook profile might turn off potential readers, then this is a good time to examine the sorts of things you’re posting. While it’s fun to vent about politics or a neighbor you hate, you should probably save such things for real-life interactions. Keep Facebook friendly, but professional.

 

GOODREADS – Goodreads is a unique tool insofar as it is designed specifically for the publishing world. Before Peter Nimble came out, I reached out to a group of family and friends who had read my book and asked them to review it on Goodreads—many of them obliged, which resulted in my book having a strong star rating right out of the gates. That was nice, but along with those strong reviews, I got a few zero-star reviews from total strangers who had not read the book. Why did they decide to give me zero stars? I don’t know. All I know is that it drove me crazy. I learned when talking to other authors that my experience was pretty much universal. Every new writer spends a dark week where they obsess over star ratings ... ratings over which they have no control. So here’s my advice on Goodreads. Don’t do it. Stay away. It will make you crazy. Beyond rallying a few troops to give you reviews, it’s not worth your time. Goodreads is designed for readers, not writers.

 

YOUR AUTHOR WEBSITE – A few years ago, author blogs were a fairly important part of online marketing. Things have changed in recent years, and author blogs are no longer essential. (Some of this might be the death of the Google’s Reader, which results in fewer blogs being read overall). When I was preparing to launch my first book, I spent a LOT of energy in crafting a thoughtful, well designed website. I was posting four times a week, which may not seem like much, but I am a SLOW writer, which meant I was spending 25+ hours per week maintaining a website. While I won some early fans and am proud of the work, the time commitment was exhausting and unsustainable.

 

These days, author websites seem to serve two basic functions. First, they provide a place for readers to visit and learn more about you (and about your other books!). Second, they provide a way for schools/libraries/bookstores to screen authors before booking them for events. (I know this because when people contact me for an event, they always mention that my website sealed the deal for them.) So, by all means, make an author website that is professional and reflects your platform—but don’t feel pressure to update it more than once a week. That time is better spent elsewhere—mainly in starting your next manuscript (more on that in Week Three).

 

That’s it for day three of AFTER THE BOOK DEAL! I should mention that you should follow me on Twitter and be my friend on Facebook, and visit my awesome website. Tomorrow I’ll be at The Lost Entwife discussing the pros and cons of book trailers!

 

***

JONATHAN AUXIER writes strange stories for strange children. His new novel, The Night Gardener, hits bookstores this May. You can visit him online at www.TheScop.com where he blogs about children's books old and new.