From L-Space to E-Space, Part one--YA Books for fans of Terry Pratchett

This post is a written summary of the session that Tanita Davis, novelist and blogger (Finding Wonderland and tanitasdavis.com), Sheila Ruth, independent publisher and blogger (Wands and Worlds), Anne Hoppe (Terry Pratchett's YA editor in the US) and I presented at the North American Discworld Convention this Sunday (July 7, 2013). The presentation had two parts-the first was a quick run through of YA books we wanted to recommend to Pratchett fans that they might not have read, and the second offered links and advice on how to use the Internet to find more books!  I've split my recap posts into two-this first is about the books, the second post  has the links to more places to find books.

We couldn't, of course, find books that contained every single aspect of Pratchett's wonderfulness, but every book we suggest is well-written, with great characters and world building.  Some are funny, some are serious, but all are Good Reads.  Some are true Young Adult books, some were published for grown-ups, but have much YA appeal, and some were written for kids aged 9-12, but have much broader appeal (promise).

Tanita suggests:

The M.Y.T.H. Inc series, begun by Robert Asprin 1978, who was joined by Jodi Lynn Nye, who is now continuing the series, with Myth Quoted, published this year.

John Connolly is an Irish writer best known for his adult crime series, but his books for younger readers (The Book of Lost Things, The Gates, and The Infernals)  have much Pratchetty appeal!

Diana Wynne Jones demands mention; her more satirical books are our pick for best cross-over (Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Year of the Griffin, and Tough Guide To Fantasyland)

Sarah A. Hoyt--urban shape-shifting fun, published for the adult market, but good for YA.  (Start with Draw One in the Dark)

Another adult author whose books read like YA is Lawrence Watt-Evans--there are 12 Legends of Ethshar novels, and Tanita says they are all good (The Misenchanted Sword is the first)

The 500 Kingdoms Series, by Mercedes Lackey--stories within stories.

Jasper Fford's Nursery Crimes series--The Big Over Easy, and The Fourth Bear.

Sheila suggests:

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, and the Ring of Solomon, by Jonathan Stroud.  The smart-aleck demon Bartimaeus would be right at home in Discworld!

Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman--a lovely one for those interested in the multi-species coexisting aspect of Discworld.  The UK cover is on the left, the original US cover is in the center, and the current US cover is on the right.

Lonely Werewolf Girl and Curse of the Wolf Girl, by Martin Millar-- a friend for Angua.   Not the best covers in the world, but good books!

The 5th Wave, by Rick Yancey--rich and twisty and thought-provoking alien invasion.

Northlander, and The King Commands, by Meg Burden--intelligent,character-rich fantasy ftw!

Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking Series--this is dark, and emotional wrenching, but intelligent, powerful stuff.

The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex.  Funny sci fi for the younger reader.

The Keys of the Kingdom Series, by Garth Nix.  Inventive and fun!

Charlotte suggests:

The Magic Thief series, by Sarah Prineas.   Not only is this series about a young thief and his journey into magic a good gateway  into Pratchett, but it's a good read for anyone.

I'm including Enchanted, and Hero (coming this fall) by Alethea Kontis because I wanted pretty dresses fun examples of fairy tale retellings--I love that aspect of Pratchett.

Vivian Vande Velde's virtual reality series--fun, geeky, and clever!

Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant series.  The adventures of charismatic, crime-solving skeleton and the human girl who is his protegee.  Witty banter, much fun.

Tanita already mentioned Jasper Fforde, but I wanted to add The Last Dragon Slayer, and its forthcoming (in the US, already out in the UK) sequel, Song of the Quarkbeast.   They have a very English sort of insanity to them.

Seven Sorcerers and Shadow Spell, by Caro King--I love this fantasy series--it is creepy, funny, magical, etc.etc. and deserves more readers.

Soul Enchilada, by David Macinnis Gill.   I thought a book whose premise was the demon Beelzebub coming to reposes a teenage girl's Cadillac might appeal to Pratchett fans looking for magical insanity set in our world. 

Anne suggests:

Team Human, by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan--you can read it just for fun, or to appreciate its thoughtful depths.  Another good different species living together--in this case, vampires in Maine....

