Welcome to the 200th round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs! I started doing this because I wanted such a thing to exist--middle grade sff reviews are scattered around so many blogs, it's hard for a person to find them all on their own. So now I follow about 500 blogs (which is why I don't comment much, because of being busy skimming for mg sff), and busily google search several times a week. I'm sure I miss lots of posts, so please let me know if I miss yours!
I'd hoped the 200th post would have a book for every letter of the alphabet, but it was not to be. But--if I can achieve that dream in next week's round-up, I will pick a contributor to
win any mg sff book they want from the Book Depository that's $15 or under, with an extra entry for books beginning with j, k, o, q, u, y, and z; I have an x in reserve (and I reserve the right, as always, not to include posts that I find too slight in substantive content to include).
The Reviews
Blue Moon, by James Ponti, at The Book Smugglers and
Kiss the Book
Constable and Toop, by Gareth P. Jones, at
Evil Mutant Librarian
Empire of Bones, by N.D. Wilson, at
Random Musings of a Bibliophile
Exile, by Shannon Messenger, at
Carstairs Considers
Fortunately, the Milk, by Neil Gaiman, at
Sonderbooks and
Reading is Fun Again
The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong, by Shweta Taneja, at
Literary Grand Rounds
(I'm not quite sure the ghosts are real, but I'm including just because I've never included a book published by Hachette India before...)
Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by Barry Moser, at
Book-A-Day Almanac
Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamilo, at
Book Nut
Fyre, by Angie Sage, at
alibrarymama (audiobook review)
A Hero for Wand-La, by
Tony DiTerlizzi, at
Madigan Reads
The High King, by Lloyd Alexander, at
Tor
How to Catch a Bogle, by Catherine Jinks, at
Bluerose's Heart
The Last Enchanter, by Laurisa White Reyes, at
Akossiwa Ketoglo
The Last Present, by Wendy Mass, at
Secrets & Sharing Soda
and
Not Acting My Age
My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending, by Anna Staniszewski, at
Sharon the Librarian
Noah Barleywater Runs Away, by John Boyne, at
Becky's Book Reviews
The Old Powder Line, by Richard Parker, at
Charlotte's Library
On the Day I Died, by Candace Fleming, at
AJ Cattapan
Parched, by Melanie Crowder, at
Charlotte's Library
The Peculiar, by Stefan Bachmann, at
Le' Grande Codex
The Real Boy, by Anne Ursu, at
Sonderbooks and
A Foodie Bibliophile in Wanderlust
The Rock of Ivanore, by Laurisa White Reyes, at
Akossiwa Ketoglo
The Secret Museum, by
Sheila Greenwald, at Charlotte's Library
Seventh Grade (Alien) Hero, by K. L. Pickett, at
The Ninja Librarian
Sky Jumpers, by Peggy Eddleman, at
LiterariTea
The Spindlers, by Lauren Oliver, at
The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia
Texting the Underworld, by Ellen Booraem, at
Book Nut
The Twistrose Key, by Tone Almhjell, at
The Book Monsters
Villains Rising (The Cloak Society 2), by Jeramey Kraatz, at
Superhero Novels
The Witch's Curse, by Keith McGowan, at
Charlotte's Library
Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George, at
On Starships and Dragonwings
"When Did You See Her Last?" by Lemony Snicket, at
Tor and
Wandering Librarians
The Wolf Princess, by Cathryn Constable, at
On the Nightstand
Zombie Baseball Beatdown, by Paulo Bacigalupi, at
Charlotte's Library
Authors and Interviews
Laurisa White Reyes (The Last Enchanter) at
The (Mis)Adventures of a Twenty-something Year Old Girl
Matthew Kirby (The Lost Kingdom) at
Fantasy Literature
Tone Almhjell (The Twistrose Key) at
Tidy Books
Morgan Keyes (Darkbeast Rebellion) at
Maria V. Snyder's blog
and the post Morgan Keyes/Mindy Klasky
didn't want to write about how these series fared in the hands of Barnes and Noble after Borders closed (not pretty).
Caroline Carlson (Magic Marks the Spot), at
Cynsations
Anne Ursu (The Real Boy) at
Heise Reads and Recommends
Other Good Stuff
A short but solid list of steampunk books for youngish readers
at
Forget about TV, Grab a Book
Ten post apocalyptic science fiction books (new and classic) for younger readers at
Views from the Tesseract
Top ten books about mice, at
The Nerdy Book Club
Other Worlds, Part 2, at
Seven Miles of Steel Thistles
And finally, yesterday was International Uilleann Piping Day, which I think is one of the most steampunky instruments going, what with all the brass fittings (making it round-up relevant), and so here is
my husband playing my favorite tune (it's a teaching video at
Na PÃobairà Uilleann, so he just plays it through once before breaking it down. He's off teaching pipes this weekend, so I had to scramble to find something that was in the public domain).