This week's round-up of Middle Grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs

Welcome to this week's round up of Middle Grade fantasy and science fiction!  I might well have missed posts, because of single handedly setting up my library's booksale (I am bad at finding help....), so let me know if I missed yours! 

The Reviews:

Anton and Cecil: Cats at Sea, by Lisa Martin and Valerie Martin, at Charlotte's Library

Beholding Bee, by Kimberly Newton Fusco, at Becky's Book Reviews

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, by Charles de Lint, at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia

Fireborn, by Toby Forward, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

The Flame in the Mist, by Kit Grindstaff, at A Backwards Story

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, at Wandering Librarians

Hunt for the Hydra, by Jason Fry, at School Library Journal

The Inventor's Secret, by Chad Morris, at Charlotte's Library

The Lost Heir, by Tui T. Sutherland, at Book Nut

Magic Marks the Spot, by Caroline Carlson, at Book Nut

The Obsidian Pebble, by Rhys A. Jones, at Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books

Pi in the Sky, by Wendy Mass, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

The Real Boy, by Anne Ursu, at Book Nut

The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Rose, by Holly Webb, at The Book Monsters

Rules for Ghosting, by A.J. Paquette, at The Book Monsters

The Savage Fortress, by Sarwat Chadda, at Book Dragon

Sky Jumpers, by Peggy Eddleman, at Book Nut and Charlotte's Library

Spirits of the Sun (Diego's Dragon, book 1), by Kevin Gerard, at Book Dreaming

The Wells Bequest, by Polly Shulman, at Book Nut

The Vengekeep Prophecies, by Brett Helquist, at Librarian of Snark

Young Fredle, by Cynthia Voight, at Kid Lit Geek

Zoe and Zak and the Yogi's Curse, by Lars Guignard, at Mother Daughter Book Reviews


Authors and Interviews

Lars Guignard (Zoe and Zak series) at Carpinello's Writing Pages


Other Good Stuff

A lovely and moving look at what really might have happened to Susan after Narnia, at Hark, the empty highways calling

Brandy, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile, has a list of characters who captured her heart in 2013, including many fine fantasy characters.

A Tuesday 10 of Book Magic at Views From the Tesseract

The Nerdy Book Awards ballot is up, with several fine MG SFF books represented....and all are welcome to vote.

Ursula Le Guin shares her thoughts on letters from kids at Book View Café

And finally, for those feeling dispirited and unfestive-- a google search on "Christmas hedgehog" is always cheering.

Anton and Cecil: Cats at Sea, by Lisa Martin and Valerie Martin

If you have a young animal fiction lover in your life, Anton and Cecil: Cats at Sea, by Lisa Martin and Valerie Martin (Algonquin, 2013) would make a fine book offering--nice cats, nice adventure, and a happy ending (coming home to Mama, which is the best ending of all).

Anton and Cecil are young brother cats, living in a seaside town.  They are very fond of each other, and very different--  Cecil feels the pull of the sea, and spends his days aboard fishing boats, while Anton loves to listen to sea shanties, and spends his nights in the taverns.   But it is Anton who first truly goes to sea, impressed into ratting service on board an ocean-going barque....poor Anton, who never even liked mousing on dry land.

But Cecil is determined to find his brother, and boards a ship for an ocean-going adventure of his own.   They travel through a series of adventures, good and bad, meeting friends and enemies, mercenary pirates and kindly petters-of-cats, never quite giving up hope.  Because there is an ancient piece of cat lore that seems to promise that one day they will be reunited....

So it's a perfectly fine, cat-full story with a nice emphasis on sibling loyalty, and adventures that are exciting (encounters with other animals, a storm at sea, pirates, etc.).  Anton and Cecil are appealing (perhaps even enough so to win over dog-lovers).  There's a lot of luck involved, but not so much as to overpower the agency of the cat protagonists,   I'd be happy giving it to a strong reader as young as seven, and an older reader up to 10 or so.

However, the older reader might start questioning the mystical element of the cat lore that inspires Anton and Cecil.  I myself never quite figured out if it was a natural phenomena or a fantastical element.  And there was one bit that bothered me lots-- I think it is not fair to the reader to get rid of all the living people on board a ship by simply saying: they disappeared overnight, while the cat (Anton, in this case) was asleep.  What?????   So if you do give this to a reader with an inquiring mind, you might want to have some sort of answer ready! Update:  Lisa wrote me to say that this episode was inspired by the Mary Celeste, so there you go.

Disclaimer:  review copy received from the publisher for Cybils consideration.

Sky Jumpers, by Peggy Eddleman

Sky Jumpers, by Peggy Eddleman (Random House, 2013), is a post-apocalypse sci-fi story in a future Earth written for middle grade readers, and that is a very rare thing these days.   It is a solid introduction to this sort of sci fi for younger readers, with much to recommend it.   But it didn't, for me, at least, quite rise above the level of "very good" to "great."

Hope is an ordinary kid.  She's a tomboy, often late to school and untidy.  She's adopted, and sometimes wonders about her birth parents.  She's worried about how she compares to other kids.   But Hope's life isn't as normal as one might think, for the kids of her generation have no memories of what like was like for their grandparents before the "green bombs" fell, and life as humanity knew it ended.  The bombs weren't radioactive, but they altered the chemical composition of reality.  Most people died, but the founders of Hope's community found shelter in a valley surrounded by a swath of toxic air, known as "bomb breath."   Daredevil Hope has learned that the killer bomb breath is denser than normal air, so you can jump into it off of impossibly tall cliff tops (being careful not to breath) and pass through to safety...and she is the best and bravest of the sky jumping kids.

me--I am perfectly happy to accept vast chemical changes in reality, so this struck me as reasonable.  Sky jumping sounds like fun, but I would be scared.

What Hope is bad at is inventing.   Because of the bombs, old technologically no longer worked (changes in reality), and though there are paper records of the cool contrivances that once existed (which the older people still remember), ways of making things work have to be figured out again.  And so all the kids are pressured to come up with useful inventions that will make things more like they once were. 

me, reading along happily--neat!