Garth Nix's Abhorsen series.  Classic YA fantasy

Frances Hardinge--Fly by Night and Fly Trap  (Twilight Robbery in the UK).   Tremendously intelligent writing, great characters and world building.

Here's what audience members added to the list:

•Diana Peterfreund
•Artemis Fow, by Eoin Colfer
•Sarah Beth Durst – Into the Wild, Out of the Wild
•Neil Gaiman
•His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman
•Patricia C. Wrede – Enchanted Forest Chronicles

•Girl Genius – Kaya & Phil Foglio (online, free)
•China Mieville – Railsea, Un Lun Dun
•Tom Holt – The Flying Dutch
•Douglas Adams
•Cornelia Funke – Reckless & Inkheart
•Catherynne M. Valente
•Diane Duane – Young Wizards (she’s writing more!)
•Lloyd Alexander
•Kat, Incorrigable, by Stephanie Burgis
•Libba Bray’s Going Bovine
•Piers Anthony – Xanth (with the caveat from Tanita, Sheila and me that these have huge sexism issues, and we wouldn't recommend them)
•Jim C. Hines – Jig the Dragonslayer
•Morgan Keyes-- Darkbeast
•Tanita S. Davis. (because her books are very good)

Thank you Anne and Sheila and Tanita (and David, Tanita's husband, who was our Powerpoint mastermind, adding to the slides as we spoke)!

No middle grade sci fi/fantasy round-up this week

Sadly, the hotel I'm staying in for the North American Discworld Convention doesn't have a public computer with an associated chair, and I didn't bring a laptop, so there won't be a middle grade sci fi/fantasy round-up this week.

But later in the day I"ll be putting up a written version of the power point Sheila, Tanita, and I are going to give this afternoon, if that's of any interest....

The Quirks: Welcome to Normal, by Erin Soderberg

The Quirks: Welcome to Normal, by Erin Soderberg (Bloomsbury, June 4, 2013)

The Quirk family is relentlessly quirky.  They can't help being magical--a grandpa who can turn back time, a mother who can manipulate peoples minds,  Penelope, who unintentionally manifests whatever she's imagining, and little brother Finn, who's invisible.  Only Molly, Penelope's twin sister, is ordinary.

And Normal, the town the Quirk family has just moved to, is ordinary as all get out.  Molly and Penelope desperately want to stay in one place for once in their lives--they've had to flee countless towns before, when things got to strange.   But if Penelope can't control her imagination,  and its rather noticeable funny/awful consequences,  it's goodbye to Normal.

Magic meets the everyday world...and the consequence are embarrassment. 

This is a good one for the kid who likes light-hearted stories, that aren't realistic but which are set firmly in our world.   It's easy to tell the author had fun with Penelope's runaway imagination, and kids will get lots of grins from it.  The (nicely present, but not underlined) theme of trying to fit in, while still being yourself, is a more serious counterpart to the overt humor.

It's very much an elementary book--excellent for third and fourth graders, of the type who enjoyed Dan Gutman's Weird School series and are ready for something the next notch up.

On a personal reader-reaction note-- most of the book I spent in a state of anxious squirm.   There are many embarrassing situations when Penelope's magic gets out of control, and as a parent, I was perturbed by the mother's neglect of invisible Finn.  Just because Molly is the only one in the family who can see him doesn't mean that poor Finn should be practically ignored by everyone else.   But I am well aware that this is an adult reaction--the target audience will probably not care that Finn hasn't been bathed for ages. 

Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Crocuses Were Over, Hitler Was Dead, by Geraldine Symons (UK title--Now and Then), for Timeslip Tuesday

Crocuses Were Over, Hitler Was Dead, by Geraldine Symons (1977).  

The old house has been empty for years, sitting in its English gardens, waiting...and now it's being opened up again, as  tourist attraction.   Jassy is there to see it happen--she's staying in the cottage of the head gardener and his wife, while her little siblings recover from mumps.

As she explores the gardens, she meets a young man and his dogs, and they talk.  But when she gets back to the cottage, she realizes that there is a strangeness to her new friend.   There were crocus were blooming when she met him first, and he was worried about Hitler...and the crocuses are over, and Hitler is dead.

