Listening for Lucca, by Suzanne LaFleur, for Timeslip Tuesday

Listening for Lucca, by Suzanne LaFleur (Wendy Lamb Books, August  2013, middle grade), is a gentle sort of time slip book with a very intriguing premise.

The story begins with Sienna's family moving from Brooklyn to an old Victorian house on the coast of Maine.  Sienna doesn't mind--she welcomes the chance for a fresh start with kids who don't think she's weird (she sees things no one else can, and gathers old, abandoned things to care for).  But the move is mostly for her brother's benefit-- the family hopes that the change will give three-year-old  Lucca the change he needs to start to talk again after a year of silence. 

In the closet of her new room, Sienna finds a pen, left there years ago, and when she writes with it, another girl's words come out on the pages.  Sarah lived in the house during World War II...and through the journal entries that come from the pen, Sienna learns about her life, and how, when her brother, Joshua, went of to fight, Sarah stopped talking.  

Sienna in the present is given the chance to make friends with kids her own age...who might prove to be real friends if they aren't scared off by her strangeness...and all the while she works hard to be a good sister to Lucca, trying to stave off the desperate worry that his silence is all her fault.

And all the while her worry about Sarah grows, as the pen writes the story of Sarah's life.  To help Sarah, and maybe her brother Lucca, speak again, Sienna must do more than allow the pen to write the past.  She must go back herself, and help Joshua, a wretched shell of himself after the horrors of war, tell Sarah what she needs to hear so that she can speak.

It was a good, engrossing read, with a captivating storyline.   I feel I should have loved it--nice time travel, nice characters, nice place--yet it didn't quite make it into my heart.  I'm never entirely sure why this happens with books, but I've come up with a few possible reasons for this one.

I'm a very visual reader, and I love books that make pictures in my mind.  Drafting this review in my head, it occurred to me that I had left the story with no mental image of the house at all.   I love "moving into old house" books, and reading all the minuscule details of nooks and crannies and old cupboards...but this house is simply described as "an old Victorian," and that's pretty much it.  So that was disappointing.  This isn't the book's fault; it's me as a reader.

Sarah's story back in the past was much  more emotionally gripping than Sienna's present--making new friends actually goes very well for Sienna, despite the fact that she is rather passive about it, whereas Sarah is caught in a situation of serious emotional blackmail that pulled at my heart-strings.    Sienna takes a pretty passive approach to the historical mystery as well; she does undertake a bit of historical detective work, but mostly she just lets the timeslip pen do most of the work of finding out about the past.   And the pen isn't made special enough--it is just a handy plot device of little emotional zing.

Finally, I just couldn't be satisfied with the easy resolution to Lucca's mutism, even though it makes sense in the context of the fantastical elements of the story; it was a problem too easily solved, and not sufficiently explained, for me to accept it.

So no, it wasn't one I loved, but it was one I enjoyed and read pretty much in a single sitting.  So if a somewhat gently-paced timeslip focusing on characters past and present sounds appealing, do try it.  You might love it; Publishers Weekly did, and gave it a starred review.

Goblins, by Philip Reeve

Goblins, by Philip Reeve (Scholastic, August 27th, 2013) is a truly great pick for a nine or ten-year-old fantasy reader who likes humor and excitement--I highly recommend it.

It begins with a young goblin named Scarper being catapulted from the impossibly high walls of the ancient magical fastness of Clovenstone...not by choice--he's seriously ticked off his clan leader.  I knew I'd enjoy it when I got to this line on page 2--"But after the first thousand feet or so he realized that he was just going "...aaaaaaaaaaaa..." from force of habit, so he stopped..."  and my handy sample of Target Audience laughed at the very same line.

Clovenstone was once home to the incredibly powerful evil sorcerer called the Lych Lord, who ruled the whole world from his Stone Throne, high in the highest tower of the whole keep.   Now it's home to clans of squabbling, thuggishly uncivilized goblins, who (horror!) are using all the scraps of map and manuscript they can find for bum-wipes (when they remember to wipe their bums).  Scarper is not like other goblins--so much not like them that's he's taught himself to read...which is what gets him into trouble.  But happily for Scarper, he miraculously survives being catapulted to his death...

In the meantime, a young would-be hero, Henwyn, leaves home after accidentally destroying his family's cheesemaking operations (he had now idea the magic potion would summon a cheese monster of doom).   Henwyn comes to Clovenstone to rescue a princess held there by a giant, and he and Scarper cross paths on a troll bridge (complete with troll) and find themselves unlikely companions.  However, Princess Eluned (Ned for short) turns out to be in her forties, and quite happy living peacefully with the giant, so rescuing her is off the table.  And also arriving at Clovenstone are three would-be heirs of the Lych Lord's dark magic...men who can't actually do a spell to save their lives, but who dream big.

The goblins are restless (more so than usual), and strange creatures are experiencing the awakenings of old powers.   If the Lych Lord's heir sits on his throne, his magic will once more flood the world...and Scarper the goblin just happens to know where a map is that shows how to get to the heart of Clovenstone... When Princess Ned gets kidnapped by boglins, the goblin and the boy set off together to (depending on which of them you ask) a. save Ned b. find treasure c. heroically uncover the secrets held in the fastness of the Lych Lord (although most of the exploration happens because they are being chased by things that want to kill them).

It's lots of fun, with many small entertaining details place and people.   Really truly lots of fun, even for the grown-up reader who makes a doubtful face when shown a book called Goblins with goblins on the cover (naming no names), and most definitely an excellent one for its target audience. Philip Reeve is an author one can trust to deliver good writing and good story, and he doesn't disappoint here.

And it was kind of nice to have a princess closer in age to me than princesses these days mostly are...although my knees aren't as bad as hers and I'm sure I could climb multiple flights of steep crumbling stairs while being pursued with no problem at all...maybe?  Perhaps I will practice at work today.

This one has been out in the UK for a little while, and my son and I were rather excited to see that the sequel, Goblins and Dwarves, is already published over there...we might not be able to wait for the US edition to come out.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher (thanks).

This Week's Round-up of Middle Grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs (8/25/13)

Before anything else, I want to remind you all that the deadline for applying to be a Cybils Panelist is August 31, and you can go here to apply (in Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction, perhaps....).  If you know not whereof I speak, here's my explanatory post.  It is a lot of fun, and very worthwhile.

Here's what I found in my blog reading this past week; please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews:

The Book of Doom, by Barry Hutchison, at Buried Under Books

The Crowfield Curse, by Pat Walsh, at Hidden In Pages

Curse of the Ancients (Infinity Ring 4), by Matt De La Pena, at Charlotte's Library

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Teach Mentor Texts

Ghost Hawk, by Susan Cooper, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Handbook for Dragon Slayers, by Merrie Haskell, at Charlotte's Library

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy, at Reading Rumpus Book Reviews

How to Catch a Boggle, by Catherine Jinks, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile and Wandering Librarians

I Was a Seventh Grade Monster Hunter, by A.G. Kent, at Oh, for the HOOK of a BOOK

Jack Templar Monster Hunter, by Jeff Gunhus, at Creating Imaginations

Keeper of Reign, by Emma Right, at Bookworm for Kids

Listening for Lucca, by Suzanne LaFleur, at That Blog Belongs to Emily Brown

Magyk, and Flyte, by Angie Sage, at Here There Be Books

Mirage, by Jenn Reese, at The Write Path

Momo, by Michael Ende, at In Bed With Books

The Mouse With the Question Mark Tail, by Richard Peck, at Hope is the Word

The Neptune Project, by Polly Holyoke, at Presenting Lenore

North of Nowhere, by Liz Kessler, at books4yourkids

The Planet Thieves, by Dan Krokos, at Maria's Melange and Fantasy Literature

Playing With Fire, by Bruce Hale and Brandon Dorman, at The Book Cellar

Rump, by Liesl Shurtliff, at Akossiwa Ketoglo and Welcome to My Tweendom

The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, at Elfswood, Transcribing These Dreams, and Wrathqueen's Books

The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, at Sharon the Librarian

Sent (The Missing, Book 2), by Margaret Peterson Haddix, at Time Travel Times Two

Song of the Quarkbeast, by Jasper Fforde, at Teen Librarian Toolbox

The Time Fetch, by Amy Herrick, at My Precious and The Hiding Spot

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

What Came From the Stars, by Gary D. Schmidt, at Not Acting My Age

When the Butterflies Came, by Kimberley Griffiths Little, at Charlotte's Library

The Wishing Spell, by Chris Colfer, at As Life Like As

A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin, at alibrarymama

Year of Shadows, by Claire Legrand, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile, The Book Smugglers, Cuddlebuggery, and Jen Robinson's Book Page

A peak at three violent books at Ms. Yingling Reads--Goeglein, T.M. Flicker & Burn, Higson, Charlie. The Sacrifice. (#4), and Sanderson, Brandon. Steelheart (Reckoners#1)

Authors and Interviews

Ellen Booraem (Texting the Underworld) at Manga Maniac Café

Claire Legrand (The Year of Shadows) at the Wordpress Blog , Electrician Richardson, and A Foodie Bibliophile in Wanderlust

Kathi Appelt (The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp) at The Brain Lair

Claudia White (Aesop's Secret) at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

Anne Ursu (The Real Boy) featured in the "So You Want to Read Middle Grade" series at GreenBeanTeenQueen

Marianne Malone (The Pirate's Coin) at Nerdy Book Club

Other Good Stuff

"Witches in Children's Literature" at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

At Views from the Tesseract, there's a look at sci fi/fantasy anthologies for young readers past and present

For a more scholarly look at mg sff than one usually finds online, here's "Trapped by Transformation:  The Place for Female Identity in the Stoneheart Trilogy," by Alya Hameed at The Unjournal of Children's Literature.

I don't think I would have wanted Zombie Princess Dolls when I was young, nor do I want them now, but maybe someone will?  (more info. here)

Handbook for Dragon Slayers, by Merrie Haskell

If you are looking for a book to tempt a thoughtful, introspective 10 to 12-year-old girl who likes books and horses, with a bit of dragon on the side, offer her Handbook for Dragon Slayers, by Merrie Haskell (Harper Collins, 2013, middle grade).

Tilda, the young princess of a small Germanic kingdom in the Middle Ages(ish), chaffs against her place in life.  She is filled by an insatiable desire to spend more time reading and writing, and less time thinking about domestic animals and their needs (tedious and worrying--it's a poor kingdom)  and the prejudiced attitude her people take toward her twisted and painful club-foot (hurtful and dispiriting as heck).   Fate, in the form of a greedy cousin intent on taking the kingdom for himself, offers Tilda an escape from the uncomfortable role of princess when her two best friends, Judith, who has grown up alongside her as her handmaiden, and Parz, failed squire of a neighboring knight, rescue her, and decide that the time has come to be dragon slayers (!).   Tilda, they all agree, will watch and learn and research, and write a Handbook for Dragon Slayers that will make her famous.  She likes the idea lots; she's less convinced (with good reason) that Parz and Judith have any immediate hope of achieving their dragon slaying goal....

Judith and Parz, though both have been diligent with their weapons practice (despite Judith having to do it secretly), have as yet little theoretical, not to mention practical, knowledge of how to slay dragons.   Their first try doesn't go well; they are no match for even a baby, and retreat in disarray.  But then the companions meet the Wild Hunt, and Tilda, facing down the Hunter, rescues two of its magical horses (beautiful, magical horses), who give a whole new plausibility to the idea of dragon slaying, and from then on the pace Picks Up something fierce, and there are encounters with other dragons, and an evil magic user...and enchantments and imprisonments and dangers...And it all becomes a very exciting fantasy adventure.

And by the end of the book, slaying dragons is off the table, and Tilda returns to take up her duties with a new, hard won, maturity (and beautiful horses and a dragon friend and a new respect for Judith and sundry other characters).

It must be said that the beginning of the book is somewhat slow, and Tilda is not immediately a charismatic heroine.  Her character has been shaped by her disability--by both the physical limitations that it has imposed on her and by the pain of the prejudice against her because of it--and she has pulled herself inward in self-defense, which makes her somewhat self-centered and inclined to run from reality.   But once the threesome set out after dragons, she perforce expands and matures, and as she does, she becomes increasingly likable.  There is no magical healing here, nor do Tilda's people become magically unprejudiced against those with disabilities, but the ending promises acceptance and the opportunity for Tilda to define herself by finding balance between what she wants, what she needs, and what she is responsible for.

Judith is a great supporting character in her own right.  She has thoughtful considered the limitations of her life (like handmaidens not being allowed to be dragon slayers), and challenged them head on.  The friendship between Tilda and Judith, with the complications of their unequal relationship, makes for satisfying reading, and plays a major role in shaping Tilda's character arc.  (Parz doesn't get to be nuanced--he's a nice, loyal boy who likes swords and heroics at the beginning of the book, and at its end.  Which is fine.  Not everyone needs to be extraordinary).

So, after a bit of hesitation on my part (there isn't much zing to the beginning--Tilda is depressed, with good reason, and it colors the story)  I enjoyed this one very much indeed, and read it faster and faster, with increasing snappishness toward interrupting children. 

This isn't one to give to the reader who's already gotten hooked on books with Romance--they might find it flat in that regard, because there isn't any; sure, Parz might well end up with Tilda or Judith, and Tilda crushes on him a bit, but they are still kids.   But if the need for romance isn't an issue, older readers may well appreciate this one for the complexities of character, the rather amusing bravado of the would-be dragon slayers, and the interesting twists of the fantasy elements.  I don't think it has universal kid appeal (I don't think my own ten-year-old boy, for instance, would stick with it to page 53 when the true adventure begins), but I am sure it will be a just right book for just the right reader--the girl I describe in the first sentence!

Here are some other reviews:  Slatebreakers, The Book Smugglers, and Random Musings of a Bibliophile.

Boy + Bot, by Ame Dyckman (from the Reading is Fundamental STEAM collection), a science fiction picture book

A few days ago, a beautifully heavy box of books arrived  on my door step, containing the Reading is Fundamental STEAM collection-- a prize from June's 48 Hour Reading Challenge, to be donated to the institution of my choice (thank you RIF!).  It is a lovely, lovely, collection--if you click that link, you'll see the list of  forty beautiful children's books for grades K-5, focused on science, engineering, technology, arts and math, that RIF is working to get into the hands of schools and programs serving kids in need.   Unpacking the box took a while, because it was hard not to just sit and read each book as it emerged...

One that I couldn't resist reading immediately was Boy + BOT, by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by Dan Yaccarino (Knopf Books for Young Readers, April 2012) .   It begins thus "A boy was collecting pinecones in his wagon when he met a robot."  The boy asks if the robot would like to play, and the robot answers in the affirmative.  But during their play, the robot's power switch gets bumped to off, and the boy thinks the robot is sick, so he takes BOT home for applesauce and bed rest...

When BOT's power switch gets bumped on again during the night, it sees the sleeping boy--and thinks he's malfunctioned!  Now it's BOT's turn to take the boy home for oil and a read-through of an instruction manual, and just as it's about to try a fresh battery on the boy, the inventor enters the story, and explains everything.

And as time passes and the seasons change (shown in smaller size illustrations), the friendship of the BOT and the boy stays a lovely thing.  The illustrations are simple yet satisfying, with enough detail to make for interesting looking, but not so much so as to overwhelm the story.

It's a beautiful about robots and friendship that will make kids laugh, and I recommend it tons and tons.  I really  appreciate that those who decided which books should make up this collection included this one--it is a solid introduction to the concept of robots and a great story all at the same time.  I am all in favor of teaching science through story, because that's how I learn best!

Most of the collection will go to my local library, which serves a relatively low-income neighborhood;  I will look in the city for a place to take those that are already in its collection.   But it might take a while for the books to reach their new homes, because I do want to spend a bit of time with them myself!

When the Butterflies Came, by Kimberley Griffiths Little (with thoughts on what makes a book speculative fiction)

I was intrigued by When the Butteflies Come, by Kimberley Griffiths Little (Scholastic, April 2013, middle grade), for a longish while before actually reading it--the premise appealed lots.  And indeed, I found it an enjoyable read.

Tara's has died, leaving her a series of clues and a set of keys, and as Tara unlocks this string of secrets in her grandmother's big old southern house, she finds each step taking her further into a mystery of the Micronesian butterflies her grandmother was studying...and into danger.   Gradually she realizes that she must thwart whoever it is who wants to get rich from the fantastical powers of  the butterflies...a person who might well want her dead if she learns too much about their secrets.  And so Tara and her big sister (a reluctant player in unraveling the mystery) use the plane tickets their grandmother hide for Tara to find to travel to the island of Chuuk, a place made almost a paradise by the magic of the butterflies...where they must uncover the identity of the bad guy and do some serious thwarting.

I enjoyed the "girl exploring secrets of big old house" element lots, just as I had expected I would.   Tara was a fine heroine, with a nicely rounded character (her sister I liked less well, but she was also a perfectly believable character).

The butterfly mystery, also as expected, knowing my own reading taste as I do, was interesting, but less immediately appealing--I am not quite comfortable with fictional insects, no matter how beautiful, being capable of too much initiative.  In addition, I am always a tad doubtful of island paradises and their happy inhabitants needing to be saved from greedy Westerners.  Here, however, it is a necessary part of the plot, and part of the fantastical side of things, so I made a conscious decision to try to let it pass.

The reason I finally got around to reading it is because it may well be nominated for the Cybils. As Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction organizer, I will have to opine as to whether it will be more at home in regular Middle Grade, or with my category's fantasy and sci fi books. 

There is no question as to the un-naturalness of the butterflies.  They are far beyond any butterfly alive today.   But are the speculated butterflies enough to push the book into the impossible realm of sci fi/fantasy?

Lots of books that don't read as speculative fiction have things that are improbable, non-existent, and unnatural in them, that are extra add-ons, as it were, to the main story.  To count as speculative fiction, I think the unnatural phenomena, not possible in real life, have to be an integral part of the book such that you could not remove these elements and still have a book that works.  Though I could imagine the book featuring a really special endangered species of butterfly needing to be saved, the fact that these are impossible in a variety of ways is what sets the whole story in motion, motivates the characters, and makes it interesting and appealing (for those able to accept butterflies with preternatural abilities.

Then there's the question of where the book would be happiest.  Is it speculative fiction enough to hold its own against griffins and space ships?  Or is it so seeped in the unreal that it can't be compared to an ordinary mystery of clever kids and strange coincidence?  I am leaning hard toward the former--one of the reasons I myself read lots of fantasy and science fiction is that there is so much room to push the boundaries of the genre, and so, while I can't think of much middle grade fantasy/sci fi that's comparable to the way this book mixes the believable and the speculative, I think that's just fine.

All that being said, I now am stuck with regard to labeling this post; neither fantasy or sci fi feels quite right...bother.  I guess I'll go with fantasy...

Perfect reader:  10 year old girl who likes butterflies and hidden clues, who thinks her big sister isn't being quite loving enough.

Curse of the Ancients (Infinity Ring 4), by Matt De La Pena, for Timeslip Tueaday

Dak, Sarah, and Riq--three kids from an alternate present time--are on a mission to fix history through time-travel.  If they fail to change the past, there will be no future.  In this installment of their adventures, Curse of the Ancients, by Matt De La Pena (Scholastic, 2013), they travel back to Central America, centuries before the Spaniards arrive.  There they are befriended by the local Mayans, who, to their surprise, behave in a manner not at all in keeping with the bloodthirsty stereotypes the kids had assumed were true.   It becomes clear that the point of this adventure is to keep a particular Mayan codex (a hand-painted book) from being burned by the Spanish, and so the kids hope forward in time and save it (experiencing various dangers along the way).

As in all the books of the series, there's fast-paced action; the pages turn briskly.  The authors are all doing a good job, as well, at making history seem exciting.   There's lot's of kid appeal--not just because of all the excitements, but because the kids are easy for young readers to relate to, and it's easy to share their struggles as they try to figure out what's happening.  Plus the whole time travel premise is founded on geeky gadgetry, which I bet adds appeal.  This installment, though, didn't quite work for me.

With different authors writing each book, it's understandable that there will be variation in the characterization.   Riq comes off rather well here, getting his first, rather poignant, romantic sub-plot. Sarah continues to be her brave, smart self, and it was nice to see her having a chance to appreciate her Mayan ancestry.  But Dak, always somewhat annoying, is truly insufferable here, so much so that he doesn't seem the same person, and that was disappointing.

I don't know enough about the Mayans to comment meaningfully on how they are portrayed, but one thing did bother me.  The kids are supposed to fix history, but as far as I could tell, the only thing being fixed here is popular perception of the Mayans.  If they don't save the Codex, people will not appreciate Mayan civilization and will associate the Mayans primarily with bloodthirsty human sacrifice. But since that's how most people in our actual present think of the Mayans anyway (I think), it doesn't seem like there was a broken bit of history to fix (like Christopher Columbus not being the one to discover America in the first book.  Abraham Lincoln not being president in the third).   It also bothers me that this one codex is so desperately important--there are thousands of Mayan codices still extant, and there's no one Codex in real life (is there?) that is of prime importance.  Maybe I missed something...

(Another thing is starting to bother me about the series as a whole-- maybe it was explained at the beginning of the series, but why do the kids have to get their mission assignments in the form of cryptic clues???  It seems like poor planning on the part of the Hystorians back in the future who set things up. I myself, were I to be sending kids back in time to save a codex, would progam the computer to say "save the codex."   There's also the paradox of time travel--if the kids have already changed the future, how on earth did their missions get programed to begin with...but that's neither a useful or enjoyable (to me at least) subject for contemplation).

Anyway.   I'm all in favor of kids seeing how horrible the Spanish were to the people they conquered, and I am all in favor of spreading the message that burning and destroying the material creations of other civilizations is bad, so I'll recommend it for that.    It also gets points for its multicultural caste (as well as Sarah's Mayan ancestry, Riq is African American), and for being that really rare thing, a fantasy/sci fi book for US kids that's set in Latin America.  And like I said, there is lots of kid appeal....

Mist, by Susan Krinard (me reading adult fantasy)

I  occasionally step outside my comfort zone of fantasy and science books for young readers, and peek at the grown-up section of my local bookstore.  Mist, by Susan Krinard (Tor, 2013) caught my eye--Norse mythology coming to life in San Fransisco!  Brave Valkyrie (Mist), stuck in Midgard for centuries after the first Ragnarok fizzled out under strange circumstances, finds herself desperately trying the world from being destroyed in a second Ragnarok masterminded by Loki! So when Tor offered me a review copy, I said, yes please.

Mist is very much a first book of a bigger adventure.  It tells how Mist goes from being an ex-Valkyrie running ordinary weapons workshops to a powerful (but still uncertain) magic-user leader of those opposing Loki's grand plan to ruin everything (for everyone but Loki).   And as such it's a story of characters meeting (and the reader meeting characters), mostly under violent circumstances, and Mist starting to figure out just who she is, and just who she has to become.   The first of her potential allies to appear is Dainn, an enigmatic Alfar (Norse high elf type of being), who clearly has secrets and darknesses in his past.  Part-way through the book, we begin to be given his point-of-view, and the secrets and darkness begin to be spelled out.

There are urban fantasy type adventures, and some cool magic, and Mist is a fine heroine of the headstrong, determined, and somewhat over her head type.  There are fights with Jotuns (ice giants), allies beginning to be drawn to Mist, Mist learning to use her innate magic, Loki magically and sexually conning people right and left, and Dainn being tormented by secrets and darkness (he is tormented by these lots).

Though quite a bit Happens, the book as a whole is somewhat slowed by explication and repetition--perhaps the explanatory elements are necessary for those not familiar with Norse mythology, but I do feel that I got the point of particular plot and character threads sooner than the author thought I had, and didn't need to keep revisiting them.  This was particular true with the romantic sub-plot.

Mist and Dainn start being drawn to each other quite soon after meeting, and it is made very clear to the reader that they keep on being drawn to each other repeatedly and reluctantly throughout the book, in such a way as to make me wonder at times if I was, in fact, reading a romance with mythological elements rather than a fantasy with romantic elements. 

"[Mist] averted her gaze from the swallowing darkness of his gaze, focusing on the next thing she saw.  Unfortunately, that was still Dainn, his long, elegant hand resting palm-up on his knee.  It was the kind of hand that could bring pleasure with the lightest touch of a fingertip." (page 218)

I tend to like my fictional romances a tad more subtle, so this aspect of the book didn't work well for me.    And Dainn's point of view sections, which were all about his secrets and darknesses, slowed the book down, and took too much time away from the more energy filled story of Mist discovering her powers and her new (unwelcome) role as head of the Opposition to Loki.

In short, what I enjoyed most were those parts of the book that focused on Mist and her nascent army of teenagers with strange gifts (only two of them thus far, but they were interesting characters), two heavy drinking sons of Odin, and, best of all but right at the end, a sister Valkyrie who arrives at the head of a motorcycle gang.

Not quite a book for me, but those who enjoy romance mixed with mythological fantasy might well like it very much indeed.  As for me,  I had already this year read a book about a Valkyrie named Mist - Norse Code, by Greg Eekhout (2009), which was much more to my personal taste (here's my review).

This week's round-up of middle-grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (8/18/13)

Here's what I found this week.  Let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews:

The Ability, by M.M. Vaughan, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

The Borrowers Avenged, by Mary Norton, at Tor

The Burning Bridge (Ranger's Apprentice 2), by John Flanagan, at Tales Between the Pages

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, by Claire Legrand, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Circle (Book 1 of the Sidhe), by Cindy Cipriano, at Jean Little Library

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Bookalicious and Puss Reboots

The Fate in the Box, by Michelle Lovric, at The Book Zone

Finally, and 13 Gifts, by Wendy Mass at Give a Hoot, Read a Book!