Hope's current invention is, like her other efforts, a failure.  She feels she has nothing to contribute to her community.  But then (moving more briskly through the plot) word leaks out to the violent Raiders out in the wilds, busily raiding any community they can find, that her settlement has rediscovered antibiotics.   And they attack, and Hope's father's life is in danger.  Hope can save him...if she can escape through the wild winter weather and the poisonous gases.  So the story becomes a tremendously exciting adventure that put Hope's sky jumping skills, and the daring spirit that made her jump in the first place, to the test.   And it is rather cool the way Hope uses the bomb breath pockets to good effect viz raider foiling.

me--this was all good reading, but...but...

My first realization that maybe this wasn't a book I could love came when Hope and her classmates are sharing their latest inventions.  One of the girls proudly presents hers--she's rediscovered hair curlers! 

"I used to have to put curlers in my hair when it was wet," Ellie said, "and then wear them to bed.  It's so hard to sleep in curlers!"  (p 42).  And her teacher is pleased with her.

Hair curlers???!!!??   Gender annoyance aside, curlers contribute nothing to the gravitas to the rebuilding of a lost world, no morning for the dead, etc.

I wanted to believe the characters sorrowed for the countless dead of the parents' generation, I wanted more sense of loss for the world that once was, and higher emotional stakes beyond the particular of "my father might die." I know it's a tall order, but I wanted this really nifty premise and fine heroine to be set in a story that, in the power of its writing, imagery, and metaphor, went beyond the (very interesting) particulars of the adventure into a larger thematic territory of rebuilding civilization (and I cannot believe that hair curling would be anyone's priority at this point).  The set up was all there for something like that that, but it just didn't deliver a punch to the gut or a shock to the spirit, the way the best books do.  And I know that's a lot to expect, but the potential was there...

That being said, it might well be a book that will set young readers down the path of science fiction, because it is an engaging story, and that's not a bad thing at all.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher for Cybils Award consideration.

The Inventor's Secret, by Chad Morris, for Timeslip Tuesday

There has been something of an uptick in the number of science fiction time travel books for younger readers in the past few years--books in which high tech gizmos send folks zwooshing around through the centuries, and in which good guys want to protect time time, and bad guys want to alter it, and the kids end up trying to make things right (the Lost series, by Margaret Peterson Haddix, the Infinity Ring series from Scholastic, Richard Ungar's Time Snatched and Time Trapped, and more).     There have also been many many many speculative fiction books for kids and teens set in special schools.  The Inventor's Secret (book one of the  Cragbridge Hall series), by Chad Morris (Shadow Mountain, 2013), combines these two trends.

A little ways into the future, twins Abby and Derick Cragbridge are tremendously excited to be enrolling at the school their grandfather founded--the only one in the world where the high tech gizmos he invented allow students to actually perceive history as it happened.   It's not true time travel--though the technology exists to make that possible--but it's darned close.   Life at the new school is not all roses, though--only the best and brightest get to go to Cragbridge Hall--and Abby just plain isn't, so she comes in for a lot of flack from other students.  However, that issue quickly becomes irrelevant when the twins' grandfather and parents are kidnapped by a man who wants to take control of time for himself.   Oscar Cragbridge, worried that this might happen, left clues that will allow those he trusts to take control of time, if necessary...and so Abby and Derick set off to unravel them.

It's rather urgent that they do so quickly--their enemy has controlled time just enough to trap their parents on the Titanic, and that's never a good place to be.....

If you have a reader who really loves nifty school stories, this might well be a good pick--there are other fun inventions in the school, and interesting bits of school life (the animal avatars in particular have lots of kid appeal).  The pace is fast, the premise interesting, so it's not surprising that there are lots of good reviews on Amazon.  And it's a nice bonus that ordinary Abby is the one to truly save the day.

I myself, however, had to make a conscious effort not to think to hard about the time travel technology (I'm not at all clear, for instance, how the bad guy got the parents back to the Titanic, and the paradoxs of the whole thing (if people are stuck in the past, is time passing in the present really an issue?), but it was hard not to listen to the cracking of thin ice as I skated along.  These difficulties (which could be less pronounced for other more slow and careful readers) combined with the fact that one of the supporting characters was as annoying as heck, from personally enjoying this one.

This week's round-up of Middle Grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs (12/8/13)

Welcome to another week's worth of MG sci fi/fantasy links; please let me know if I missed yours!

The Reviews

Back to Blackbrick, by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, at Charlotte's Library

Beholding Bee, by Kimberly Newton Fusco, at Book Nut

Blue Moon, by James Ponti, at Hooked On Books

Chase Tinker and the House of Secrets, by Malia Ann Haberman, at This Kid Reviews Books

The City of Death, by Sarwat Chadda, at Book Dragon

Constable and Toop, by Gareth P. Jones,  a SLJ Pick of the Day

The Creature Department, by Robert Paul Weston, at Jean Little Library

The Fellowship for Alien Detection, by Kevin Emerson, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

Fireborn, by Toby Forward, at On Starships and Dragonwings

The Garden Princess, by Kristin Kladstrup, at Book Nut

Ghost Hawk, by Susan Cooper, at Kid Lit Geek

Icefall, by Matthew J. Kirby, at The Write Path

Jinx, by Sage Blackwood, at The Book Monsters

Listening for Lucca, by Suzanne LaFleur, at Next Best Book

Mirage, by Jenn Reese, at Charlotte's Library

My Neighbor Totoro, the novel, by Tsugiko Kubo, at Charlotte's Library

Odessa Again, by Dana Reinhardt, at Challenging the Bookworm

A Question of Magic, by E.D. Baker, at The Book Monsters

The Real Boy, by Anne Ursu, at In Bed With Books

Rose, by Holly Webb, at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia

The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, at Book Nut

The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket, by John Boyne, at The Book Monsters

The Time-Travelling Fashionista and Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, by Bianca Turetsky, at Manga Maniac Café

When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Zombie Baseball Beatdown, by Paolo Bacigalupi, at The Book Monsters

Four short and sweet reviews at Random Musings of a Bibliophile--How I Became a Ghost, The Neptune Project, The Sasquatch Escape, and Sleeping Beauty's Daughters


Authors and Interviews

James Ponti (Blue Moon, and Dead City) at Hooked On Books

Stefan Bachmann (The Peculiar and The Whatnot) at Fantasy Fiction


Other Good Stuff

Katherine Langrish reflects on heroines of yesteryear at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

A Tuesday Ten on Divine Intervention at Views from the Tesseract

Authors over at The Enchanted Inkpot reflect on the gift of fantasy

At On Starships and Dragonwings, there's a new Friday round-up feature of sci fi and fantasy (MG to adult)--I will try hard to remember to add links, and hope many others do to, because goodness knows I have trouble keeping up with what's out there in the grown-up world.