Slowly realizing that she's slipping back in time, she gradually finds out more about her new friend, facing a war that's about to destroy the peace of the old garden.  But why is he sometimes so kind and thoughtful, other times so wild and heedless? 

It's not much of a mystery, and not much of a plot, qua plot.  But it is magical, and beautiful, and makes pictures in the mind.  If you like gentle, very English, timeslip stories in which the only immediate tensions are small ones, you will enjoy this.   Jassy never has to actually do something (except keep past and present clear in her mind, so she doesn't seem strange and isn't a nuisance to the nice couple she's staying with), but it's a pleasure to explore the old house and its gardens with her.

There is, though, a bit of emotional depth.  It's rather poignant, in that gradually Jassy and the reader find out what's going happen to the nice young man in the war, and she can't do a thing about it.   So there a sense of sadness...but at least the house and the gardens make it through unscathed.

There's a copy for sale on Amazon right now for $1.49, which is a good price to pay for a rather lovely escape from reality.  And if you have an old public library whose shelves haven't been ruthlessly weeded, you might be able to find Geraldine Symons books about the adventures two early 20th century (or possibly late 19th century) girls, Pansy and Atalanta, that are well worth reading (especially Miss Rivers and Miss Bridges, in which they infiltrate the suffragette movement).

My favorite books of 2013 so far

So far in 2013 I have read 173 books, 27 of which are by Terry Pratchett (cause of me being a speaker a the Discworld Convention).  Even after such a binge, I am still eagerly looking forward to the next Discworld book on my list--only six more to go, and then I will have read the whole series in order of publication.

73 of the books I read came from the library, 55 were review copies, 8 were presents, and there were only three re-reads on the whole list (The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman--comfort reading about a grandmother who becomes a CIA agent; The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen, and Jinx, by Sage Blackwood).  Which means that only 37 came from my tbr pile, and at that rate I will never get through it, and until I do, re-reading is going to have to keep taking a back seat.  

Here are my favorite books of 2013 thus far, judged by the simple, and very personal, criteria of me imagining re-reading them (because, darn it, I am a Re-reader):

Brat Farrar, by Josephine Tey.    A young man (Brat Farrar) assumes the place in a well-off English family of yesteryear of a boy thought to be dead.    Brat Farrar turns out to be one of the most likable, nay even lovable (I would have crushed on him back in the day, now I feel maternal--that what having sons does to a person) characters I met all year.   There's a mystery too--what really happened to the boy who dies?  Don't read the end before it comes naturally--I did, to make sure Brat was alright, and found out too much.  Note for other end-readers, so as to spare them from my mistake: Brat will be ok.

Astronaut Academy: Re-entry, by Dave Roman.  I love the whimsical humor of this graphic  novel series, and it's another in which I love the characters because of feeling maternal....

Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett.   Although I haven't yet re-read this particular Discworld book, I almost feel as though I have, because it has played itself over in my mind so often while I have been doing other things.  It made me cry.

The Bards of Bone Plain, by Patricia McKillip.    Isn't it lovely when a book by someone who is already a favorite author exceeds your expectations?  This one has everything I look for in McKillip--the old stories and musics, the images, the beauty of the writing, the characters I love, the mystery at the heart of the ancient land.

Jinx, by Sage Blackwood, which I have already read twice!  Fine middle-grade fantasy, and I am so looking forward to everyone of this new author's future books!

There were lots of other books I enjoyed very much indeed--very good books, happy to recommend them, etc.-- but these are the ones I loved.

This week's Middle Grade fantasy/sci fi round-up (6/30/13)

This is the last round-up I will pull together from Google Reader (waily waily).   After doing this 185 times using Google Reader, I have it down to an efficient system, and I am very worried about trying to do it with Bloglovin.   But hope on, hope ever...and let me know if my efficient system failed to find your post this week!