The Flame in the Mist, by Kit Grindstaff, at Word Spelunking

Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo and K.G. Campbell, at Readaraptor

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente, at Fyrefly's Book Blog

The Goblin's Gift, by Conrad Mason, at The Book Plank 

Goblins, by Philip Reeve, at Hidden in Pages 

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, by Christopher Healy, at Log Cabin Library

Hit the Road, Helen!, by Kate McMullen, at Ex Libris

Hokey Pokey, by Jerry Spinelli, at crossreferencing

Iron Hearted Violet, by Kelly Barnhill, at Good Reads with Rona

Keeper of the Black Stones, by P.T. McHugh, at Michelle's Paranormal Vault of Books

The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde, at books4yourkids

The Monster in the Mudball, by S.P. Gates, at Kid Lit Reviews

The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail, by Richard Peck, at Faith Elizabeth Hough

New Lands, by Geoff Rodkey, at Becky's Book Reviews

Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble, by D. Robert Pease, at Time Travel Times Two

North of Nowhere, by Liz Kessler, at Books Together 

The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, at For the Love of Books and Lunar Rainbows

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co.), by Jonathan Stroud, at Fuse #8

Secrets at Sea, by Richard Peck, at Becky's Book Reviews

Sky Pony, by Elaine Breault Hammond, at Charlotte's Library

Starbounders, by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, at Charlotte's Library

Texting the Underworld, by Ellen Booraem, at Kid Lit Reviews 

The Time Fetch, by Amy Herrick, at Bookalicious, The Hopeful Heroine, and Random Musings of a Bibliophile

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt, at Green Bean Teen Queen (with interview)

The Underland Chronicles, by Suzanne Collins, at Leaf's Reviews (note--the link goes to the wrap-up post; scroll through for individual posts)

What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World, by Henry Clark, at Candace's Book Blog and Charlotte's Library

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

Authors Talking

Kathi Appelt (The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp) at There's a Book

Ellen Booraem (Texting the Underworld) at The Enchanted Inkpot  and Literary Rambles

Amy Herrick (The Time Fetch) at Novel Novice

#Doll Bones, by Holly Black--archived Twitter chat at Kid Lit Frenzy

Other Good Stuff

I am tremendously impressed by the pool of would-be panelists who have already applied for the Cybils in the first few days...but there is room for more.  The deadline is the 31 of August.  Here's my post about how it all works.

And thanks to the applicant who mentioned that Boston has Kidlit Drink Nights, which I didn't know about.  I am tempted; my husband manages to go to Boston lots, so it must be possible....

Through that link I found out about  the Boston Teen Author Festival--September 21st, from 11am-430pm at the Cambridge Public Library. 

Continuing on in a social vein,  the seventh annual KidLitCon is being planned for November 8th and 9th in Austin, Texas;  I am going, and hope lots of you will too!

A post on magical rooms in children's fiction at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

The Book Smugglers hosted a middle-grade round table, where five bloggers, including me, shared their favorite middle grade books (my five are the fantasy books I loved best back when I was ten or so).

Children of the King, by Sonya Hartnett, is the Children' Book Council of Australia's Younger Readers Book of the Year for 2013:  "Three children have been sent to live in the countryside, safe from the war in London. When they find two boys hiding in a castle, the past and future come together to make an extraordinary adventure."  It comes out here in the US in March of 2014; this is the Australian cover.

How Tui T. Sutherland made my 10-year-old do happy bounces

How great it is when one of your most favorite authors says that you and your book reading pals "sound like essentially THE COOLEST PEOPLE EVER."  Pretty darn great, no matter how old you are, but when you are ten, and authors are still quasi-mythical beings, even more so.   My ten-year-old loves Tui T. Sutherland's books (the Wings of Fire series, The Menagerie, and the Warriors books), so when I showed him this post at her blog, much happy bouncing ensued.   And of course he was also excited to see the cover of the sequel to The Menagerie:

It is lovely to have a kid with whom I can share books.  This past week he read Seven Sorcerers, and its sequel, Shadow Spell, by Caro King (great books), and loved them, and was chirp chirp chirping away about them yesterday.  Gratifying.   Having succeed so will with this recommendation, I tried to get him to promise to read the next book I offered him, without telling him what it would be, because if he knew the book was called The Runaway Princess (by Kate Coombs; here's my take on its sequel, The Runaway Dragon), and saw the girl-oriented cover, he might refuse to even try it.  He was suspicious.  I said that it should be called A Really Good Book About a Kid Making Friends with a Dragon, but he wouldn't bite.  And then I told him the real title....and he is very doubtful.  I know he would love it, so it is frustrating, but I still have hope.  I can always bribe him with double chocolate milanos. 

What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World, by Henry Clark

What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World, by Henry Clark (Little Brown, July 2013)

River, Freak, and Fiona are the last kids to live in the abandoned subdivision butting up against Hellsboro, where underground fires sparked by a chemical plant gone wrong have been burning for years.   Everyday they meet at the bus stop by the old Underhill Mansion, though once at school Fiona goes her own way.   But one day a sofa shows up on the curb next to their stop, and rummaging through it, looking for loose change, the kids find an exceedingly rare Zucchini crayon (from the limited edition Victory Garden set), perhaps the only one surviving.

And because of this crayon (long story) the kids find themselves part of a struggle between two opposing forces, centered on a mysterious intergalactic portal deep in the heart of toxic Hellsboro. On the side of Good (ie, keeping the Earth from being invaded by an army from another world) are the kids, an eccentric refugee from that alien world who's moved into the Underhill Mansion as part of a plan to keep the portal closed, and the Sofa.   On the side of Bad is an immensely powerful criminal mastermind type, Edward Disin (also an alien), who's planning on enslaving all earthlings (and who was responsible for Hellsboro).

Disin has two weaknesses--he underestimates kids (which is why the threesome were recruited), and he has been deliberately infected with Compulsive Completest Disorder.   He won't be able to think straight until he gets the Zucchini Crayon, but will that advantage be enough to allow the unlikely alliance of kids, sofa, and older non-earthly gentleman to stymy his plans?

The Sofa thinks it will.   If the kids do their part...

This is a fine example of wacky sci fun for younger middle grade kids.  It takes the wild and whimsical approach so common in elementary sci fi/fantasy and uses it to good effect in a longer, more thoughtful story.  Sci fi and fantasy books, I think, offer tons of scope for pushing young readers out beyond the boundaries of their own life experiences, and, in an appropriately limited way (you wouldn't want to give a nine-year-old The Left Hand of Darkness), that's what this book does.

The kids, likable and realistic characters, are brave and smart, but not Specially so. Their lives have been tragically damaged by the Hellsboro disaster, and this gives emotional impetus to their quest to stop Disin.  Freak's father became an abusive alcoholic after Freak's sister died of cancer.  River's parents were killed in a car accident that left him slightly lame.  Fiona's twin sister died at birth--all these things happened because of the Hellsboro disaster.

There's further food for thought-- throughout the story there are small jabs against corporate power--Disin's commercial empire (cell phones and packaged food) is a key part of his evil plan to turn humanity into his mindless minions, and Hellsboro is just the sort of environmental disaster that happens in real life.  And on top of that, the relationship between the three kids evolves nicely, ending with Fiona acknowledging the two boys, uncool though they might be, as friends.  But the author doesn't underline these themes with a heavy hand, so it doesn't feel didactic.

 A very good one, in short, for the young reader intrigued by science fiction who is ready to move up to a pretty substantial book.

Here's what I especially liked--the Sofa.  It is a great sofa.  When the kids first meet it, it is almost Halloween, and the Sofa has made an effort to present itself as a pirate.   And the kids might not have special gifts, but the sofa does--it can tessar (as in A Wrinkle in Time).

ARC gratefully received from Ms. Yingling Reads

Today I'm over at The Book Smugglers, talking about my favorite Middle Grade fantasy books

I'm in great company today over at The Book Smugglers, talking about childhood favorites along with Heidi of Bunbury in the Stacks, Angie of Angieville, Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, and Ana of Things Mean A Lot.

It was hard just picking five books, but I did:

The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge
Marianne Dreams, by Catherine Storr
A String in the Harp, by Nancy Bond
The Little Broomstick, by Mary Stewart
Tom Ass, by Ann Lawrence

Thanks for inviting me, Ana and Thea! 

Apply to be a Cybils Panelist starting Thursday, or, Why 150 isn't a scary number of books

Panelist applications for the Cybils open this Thursday!  For those who haven't been involved with the Cybils before, and not sure about applying, here's my personal take on how things work (the official information is available at the Cybils website).

WHAT ARE THE CYBILS?

In a nutshell, the Cybils are book awards for children's and Young Adult books and aps, given by panels of volunteer bloggers. Anyone can nominate eligible titles in a variety of subgenres during the nomination period, which runs from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15, 2014.  (Eligible titles are books published for children or teens between Oct. 16, 2012 and Oct. 15, 2013).

The nominated books/aps are evaluated by a first round of 5-7 panelists; at the end of December, these panelists send a short list of 5-7 titles to a second round of panelists, who then have to pick a winner.  The main criteria for judging are audience appeal and literary merit.

Any currently active children's and YA book blogger, who is at least 16 years old, can apply to be a first or second round panelist for any of the following categories:

Book Apps
Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books
Fiction Picture Books
Graphic Novels
Elementary/Middle- Grade Nonfiction
Young Adult Nonfiction
Poetry
Middle Grade Fiction
Young Adult Fiction
Elementary/Middle- Grade Speculative Fiction
Young Adult Speculative Fiction

Some categories have more books nominated in them than others--last year Elementary and MG Speculative Fiction had 150, and Fiction Picture Books, Middle Grade and YA categories had as many, if not more (the YA categories, I think, were pushing 200).   So the time commitment varies considerably.

FOR THOSE THINKING OF APPLYING:

The panels are comprised of returning Cybilians (dependable veterans), and newcomers.  

This year I'm category organizer for Elementary and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction (formerly Sci Fi/Fantasy), which means choosing two balanced, thoughtful, enthusiastic groups of readers--first round readers who aren't daunted by the thought of a 150 or so book list, and second round panelists who will be sharp as all get out when picking the best of the best.

Do not be put off by that 150 number!   It sounds much more scary than it is.

Why, though it is lot of reading, it's not so scary:

--not everybody has to read every book (it's a minimum of two readers for each book).
--not every book you can count as read has to be read in its entirety.
--you'll have read a number of the books already
--panelists know before the nomination period begins that they are panelists, and so the reading period actually begins in the middle of September (there are many books to read that you just know will be nominated).
--In many categories, like E and MG Spec Fic, some books will be very short, fast reads, which helps.

There's no fixed minimum number of books you have to read, and it is not a competition to see who can read the most books--there will be speed readers, and less speedy readers, and both are just fine, as long as there is sincere commitment and effort.  

And of course, if you want to be a second round panelist, it's at most seven books to read.

Why you might want to apply--

It is really, really fun to talk enthusiastically about books you love (and love less well) with like-minded folk.  You can say all sorts of things to your co-panelists that you would never say in public--squeeing, arguing, venting, and gushing are perfectly fine! It is a great way to revitalize your reading.  (It is also a great way to distract yourself from things you'd rather not do, but that might be a reason not to apply...)

You make new friends.  Some of my best blogging friends were fellow Cybilians.

After being a first round panelist, you will have an incredibly broad picture of what's up in the genre. 

You will have a sense of satisfaction from having helped create a resource (the lists of finalists) that lots of people will appreciate.


Why you might not want to apply (particularly for the first round)

If you have a major life commitment this fall--having a baby, starting a new job, buying a house, etc.--you might not want to be a first round panelist (although I've worked with great co-panelists who have done these things while reading furiously!).  Things get a bit intense around Christmas, when the deadline for the list of finalists looms, so you'll need to be able to spare some hours for group discussions/last minute re-reading/careful thought.

If you have a potential conflict of interest (perhaps you are in the book business in some way, or perhaps you have written an eligible book), that would preclude you from being an impartial panelist, you'll want to make sure this is made clear when you apply.

If you don't think it sounds like fun to check your email lots and lots to see what your co-panelists have to say about their reading, and to share your own thoughts, and to check off the books you've read in the spreadsheet, you might want to think it over...You don't have to go overboard, but you should plan on being Present in a meaningful way.

If you live outside the US, you are welcome to apply, but you will have a harder time getting hold of books (if this applies to you, and you think you could manage it, do feel free to explain when you fill out the application form!).

If for some reason you don't have easy access to a public library, you might have a hard time getting books; some books will come from publishers and authors, including ebooks, but many will not.

But in any event,

Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction is the Best Category Ever and the books are really good this year and I hope lots of you apply, although then I will have to make Hard Choices and be sad about not being able to pick everyone....

Which reminds me that it's common knowledge that some categories get lots of applicants (the YA ones, and fiction picture books), and some get lots fewer (poetry, non-fiction, book aps); you might want to keep that in mind when you indicate your choices.  I have no idea how many people put E and MG Spec Fic down as their first choice last year, and I am very curious indeed to see how it plays out!

And if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments, or email me at charlotteslibary at gmail dot com.

Sky Pony, by Elaine Breault Hammond, for Timeslip Tuesday

Sky Pony, by Elaine Breault Hammond (Acorn Press, 2010), is the first book I've read in which a magical flying pony is the mechanism for time travel!  

12-year-old Katie is fed up with her life.  Not only have her parents dragged her across Canada to live in what is essentially a shack in the middle of nowhere, they have surprised her by taking in a little boy who's just been orphaned.  Without consulting her.  And now Siggi (Icelandic heritage) seems to be more important than she is, and she's expected to be kind to him--when all she feels is resentment. 

The one good thing to come from the move is Katie's new pony, an Iceland mare named Peggy.   But Peggy is more than a good pony--she can fly, and, even more magically, travel through time.  Katie finds herself back in the Victorian London of her favorite doll, Samantha...and Samantha blithely welcomes her to her privileged life.  

There's a dark side, though, to Samantha's London.  It's a place of street crime and desperate orphans.  And though Katie gets home safely after her first visit, the second time Peggy takes her back is much different.  Siggi was having his first ride on her too (not Katie's idea), and soon after they arrive in London, Siggi is kidnapped and sold off, along with Peggy, to work in the coal mines.   Katie, now genuinely fond of Siggi, must find and rescue them...or they'll all be stuck in the past forever.

So basically, this is an example of time travel teaching a lesson to the main character--when Katie gets back to the present, she's all about being one big happy family.   Which is fine.  But I must confess that I liked the beginning of the book best, before the time travel happened--Katie was very realistically unhappy (and the pony sub-plot of stable work and riding was nice!), and if the book had kept on being realistic fiction, it might actually have been a more satisfying whole.

The time spent in Victorian London was something of an improbable blur of standard street urchins speaking in dialect, and standard dark alleys, interspersed with the unreality of Samantha's life (she is, after all, a doll, so a certain unreality is expected!).  But it's an exciting enough story to interest younger readers new to 19th century England.

Short answer--This is one to offer older elementary readers who want a pony story with a magical twist.  Not so much one for the older time-travel fan.

Interesting detail: Katie's father lost both legs in an accident when he was her age, but went on to become a geologist, which is a nice subversion of stereotype! 

(and just in case anyone notices and thinks I made a mistake-the author's name isn't hyphenated on my copy of the book, so though it is at Amazon, I didn't put the hyphen in...)

Save the date for Kidlitcon 2013--Austin, Texas, on November 8th and 9th

I was tremendously exited when I checked my Kidlitosphere email just now, and saw a heads up for KidLitCon 2013!  Yay!  It's being planned for Austin, Texas on November 8th and 9th, with more details coming as they emerge.

Kidlitcon is my favorite convention of all--it is so wonderful to spend time in real life with other children's book bloggers!

Starbounders, by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson

My ten-year-old gave Starbounders, by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson (HarperCollins, June 2013) just about the most gratifying praise I think a kid can give a book--"I can't wait till my friends read this," he said, after devouring the book in almost a single sitting, "so that we can play Starbounders!" And indeed, the book is packed with enough action and adventure, cool technology and alien encounters, to inspire hours of imaginative play.

The people of Earth have no idea that there is a secret group of space-jumping, alien-fighting Starbounders representing humanity out there in the crowded galaxy.   Zachary, though, has always known--his family has been Starbounders for generations.  Now it's finally his turn to leave ordinary middle school behind and head off to the secret Starbounder academy, anxious about living up to the standards set by his famous family.  Things don't go well, and it only takes a few days before Zachary and his two new friends (a fierce girl named Kaylee and an alien boy named Ryic) find themselves assigned to a stint as clean-up crew on an old space freighter as punishment for breaking school rules. 

And then the freighter is high jacked when the interstellar prisoners it had on board escape, and it only narrowly misses crashing into a planet, and then Zachary and his friends are taken as hostages by one of the prisoners (a sort of newt-like alien, operating a humanoid robotic exoshell), and then they are stuck on an utterly inhospitable desert world, and things just Keep Happening!!! until finally it becomes clear that Earth itself is in danger (!) and the kids must foil the evil alien plot to destroy it.

So, yeah, lots and lots of action and adventure (almost overwhelmingly so), a fine premise, a modicum of character (the character development is sprinkled through so much excitement that it most definitely takes second stage).  And the writing, full of vivid description, is perfectly adequate for the book's particular emphasis on non-stop leaping from one catastrophe to the next.  Zachary's clearly the hero, but Kaylee and Ryic get to contribute meaningfully (girls and aliens will be comfortable playing Starbounders on the playground too).

Starbounders does what it sets out to do just fine--it is an entertaining, fast read for the young reader who complains about boring books, and who will be thrilled to see a bunch of kids foiling the plans of bad adults and flying around through space on desperate jumps from one danger to the next.  It's not one, though, that older readers will necessarily enjoy for themselves; there's not quite enough thought-provoking substance underneath all the excitement.

This is the second young teens in space book of the year, the other being The Planet Thieves, by Dan Krokos (my review).  Starbounders reads somewhat younger--I'd happily give it to a nine-year old; The Planet Thieves has a more complicated story line, and lacks the quick resolutions to danger of Starbounders; it works better, I think, for the eleven year old on up. 

Note on cover:  it's lovely to see kids (I assume they are Zachary and Kaylee) who can be read as any number of ethnicities!  I'm not counting this, though, as an example of diversity, because the descriptions of the characters within the story are not specific enough (I didn't see any of Zachary; Kaylee has blond hair, with blue streaks-- who knows what color it really is).

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi/fantasy from around the blogs (11 August, 2013)

Here's what I found this week; enjoy!

The Reviews:

The 13th Horseman, by Barry Hutchison, at Wondrous Reads

Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness, by Sarwat Chadda, at The Book Zone

Circus Galacticus, by Deva Fagan, at Kid Lit Geek

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Guys Lit Wire

Escape from the Carnivale (Peter and the Starcatchers), by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, at Kimberly's Book Life

The Frog Princess, by E.D. Baker, at Puss Reboots

Goblin Secrets, by William Alexander, at Fantasy Literature

The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe, by Dan Poblocki, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Heirs of Prophecy, by at The Secret DMS Files of Fairday Morrow

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy, at Charlotte's Library

The House on Parchment Street, by Patricia McKillip, at Charlotte's Library

Janitors, by Tyler Whitesides, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb, by Ally Malinenko, at Offbeat Vagabond

Lupus Rex, by John Carter Cash, at Project Mayhem

The Mark of Athena, by Rick Riordan, at Karissa's Reading Review  (audiobook)

North of Nowhere, by Liz Kessler, at Charlotte's Library

Penumbras, by Braden Bell, at Geo Librarian

The Reluctant Assassin, by Eoin Colfer, at YA Sleuth and books4yourkids

Return to Cardamom, by Julie Anne Grasso, at Kid Lit Reviews

The Road to Oz, by L. Frank Baum, at Becky's Book Reviews

The Ruins of Gorlan, by John Flanagan, at magical middle-grade literature

Scepter of the Ancients (Skulduggery Pleasant Book 1), by Derek  Landy, at Fantasy Literature  and Skulduggery Pleasant, books 5 and 6-- Mortal Coil, and Death Bringer, by Derek Landy, at Original Content

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co.) by Jonathan Stroud, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

The Shadowhand Covenant, by Brian Farrey, at Views from the Tesseract

Sidekicked, by John David Anderson, at Alison's Book Marks, The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia, and The Book Smugglers

Storybound, by Marissa Burt, at (k)atty at law

Teacher's Pest (Lovecraft Middle School), by Charles Gilman, at Zombies in My Blog

Texting the Underworld, by Ellen Booraem, at There's a Book and Charlotte's Library

The Time Fetch, by Amy Herrick, at Akossiwa Ketoglo

Time Snatchers, by Richard Ungar, at Time Travel Times Two

The Wednesdays, by Julie Bourbeau, at Bibliophilic Monologues 

The Wells Bequest, by Polly Shulman, at The Reading Date (audiobook)