Speaking of the grown-up world....I am a regular reader of the Linkspam collected at Radish Reviews, which quite often includes links to conversations that keep on making me glad I am not part of the adult world of sci fi/fantasy.   And this week's collection is no exception, and after stopping for many Cleansing Breaths I am determined that I will renew my commitment to reviewing sci fi/fantasy books for kids with non-white protagonists, because the readers of today will be the fans of tomorrow.....and I had to take a break from rounding-up to write a whole post about it.

And now, on with getting ready for Christmas by a. reading hundreds of books b. cleaning the house

How I'm trying to raise my sci fi/fantasy loving kids to be the decent fans of tomorrow, with a list of recommended diverse sci fi/fantasy for kids

I am currently putting together this Sunday's round-up of Middle Grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs...but have been sidetracked and agitated by a visit to one of the blogs on my list--at Radish Reviews, there's a regular collection of links pertaining to grown-up sci fi/fantasy, and this one contained links to conversations about diversity in sci fi/fantasy that have agitated me considerably.

I don't want my boys to grow up to be the white-privileged folks whose words distressed me so very much this morning.  I want them to become the fans of a better tomorrow (or some such sincere whatever).   So I talk to them, and with them (and yeah, they sometimes get pretty sick of it, because they're kids).  We talk about who's shown on covers, and how they are shown.   Anybody non-white?  If so, are they behind a white person, or obscured in some way?  If there's a girl, is she behind the boy?  Is she looking sidewise instead of straight on?  Who has what weapon? 

Deconstructing gender and race representations is a fun family activity, and I recommend it.  Do it often enough, and it becomes habit.  Or at least a habit for the grown-up.  If you show a kid the cover of, say, Rose, by Holly Webb,  they might well say "magic kitty!  magic kitty!" and pet the kitty, and not comment on the font color, but at least the seeds of critical thought are planted....Wild Born (Spirit Animals Book 1), by Brandon Mull, which your kid might well have picked up at a recent Scholastic book fair, is a great cover for conversations on diversity and gender!

We talk about how people are identified in the books.   Who's skin color is mentioned, and who's isn't?  What are the adjectives used?  Are there characters whose ethnicity you can't guess at?   Ask them if they are imagining people who don't look like them in their own writing.   This actually has had results--my younger son was very proud of himself for deliberately choosing to write a non-white character into the standardized testing writing sample he had to produce.  And sure, it was tokenism, but at least he's recognizing that fantasy worlds don't have to be all-white, so I patted him on the head and told him he was a good child.

And finally, I offer them books whose protagonists aren't white boys.  It's easy to find great books with girls to offer boys, but it's harder to find great sci fi/fantasy for kids with non-white protagonists.   Here is a quick list of some of my favorites, that I promise most white boy readers will love:

Where the Mountain Meets the Moonby Grace Lin (2009).  A beautifully illustrated Newbery Honor winner set in China.

Bansi O'Hara and the Bloodline Prophecy, by John Dougherty (2008)  An Irish fantasy starring an Indian/Irish girl.

Chronicles of the Red King:  The Secret Kingdom (2011) by Jenny Nimmo.  Magical fantasy whose hero is African.

Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities, by Mike Jung (2012).  Fun superhero adventure with an Asian boy.

The Menagerie, by Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland (2013).  Readers might not pick up on the fact that the main character is an African American boy, because it is a non-issue, but you can point it out them.

I have many more in my list of diverse fantasy/sci fi for kids, but these are the ones that I feel most comfortable recommending.

Me over at Smugglivus

Ana and Thea asked me over for Smugglivus (thanks so much!) and my post is up today!

I wasn't actually able to share my top middle grade fantasy and sci fi books of the year, because those are the same ones that are in contention for the Cybils....so that will have to wait until after the Cybils shortlists are announced Jan. 1....

My Neighbor Totoro: the Novel, by Tsugiko Kubo from the original story by Hayao Miyazaki

What a pleasure it was to read My Neighbor Totoro, by Tsugiko Kubo (VIZ Media LLC, 192 pages, Oct. 2013).   It is just exactly the sort of book I like, and the fact that I have never seen the movie on which the book was based perhaps added to my enjoyment, because I didn't know what to expect.

Here's what it has, which is just about a check list of my favorite fictional things:

Sisters.   The two main characters are eleven-year-old Satsuki and her little sister Mei (four years old) who have  moved out to the country to be closer to the sanitarium where their mother is recovering from T.B.   Because their archaeologist father still has to work, a lot of the housekeeping, cooking, and looking after Mei falls on Satsuki's shoulders, and she has to try really hard to keep things going (which is sometimes difficult).

An emotionally moving plot.  The girls miss their mother something fierce, and of course vice versa, and love each other, and their father is loving too, and it is very poignant and I wanted to hug everybody.

The old house in the country.  It is a ramshackle old house, but charming, and it's set in a beautiful garden with a stream and old trees and a space to grow vegetables and it is lovely.  And, as mentioned above, there are many opportunities for house cleaning and cooking, so much more fun to read about than to actually do....