The Reviews

The 13 Clocks, by James Thurber, at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett, at Charlotte's Library

The Apprentices, by Maile Meloy, at Waking Brain Cells

The Borrowers Afloat, by Mary Norton, at Tor

The Cloak Society, by Jeramey Kraatz, at Project Mayhem (giveaway)

The Cypher (Guardians, Inc. 1), by Julian Rosado-Machin at The Write Path

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Sonderbooks

The Emerald Atlas, by John Stephens, at Deb A. Marshall

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy, at Kid Lit Geek

Hollow Earth, and Hollow Earth: Bone Quill, by John and Carole E. Barrowman, at Nerdophiles

Jack Templar and the Monster Hunter Academy, by Jeff Gunhus, at Mother Daughter Son Book Reviews

Lair of the Serpent, by T. Lynn Adams, at Geo Librarian

The Last Synapsid, by Timothy Mason, at Time Travel Times Two

The Magician's Tower, by Shawn Thomas Odyssey, at Geo Librarian

The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail, by Richard Peck, at Becky's Book Reviews

Odessa Again, by Dana Reinhardt, at Becky's Book Reviews and Charlotte's Library

Pegasus--The Flame of Olympus, by Kate O'Hearn, at My Precious

Pi in the Sky, by Wendy Mass, at Abby the Librarian and Charlotte's Library

Playing with Fired, by Bruce Hale, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Prairie Thief, by Melissa Wiley, at Secrets & Sharing Soda

Rules for Ghosting, by A.J. Paquette, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

Sidekicked, by John David Anderson, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The School For Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, at A Backwards Story (giveaway)

The Summer of Moonlight Secerts, by Danette Haworth, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blakemore, at Waking Brain Cells and The Book Smugglers

Winterling, by Sarah Prineas, at Candace's Book Blog

The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop, by Kate Saunders, at Jen Robinson's Book Page

And three short reviews (Thrice Upon a Marrigold, The Menagerie, and The Fellowship for Alien Detection) at In Bed With Books

Authors and Interviews

Soman Chainani (The School for Good and Evil) at A Backwards Story


Other Good Stuff

I put up a call for help last Friday--I would very much like to know how one can keep current with MG and YA fantasy/Sci Fi releases in the UK, and indeed in all countries where books in English are published.    Here's the post with the useful links I know of so far....more are welcome!

Top ten horror stories for junior high readers, at The Nerdy Book Club

And a beautiful (mostly) middle grade fantasy giveaway at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Even though I don't actually love McDonalds, per se, I am tickled to pieces by this Hello Kitty meets Fairy Tales promotion (which happened in Singapore, and is now over...). This is Hello Kitty meets "The Singing Bone."

Read more at Once Upon a Blog

(not middle grade, but I have an ARC of Proxy, by Alex London, to giveaway courtesy of the publisher here, just in case anyone's interested....)

How do you find out about YA and Middle Grade books that are out in the UK?

So I am talking at the upcoming Discworld Convention about how to keep your YA tbr pile well-stocked with books such as would appeal to a Pratchett fan ...and so naturally I was wondering what UK YA and MG books are out there (Terry Pratchett being UKian), that haven't made it across the pond...and then I realized I had little clue how to find out. 

Every time a UK Awards list is posted, I thrill to the sight of new to me MG and YA books that look really, really good.  And I wonder what great books I'm missing, and I wish that I knew of more blogs that covered UK releases for those ages. 

Some publishers I know about, and I guess I could try to check their catalogues, and I know of three useful blogs (Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books, Bart's Bookshelf, and An Awfully Big Blog Adventure), and I read the Guardian.  Is there Something Else one can do to stay au courant with spec fic for the younger reader in the UK?????

Thanks to Katherine Langrish, I've learned about a site new to me, UKYA --"celebrating YA fiction by  UK authors."  Lots of speculative fiction!

And thanks to Malinda Falgoust, I've bookmarked the Kelpies page at Floris Books--classic and contemporary children's books set in Scotland, with a lot of fantasy!

Suggestions welcomed for all other countries where sci fi and fantasy books for kids and teens are written in English.

If I was at ALA this weekend, here's the UK book I would be frantic to get (coming out in the US this fall....)

Proxy, by Alex London (giveaway)

Proxy, by Alex London (Philomel, June 2013, YA)  Courtesy of the publisher, I'm offering an ARC to a reader who comments by midnight next Friday, July 5; US only)

A near-future dystopia is most horrible when it is a logical extension of what's wrong with the present, and the world in which Proxy is set is just that.   To the standard environmental catastrophe and sharper divide between rich and poor, London adds bits of fresh hell--from the merely discomforting haze of projected advertisements that people bombard into their surroundings without conscious volition,  to a system of debt that warps individual culpability most horribly.   In this world, debt traps the majority of the remnant population, even new-born babies.  And the debt of a child can be bought, and the child can be used as a whipping boy, or proxy, to take the punishments earned by the rich kid whose parent owns the debt.  Pretty messed up.

