2 Cute Pictures of My Cat, or what I learned at Kidlitcon (with recap of Blogging the Middle Grade Books)

Here is my official Kidlitcon 2013 recap post!

A thing I learned from Cynthia Leitich Smith's Keynote talk (which was great)-- having a number in your blog post title and having pictures of cats are both good ways to get visitors....


(I know.  They are awful pictures.  Not cute at all.  But I don't particularly like taking pictures of my cats.  This might not be a good idea).










So. The main thing I learn every time I go to Kidlitcon is how much fun it can be to talk to people. Sure, I talk to my family and co-workers and friends in real life, but rarely do I talk to them with passionate interest about really interesting things like children's books and blogging and candy crush. And on top of that, when you know people on line in the book world, but then meet them in real life, you have so much background information that you've never shared with each other, and so you can chat chat chat about that too. In short, I love being reminded that I can be social and enjoy it (and I managed to beat six more levels of Candy Crush during those times when I had to take Restorative Breaks).

Working my way chronologically through my time in Austin:

On Thursday I learned that I enjoy hanging out with Sarah Stevenson lots, and that it is sad to see dead tortoises by the side of the road (both of which I actually could have guessed).

On Friday, I learned that when put in front of hundreds of free books, as happened at the meet and greet that kicked off the con, I loose what little rational thought I start with and want far too many.   First Second sent a lovely box of finished copies, and Bloomsbury sent a lovely box that included such gems as Shannon Hale's forthcoming Dangerous (thanks to the both of you--we were very appreciative!), and the local bookstore (I think it was them) brought boxes and boxes of books, and lots of us brought books, and my luggage wasn't any lighter going home.

I learned Nikki Loftin (Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy) has a new book, Nightingale's Nest, coming out in February that sounds great--it is a reimagining of Hans Christian Anderson's The Nightingale, and she let me have her second-to-very-last ARC.  And look at the cover.  Win!

I learned (while on break from socializing) that 12th Street Antiquarian books has no children books at all, but a nice lady (people were so friendly!) offered to drive me to the next closest used bookstore.  Sadly, I had to pass.

Friday summary:  I met lots of new people, and re-met lots of less new people, and it was lovely.

On Saturday I learned that it was not possible to get coffee at our hotel at 5 am.  I learned that Austin goes in heavily for vanilla flavoured creemer [sic] product, and if you want milk with your gas station coffee, you have to buy it yourself.  On the way back to the hotel, I learned the life story of a nice homeless man, and was rather glad he was, in fact, nice, because the neighborhood was somewhat dicier in the dark of the early morning than was comfy.  (On Saturday I bumped into the hotel manager at 5:30, and he got me my coffee. Phew.)

And then Kidlitcon kicked of, with Cynthia Leitch Smith's great keynote talk.  And all the sessions I went to (Jen and Sarah on fighting blog burnout, Kim and Kelly on critical review, and Lee Wind on diversity) were inspiring and thoughtful book and blog-wise, and Lee's session went even further and inspired me, in my dutiful child-like way, to try to be a better person in general (in all sincerity).

Then it was my turn-Katy and I and  Melissa  ran a discussion on Blogging the Middle Grade (thanks to Rosamund for the picture):

We came into it with a pageful of topics, but the conversation got going in just the sort of beautiful audience-participatory way I had hoped it would, so we have enough topics left over for several more kidlitcons.

We agreed that it is important to remember that readers, even if they can be lumped with other readers (11 year old boys who like sports) are still individuals, still in the process of learning who they are, and so, when you write a review, the more you can make clear just what what very particular sort of book it is, and what very particular sort of reader will like the book, the better.   Mentioning other similar titles is really helpful for the parent, or teacher, or other person actually getting the book, and might even bring genuine kids to your blog.

Likewise, middle grade books have tons of variety in theme, content, style of writing, etc, and every blog reviewer is going to pick up on different things.  Linking to other blog reviews of the same book will help clarify a book's appeal, or lack thereof.    And in a similar vein, the point was made that (in general) bookshelves and libraries only put the book in one slot, but a blog review can place a book in many possible categories, helping it find readers.

There are lots of gatekeepers looking for books to offer precocious readers who are still too young for many of the books at their "reading level," and so making it clear when a book marketed for 10-12 year olds actually would be  good read for a second grader too is useful; my co-panelist Katy suggested that such posts could be labeled these specifically in some way  as "Careful Content" (not to be confused with the warning Careful!!!! Content!!!).  

There was more, but that's all I wrote down.

[edited to add:  It occurs to me that I should mention there were concurrent sessions as well, that were also of great interest--I wish I could have gone to everything.  I think this was the best Kidlitcon programing ever.  And the final talk was a round-table moderated by Sarah, in which veteran bloggers discussed how the whole blog thing has changed over the years, and that was great too.]

And after that it was just more lovely socializing, that kept on going right up until Sheila and I parted ways at the Baltimore airport....

Thank you, Kidlitcon Organizers!   Next year is a West Coast year, which is hard for me, but typing this post has made me smile all over again (except for remembering the poor dead tortoise), so I may well go anyway.  Cause it is so nice to have peeps.

Pam is going to round-up recaps at the Kidlitosphere website, so check there for more.  And if you would like to sign up for the Kidlitosphere listserv, here's the link for that:

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Kidlitosphere/info

And here's another round-up from Kelly at Stacked that is considerably more substantive.

And so Kidlitcon 2013 comes to an end....

I type this siting in the lobby of Kidlitcon's Austin hotel...so very happy that I was able to come here for Kidlitcon. Sure, I have loved ones in Rhode Island, but gee, there is so wonderful to be with all the great Kidlit blogger peeps. People that I had never met before in real life (like Sherry and Katy and Jennifer and Liviania and Lee Wind) are now Friends, and people I had met before are now even more Friends than they were before. Because it was small this year, it was easy to spend time with just about everyone I wanted to. So thank you, Kidlitcon 2013 organizers, for pulling it together! It was utterly lovely. And one of the things we talked about was giving yourself permission not to blog if it felt like work, and pulling my regular MG SFF round-up together feels awfully like it would be work, so it isn't going to happen today. But I will be back later today with a recap of the Blogging the Middle Grade session I organized....