The magical element that makes it all enchanting.  This would be the titular neighbor, Totoro...and other denizens of the spirit world who live nearby.  The fantasy bits are magical as all get out without taking over the story, and it all works very well.   It's possible that a different reader might want more of the fantasy part....I would have been happy to see more of Totoro (and the cat bus)--Totoro only appears four times, if I remember correctly, but it was fine with me the way it was.

So the whole package is just lovely, and the illustrations by Miyazaki are charming, and the fact that it is set in Japan made all my favorite story elements fresh and new. 

Mostly I pass books I've gotten for review on to my public library.  Sometimes I put them on my boys' shelves.  This one I'm keeping for me.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher for Cybils purposes

Waiting on Wednesday-- The Truth Against the World, by Sarah Jamila Stevenson

Sarah Stevenson and I were room-mates at KidLitCon last month, and one of the things we talked about was Sarah's new book, which sounds wonderful, and very much like one I'll love:

The Truth Against the World, by Sarah Jamila Stevenson (Flux, June 2014)

"In her parents' San Francisco flat, Olwen Nia Evans, Wyn for short, has been having unsettling dreams about her family's past in Wales. But her dreams don't match up with what she's been told by her dying grandmother, Rhiannon. On the other side of the world, in London, a boy named Gareth Lewis is having disturbing dreams about a frightening encounter with a ghost. A ghost named Olwen Nia Evans.

When he looks for Olwen's name online, Gareth connects with Wyn in San Francisco as she is preparing to move with her family to fulfill Rhiannon's last wish to die in Wales. Once Wyn arrives in Wales, she and Gareth join forces to discover the truth of the lost soul that's haunting them both."

Since deciding when I was six or so that I wanted to be Welsh (with black hair and blue eyes--challenging for me) I have loved stories set there.  The first time I ever used a library card catalogue was to find children's books set in Wales...there weren't many! (Three, if memory serves me right). 

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Back to Blackbrick, by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, for Timeslip Tuesday

Back to Blackbrick, by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2013) is a time travel story from Ireland that tugs at the heart and sticks in the mind in such a way as to make it hard to review.  Which is to say that part of the book was utterly impressive, and made me a tad teary at the end, in a good way, but part of did not work for me at all, and I can't stop thinking about how horrified I am with regard to a certain plot twist (there will be spoilers).

Cosmo is in a tough, sad place.  His brother has died.  His mother has left to go be a workaholic in Australia, and now Cosmo lives with just his grandparents.    Since he loves them, and has always been particularly close to his grandfather, this is not so horrible--except that his grandfather is loosing his mind to Alzheimer's.  And when kids at school see him talking to a lamp-post, they start taunting Cosmo.   Cosmo is desperately hoping to find some way of helping his grandfather hold on...but a social worker is starting to snoop around, threatening to send him off to a nursing home.  His uncle comes back to Ireland--Cosmo must go live with him.  And his beloved horse is sent away.

Then, in a rare lucid moment, Cosmo's grandfather gives him a key, and tells him to open the south gate of Blackbrick Abbey, a ruined manor house some ways away.  And the story shifts, as Cosmo travels back in time and meets his 16 year old grandfather, Kevin, the stable boy/general help at Blackbrick.   It is a sad and empty place--Kevin, the cook, the master, Lord Coporamore, and his spoiled little girl, Cordelia.  The cook is happy to give Cosmo some house space in exchange for help...and Kevin is happy he's there.  Almost at once, he embroils Cosmo in his plan to bring the young love of his life to Blackbrick; once she's there, he reckons, things will sort themselves out....

And Cosmo is glad to help bring his grandparents together.  Except this girl, Maggie, isn't his grandmother...and Cosmo becomes determined to keep her from marrying Kevin. 

Turns out, Cosmo doesn't have to do a thing.   Coporamore finds Maggie, and after  giving her permission to stay, he proceeds to rape her.  And Cosmo sees this beginning...and looking back on in it retrospect, he is appalled and angry...but at the time, he simply pretends it isn't happening.   And all through the next nine months that Cosmo is in the past, in a sort of happy daydream vacation from his reality, this goes on...until Maggie's child is about to be born, and Coporamore sends her off.   Cosmo and the kindly cook look after her, and the child lives, and they are happy, except for Kevin, who's gone off Maggie because of what's happened to her.

Now, maybe Cosmo didn't exactly realize what was happening at first (though he seems to have had a pretty good idea), and it is written in such a way that the reader who is not familiar with the rape of servants by their masters might not grasp what is happening.  But it's pretty clear that he's aware of what's happening to Maggie.  Maybe not quite the whole of it, but still....  And does he help Maggie? No.   No one does.   Nor does Maggie ask for help.  They are all too ashamed or afraid or in denial, and in mid 20th-century Ireland, maybe there wasn't much choice.  

So this is shelved in the kids' section of Barnes and Nobel, but it's not a book I'd want to give my ten year old; he has plenty of time to read about rape.  This one part of the book, secondary to the larger story, is more suited for older readers...but the lack of emotional effect it has on the characters within the story (Cosmo's narrative afterthoughts notwithstanding) makes it very much rape seen through the eyes of a kid.

But I, being grown-up, couldn't pretend it wasn't happening, and was upset and angry.  The fact of that Maggie was being sexually assaulted I could have lived with, sadly but accepting it as part of the story, but the lack of gravitas given it (School Library Journal was able to call the book "a rollicking ride") caused me not to like this time travel part of the story at all. 

I had a few other, less emotional, issues with the story.  For instance, Cosmo is there in the past for nine months (a heck of a long time, that passes in a very dreamlike, rather unsatisfactory time just passing way), in a pretty tight little community, yet the daughter of the house, little  Cordelia, remains almost entirely shunted off the side of the story, which just seemed totally implausible and a bit of a waste of a good character.  And it's never made clear why Blackbrick ended up a ruin in the present.

But in any event, Cosmo comes back to the present after Maggie's baby is born, expecting to find his brother alive in a new and improved present--he had told Kevin about what was going to happen, and trusted that all would be well....Though that didn't work out, Cosmo also came back armed with enough knowledge of his grandfather's past to coach him in answering questions from social workers, and Cosmo's mother comes back, and the past is put to rest and all is better.  And this was all actually very moving.