Syd is the proxy to rich brat Knox, and Knox has never given a damn how many times he had to watch (remotely) Syd getting tortured as punishment for Knox's rich-boy "fun."  When Knox kills a girl in   crash, after loosing control when joyriding, Syd is not only physically punished, but years of hard labor are added to the two years of debt he still owes.  So Syd runs.

And that choice sends Syd on a truly unexpected path, one that starts by taking him straight to Knox,who he's never met face to face before.  Knox, whose primary motivation is pissing off his father, goes with Syd to help him escape, and with a third unexpected companion they set off beyond the comfort of Knox's lush life, into a journey with consequences they had never imagined....

The first 150 pages do a fine job of making it clear how messed up this world is.  Syd's life is horrible, Knox is horrible in his self-centerdness, there's violence and torture and lots and lots of ugliness (and homophobia--Syd is gay, which makes his life even harder-- and antisemitism are both alive and well), and London takes his time moving through all this set-up before the story truly gets going.   I frankly wasn't sure I wanted to keep reading--there's Syd, constantly being spat on by life most awfully, and there's Knox, an utter jerk, and there's this ugly, ugly world and people are hurting--but I kept on.

I was rewarded when the story became more Story-ish--having met the characters and their world, the quest begins that might save the world, or at least, bring about one faction's idea of world saving, and Syd, Knox, and the third teenager who joins them have to survive a brutal journey in order to make it happen.   And interest is added by the dynamics between the three teens, especially that between Knox and Syd.  Though I wasn't convinced that what happens between them is the most logical and believable arc,  London works hard to make Knox appear increasingly sympathetic.

I had a sense as I read that there were many patches of thin ice in terms of "believability," most notably, the bit where they set off on horseback, their first time riding, and two of the characters are naturals, and everyone can walk the next day, but there were other bits and pieces as well.  But I tried not to notice, because I didn't want my reading to stall--I was too curious to see what would happen next.

So if you enjoy really screwed-up futures, violence, twisted relationships, and such, that come with a welcome hint of hope (once you get through the first half of the book), and if you find the whipping-boy premise intriguing, you might well enjoy this lots.

Here are the two things I liked best:

Syd, like all orphaned refugee babies, is named for a literary character--his full name is Sydney Carton, from Dickens' ATale of Two Cities, and London makes a very satisfactory nod to how things play out for the Sydney in that book that pleasantly surprised me with its twist.

One of the few bad things about life today that doesn't survive into Syd's world is prejudice based on skin color (perhaps because of Nigeria's rise to global power).  So, for those looking for diversity, Syd is a fine example of a black, gay hero of a dystopian YA novel.

I'm the final stop on Proxy's blog tour--you can find the other stops here at Alex London's website.

Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

The Silver Six, by AJ Lieberman and Darren Rawlings

It is a lovely time to be a young reader of graphic novels, and rather nice for us parents of reluctant readers (my 12-year-old) that we have so many of them to offer.  The Silver Six, by AJ Lieberman and Darren Rawlings (Graphix, June 2013), is the latest to arrive in my house, and it has been read multiple times with much enjoyment.

I thought, when I saw the title and the cover, that this would be a superhero book, which are not uncommon, but it turned out to be much more interesting.  It's science fiction, with brave orphans (they're wearing orphan uniforms, not superhero costumes) saving Earth from environmental catastrophe at the hands of the evil, power-hungry, overlord of the energy extraction company that's wrecked the planet.   Adding to the sci fi fun, there's space travel to an orphan moon, high tech weapons, and a very endearing robot!

Young Phoebe is one of six kids orphaned in a single shuttle crash--their parents, brilliant scientists, were on their way to talk to the aforementioned bad guy about an alternate energy source.  The kids don't meet up until a year has past, when they find each other at a brutal orphanage.  When they realize they have each been left one part to a final message from their parents, they escape to the orphan moon where the parents had been on the verge of a breakthrough. Though distracted by the unspoiled natural beauty of the moon, the kids come together as a team to solve the mystery of their parents' death.