Seraphina's Promise, by Ann E. Burg

Seraphina's Promise, by Ann E. Burg (Scholastic, 2013), travelled down to Austin with me today.  I brought far too many books with me, with the idea that I would read them today and tomorrow morning, write notes for reviews, and then swap them.  I am less rational than I would like to be.  But I did manage to read Seraphina's Promise (which, since it was a book for younger readers told in free verse, is not saying much) and ended up in tears on the airplane (which, since I cry readily, also is not saying a tremendous amount).

In any event, Seraphina is a girl who wants desperately to go to school, and someday to be a doctor.   It's a dream she shares with her best friend, Julie Marie,  but it's a pretty tricky dream for two kids growing up in poverty in Haiti to make real.  There is so much work to for Seraphina to do, helping her family...and with a new baby on the way, it just doesn't seem possible to save the money to pay for her school expenses.  When a flood washes away their house, it ends up changing Seraphina's life for the better.  Their new ramshackle house, built of bits of salvaged remnants her father finds, actually has room for a garden, and Seraphina's hard work coaxing the seeds along makes it possible for her to go to school for the first time.

But though Seraphina's brother is born safely, he's failing to thrive, and Seraphina is put into a heart- breaking predicament.  Her first little brother died of starvation when he was infant, and she blames herself, for eating too much of the family's food.  If this brother dies, would her school money have been enough to save them?

So she sets out to find help...and instead finds herself at the heart of the deadly Haitian earthquake of 2010. 

Though the story might seem to be a litany of disaster, pathos and woe aren't the point.  Sure, Seraphina and her family know inequity and injustice and plain old disaster and tragedy well, but Burg manages to make the pity of their situation real to the reader without making them pitiable as people.   They don't spend time pitying themselves--they find joy in life and each other, and are determined to keep going as best they can, and to make what dreams they can (a baby who lives, a garden that grows, school...) come true.

I loved Seraphina, the character, and the only thing keeping me from loving the book wholeheartedly is a regret that Burg didn't make her geographical and historical context clearer.   I went into the book cold, and it took me quite a few pages to realize I was in Haiti of three years ago, and I am reasonable well-informed.  I recognized from the Creole and French that was somewhere that wasn't, as it were, Kansas, but it took a while for the shoe to drop.   And though I am tempted to give this to my ten-year-old,  I worry that without him knowing it is Real he won't be interested and moved the way I think he should be....

In short, I think it's a very powerful book, that might require adult guidance and teaching to make it reach its full potential.   Although, that being said, I bet there are kids who would get the point even without ever having hear of Haiti.  And maybe, by avoiding a statement of "This is book is set in Haiti," Seraphina's story gets to dodge all the preconceptions of that place that so many of us have...and we get to meet her without any built-in pity.

Are You Experienced? by Jordan Sonnenblick, for Timeslip Tuesday

I don't think I would liked to have been at Woodstock (don't like crowds, though I would have liked to hear some of the music live), so it is a good thing that I am not the main character of Are You Experienced? by Jordan Sonnenblick (Feiwel & Friends, 2013).   Rich, who is the main character, is a 15-year-old guitar playing boy of today who loves the music of Woodstock, isn't getting very far with his girlfriend (she says he's too inexperienced), and who is starting to rebel against the oppressive smothering of his over protective, distant father.  A much better candidate.   When Rich finds Jimi Hendrix's guitar in his dad's basement retreat, disregards the enigmatic note of warning fastened to it, and starts to play, he is catapulted back 44 years just in time to be hit by a car on its way to Woodstock--a car that is being driven by his uncle Michael, with Michael's hippy teen girlfriend and his own dad--himself 15 years old.

So Woodstock happens, and Rich is there, with the strange and wonderful opportunity to get to know his dad before his life went wrong.   Rich knows what's going to happen--in just a few weeks, Michael will be dead of a heroin overdose.   But there's nothing he can do, there at Woodstock, but listen...to the music, and to the people there sharing blanket in the mud with him, doing all the wild and crazy things teenagers did back then....

What with all the details throwing up and drugs and lack of privacy when people were displaying affection, as well as more ordinary details of what they were eating, it felt very much like actually being there in the rain with them all.   I was surprised, therefore, by how gripping and even enjoyable I found the book-enjoyable not because it was happy good times, but because it was actually the opposite.  The book is quite a serious, character-driven story about what led Michael down the deadly path he took, and the reverberations of that choice.

Short answer--it worked.  And the time travel part, though somewhat zany with regard to its cause (magic guitar), framed the story nicely.  Sonnenblick did a nice job of letting the 21st century reader see Woodstock through 21st century eyes, while at the same time showing what it meant to the people who were there.  

Here are other reviews at Ms. Yingling Reads and proseandkahn

"When Did You See Her Last?" by Lemony Snicket

"When Did You See Her Last?" by Lemony Snicket (Little Brown, October 2013, middle grade) is the second Wrong Question (there were other, minor wrong questions, but this was the Important One) asked by young Snicket as he ventures ever deeper into the dark mysteries of Stain'd-by-the-Sea.  The "her" in the titular question is Cleo Knight, daughter of the family once made rich from the town's octopi, but now, with the ocean gone and the octopi endangered, facing financial ruin (and other worse things).  One of the worse things is the disappearance of Cleo, and that is the central mystery of this book.

I have a low tolerance for wackiness used to no good point, and I do not like to be confused.  Happily for me, and for like-minded readers, though there is much that is truly bizarre to be found on the seaweed flats and deserted streets of Stain'd-by-the-sea, there is (I'm pretty sure) a Point to it all, and slowly the tangling threads of myriad stories come together to hint at some future resolution when all confusion becomes less confused.   Which is to say--no-one is telling each other all they know, and Snicket sure isn't telling the reader, but it manages to work very nicely indeed as a gripping mystery.

And I like young Lemony and his equally young companions in confusion very much indeed.   They are putting effort into staving off disaster,  care about their loved ones, and are full of grit and intelligence. 

The pace of the story is slowed by disquisitions and distractions, but much as fog lends noir-ness to the urban streetscape (or something), pauses to enjoy fun with vocabulary building obscured the story less than one might have expected.  Here's what I'd like--a list of all the literary allusions, of which there were many.   Some I recognized (Harriet the Spy, for instance, was easy), but others made me want to put down the book and find answers.  But I was enjoying it too much to do so....

Not for the reader who likes a clear path through the trees, but an excellent one for the young reader who doesn't.

"When Did You See Her Last?" is the second in a four volume series of All the Wrong Questions, and needs to be read second.  I liked it more than book one, because I knew what not to expect.

Disclaimer:  review copy received from the publisher

(I'm going with fantasy in my label section because it sure isn't realistic, and there might, or might not, be a monster, and because of the implausibility of a. the octopi and b. Cleo Knight's car.)

This week's round-up of Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy from around the blogs (11/3/13)

I myself read less than usual this week, what with beak-making and obsessive Candy Crush playing (it is so sad that one of the things that causes me to rise lark-like from my bed each morning is the five new lives), but in event, here's what I found this week (and please let me know if I missed anything!).

The Reviews

Aesop's Secret, by Claudia White, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

Alanna: the First Adventure, by Tamora Pierce, at Librarian of Snark

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

Blue Moon, by James Ponti, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, by Charles de Lint, at That's Another Story

City of Death, by Sarwat Chadda, at In Bed With Books

City of Fire, by Laurence Yep, at Here There Be Books

Constable and Toop, by Gareth P. Jones, at Jean Little Library

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at The Writer's Nest and Kid Lit Geek

Ever After High, by Shannon Hale, at Sonderbooks

Fallout, by Todd Strasser, at A Patchwork of Books

A Grimm Conclusion, by Adam Gidwitz, at Book Nut

The Incredible Charlotte Sycamore, by Kate Maddison, at Bookyurt

Johnny and the Dead, by Terry Pratchett, at Views from the Tesseract

The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde, at Leaf's Reviews

The Last Enchanter, by Laurisa White Reyes, at Sharon the Librarian (giveaway)

Mickey Price-Journey to Oblivion, by John P. Stanley, at The Write Path

The Mysterious Howling, by Maryrose Wood, at A Reader of Fictions and Bunbury in the Stacks (audiobook reviews)

The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root, by Christopher Pennell, at The Book Monsters

Palace of Stone, by Shannon Hale, at Not Acting My Age

Rules For Ghosting, by A.J. Paquette, at Random Musings of  Bibliophile

The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, at Into the Hall of Books

The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, at Ms. Yingling Reads and From the Writer's Nest

Seed Savers: Treasure, by S. Smith, at Mother Daughter Book Reviews

The String Quartet, by Dan Hupalo, at Becky's Book Reviews

Villains Rising, by Jeramey Kraatz, at Charlotte's Library

The Wells Bequest, by Polly Shulman, at Dead Houseplants and Ex Libris

Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket, at The Novel Hermit

The Wishing Spell, by Chris Colfer, at Sharon the Librarian (audiobook review)

The Year of Shadows, by Claire LeGrand, at Slatebreakers

At Reading is Fun Again, a look at Adam Gidwitz's Grimm series

I also reviewed Sorrow's Knot, by Erin Bow, here, and Brandy reviewed it this week too at Random Musings of a Bibliophile, and though I'm not going to try to call it a middle grade book, I think there are many upper middle grade readers (11 and 12 ish) who would love it.


Authors and Interviews

Greg Van Eekhout (The Boy at the End of the World) at Fantasy and Science Fiction Books for Kids

Charles Gilman (Tales from Lovecraft Middle School) at Alternative Magazine Online


Other Good Stuff

At Rinn Reads, it is science fiction month, and here is the jam-packed schedule of contributors, including a post at Maria's Melange on how sci fi benefits young minds.

A brilliant list of books to read if you want something Percy Jackson-esque, at Fat Girl Reading

And a list of ten creepy stories at Views from the Tesseract

At Stacked I found a link to pictures of literary Halloween costumes for pets; this Scarlet O'Hara pug was my favorite:

Sorrow's Knot, by Erin Bow-- a thing of beauty

Sorrow's Knot, by Erin Bow (Scholastic 2013), is one of the best books I've read this year.  While I was reading it I was lost to the world in that best of bookish ways, and indeed during the last half of the book there was really no other world than that of the story, and I was no longer reading, but simply being there, and how can one say better than that?

Three children are growing up in safety at the westernmost edge of the world, in the lodges of the free women of the forest--Otter, Kestrel, and Cricket, two girls and a boy, sharing their last summer of sunlight before adulthood.  Three children who know that safety can be found only behind the bound knots of the cords that keep the restless dead outside their village.  

Kestrel will be a Ranger, one of the women who risk the dangers of the dead and travel beyond the bindings.  Cricket will be a storyteller, and already he has the teller's gift of tying words.  Otter, child of the binder's apprentice, already has the power of that magic strong within her, wanting only her mother's teaching before she, too, can tie the knots that bind the dead.

But the dead are bound to the living, tied too tight, and horror comes.  And the sunlight summer ends, bringing a dark winter.   And Otter must listen to the stories, and to her heart, and to the words her mother speaks as she falls into madness, or else there will be no place for the living at the edge of the western world.

Having gotten the somewhat self-consciously written synopsis out of the way, here's what the book really is about, and why I liked it so very much:

--There are three kids who love each other, who live in a world really truly at the edge of horror.  Two love each other romantically, and the third loves both as dear friends.  Their love, and respect, and need for each other makes a triangle of the best possible sort--they are stronger together than they are apart, and they make each other laugh.   It made me happy to be with them.

--There is a really creepy magic that feels convincing and original without being gimmicky.  It is so easy to see how things went wrong with the binding (and the reader realizes it long before the characters, which is perhaps the only weakness of the plot).

--The power of story is at the heart of the book.   This is one I'd enthusiastically recommend to fans of Patricia McKillip--the hidden things in the stories become more and more real in a complicated dance with the daylight world.

--The world turns out to be larger, with more stories in it, than the three kids realize.  The story moves from the claustrophobically bound tightness of the community at the beginning to the wide world outside, which gives plot and character room to expand in interesting ways.

--It is really sad, but not so sad as to break my heart.  

--There's lots of opportunity for fun with metaphor. 

--And finally, there is fantasy world building that takes its inspiration from Native North America, but without being on a mission to create a fantasy version of Native American tribes.  In the same way as so many fantasies borrow from European history and culture, Erin Bow brings details of place and how people lived from North America, and pulls it off to make a world that isn't real, but which convinces.  Not since Ursula Le Guin's books (like Always Coming Home) have I read a North American inspired fantasy that I truly could accept (because I am an archaeologist, working with the Tribes of New England, and think a lot about place and people and how power plays out in representations of both, I am easily bothered). 

One reason why it worked is that Bow manages to avoid the clichés that signpost "Indians" in fiction.  The technological details are there--the projectile points made of stone, the travois of the nomadic people who visit the village, the drums, the clothing--but Bow uses these to craft a world that actually isn't supposed to be an accurate representation--it is a fantasy, in which the reader is allowed to realize and reshape her understanding of who these people are as she goes along.    It is not until page 175 that skin color is mentioned, and I thought it was so nicely done--it is a sad and tense moment, and under the winter pine trees Otter sees "long, fallen, needles the color of a dead woman's skin," and it stopped me in my tracks because my default is cold, white dead skin, and I thought of the dark golden brown of pine needles, and Otter, Cricket, and Kestrel grew a few shades darker in my mind.

But really, what it all comes down to was that it was a book whose writing was so good that I lived it.

Of course, not every book is for everybody.  I loved it, and Brandy loved it, and Maureen loved it, and Kirkus gave it a star, but if you are impatient with subtle, story-filled buildup, and want people to move briskly and decisively to do what clearly needs to be done, and want things explained rather than felt, you might not be happy with it.

And on top of that, the arch of the character's journey is from childhood into their teenage years--it is, thematically, more middle grade than Young Adult.  They are realizing who they might be, journeying away from childhood, rather than moving into true adulthood.   And so though two of them pair up romantically in a profound relationship, and there is the beginning of love toward the end, it read "young" to me.   So--if you are expecting angst-filled introspection and sex, you might be let down.

Here's the first reader who comes to my mind--the 12 year old girl (who isn't put off by nightmares) who wants a book that will make her cry her eyes out because she relates so closely to the characters and what they are going through.  And she will love it, and read it again, and move through its metaphors toward growing up, even if she doesn't want to.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

My first beak

My older boy wanted to be a Venetian plague doctor for Halloween (basically a 17th/18th century hazmat suite, in which the beak was full of herbs etc):

So I spent several hours this past week beak making.  I feel that if I were to make two or three more beaks, I'd master beak-making, but at least I produced something adequate, though not nearly as finely wrought as I would have liked: 

Unfortunately there seems to be a cartoon show about spies in which there's a character who looks a lot like this,

and that's what quite a few kids at school thought he was.

Oh well. 

All Our Yesterdays, by Cristin Terrill, for Timeslip Tuesday

All Our Yesterdays, by Cristin Terrill (Disney-Hyperion, September 2013, YA) is a very good book that is best read without any spoilers.   I considered just using the fairly spoiler-free publishers blurb, and adding to it, but I don't think it captures the story all that well.  So.  You can go read the book now, if you want to. 

Or not.

How far would you go to make sure that the present you are living in would never happen?  What would happen if you used a time machine to fix mistakes in the past...and the power that you felt swept you onward, until you changed so much that those who once loved you no longer could?   Would you kill someone, if you knew that doing so would save your future self (and other people)?

Em and Finn have tried 14 different ways to make sure the present they are living (tortured and imprisoned in a brutal police state) won't happen.  14 times they have gone back 4 years into the past...and each time the changes they made weren't enough to keep them from ending up in the same old prison cell, reading the notes hidden in the cell drain from their past attempts.  And now they are going back again, this time knowing that killing the inventor of the time machine is the only thing they haven't tried.

But of course, four years back in the past, there are their young selves, still trusting and all unaware.  There is also James, brilliant, damaged, and best friend to each of them, and maybe more to young Em--he is the sun around which she revolves.  And there is the person who will become their enemy, snarled inexorably into the fabric of their lives....

In a series of alternating narrations, from the points of view of Finn and Em in the present, and the time-travelling Finn and Em, the reader learns how all the snarling came to be.  And in the process, all four characters, and James, become real and human and hurt...and on top of that, there are personal and political machinations, and tension-filled reveals, dolled out with heavy inevitability,  about what happened in the four gap years that led to the point of no return.  Gripping as all get out.

My only substantive complaint  is that I wish it had been made clearer when the arrival of the time travelers began to change things.   I didn't pick up on when that had started, and so I was confused for 25 or so pages.    My only complaint with the story is that Finn and Em have to assume that the choice they are making is better than the alternative...and certainly it is to them, and who knows what other evils the time machine and its master would be capable of.    But they also know, having watched time ebb and flow as things were "fixed," that some of the things that might happen without the time machine are pretty darn awful.   They don't allow themselves to think to much about that, and I guess it's good to have ambiguity and tension, and no happy ever after, but I wasn't sure this was an Addition, as opposed to a distraction.  (This is a long paragraph, and I thought about editing it, but am leaving it in as an example of how the book thought-provoked me).

Just to say--as well as all the exiting and complex and beautifully tricksy time travelling, there is also a very nice and cheer-worthy romance, which lightened the mood in a much needed way. 

I can imagine wanting to re-read it at some point, which is pretty high praise given how many un-read books I have kicking around.

Final thought:  Cristin Terrill has psychically seen the inside of my house, and uses it the model for Finn's:  "None of the furniture matches, and practically every surface has something on it that shouldn't be there: a stack of old newspapers, a half-full coffee cup, a discarded sweater. There's a pile of dishes in a sink and a stack of folded laundry on the sofa, like someone hit the pause button on life."  Except of course that instead of stacks of newspapers, there are stacks of books.  (I do try to tidy up before company comes, but there's not much one can do about the furniture. Or the books).

Villains Rising (The Cloak Society 2), by Jeramey Kraatz

In The Cloak Society (2012), readers were introduced to two warring leagues of super-powered combatants (good vs evil), and saw how Alex, brought up by the villains of the Cloak Society, chose to throw his lot in with the kids of the Rangers of Justice (after the adult Rangers were defeated and Justice Tower came tumbling down in ruins).   Alex was not alone in his defection--a handful of other Cloak kids went with him.  Villains Rising (HarperCollins, October 2013, middle grade) tells how this rag-tag cluster of variously gifted teenagers struggle to a. figure out how to save the adult Rangers from the Gloom where they are trapped b.  work together as a team, putting aside the years of enmity between the two societies c.  stay safe.  And this last is perhaps the most difficult, because they are being hunted by members of the Cloak--three individuals whose powers are truly extraordinary.

I enjoyed the premise of this second volume very much--it's very much a kids on their own in difficult circumstances story (a sub-genre I like lots), with tons of added interest from the various superpowers of the characters.  They are still figuring out just what they can do, and how best to use their abilities, and this, plus the introduction of two new characters with powers of their own, makes for a nice, detail-rich time.  It's pleasantly (for me as reader; much less for the characters themselves) fraught with interpersonal tension as loyalties are questioned, and, even more so, fraught with the crushing weight of fear...the bad guys are almost so powerful that it is hard to imagine them ever being defeated.

For those who prefer the dynamic action side of superhero stories, there is plenty of super-powered mayhem.   The plot as a whole is not advanced all that much (the villains of this particular piece are new introductions, so little progress is made in terms of the Big Confrontation), but it is all pleasantly exciting.

And no-one actually gets killed, making it a suitable choice for younger readers not quite ready for the no-holds-barred level of violence in, say, The Hunger Games, who still want a thrill-filled read.

disclaimer:  review copy received from the publisher.

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs

Middle grade sci fi/fantasy was somewhat thin on the ground this week...but for what it's worth, here's what I found when I poked at the internets.

The Reviews

The Carpet People, by Terry Pratchett, at Wandering Librarians

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, by Claire Legrand, at Great Imaginations

Circle of Cranes, by Annette LeBox, at That's Another Story

Constable and Toop, by Gareth P. Jones, at Librarian of Snark

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Things Mean a Lot , Books For Boys, Jean Little Library, and Parenthetical

Empire of Bones, by N.D. Wilson, at Readeemed reader

Exile, by Shannon Messenger, at Michelle I. Mason

The Girl Who Cirumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente, at Leaf's Reviews

Goblins, by Philip Reeve, at Sharon the Librarian

Ghost Hawk, by Susan Cooper, at Fuse #8

The Grimm Conclusion, by Adam Gidwitz, at Hidden in Pages

House of Hades, by Rick Riordan, at Book Nut

The Last Enchanter, by Laurisa White Reyes, at The Haunting of Orchid Forsyithia (review follows the excerpt) and alibrarymama

The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian, by Lloyd Alexander, at Tor

Odessa Again, by Dana Reinhardt, at Candace's Book Blog

Pi in the Sky, by Wendy Mass, at Book Nut

The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, at Fyrefly's Book Blog

Rose, by Holly Webb, at In Bed With Books

The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, at books4yourkids

Substitute Creature, by Charles Gilman, at Mini Book Bytes

Time Trapped, by Richard Ungar, at Charlotte's Library

The Twistrose Key, by Tone Almhjell, at Librarian of Snark


Authors and Interviews

Rick Riordan interview Jonathan Stroud at Myth & Mystery

Laurisa White Reyes (The Last Enchanter) at Akossiwa Ketoglo and alibrarymama

Battling Boy, by Paul Pope

Battling Boy, by Paul Pope (First Second, October 2013, ten and up)

In an alternate Earth, the giant city of Acropolis is infested with monsters, who wreck havoc on its people.   Right at the beginning of Battling Boy, the one hero, Haggard West, who stood against them with his high tech inventions, is defeated.

But Earth is about to get a new superhero--a boy from a clan of god-like beings who are dedicated to fighting the monsters of the universe.   This boy is sent to Earth to prove himself--defeating its monsters will be his rite of passage.  But Battling Boy, as he is known, is young and uncertain, and though he has magical powers at his disposal (in the form of 12 tee-shirts depicting various animals, who can share their strengths with him), he really has no clue how he's going to do his job.  For his first monster face off, he cracks, and calls in his supremely powerful dad for help.  His dad obliges with an incinerating lightning bolt, and so the people of the city assume Battling Boy will have no problem blasting away.  But he himself knows it's not going to be so easy.

In the meantime, Haggard West's daughter, Aurora, is planning to take on her father's role.  And maybe, together, they can become the team who save Earth....

This is one for those who love classic cartoons of heroes fighting against impossible odds.  It is full of brightly illustrated panels of mayhem, and the story moves briskly on from one frenetic confrontation with truly fantastical bad guys to the next.  It was the bits in between the confrontations, though, that held my interest the most--Aurora, desperately working to fill her father's place, and Battling Boy, trying to cope with the adulation of the city's leaders while frantically wondering just what the heck he's going to do...This human element makes all the violence much more meaningful, and is what's going to make me come back for the sequel! 

Battling Boy has gotten stars from Kirkus and Booklist, and should appeal lots to those who enjoy life or death struggles in which young heroes are pitted against formidable, and rather scary, opponents.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Time Trapped, by Richard Ungar

Time Trapped, by Richard Ungar (Putnam, Sept. 2013, upper middle grade), is the sequel to Time Snatchers (my review), and continues the story of Caleb, a boy taken from his family and trained to travel through time to snatch treasures at the behest of a sadistic and megalomaniac boss, known as Uncle.  The central story is set about 50 years in the future, to allow for the technology that makes the time travel happen, but there is much bouncing between other time periods.  And in fact, when Time Trapped opens, Caleb has found a home back in the late sixties, and hopes he has escaped Uncle once and for all...

He hasn't.  He is dragged back into Uncle's clutches, and forced to prove his loyalty, along with the other more experienced minions, kidnapping more children from various pasts and places and training them to become time thieves themselves.   But Uncle's vicious little empire is not quite the watertight dictatorship it once was.  Uncle himself is become less interested in the business of buying and selling the past, and more interested in his own dreams of insane personal power, and isn't there to personally quell resistance among the new recruits; instead, one of the more sadistic kids is claiming power.  And Caleb, having tasted freedom, doesn't want to give it up.  On top of that, there are hints that the past is more unstable than Uncle had realized, adding a nice dollop of tension to it all (although I felt this problem was introduced, and than left hanging more than I would have liked.  Perhaps in book 3....)

And in short, it is a gripping adventure in which the suspense relies not just on completing heists and keeping Uncle happy, but on the efforts of Caleb and his cohort to resist their fate as pawns. Though the ending relies on something of a deus ex machina, it required considerable effort, luck, and cunning on the part of the various kids to get to that point.   Because of this more character-centered story, and because there seemed to be more lighter moments (thanks in large part to the introduction of a young recruit who doesn't take nothing from nobody), I enjoyed this one more than the first (which didn't work all that well for me).

The various technologies, and the imperatives of the plot, mean that the cultural complexities of time travel are glossed over, so it's not one I'd necessarily give to someone who enjoys time travel for the sake of the strangeness of it.   It's more a series I'd give to kids (ten and up) who enjoy brave young protagonists taking down big bad enemies who are trying to control their lives, with plenty of struggle and desperate action.

I myself still had a few problems with the internal logic of it all, but was able to ignore those doubts and go along for the ride happily enough.

A Spark Unseen, by Sharon Cameron

A Spark Unseen, by Sharon Cameron (Scholastic, 2013), is the sequel to The Dark Unwinding, and continues the adventures of young Katharine Tulman as she struggles to keep her mentally fragile uncle and his brilliant inventions safe, and away from England's enemies (and its government).  It is the age of Napoleon III, and the balance of power between the European nations is precarious--mechanical devices that could sink ironclads would easily tip the balance, and that is just one of Uncle Tully's fantastical creations. 

When The Dark Unwinding ended, Lane, the love of Katharine's life, had left her on a mission to France...and when this book opens, so long a time has passed with no word from him that he is presumed dead.  Katharine, though, refuses to believe this is so, and when she is caught between armed men, working from the French, attempting to kidnap her uncle, and her own government attempting to co-opt him, she boldly smuggles him out of the country to a dangerous refugee--the old family house in Paris.

There Katharine, searching for Lane while trying to keep her uncle happily sequestered and secret, finds herself caught in a web of political intrigue and danger, where neither she (nor the reader) knows who can be trusted, and just what the heck is really going on....The pages sure do turn fast, but this is definitely one for the reader who is stronger of heart then me-there was absolutely no respite from distress and danger and tension.  So if you like those things, you will probably like this one lots.

Although I appreciated the suspense of it all (even though it wasn't quite my cup of tea), I most definitely prefer the first book, which was full of Gothic mystery and magically surreal bits, as well as all the lovely smoldering tension between Katharine and Lane.  And that fist book had a lovely sense of place; in this one, Paris, as seen through the desperate eyes of Katharine as just about everything goes wrong around her, doesn't get a chance to shine.

That being said, the sweet relationship between Katharine and Uncle Tully is still as pleasing as ever, and many interesting minor characters added to the interest.

Things are wrapped up more or less at the end of the book (although as long as Uncle Tully is alive, governments will want to exploit him).  Though there are hints of more story to come, I just hope poor Katharine will finally get a chance to catch her breath before new danger comes to find her!

(A peevish aside, of no bearing on the book--I find it annoying to see 21st century hair on a 19th century young woman.  She looks like she's solving a murder mystery on prom night).

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Talking about Middle Grade blogging (in general and at Kidlitcon)

So I'm going down to Austin soon (!) for Kidlitcon (yay!), and the official Flyer can be found below.  Note that registration has been extend till Nov. 1 (registration is encouraged because numbers are need for the catering side of things).  Please do come, if you can--it is so wonderful to meet other people passionate about children's and Young Adult books and blogging!  Even if you don't at the moment have an active blog, but are still part of this world (authors, teachers, publishers, etc.), you are welcome to come. 

 This year I was Brave and submitted a session proposal, and lo, I will be running a panel/workshop/forum on blogging the Middle Grade books with Melissa Fox (Book Nut) and Katy Manck (BooksYALove).

I decided to do this not because I am full to bursting of things I want to say, but because I really want to talk to other bloggers who focus on Middle Grade books--I want to share ideas, hopes, anxieties, tips, etc. in a moderated, semi-structured chat. The thought is that there will be particular Topics that we can go through, to keep the conversation going, but that if the conversation wants to go off on its own, that can happen too. 

So if you are at all interested, whether you'll be at Austin or not, we'd would love to hear what topics you would find discussion-worthy!   Here are some that we have in mind:

--who are the various audiences for middle grade blogs, and how we can keep our blogs growing, extending their reach and their depth
--how can we keep the effort of blogging interesting and fun, and work at it without Working --(assuming we want to--some of  blogs may be introverts) how do we connect with each other and form supportive relationships
--blogging with a conscious awareness of race and gender (and other issues of diversity)
--what adults might gain from reading Middle Grade

And other things, like how do you evaluate illustrations in Middle Grade books (I have no idea how to do this beyond visceral reaction--pretty! ugly!  distracting! "there were illustrations?")?  What's an effective book cover?  What useful and supportive memes/round-ups etc are there?  What makes for a good Middle Grade author interview?  Boy books vs girl books?    Why do some blogs get more comments than others, and does it matter? 

That sort of thing.

So if you were coming to such a panel, what would you want to talk about? Please share any thoughts you might have!

And as promised, the Official Kidlitcon Announcement in Glorious Technicolor:

 

The 200th round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs!

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 Píobairí 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).

The Secret Museum, by Sheila Greenwald

Books sure were shorter back in the day.  The Secret Museum, by Sheila Greenwald (1974), which I just read in a matter of minutes, was a mere 127 pages, though written for upper elementary/middle grade kids, which is about 100 pages less than books for that age being written today...and yet I can't really see that it needed more to it.

It's the story of a girl named Jennifer, whose parents quit their city jobs and moved to an old house in the country where they were going to make a living selling pottery and textiles.   Her parents, however, are much better at their art than they are at marketing, and financial disaster looms...

Jennifer, out on her own picking berries in the shut-up old estate nearby, hears crying...and follows the sound to an old playhouse (of the lavish kind that goes with old estates). Inside, she finds twenty or so beautiful dolls, abandoned and filthy.  And one of them was crying, and they can talk, and Jennifer comes back and washes them while they are talking to her and I think it is REALLY CREEPY to wash a sentient doll, but she does it anyway.  (I think the dolls' clothing would have been  a lot more mouse-eaten than it was, but that I can forgive).

And then Jennifer meets another girl, Lizzie, who is first enemy and then friend, who has the idea of turning the playhouse into a doll museum, and they paint and clean (I liked this part lots; it was outside work, so the dolls didn't have the chance to talk), and they advertise, thanks to Lizzie's gumption in this area, and it is a success.  Except, of course, the house and dolls don't belong to them...The old lady who once played with them, and then abandoned the whole estate, is alive and well and deeply annoyed when she finds out what they are doing.

But it all works out, and Jennifer's parents are inspired by her example to sell their own products more aggressively, and we learn the lesson that you can make your own luck and that multiple signs are better than one obscure one, no matter how beautiful your art.  (I am always open to Learning Lessons from Books, and shall advertise the next library book sale more aggressively).

I would have loved this book except that, as noted above, the fact the dolls talked gave me the creeps, and it made me cross because their talking wasn't necessary for the book to work and was, in fact, totally gratuitous.   However, that could just be me having Issues, and in general  I think it is an excellent one to give a seven or eight year old girl who loves dolls. 

The Secret Museum is available quite cheaply, and is still in the library system of  Rhode Island (I will be returning it on Monday, d.v.).

Parched, by Melanie Crowder

Parched, by Melanie Crowder (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2013, middle grade), is a moving and absorbing addition to the (admittedly slim) ranks of speculative fiction set in Africa.  It takes place in what seems to be southern Africa, in a near future.  where rising sea levels have turned fresh water undrinkable, and the cities along the coast have collapsed into chaos and despair.  Water is the most precious thing there is...and there is not enough of it.  

Sarel watches as desperate men come to their family farm, far from the city in the middle of a desiccated wilderness, and kill her parents.  But they do not find her...nor do they find the secret grotto where there is still water to be found.  For a while, she may survive, desperately keeping herself and the family dogs alive...and the dogs themselves wonder, in fairly realistic dog bits of narration, what will become of them.

Musa has a gift for dowsing...if there is water to be found, he can find it.  But all that's left to find in the crumbling city are the lines of the old sewer pipes...and the gang who owns him, keeping him bound like an animal regardless of the festering wounds on his wrists, are not pleased.  So he makes a desperate effort, and escapes...heading out into the dry lands beyond.

And his path takes him, almost dead from thirst, to Sarel.  The water in the secret grotto is gone too, and Sarel knows that if she stays in her home, she will die.  None of her knowledge about plants and animals can save her, when there is nothing to drink.  Musa's coming brings new hope--with his gift they might find the water they need to make a future for themselves.

But the men who owned him will not let him go without a hunt.

Small, precise little details of each kid's life and struggle to survive (and the bits from the dog point of view) build the book into a grim but not hopeless story of grief and desperation.  It's a subtle sort of futuristic dystopia--it's so plausible, even today before sea level has really risen all that much, that the true extent of its future consequences seems like it might already have happened.   An additional sci fi/fantasy element is Musa's ability to dowse-it goes beyond common dowsing into a more preternatural ability.

Memorable, powerful, sad...it's not for the faint of heart, what with beloved people, and dogs, being shot, brutal child-enslavement, and a horribly depressing near future.  But the mater of fact, simple way the story is told keeps  it from being emotionally manipulative.   It would make a good eye-opener for the kid who's always taken water for granted, or a good one that a fan of kids surviving alone (with nice bits of wild plant foraging, etc).   

Final answer--a simple book, but a strong one, that sticks in the mind.

Nominated for the Cybils by Robin.

Zombie Baseball Beatdown, by Paolo Bacigalupi

If I only ever wrote about books I read for my own enjoyment, Zombie Baseball Beatdown, by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little Brown, Spt. 2013, middle grade) wouldn't be here on this blog.   I don't like zombies (so terribly messy), baseball (I'm not the sporty type), or really vivid descriptions of nasty meat packing plants and the cattle that are slaughtered there (I've never read The Jungle).

But I did indeed read Zombie Baseball Beatdown (because I  admire Bacigalupi's YA books, because I knew it had a multicultural cast of characters, and because it was nominated for the Cybils) and I find myself able to say a few short words directing it toward readers who might love it (mainly because of the zombies and baseball;  I really don't think there are many readers who pine for more meat-packing).

The heroes of the story three more-or-less ordinary kids in middle America.  They are diverse in personalities and ethnicities (Rabi, the narrator, is half Bengali, Miguel is from Mexico, and Joe is generic Northern European), but they are united by their enjoyment of baseball, by their hatred of the son of the rich head of the local meat-packing company, and, as the story progresses, by their desire to find the truth about the apocalypse of zombie cows (created by chemical cow enhancers gone wrong) that is (horribly) spreading a zombie plague to the people of their town.

For one of the three, Miguel, the desire to bring the meat-packers to justice comes not just from a sense that feeding toxic zombie cow meat to people should be stopped, but from a much more personal place.  His family, illegal immigrants who worked at the plant for a pittance, have been deported because they knew too much, and now Miguel himself faces the possibly of being sent to a country he can't remember.  It's great to see an important social issue incorporated into a zany adventure story, taken very seriously, and giving depth and emotional import to the zombie fun and games.

So basically, it's three kids against the evil pigs who want to make money no matter what the human (and cow) cost, and this part of the book I do like!  And there's a lot of smashing zombies with baseball bats, and creeping around the horrifying meat packing plant, and zombie cows attacking people, written in such a way as to be very appealing to those who enjoy such things (I think the cover will do a good job self-selecting those readers).

Here's a much more coherent review at Ms. Yingling Reads.  I totally agree with her about the major weakness in the plot--all these townsfolk become mindless zombies desperate to bite the living, and the kids whack them to pieces with bats and plow through them with a truck, etc., and we Never Find Out what happens to them all in the end!  If there is in fact a high death toll, there should be some emotional consideration given to these poor people/zombies who were once neighbors, but the ending wraps up with no mention of all the empty houses, deserted stores, etc. that one feels should be there....

Nominated by Pamela, of Reading is Fun Again

Cybils nominations close tonight, and a shout-out for Armchair Cybils 2013

Cybils nominations close tonight, at 12 PST.  It will be a relief to be free from the piteous clamor of all the un-nominated books, but I sure do hope more of them get nominated in the next few hours!

If you would like to join in the fun of reading a massive number of books in the next few months, and picking your favorites based on quality of writing plus kid appeal, sign up for Armchair Cybils 2013 at Hope is the World!

And if you haven't nominated yet, here's the form, here's what's already nominated in EMG SF, and here's my last list of suggestions (most of which I haven't read, so can't vouch for, but which look worthwhile), and there are many more at my original list.

The Hostage Prince, by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple.
A Dash of Magic, by Kathryn Littlewood
Bot Wars, by J.V. Kade .
The Winter of the Robots, by Kurtis Scaletta
Fyre, by Angie Sage
The Watcher in the Shadows, by Chris Moriarty
The Whatnot, by Stefan Bachman
City of Death, by Laurence Yep
“When Did You See Her Last?” by Lemony Snicket
Undertown, by Melvin Jules Bukiet
The Alchemist War, by John Seven
Thrice Upon a Marigold, by Jean Ferris
Earthfall, by Mark Waldon
Ghost Prison, byJoseph Delaney
Villains Rising, by Jeramey Kraatz
Code Name 711, by F.T. Bradley
If the Shoe Fits, by Sarah Mlynowski
Through the Skylight, by Ian Baucom
The Glass Puzzle, by Christine Brodien-Jones
Lucy at Sea, by Barbara Mariconda

The Old Powder Line, by Richard Parker, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Old Powder Line, by Richard Parker (Thomas Nelson, 1971) is very enjoyable English time travel story.  It tells how an ordinary kid, fifteen year old Brian, discovers that there is a fourth platform at his local train station that he had never known about (even though he's been a keen train spotter for years), and from there, a steam train travels on an abandoned railway to the old powder mill (as in the ingredients for gunpowder) up in the hills.  Though he knows it's impossible, he boards the train, and when he gets off at the next stop he finds he's gone back in time 14 years...but fortunately, he gets on the train going in the other direction, and is in the present again.  

He's joined in his exploration of the time travel phenomena by one of his sister's friends, Wendy, and by an older man, Mr. Mincing, paralyzed in an accident years ago...at which point the time travel turns tricky.  Mr. Mincing travels the train past the threshold where Brian can safely disembark (his own lifetime), and when he gets trapped in his wheelchair back in the past, Brian must find a way to rescue him.   And meanwhile, Wendy might be trapped in a time of her own when the train schedule starts to change...

What makes it such a good read is not just the very admirable time travel mystery, which is a pleasing one, but the friendship that develops between Wendy and Brian.  He'd never seen her as a person before, but gradually he does, and there is a nice hint of possible romance in the air.  Mr. Mincing's travel back to his past as a healthy, care-free child are also poignant and thought-provoking, though  I do want to make it clear that he is never portrayed as a helpless object of pity.  And what's also nice is that not only is a grown-up an active participant in the adventure, there are other grown-ups who take Brian's story seriously, and believe him enough to actually be of use (as a grown-up myself, I think I appreciate this more than I might have back in the day).

If you like time travel, with ordinary kids having extraordinary adventures, and like older English books of that quintessentially English 1960s and 70s kind (the ones that always seem to come with black and white ink drawings), you will enjoy this one (and Amazon has it fairly cheaply).   My own copy is a library discard...but most libraries have by now discarded the un-circulating English books of that era, and the book sale pickings get slimmer every year....

Apparently Richard Parker wrote many books, though it's hard to find out much about them...I shall be on the lookout for them, because I did enjoy this one very much.