So basically this feels in my mind like two stories--modern Cosmo with family problems, which is a powerful and poignant story, very well told, convincing, moving as all get out, and Cosmo in the past, which is a heck of a lot more troubling, and much less convincing.   And I'm not sure what sort of reader I'd hand it too.  I think I am leaning toward grown-up fans of Roddy Doyle...

In any event, here's the review Back To Blackbrick got in The Guardian, which made me want to read the book very much!  And at Amazon UK, there's a whole string of accolades.  So though this didn't work perfectly for me, your mileage may vary.....

Disclaimer:  review copy gratefully received from the publisher for Cybils review purposes.

Mirage, by Jenn Reese

Mirage, by Jenn Reese (Candlewick 2013) is the second book in a pretty darn exciting sci-fi adventure series, set in a future world where humans have been genetically altered to survive in a variety of environments.  The first book, Above World, told how Aluna, one of the underwater folk, ventured out onto dry land to wage a battle against the enemy who was slowly killing her people.   But though she won the battle, the war against the maniacal scientist and his cloned minions that could destroy all the genetically-altered folk of the world is still going strong.

So Aluna and a group of diverse companions--Hoku, her friend from below the water, Dash, an exiled Equine, whose centaur-half never grew, and Calli, an Avian girl, venture into the desert to find Dash's people and make an alliance with them.  Unfortunately, their enemy has gotten there first.....but fortunately, there is hope--challenging the power of the Equines in the Thunder Trials that determine who leads the herds.  

And so, in a story that involves lots of warrior training, lots of investigating old technology, and lots of tests of friendship and courage, Aluna and her friends forge a new herd...and enter the Trials.

Amidst the excitements of political and physical wrangling, amidst all the figuring out just who their enemy is, and how to fight back, there is tons of good character building and relationships--the foursome are still young, and fumbling a tad in their journey to adulthood.  They must trust each other...but with so many external pressures being brought to bear, it's not always easy.

There a nicely idealistic theme to the series, too.  The different races of humanity must learn to put aside past differences--which, in the case of the war between the Equines and the Serpenti (snake people) bordered on genocide.   The few Serpenti who are left throw their lot in with Aluna, realizing that it is better to keep trying for a future than to sit and wait for death in the in the dark.

And finally, Alana is a most excellent heroine--brave and determined, without being unbelievable super-heroic.

I enjoyed this one more than the first book, perhaps because there is less traveling and more getting to know a particular people and place, and I'm looking forward to Book three with enthusiasm!

Here's another review from Brandy, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile, who goes beyond simple enjoyment into Book Love.

Nominated for Cybils (Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction) by Stephanie Burgis; review copy gratefully received from the publisher for Cybils consideration.

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi/fantasy from around the blogs (12/1/13)

Happy December!  The first door of this year's Star Wars Advent Callender has been opened, revealling a droid (and I got to say "that's not the droid you're looking for.")  I have bought most of my Christmas presents (and if you want book ideas for a 10 or 13 year old boy, here's what they're getting), and last night, in a fit of Christmas Ambition, we made our own holiday gift tags.   There are reasons why I don't have an Etsy store (although I think it captures the hopeful spirit in which I give gifts).

And now, the round-up; please let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews

The Atomic Weight of Secrets, by Eden Unger Bowditch, at My Precious

The Clockwork Three, by Matthew Kirby, at Next Best Book

The Contagious Colors of Mumply Middle School, by Fowler DeWitt,  at The Book Monsters

The Creature Department, by Robert Paul Weston, at Charlotte's Library

The Dark Secret (Wings of Fire Book 4), by Tui T. Sutherland, at Charlotte's Library

Dial-a-Ghost, by Eva Ibbotson, at Here There Be Books

Eldritch Manor, by Kim Thompson, at That's Another Story

Ever After High, by Shannon Hale, at Fantasy Book Critic

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, at Kid Lit Geek

Frogged, by Vivian Vende Velde, at Sonderbooks

The Girl Who Soared Above Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, by Catherynne M. Valente, at Hidden in Pages

Ghost Hawk, by Susan Cooper, at Book Nut

Ghost Knight, by Cornelia Funke, at Lust and Coffee

The Grimm Conclusion, by Adam Gidwitz, at Reads for Keeps

The Land of Stories series, by Chris Colfer, at CC Riley

The Locket of Dreams, by Belinda Murrell, at Charlotte's Library

The Name of this Book is Secret, by Pseudonymous Bosch, at Between These Pages

The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate, at ACReads

Parched, by Melanie Crowder, at Views From the Tesseract

Rain of the Ghosts, by Greg Weisman, at Great Imaginations

The Real Boy, by Anne Ursu, at Kid's Books 101 and The Adventures of Cecelia Bedila

Rose, by Holly Webb, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Rules for Ghosting, by A.J. Paquette, at Michelle I. Mason

Rump, by Leisl Shurtliff, at The Book Monsters

The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, at Late Nights With Good Books

Skellig, by David Almond, at Library of Clean Reads

Why Kimba Saved the World, by Meg Welch Dendler, at This Kid Reviews Books

Wicked Cruel, by Rich Wallace, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Three short EMG SFF book notes at Book Nut--Lonely Lake Monster, The Ghost Prison, and Mickey Price: Journey to Oblivion

And another three at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia--Flora and Ulysses, The Adventures of a South Pole Pig, and Fortunatly the Milk

Other Good Stuff

If you enjoy buying books, check out the call for books for Ballou Sr High School in Washington DC at Guys Lit Wire.  And there's also Kidlit for the Philippines, and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression auction of beautiful picture book art at ebay.

The Creature Department, by Robert Paul Weston

The Creature Department, by Robert Paul Weston (Razorbill 2013) is a fun addition to the "magical creatures amongst us" sub-genre of children's fantasy.   In this particular case, a whole panoply of creatures of great strangeness are working alongside a human inventor, sharing their magical twists on the laws of possibility to bring fantastical inventions to reality.   The only problem--a rival company is staging a hostile takeover--more magically hostile than normal!  And two ordinary kids, Elliot von Doppler and Leslie Fang, find themselves right in the middle of all the shenanigans.  If they can't help the creatures come up with a new invention in time to keep the shareholders happy, the company will be destroyed...

This is one for those who love Creatures in all their fantastical fantastical-ness (think way past your ordinary griffins, gargoyles, dragons, etc. and more toward the creatures of Monsters, Inc.).  There's humor and adventure, with plenty of excitement--first the thrills of discovery, as the kids explore the world of the Creature Department, and secondly the zippy tension of battling the bad guys, human and creature, who want to take over.  The illustrations add to the fun of meeting all the myriad creatures and their marvelous world of inventions.

That beings said, The Creature Department doesn't push much past the fun of the set-up into any sort of emotionally powerful territory.  Though the beginning promises an interesting character-arc for Elliot and Leslie, two science-loving kids forced by cirumstance to become friends, once they make it to the Creature Department, the focus of the story becomes almost entirely external, and character development falls by the wayside.

So maybe not one for the adult fan of middle grade fantasy, but for monster-loving kids (aged 9 to 10ish) looking for a fun read, it's a good one that might well spark their own imaginations.   Here are some other reviews, at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia and Cool Kids Read

(Since Leslie's family is Chinese, this one gets to go on my multicultural sci fi/fantasy list, which hasn't seen many middle grade additions so far this year....)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Thankfully giving books--what my boys, and other sundry loved ones, are getting for Christmas

I am so thankful that I have a family for whom I can buy books!  Buying books is fun in general, but when you buy a book for yourself, there's always the nagging doubt about whether you will find time to read it or not (my mind always fills with visions of the shoes of Imelda Marcos).   Buying books for others, though, is shear pleasure.    There's the Careful Thought, the requests for wish lists, the scouring of the internet and local shops, new and used, and finally, the wrapping (actually the reason I give books is because I am Challenged by wrapping paper and books are just about the only think I can wrap decently and even then it is a struggle because sometimes I try to Save Paper and it all goes horribly wrong).

Here is what they are getting (just for the record, the books for the boys include ones I've asked other relatives to get for them).  You might notice that the books for the boys are rather graphic novel heavy.  I think graphic novels are safer bets as presents for the young than longer books that require more investment; the two novel length books younger son is getting are safe bets because of being series continuations.

Early present, for sharing on the plane ride to Grandma's:

Rat's Wars, a Pearls Before Swine Collection

For my 10-year-old son:

Warriors, Dawn of the Clans 2: Thunder Rising, by Erin Hunter

The Royal Ranger, by John Flanagan

Zed: a Cosmic Tale, by Michel Gagne

Mouseguard: The Black Axe, by David Petersen

The Saga of Rex, by Michel Gagne

How to Betray a Dragon's Hero, by Cressida Cowell

For my 13-year-old son:

Hyperbole and a Half, by Ally Brosh

Romeo and Juliet, by Gareth Hinds

The Lost Islands, by Kazu Kibuishi

The Onion Book of Known Knowledge

March, by John Lewis

Flight, Vol. 4, ed. by Kazu Kibuishi

For my 10 year old nephew:

Akissi: Feline Inviasion, by Marguerite Abouet 


For my little sister

Gypsy's Sowing and Reaping, by Elizabeth Stuart

Warts and All, by Rodie Sudbery


For my big sister:


Code Name Verity, by ElizabethWein


For my mother:

Fugue in Time, by Rumer Godden

The New Yorker Book of Cartoon Puzzles


For my husband:

Apples of North America:  Exceptional Varieties for Gardeners, Growers, and Cooks, by Tom Burford

World's Best Ciders: Taste, Tradition, and Terroir by Pete Brown

The New Cider Maker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers by Claude Jolicoeur

The Sense of an Ending, by Julien Barnes

For the kids at Ballou High School in Washington D.C. (more info. here at Guys Lit Wire)

Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell

Aren't these nice books!  Which would you like?  I think of all of these I am most looking forward to reading Hyperbole and a Half (which of course I could read now, since I have it on hand, but it is more fun to read Christmas present books at Christmas).  

The only problem with having done all one's Christmas book shopping is that there are still 27 days left, and it is quite possible that I will find myself buying even more books even though this is Really Enough..

The Locket of Dreams, by Belinda Murrell, for Timeslip Tuesday

When I was offered a review copy of The Locket of Dreams, by Belinda Murrell (originally published in 2009 by Random House Australia, reissued there in 2013, and coming to the US in January of 2014, for ages 10-11ish), I was delighted to accept.  How could I say no to the story of a magical locket taking Sophie, a modern Australian girl, back in to the life of the 19th-century Scottish girl who was her ancestor, Charlotte?  I love a nice girl-centered historical Scottish time travel.

And indeed, The Locket of Dreams is one I would have loved as a child--I would have read it in a day, transported, along with Sophie, to what was, at first, the happy, privileged childhood Charlotte and her little sister enjoyed on her family's estate in Scotland...and my heart would have ached when Charlotte's parents tragically died, and the greedy uncle and aunt moved in.   And though, as an adult, this was somewhat familiar fictional ground, and did not thrill me as much as it would have back in the day, I thoroughly enjoyed the journey of the two girls to Australia, and their exploration of their new home (not having read much set in 19th-century Australia, this was fresh ground for me, and I cannot in any way speak to the accuracy of its portrayal of time and place).

 I do think, though, that this is one best read by a younger reader who enjoys somewhat romanticized historical fiction (hard issues of class and race are glossed over, although the plight of the Scottish tenant farmers under the rule of the new uncle is a concern).   Sophie is primarily an observer, rarely doing anything of substance in the past, and so the most intellectually engaging part of time travelling, the intersections of past and present, aren't there.   It's never desperately clear that her experiences in the past are changing Sophie, and so she can't help but come across as a bit of a Device.  Because of this, it lacks any emotional punch in the gut--one feels sadness for Charlotte's situation, but the story as a whole is not desperately Powerful, the way the best time travel books are.

Still, it's a pleasantly written book, full of vivid description, and Charlotte's an appealing character with whom many girls (and possibly some boys) will empathize.   This a good one for the reader who doesn't like Dramatic Adventure; the few bits of Adventure seemed tacked on to the story, and not organic to it.   And there are lots of nice animal bits (horses, a dog, assorted Australian fauna), that will add to its appeal for those who love animals.

Short answer:  I was happy to read it, but would like to give it to ten-year-old me.  I realize this isn't neccessrily helpful, but I think the cover shown above is also useful--if a potential reader loves the cover, they'll love the book.

The Dark Secret (Wings of Fire, Book 4), by Tui T. Sutherland

The Wings of Fire series tells of five young dragonets, taken from their various clans of dragon kind while they were still unhatched, and raised to believe that they were the Dragonets of Destiny, who would bring piece to the war torn world.  Each book is told from the point of view of one of the dragonets, and now, in the fourth book, The Dark Secret (Scholastic 2013), it's Starflight's turn.

Starflight is a Nightwing--mysterious dragons with strange powers and suspicious secrets.  Starflight hasn't yet manifested any powers, and all his life he's hungered for knowledge, and worried that he's not brave enough to help his friends bring the prophesied peace to fruition.   As the book begins, he's been taken by the Nightwings to their island home.  But it's not the place of happy learning he'd hoped it would be.  Instead, the Nightwings are savagely plotting to conquer the land of the Rainwing dragons, to make a new home for themselves there.  And they want Starflight to help them, by betraying his friends, including Glory, his fellow Dragonet of Destiny and the new Rainwing queen.

This is a GREAT series to offer your handy nine or ten year old--it is immensely popular in my son's reading circle, which includes both boys and girls.  There is violence, and some gruesome deaths and maimings, but it is not gratuitous (parental discretion is advised, though, if you have a younger child who isn't ready for very vividly awful dragon deaths).   It has to be real, and bad, in order for the efforts of the Dragonets to be meaningful, and it succeeds with vengeance in this regard!  What I appreciate most is that although there is plenty of action and adventure, character is front and center.  In The Dark Secret, for instance, the focus is on the dilemmas and challenges faced by Starflight as he tries to be worthy of his friends, while trying to thwart the Nightwing plot.

To quote from my review of the first book, The Dragonet Prophecy: "what pleased even cynical me most was that there were themes here that I was happy to have my son think about--loyalty to friends transcending blind loyalty to tribe, the need to empathize with other points of view, the need to try your best to shape your own destiny, and not be someone's tool, and the senselessness of war."  These themes are still there, and still set in a truly exciting story.

The revelations of this book give fresh urgency to the waiting for the next book....me and my ten-year-old are both desperate for book five now!

In the meantime, there is a whole Wings of Fire wiki community to explore, with fan art, forums, etc.  This makes me smile, because when when I reviewed the first book, I wrote:  "this is a series that absolutely cries out for a website, with all the information about the different types of dragon expanded, and legends of the different dragon tribes, and little stories about the characters when they were babies, and printable pictures of the dragons etc."

disclaimer:  review copy received from the publisher

This week's round-up of middle grade science fiction and fantasy from around the blogs (11/24/2013)

Welcome to a rather chilly round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction; in the past hour, the woodstove has gotten the temperature in the living room up 9 degrees, but it's still not enough...

I just want to start by saying that there will be live Irish music streaming from my dining room tomorrow night (9pm EST)--my husband (the Irish Piper on Loreena McKennett's The Mask and the Mirror) and his fiddle playing comrade are playing rather nice tunes (promise) to benefit the Philippines recovery efforts (more details here).

In any event, please let me know if I missed your review!

The Reviews:

The Alchemist War, by John Seven, at Charlotte's Library

Blueberry Girl, by Jamila Gavin, at The Book Smugglers

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Good Books and Good Wine (audiobook review) and at For Those About to Mock

The Emerald Atlas, by John Stephens, at Blog of a Bookaholic

Eragon (10th Anniversary Edition), by Christopher Paolini, at Fantasy Book Critic

Ever After High: the Storybook of Legends, by Shannon Hale, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile and Nayu's Reading Corner

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, at Mister K Reads

The Grimm Conclusion, by Adam Gidwitz, at The Book Monsters

Heirloom (Seed Savers 3) by S. Smith, at This Kid Reviews Books

The Hero's Guide to Saving the Kingdom, by  Christopher Healy, at Becky's Book Reviews

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy, at Good Books and Good Wine (audiobook review)

Lara's Gift, by Annemarie O'Brien, at Middle Grade Mafioso

The Misadventrues of the Magician's Dog, by Frances Sackett, at The Book Monsters

The Northern Frights, by Derek the Ghost, at Once Upon a Twilight

The Peculiar, by Stefan Bachman, at books4yourkids

A Question of Magic, by E.D. Baker, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, at Book Nut

Saving Thanehaven, by Catherine Jinks, at Charlotte's Library

Sleeping Beauty's Daughters, by Diane Zahler, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt, at Book Log

Westmark, by Lloyd Alexander, at Tor

The Whatnot, by Stefan Bachmann, at books4yourkids

Winterling, by Sarah Prineas, at The Book Smugglers

The Year of Shadows, by Claire Legrand, at Book Monsters

Two of my Cybils colleagues have posts of mini-reviews of many books--at Random Musings of a Bibliophile and In Bed With Books


Authors and Interviews

Kit Grindstaff (The Flame In the Mist) at Kid Lit Frenzy

Dorine White (The Emerald Ring) at So I'm Fifty


Other Good Stuff

At Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, author Katherine Langrish shares her journey into Narnia

Katy at alibrarymama shares her top ten fantasy books for boys starring girls

And at A View From the Tesseract you can find 10 fantasy birthdays (as in, birthdays in fantasy books)

And finally, the gates of hell (as in the realm of Hades) have been found, so if you ever want to play Orpheus and Eurydice (not one in my own repertoire of imaginative play), you know where to go.  Apparently if you went there as a pilgrim you were given a sparrow to throw inside the cave; the poor birds died almost instantly, as it was full of poisonous gases, and the substantial number of little bird corpses was one reason the archaeologists knew they'd found it (Which makes me wonder how far the locals had to travel to keep finding sparrows.  An interesting little local economy).

Here is a digital illustration of what it might have looked like back in the day.  Notice the absence of living birds.

Benefit concert for the Philippines--Irish music streaming live from my dining room next Monday night

My husband and his fiddle-playing partner in music, whose family is from the Philippines, are putting on a benefit concert to raise money for Doctors Without Boarders live from my dining room next Monday, November 25th, 9pm EST, that you can watch/listen too from the comfort of your own computer!

 

Patrick Hutchinson (Irish pipes) and Armand Aromin  (fiddle): 

 

  

Photo by Niko Alexandrou
 

 

(harpist shown is not included)

Patrick and Armand have a tremendous groove and they are pretty much right up there in the top tier of traditional Irish music and I have heard them rehearsing (couldn't really help it since they were in my dining room) and they have picked nice tunes, so if you like Irish Traditional Music beautifully played to raise money for a Good Cause, take advantage of the technology and tune in!

It is being hosted by Concert Window (here is their facebook page, which introduces them a bit better) the only catch is that you have to sign up for an account (but there's a free three week trial period during which you can cancel; after that it's 8.99 a month which gives you access to all concerts).  Once you have logged in, you scroll down until you find Patrick and Armand on Monday night, and then donate whatever you wish.  (I really have no idea how it works, but this is what I've been told...)

You will also get to see my dining room (and if that isn't incentive enough, what is.).  There are several reasons why I haven't been posting very many reviews, most urgent of which is the need to get one of the dining room doors painted and re-hung, so that concert viewers don't have to see the cats' litter box in the laundry room...

Waiting on Wednesday--The Islands of Chaldea, by Diana Wynne Jones, with Ursula Jones

Thank you, Tanita, for alerting me to the fact that the new, and the last (meep) Diana Wynne Jones  book (completed by her sister Ursula) has a cover!  (actually 2 covers, UK and US)

It comes out February 27, 2014 in the UK, and April 22, 2014 in the US.  I will be ordering the UK edition, because of not being able to wait, and because I like the cover better.   (I have a vague feeling that UK fantasy books for kids are less gender marketed--in this case the purples and pinks of the US cover look to me like the book is being marketed more to girls...and the UK cover, what with the boy and his sword, looks more friendly to both genders).

From Amazon:   "Aileen was supposed to grow up magical - just like the other women in her family. Unfortunately, she's just found out that the magic seems to have skipped a generation...but that's not her biggest problem right now. In her world, there are four Islands of Chaldea. The largest and most magical island has been cut off from the other three for decades - and is slowly draining the magic from them. But now a prophecy has come to light. Someone from Aileen's island will gather a man from each of the three islands, bring down the magical barrier, and unite them with the fourth island again. And according to the king, that someone is Aileen's Aunt - who insists on dragging Aileen along. AND the boy Aileen is sure she'll marry (one day); AND the local boy with more brawn then brain. Someone seems to want to stop them too...someone with an interest in keeping the Islands apart. But still, with magic on their side, nothing can go wrong. Right?"

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

The Alchemist War (Time-Tripping Faradays), by John Seven, for Timeslip Tuesday

Back when I started reviewing a time travel book ever Tuesday, over four years ago now, I was afraid that by this point I would be scrounging for books.  Not so!  I have a list of over a hundred older books still to read, and new ones keep getting published (interesting fact--the Reagan years are pretty much a desert in terms of children's time travel books.  Why???)

But in any event, today I read a brand new one, nominated for the Cybils--The Alchemist War, by John Seven (Stone Arch Books, 2013), first in the Time-Tripping Faradays series. 

I want to start by commenting on how tremendously appealing I find the cover, with its combination of understated but appealing protagonists in a Mysterious Setting and its historically-sciencey background.  The marketing isn't skewed to either gender, which is nicely in keeping with the book itself, in which a brother/sister team share the limelight.  It's also a small book, which makes a pleasant change from the door-stoppers so common in Middle Grade fantasy, and which I think adds to it's kid appeal--it looks a bit like a geek notebook.

The Alchemist War tells of two kids (brother and sister Dawk and Hype) from a far future earth where time travel is part of the high tech way of life.  The Faradays are a time-travelling family, sent on various missions to fill in gaps in the history databases.  When Dawk decides to see if elephants really are afraid of mice, while observing Hannibal crossing the Alps, the unfortunate consequences result in the Faradays being given a much less prestigious assignment--studying footware in 17th-century Prague.

But Dawk and Hype, and their guard robot (there to keep them out of more mischief), stumble into a much more interesting time travel adventure when they become, almost without trying, the quasi-apprentices of a somewhat dodgy alchemist, and stumble upon hidden technology that has no place in the past.

This is a book that's best suited to the younger end of middle grade--the third and fourth graders who very much enjoyed the Magic Tree House books will feel themselves on firm ground, though with the new twist of futuristic technology.  Much older than that, and there won't be enough complexity of plot or character to hold the reader's interest.    The bulk of the world-building happens in a somewhat ungraceful info-dump, and the presence of the somewhat feeble parents doesn't add much, but once the Faradays head to Prague, the story becomes more cohesive and interesting. 

That being said, it never quite delivers regarding the titular promise of an "alchemist war," nor is the story developed  much beyond its bare bones (there's lots that not clearly explained or explored, which might disappoint the more experienced reader of fantasy).  And likewise, the past--its places, people, customs, etc.--is not described richly enough to make the reader truly feel that she's travelled back in time.  I kind of had to take it on faith.  (Although in fairness the food of the past was nicely contrasted the food of future).

In short, its a perfectly reasonable book to offer older elementary school kids, with a great cover!  But not so much one for the grown-ups.

disclaimer:  review copy gratefully received from the publisher for Cybils consideration.