Unfortunately, they are being pursued by a deadly weaponized probe, and Phoebe is captured.   The bad guy must be defeated, Phoebe must be rescued, and the energy crisis solved...but how?????

Why it's worth offering to your child/reading yourself:

--Good story, beautifully and clearly illustrated.   Lots of action, but some more peaceful interludes for people (ie me) who get dizzy when there's too much mayhem, and some nice bits of humor.

--Characters one can root for (and I do like that so many graphic novels with strong boy appeal have girl characters front and center!).  They are smart, but believably so, and it's nice to see them come together as a team.  That being said, there wasn't a lot of time to fully establish each one as a rounded character, but those who got the most round-ing had appealing individual identities.  I liked that they missed their parents.  I myself would want to be missed.

--There's a nod to diversity, with one girl of Japanese descent and one boy of Indian sub-continent descent

--I like the message, which is basically that reckless energy exploitation that has no regard for conseqences is bad.

So yeah, a very good one for readers from eight on up!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett

So I am steadily working my way through the complete oeuvre of Terry Pratchett, in preparation for the North American Discworld Convention.  When I was invited to be on the program last fall, I had read only a few Discworld books, but that was enough to make me eager to be part of the fun.  I have read 24 Discworld books so far this year, and enjoyed every one of them lots (although some more than others).   And what has surprised me, in the best possible way, is that they aren't just fun and games--I have been moved to tears by the poignant humanity of them (increasingly so as the series progresses) and even would go so far to say that I want my kids to read them too as one part of becoming better, more thoughtful people. 

Yep, even The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (2001), a light-hearted reimagining of the Pied Piper ala Discworld, made me teary (not that it takes much), and think a few deep thoughts en passant on what it means to be human.

Maurice is a cat, and the rodents are rats, and they can think and talk just as well as, if not better than, most people.  Maurice is a cat with ambition, and he has organized the rats, along with a boy musician of a dreamy, unambitious nature, into a money making con operation.   They arrive at a town, the rodents Infest (brilliantly--with the regiments of Light Widdlers and Heavy Widdlers heading out to do their worst while the more dextrous rats work on trap defusing), and then the boy pipes them away once the town is desperate.

But then they arrive a town whose Bavarian-esque charm hides rat-related depravity.  Though there are no rats in evidence, and the town rat-collectors thrive on the culture of fear they've built up and grow fat while the people go hungry.

It's up to the Educated Rodents--Dangerous Beans, the visionary, Peaches, his closest companion and scribe, Darktan, the strategist (who reminded me a lot of Sam Vines, from the Discworld books about the City Watch), and many others--to get to the bottom of the horrible cruelties being practiced on the local rats.  And Maurice, self-centered cat though his is, has to decided if he will help too.

And in the meantime, a local girl (Malicia), obsessed with the tropes of all the fairy tales she's read, gets in on the action--and miraculously, her hair pins open locks, secret passages are where she expects them to be, and so on.

So yeah, it's a lot of fun.  But it posses thought provoking-ness too, on what it means to be a thinking person, prejudice, working through difference, cruelty to animals, and how the tourism industry can be used advantageously.

I am determined to get my boys to read it.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents was written explicitly for a younger audience than the bulk of Discworld, and won the 2001 Carnegie Medal (the UK Newbery equivalent).  But adults can enjoy it just fine too.

Odessa Again, by Dana Reinhardt, for Timeslip Tuesday

Odessa Again, by Dana Reinhardt Wendy Lamb Books (May 14, 2013)

Fourth-grader Odessa's life has just shifted unpleasantly.  Her parents have gotten divorced, and she has moved into a new house with her mother and little brother, Oliver (aka the toad).   At least, after vigorous complaining and cajoling, she's been able to get a room of her own, up in the attic...but what she really wants is for her father and mother to be together again (and for her father not to be marrying Jennifer, nice though she is).  And it would be nice if her ex-best friend, Claire, were still speaking to her...