The Whatnot, by Stefan Bachman, at BookYAReview

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin, at AJ Cattapan

The Wild Hunt of the Ghost Hounds, by Penelope Lively, at Charlotte's Library

Wishbird, by Gabrielle Wang, at WhenIgrowupIwannawriteakidsbook (also an interview)

The Year of Shadows, by Claire Legrand, at The Reading Nook Reviews

Authors and Interviews

Ellen Booraem (Texting the Underworld)  at The Children's Book Review, Word Spelunking, and at Charlotte's Library  (giveaways with these)

Sarwat Chadda (Ash Mistry) on diversity at The Book Smugglers 

Nikki Bennett (Four Fiends) at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

Other Good Stuff:

From the Dept. of Brilliant Art Mashups, a Mexican artist has reimagined Pokemon as Mayan monsters!  See all the Pokemayans here at Monorobot (found at Tor)

The Wild Hunt of the Ghost Hounds, aka The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, by Penelope Lively

I recently got a new computer, and made a nice little space for it on the desk under the stairs.  I moved the bookshelf that was on the desk, but there is still a small little bit of TBR creep (six books) off to one corner of it...and there I was this morning, reading blogs etc., and I saw that one of these books was The Wild Hunt of the Ghost Hounds, by Penelope Lively (UK title--The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, 1971), and I asked myself why the heck I'd never gotten around to reading it...so I did.

Lucy has been sent from London to spend the summer with her aunt Mabel, who lives in a small Somerset village.  She'd been there once before, as a child, and remembered vividly the fun she had had with three local children, two girls and a boy, and as the train gets closer, she's filled with anticipation, imaging them all having a wonderful summer together.   But though her aunt's cottage is lovely, her old friends have changed--the two girls, daughters of a posh family, are now frightfully keen on all things pony (not of interest to Lucy), and Kester, the boy, being from a non-posh family, is rather beneath their notice, except as something to be patronized.   And Kester doesn't seem to want much to do with Lucy....

Happily, this changes--Kester, in the lonely position of being sent to a better school than the other village kids, unbends toward Lucy, and for a while, they are happy exploring the wild moor and the forests and looking for fossils on the beach.   And all is calm...(and beautifully described).

And then the dance begins.  It seemed harmless enough to the Vicar, when he found the old leather mask to which stag horns had been attached--why not revive what was clearly an Olde Tradition, and use the recreated stag dance as the center piece of a fund-raising village fete?   And soon six boys and six girls are outfitted with masks and horns, and the dance is brought back to life. 

But the older people of the village remember the stories of what happened back before the dance was abandoned...and are afraid.  It was more, or less, than a dance...there was a hunt, and there was the one hunted, and always there was the risk of wakening the old wild magic that the dance only imitated.  And Lucy, watching her friend Kester pulled into that old story, is afraid as well.  She can sense the Wild Hunt coming closer, looking for its quarry...

Doesn't that sound excellent, and just the sort of book a young imaginative Anglophile girl (me at 12) would love?  And it was very gripping, and very real, and very magical...and the horror of the Wild Hunt grew and grew as the land was gripped by heat and drought...but yet it wasn't, quite, as good as I thought it should have been.  I've had this sense of vague let down with Penelope Lively before--a feeling that I should be more swept off my feet then I am by the numinous magic of the story and by the wonderful evocative sense of old places and traditions that fill her books. 

Is it, I asked myself, the fact that there's not a lot of tasty food in her books?  That may sound shallow, but a nicely described meal of appropriate beauty/mystery/homeyness goes a long way toward making a story real.  "Have another scone," as Aunt Mabel says, just doesn't do it.

But I rejected this hypothesis.   Food alone wouldn't have filled the uncertain void I felt.

I considered the lack of something else I like very much in books--the main character doing something particular, either of a crafty sort, or an imaginative sort--making or pretending, in a way that makes a character a unique person.    Lucy and Kester mostly have no external points to their lives--they like books, they like fossils, but mostly they are pretty blank.  I felt I was getting closer...

And then I realized that Lucy and Kester, and for that matter the boys in the Stag Dance, have no agency to speak of, and are simply being washed over by old magic because they happen to be the ones that are there at the time.  Who they are as people has little to do with it (Kester gets the role he does because of his outlier status, but it's not because of his particular Kester-ness).   Looking back at the other Penelope Lively books I've reviewed (Astercote, A Stich in Time, The Driftway) the same lack of agency is there too-they are strong on place, evocative as heck, and they should be books I loved to bits....but I didn't, quite.

Oh well!  I wouldn't mind quite so much if they hadn't come so close, especially this one....

The Cybils Elementary/Middle Grade Sci Fi and Fantasy winners of years past

The 2013 Cybils season is almost here--applications for being a panelist will open on the 15th of August, and close the 31st.  Excited about this as I always am, I thought it might be fun to go back and take a look at the authors who were the winners in the Cybils Elementary/MG sci fi/fantasy from years past, to see what they are up to now!  

 

 

2007  The True Meaning of Smekday written by Adam Rex.   I am rather abashed that I have never read this one, and will try to do so soon... Since 2007 Adam Rex has been busy writing, and illustrating, picture books (such as Frankenstein Takes the Cake, and the illustrations for Neil Gaiman's Chu's Day).  He's also written a YA book, Fat Vampire, and two books of  MG sci fi/fantasy series, Cold Cereal, and Unlucky Charms (which is eligible for the Cybils this year!).

 

 

2008 The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman.  Before it won the Newbery and the Carnegie Awards, it was shortlisted for the Cybils...and Neil Gaiman continues to be Neil Gaiman.  I haven't read the forthcoming Fortunately the Milk (2013) yet, but it looks like a perfectly eligible contender for this year!

 

 

2009 Dreamdark: Silksinger (Faeries of Dreamdark) written by Laini Taylor.  Laini had originally planned to write more books about the Faeries of Dreamdark, and I hope some day she will, but in the meantime she's working on the third book of the YA Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy.

2010  The Shadows (The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 1) written by Jacqueline West.  Happily for all of us who enjoyed this one lots, Jacqueline West has been busily writing more books in the series; the fourth book, The Strangers, came out in July, making it eligible for this year!

2011 The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale written by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright.  Since Cheshire Cheese Cat, Carmen Agra Deedy has published The Return of the Library Dragon, for younger readers. 

2012 The False Prince written by Jennifer Nielsen, and yay!  the sequel, The Runaway King, was published this year (making it eligible), and the third book,  The Shadow Throne, is coming March 2014.

 

So if you want to help pick the 2013 winner, in this or any of the various other Cybils categories, do throw your name into the hat this year!  I'm the category organizer for Elementary/MG Speculative Fiction (we've tweaked the name this year), and I'll be putting up a post in the next day or so with all the detais about what being a panelist entails....

 (Hmm... seems that blue and orangy/yellows are the cover color schemes most likely to win.  They do all look very nice together....)