One day, in an ordinary fit of 9 year old rage, she is stomping across the floor of her attic...when the extraordinary happens.  Odessa slips backwards 24 hours in time.  Yay!  She can fix everything that went wrong the day before.   It's not a one time fluke either--the next time she tries stomping (deliberately) she goes back 23 hours.  And voila! Small embarrassments at school (the sort that seem large to a kid!) can be anticipated and avoided.

Gradually Odessa, tremendously immature at first (she is only 9, after all), begins to think.   There are only 24 hours, after all...and so she begins to try to use her time-slipping more carefully, to fix the more important things, like her friendship with Claire.

But the most important thing to fix, of course, is her parents ex-marriage.  Will a few hours rewound be enough to ruin the wedding of her father and Jennifer, and bring her parents back together?

Odessa is not an immediately likable character for much of the book, but she's a tremendously relatable one.   Fortunately, her time-travelling does kick her forward into greater maturity, and she learns (in a non-preachy, but profound) way, what things really matter.  This includes being more thoughtful regarding poor Oliver (who, though objectionable in many younger brotherly ways, deserves more sisterly affection).   I don't think it will come as a surprise to the reader when Odessa's parents (though they continue to be friendly to each other) don't get back together--this sympathetic, picture of divorced parents might well be comforting to a young child of (amicable) divorce.

In short--a fun concept, engagingly executed.  It skews a tad younger than 11 Birthdays, by Wendy Mass (my review), a book with a similar "do-over" premise; that one I'd recommend to grown-ups, Odessa not so much, although the target audience of 8-10 year old girls should enjoy it lots, and I myself had a pleasant time reading it!  There's a slight teaser for a sequel, and if there is one, I'll be reading it.

Here's the bit that I found most poignant--Odessa gradually gets to know the old lady who owns the house they are living in, and sometimes stops in to visit her and eat cookies (spurred initially by Odessa quite naturally wanting to know more about her attic!).  After not going for a while, she is enjoying that day's cookies, and in a flash of insight (part of her growing maturity), she wonders how many cookies the old lady baked on the days she didn't come.... I like a nice intergenerational friendship, and this one pleased me.

Here's another review, at Jen Robinson's Book Page.

Pi in the Sky, by Wendy Mass

Pi in the Sky, by Wendy Mass (Little Brown, June 11 2013, MG)

In the grand scheme of things, Joss's family is rather important--his father, after all, is the Supreme Overlord of the Universe, and all his six older brothers have important parts to play in the smooth workings of the Cosmos.   Joss's job is to deliver pies, and though they are pies of unusual gravitas, he can't help but feel unimportant as millions of years of pie delivery pass by and he slowly grows up...

Then the even tempo of Joss's life is shattered when a girl from Earth looks through the telescope...and sees the Realms of the cosmic managers.   It's important that sentient planet dwellers not know the truth, so naturally (!) the whole world must be destroyed.

But one human girl, the one who saw too much, ends up travelling through space time pretty much to Joss's door.   And Annika, thinking she is caught in some strange dream, changes Joss's perspective on reality.   Together Annika and Joss struggle to bring Earth back into being, recreating its cosmic soup from scratch...but someone has sabotaged their mission, destroying all but two of the data files about Earth.

Joss's is a bizarre world, part utopian fantasy, part sci fi/fantasy metaphor for the workings of the universe (with science built explicitly into the narrative).   The story, too, is something of a hybrid, as the two kids with a desperate mission (standard plot, with interesting twist) explore the scientific underpinnings of planetary creation (not standard at all!).   It required me to relax my mind somewhat in order to accept the premise-- the idea of a childhood that lasts for billions of years, as Joss's does, and the whole idea of the Realms (whose denizens I think of as Cosmic Science Angelish types) were tricky for me.

Fortunately Annika's plight and her sturdy character, and the shock waves her arrival sends into Joss's view of reality, provided a substantial emotional framework for the fantastical.   She is a determined fighter, and their relationship is the best part of the book.

This is one, I think, for younger middle grade readers.  Younger kids will perhaps be more willing to suspend disbelief that 6th or 7th graders might be, might be most receptive to the humor that fills the story,  and might not yet be familiar with the scientific tidbits that the science minded 12-year-old will already know about.

Interest is add for all ages by the inclusion of quotes form famous scientist at the beginning of each chapter, most memorably this one from Carl Sagan:   “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher