Woundabout, by Lev Rosen

Reading for the Cybils Awards is a surefire way to get all caught up on the books of the past year.  I noticed Woundabout, by Lev Rosen (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, June 2015), when it came out, and thought it looked interesting, and so I was glad to see it get nominated, becoming, ipso facto, part of my reading list.

Woundabout is the story of two siblings who are orphaned when their dads (yes, two dads) are killed in a freak accident while training bomb-sniffing capybaras.  Connor and Cordelia (with Kip, the one remaining capybara) must go live with their aunt Marigold in the strange little town of Woundabout, where there's no internet access, the river doesn't flow or matches catch fire, strangers can't move in, and deviation from the established routines is frowned upon most fiercely.  It is a place of stasis, and the people who live there made that the choice to reject change, each for his or her own reason.  The book's title hints at the mechanism that's keeping things in their place (wound as in clockwork), and if read with the other meaning of "wound," gives a nod to the various sadnesses that its people are trying to escape.

Connor and Cordelia are the first newcomers for ages, and their arrival sets change in motion.  But when they discover the mysterious key that the mayor had guarded fiercely, but not well enough, they use it to unlock the secrets of the city, bringing change with a vengeance! 

Woundabout is an intriguing place.  Although the story moves somewhat slowly as the two kids explore it (they are hampered by the grown-ups insistence that they too develop a routine),  things pick up in pace once they find the key, and meet the young thief, a boy from outside, who took it from the mayor.  The answer to Woundabout's secret pushes the story into the realm of fairy tales--the four elements have left the town, and can only be brought back when the key is used.   And indeed the whole story had the feel of a fable, more than an immediately exciting adventure. The Mayor is kind of an antagonist, but there's never much tension or sense of danger until almost the very end of the book, and I never felt that the mystery, with its unexpectededly fanciful solution, was all that edge of the seat grippingly mysterious.

So this is one I think has more appeal for younger middle grade kids than for the more sophisticated 11 or 12 year olds. I wouldn't leap to press it into the hands of a generic middle grade fantasy reader, but I think it would make a fine evening read-aloud for 8 to 9 year olds, especially those who appreciate character centered stories where the quests are more internal than is the case for more swords and sorcery type fantasy.

Note on diversity:  as well as the two dads, there's a secondary character who uses a wheelchair.  It's her brother who has stolen the mayor's key, hoping to leverage that into Woundabout residency for his family--it's a preternaturally healthy place and he's hoping for magical healing for his sister.  But she's made the decision for herself, after many surgical attempts to "fix" her, that she doesn't want to live her life always hoping to be fixed and always failing.  She doesn't think of her self as broken, and she wants to keep on running her high tech computerized greenhouses without self-pity.  So no magical healing for her!    I'm also thinking the way Cordelia in particular is portrayed in the illustrations (as in the picture below)  suggests she's a kid of color, although I didn't notice any descriptions of her in the text.   I'm going ahead and counting her.....(and possibly Connor too....).

MiNRS, by Kevin Sylvester

MiNRS, by Kevin Sylvester  (Margaret K. McElderry Books, middle grade, Sept 2015) is a grim survival story, in which a group of kids stranded on a mining colony in space must fight for their lives when the colony comes under attack, and all the grown-ups are killed.  It's tremendously exciting, but not for the faint of heart.

An earth depleted of resources turned to a roving planetoid, Perseus, for raw materials, and a mining colony was established there.  Christopher is one of the kids whose parents signed on for the mission, and he takes his life in the semi-terraformed colony pretty much for granted; the food isn't bad, he gets along with his parents just fine, and although the pool of kids with whom to be friends is kind of small, he has his best buddy, smart and creative Elena, to hang with.  When the story begins, the miners are on edge because Perseus' orbit is about to take it out of Earth's reach for two months.  There's enough food to last, and things should proceed as normal, but there's never been a blackout like this before.

And the grown-ups are right to worry.  As the colony's inhabitants gather outside to watch the earth set over Perseus' horizon, beginning the blackout, the mining colony comes under a fearsome attack--and there they all are on the surface, sitting ducks.  Christopher's father forces him to retreat underground as the death toll mounts up above, and so Christopher finds himself alone in the tunnels, with only some cryptic clues from his father about what to do next.  Other kids, wounded and shell-shocked, and traumatized by seeing their friends and families killed, have made it down below ground too...and now they must figure out how they are going to survive. 

Survival isn't just a matter of holding out till Earth can be contacted.  The attackers have settled in up above, and are loading with ore.  Once they're ready to leave, they might well decide to blast Perseus to smithereens.....and so sabotage is necessary.   As the kids learn to use the resources they have left, they discover a dark secret about their colony that strains the bonds of trust they've been building.   Christopher finds himself the leader of the group, and with Elena at his side (but can she be trusted?) he tries to figure out what his father was trying to tell him, and keep the kids alive.

It's fairly brutal. The attack isn't sugar coated, and it's a wonder the kids are able to think rationally at all after what they go through.   The days that follow aren't a picnic either, and there's little comfort to be had from appreciating group camaraderie, because of various stresses on the group.  It's not a fun, hpyer intelligent kids fighting and succeeding against impossible odds while playing clever tricks on the bad guys sort of story.  It's much more believably dark. 

But it is gripping, and page-turning, and utterly engrossing and vivid!  The science-fictional setting is utterly believable, and not just fun window dressing.  So if you or any kids you know want a break from unicorn kittens, this is a book to check out.  Especially good, I think, for kids who like sci fi tech and first person shooter games.  It's one for older midde grade kids (11 years old or so); younger readers might find it all a bit too much.

There's diversity here too- I think the brown kid on the right of the cover is a girl, and based on Elena's last name, Rosales, which suggests she's Latina (there's no description of her in the text), I think that's her being shown.  Other kid's names suggest additional diversity.

The Kat Sinclair Files--Dead Air, by Michelle Schusterman

The Kat Sinclair Files--Dead Air, by Michelle Schusterman (Grosset & Dunlap, middle grade, Sept. 2015)

14 year-old Kat Sinclair's dad is the new host of Passport to Paranormal, a not-exactly-high end ghost hunting show.  When Kat is offered the chance to go to haunted places around the world with her dad for the next year, vs staying with her mom in Ohio, she chose the former (in large part because her mom had walked out on the family a few months earlier, and Kat hasn't been taking her calls).  The Passport to Paranormal's crackerjack team is all set to explore haunted tunnels in Rotterdam, and so it's off to the Netherlands.  There Kat finds out that she'll be joined in on-location schooling by Oscar, the nephew of the producer; unfortunately, they immediately loathe each other. 

But there are lots of distractions from unpleasant Oscar.  Strange things are happening to Kat in particular, and as her blog of her experiences with the show (the titular Kat Sinclair Files) gains traction, and she becomes an observer of its fandom, she becomes aware of unsettling rumors about the show.  Kat was a skeptic, but she's about to find out that ghosts--both the supernatural kind, and the metaphorical kind--are real, and both threaten the lives (and the livelihood) of the crew of P. to P. 

As Kat and Oscar become allies in solving the mysteries of P. and P., which are about to become potentially deadly, they become friends, helping each other come to terms with their own personal ghosts (Kat's mother, and Oscar's father, who doesn't know Oscar is gay).  All this going on in a swirl of actual hauntings, first in the Netherlands and then in an old prison in Belgium, and the result is  great reading for the young fan of paranormal mysteries!

The sprinkling of online chat in the text makes it especially friendly for those who like their attention spans bouncing (kids these days); although I do not need my stories broken up into digestible chunks, this did not stop me from enjoying it myself!  Fans of horror movies will find Kat a kindred spirit, fans of girl detectives will perhaps be critical of her detecting skills (pretty much non existent), but will probably enjoy the mystery none-the-less.   There's not all that much in your face horror (the ghosts are sort of off to the side most of the time) but there's enough to make it appeal to young fans of the spooky.  It's suitable for kids as young as 8 or so (no one actually dies, and there is no unpleasant ectoplasm).

Adding to the appeal is that Kat's a kid of color--her dad is black, her mom's white.  It's not a plot point, but it's made solidly clear in the text, and she's shown as the brown girl she is on the cover.   The last five Elementary/Middle grade speculative fiction books I have read for this year's Cybils Awards have all had diverse characters front and center, which is great!  Mostly brown girls, though, so I'm hoping I'll be happily surprised by other non-whitenesses as I keep reading.

I am writing this just after reading Roger Sutton's editorial at the Horn Book, continuing on at Facebook, about whether throwing characters into a book who happen to be gay, or black, or have disabilities, or other etcs, is like throwing rainbow sprinkles in, to "check off the diversity box."  So of course I had to ask myself whether I thought Oscar being gay was a rainbow sprinkle or not (and I also am of course asking myself about Sprinkling diversity in general).  I decided Oscar's sexual orientation is not a sprinkle.  The emotional situation he is in (a bad one) with regard to his father, which affects his actions and reactions, stems from the fact that he is gay (which his father doesn't know), and so although he didn't Have to be gay, and it doesn't have anything to do with the Plot, it is a perfectly reasonable part of his personal story.  

Kat's ethnicity is also not at all germane to the plot, and I wouldn't have minded her thinking about it more than she does (which is only twice in a not in depth way),  but I'm not calling her a sprinkle just because her skin color just happens to be brown and she doesn't present me with the perspective of a brown girl thinking about race while travelling in modern Europe, which would be interesting to me, but which isn't what Kat happens to be thinking about.  I do sort of see Roger's point, and I have sometimes felt I was being sprinkled at by authors, but I think at this point we need diversity in our children's books so much that I will take sprinkles on my vanilla ice-cream as better than nothing, even though I might prefer a more interesting basal frozen desert unit than vanilla ice-cream if given the choice.   I think having books where it is taken for granted that a bi-racial girl's brown dad can be a tv host, and where she herself can be the heroine of an exciting story are good books to have on hand.

This week's round-up of middle grade science fiction and fantasy from around the blogs (11/1/15)

Happy November (one can hope....)!  Here's what I found in my blog reading this week; please let me know if I missed your MG SF/F post!

The Reviews

The Astounding Broccoli Boy, by Frank Cottrell Boyce, at Charlotte's Library

Bunnicula, by Deborah and James Howe, at Boys Rule Boys Read!

Castle Hangnail, by Ursula Vernon, at Pages Unbound

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, by Claire Legrand, at The Book Wars

Crystal Keepers (The Five Kingdoms, Book 3) by Brandon Mull, at Hidden in Pages

Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge, at alibrarymama

Diary of a Mad Brown, by Bruce Coville, at Log Cabin Library

Dragon Games, by P.W. Catanese, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

The Enchanted Egg (Magical Animal Adoption Agency Book 2), by Kallie George, at Mom Read It

Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, by Hal Johnson, at Book Nut and Guys Lit Wire

The Girl Who Could Not Dream, by Sarah Beth Durst, at YABookNerd

The Glass Sentence, and The Golden Specific, by S.E. Grove, at books4yourkids

The Hollow Boy, by Jonathan Stroud, at School Library Journal and The Book Zone (For Boys)

Hoodoo, by Ronald L. Smith, at alibrarymama

The Jumbies, by Traceyi Baptiste, at Bibliobrit and Wands and Worlds

The Last Ever After, by Soman Chainani, at Leaf's Reviews

The League of Beastly Dreadfuls, by Holly Grant, at Pages Unbound

Lilliput, by Sam Gayton, at An Awfully Big Blog Adventure

The Magic Thief: Home, by Sarah Prineas, at Leaf's Reviews

Milo Speck, Accidental Agent, by Linda Urban, at Book Nut

My Diary From the Edge of the World, by Jodi Lynn Anderson, at Read Till Dawn

One Witch at a Time, by Stacy DeKeyser, at alibrarymama

A Pocket Full of Murder, by R.J. Anderson, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

Silverwings, by Kenneth Oppel, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

Shadows of Sherwood, by Kekla Magoon, at Charlotte's Library

A String in the Harp, by Nancy Bond, at Tales of the Marvelous

The Thief of Aways, by Clive Barker, at Always in the Middle

The Thirteenth Princess, by Diane Zahler, at Books Beside My Bed

Took, by Mary Downing Hahn, at The O.W.L.

The Tournament at Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice: the Early Years), by John Flanagan, at The Children's Book Review and Barnes and Noble Reads

The Toymaker's Apprentice, by Sherri L. Smith, at The Hiding Spot

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, by Kelly Jones, at Kid Lit Geek

Warren the 13th and The All-Seeing Eye by Tania del Rio, illustrated by Will Staehle, at Sharon the Librarian

The Whispering Trees (The Thickety book 2), by J.A. White, at Pages Unbound

The Wild Swans, by Jackie Morris, at The Book Wars

The Witch's Boy, by Kelly Barnhill, at Leaf's Reviews

Three at Ms. Yingling Reads--The Toymaker's Apprentice, by Sherri L. Smith, A Tale of Highy Unusual Magic, by Lisa Papademetriou, and The Peddler's Road, by Matthew Cody

Authors and Interviews

Sarah Beth Durst (The Girl Who Could Not Dream) at Fantasy Literature

Dorothy A. Winsor (Finders Keepers), at Word Spelunking

Other Good Stuff

The Guardian gathers its top ten haunted houses in children's fiction

Imaginary friends are big this year, and IKA is getting in on the trend by bringing to "life" the creautres of kids' imaginations (via Tor)

Shadows of Sherwood--a Robyn Hoodlum Adventure, by Kekla Magoon

Shadows of Sherwood--a Robyn Hoodlum Adventure, by Kekla Magoon (Bloomsbury, middle grade, August 2015), has a great premise, and delivers great adventure along with it. Twelve-year-old Robyn Loxley didn't set out to run afoul of the laws of Nott City, but when the new dictatorial government of Ignomus Crown, ran afoul of her family something fierce, taking her parents prisoner, she had no choice.  She was supposed to have been taken too, but managed to escape. Now she is a fugitive, searching for answers, and finding herself become one of a band of young people who, like her, are enemies of the government.  Echoing the adventures of Robin Hood, Robyn and her friends "release" food and medicine to the oppressed, and just barely stay one jump ahead of the law enforcers.  But there is more afoot than simply outlaw escapades.  There's a movement underway to overthrow Crown, lead by those who believe in the old stories of moon magic, and Robyn learns that she might be just the catalyst the rebels need to succeed....

So into the Robin Hood reimagining comes another, more fantastic story.  I enjoyed recognizing the allies that Robyn makes as their Robin Hood characters, and I liked the outlawish fun and survival one step ahead of the law parts much more than I liked the moon magic, but I can see how the later adds depth to the story, setting up a path that might actually take Robyn to victory over the oppressors.

Robyn is still a fledgling heroine here, though she had (fortuitously) been practicing stealth and climbing and scavenging and other useful skills before the story begins.  She's not a great leader--it is stretching the truth to say that her plans are really planned, and she relies heavily on luck, and on her allies.  She's also not great at working with allies, almost driving her new young friends away; she's used to operating alone, and her desperate need to get her parents back sometimes blinds her to what's happening around her.   But she is a good catalyst, not just because of her affinity for the moon magic (which is prophecy and story at this point, as opposed to a functional tool for outlaws).

The story moves pretty briskly from adventurous action to less adventurous daily life in hiding; the two are nicely balanced, and the quieter moments give the secondary characters who are Robyn's new co-outlaws a chance to become more real.    The result is a very good read, maybe not really believable, but lots of fun.  Especially if you are a Robin Hood fan!

(Robyn is brown skinned girl with a poofy mass of black hair (kept tightly braided) in a world where her politician father's own dark skin was a noticeable difference from the norm.  So yay for another diverse middle grade heroine!)

The Astounding Broccoli Boy, by Frank Cottrell Boyce

The Astounding Broccoli Boy, by Frank Cottrell Boyce is a caper across London (with interludes in a hospital isolation ward) featuring two green boys, joined later by a green girl and a penguin, with a cameo appearance of  two other penguins who aren't important.

The fact that the three kids are green is, however, important--it is the whole foundation of the plot.  Rory, the main character, starts off brown (his dad's from Guyana) and turns green--really truly green, for no immediately obvious reason.  And so he's quickly carted off to an isolation ward in the local hospital, where to his great horror he finds another green kid already in residence--Tommy-Lee, the bully who'd been making his life miserable for months.

But  turning green has (perhaps) given them superpowers-Rory is sure that his brain now works at 200% capacity, and that he can teleport (slightly and instinctively).  Tommy-Lee can open doors locked by coded keypads in his sleep. So the two kids join forces to make their green-ness part of their new super-hero identities.   Good turns out to be kind of flexible and hard to pin down--is giving zoo animals freedom good?  Is taking peoples money in exchange for posing for pictures with them good?  Is (unintentionally) convincing the city of London that there are aliens taking over the city (the obvious explanation for the little green men who are Rory and Tommy-Lee) good?  Is smuggling a third green kid, a girl this time, back into the hospital really what those in authority want?  Breaking into Buckingham Palace on a "borrowed" milk van?  Not so much.  London, already on edge because of a mysterious pandemic (the Killer Kitten virus), doesn't exactly welcome Rory and Tommy-Lee adding to the confusion.....

It's left clear (ish) that the kids don't actually have superpowers, but they definitely did turn green.  Which makes it speculative fiction, because people don't turn green in real life (much).

And it's fun in its own way, once the rather tiresome business of wimpy kid being bullied by big bad kid is gotten over with (I am tired of bullies becoming best buddies).  But if you like books that are mostly bouncing between humorous romps, you'll enjoy it--there's plenty to chuckle at.  It doesn't have much that goes any deeper, though, and so I myself found it a tad disappointing.

This week's roundup of middle grade fantasy and science fiction (10/25/15)

as ever, please let me know if I missed your post!  Thanks.

The Reviews

Battle of the Bots, by C.J. Richards, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, by Catherynne M. Valente, at Pages Unbound

Casters of Doovik, by McKenzie Wagner, at The Write Path
Circus Mirandus, by Cassie Beasley, at Bibliobrit and Kid Lit Geek

Confessions of an Imaginary Friend, by Michelle Cuevas, at Geo Librarian

Crenshaw, by Katherine Applegate, at For Those About to Mock, Candace's Book Blog, The Booklist Reader, and Waking Brain Cells

Dead Boy, by Laurel Gale, at The Reading Nook Reviews

The Doll People, by Ann Martin and Laura Goodwin, at Redeemed Reader

The Emerald Atlas, by John Stephans, at Becky's Book Reviews

Fires of Invention, by J. Scott Savage, at Cracking the Cover

The Forgotten Sisters (Princess Academy Book 3), by Shannnon Hale, at Not Acting My Age

Gabby Duran and the Unsittables, by Elise Allen and Daryle Conners, at Kid Lit Geek

The Hollow Boy, by Jonathan Stroud, at Hidden in Pages and Dual Reads

How To Fight a Dragon's Fury, by Cressida Cowell, at Barnes and Noble Reads

Immortal Guardians, by Eliot Schrefer, at This Kid Reviews Books

The Jumbies, by Tracey Baptiste, at alibrarymama

The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde, at Redeemed Reader

The Lost Sword (Jack Mason Book 5), by Darrell Pitt, at diva booknerds

The Lost Track of Time, by Paige Britte, at Log Cabin Library

Masterminds, by Gordon Korman, at Leaf's Reviews and Log Cabin Library

Milo Speck, Accidental Agent, by Linda Urban, at Book Nut

A Nearer Moon, by Melanie Crowder, at Waking Bain Cells

Once Upon a Pet, by Suzanne Selfors, at Barnes and Noble Reads

The Peculiar, by Stefan Bachmann, at Leaf's Reviews

A Riddle in Ruby, by Kent Davis, at Charlotte's Library

The Riverman, by Aaron Starmer, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

Romansgrove, by Mabel Esther Allen, at Charlotte's Library

Serafina and the Black Cloak, by Rober Beatty, at Sharon the Librarian

A Tale Of Highly Unusual Magic by Lisa Papademetriou, at Word Spelunking

Tom's Midnight Garden, by Phillipa Pierce, at Tales of the Marvelous

The Toymaker's Apprentice, by Sherri L. Smith, at Great Imaginations

Tristan Hunt and the Sea Guardians, by Ellen Prager, at Mom Read It

The Wells Bequest, and also The Poe Estate, by Polly Shulman, at alibrarymama


Two at Ms. Yingling Reads -- The Battle Begins (Unnaturals Book 1), by Devon Hughes, and also The Tournament at Gorlan, by John Flanagan


Authors and Interviews

Sherri L. Smith (The Toymaker's Apprentice) at Word Spelunking and Green Bean Teen Queen

Iain Reading (The Dragon of the Month Club) at Word Spelunking

Victoria Forester (The Boy Who Knew Everything) at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

Matthew Cody (The Peddler's Road) at Reads All the Books


Other Good Stuff

A map of Middle Earth annotated by JRR Tolkein found at a used bookstore inside a novel once owned by Pauline Baynes (more at The Guardian)

Witch Week is coming at The Emerald City Book Review

Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon series) wins the Philosphy Now award for the fight against stupidity, at The Guardian

Scary books gathered at the Baltimore Sun

A Riddle in Ruby, by Kent Davis

A Riddle in Ruby, by Kent Davis (Greenwillow, middle grade, September 2015)

Ruby is a young thief in training in an alternate 18th century Europe, one full of alchemical magic, working hard to master lockpicking and useful skills.  She's also happy to sail with her father back and forth to the Americas, on what might appear to be a pirate ship, but actually is a more ordinary smuggler.  But the voyage that sets the story in motion is far from being ordinary when their ship is perused by an admiralty vessel, on which is one of the King's Reeves--the most deadly fighters there are.  The foppish boy, Athen, a passenger on the voyage, proves to have useful fighting skills, and Ruby's own skills at hiding are useful too, but the rest of the crew, including Ruby's father, are taken prisoner.  Ruby, Athen, and the Athen's servant claw their way in a leak rowboat to Philadelphi [sic] (marvelously transformed by alchemy).

Ruby knows she has to find her father again. But she herself is still being perused by the Reeve, and Athen shows himself to be an uncertain ally with his own agenda.  As the danger to Ruby becomes ever sharper, it becomes clear that she herself is the prize being hunted for, though she doesn't know why until she meets an ancient alchemist of extraordinary power, who finally gives her some of the answers to the riddle that's been making her live so extraordinarily difficult.

This is one for those who likes swordplay, and chemical magic play, and pursuits through strange places that never existed.   It wasn't quite to my own taste, because when the main character is deeply confused throughout most of the book, and everything goes wrong repeatedly and there is no safety, I empathize too much, and feel confused and unhappy myself,  especially during the beginning third or so, when I haven't had a chance to learn to care about the characters yet.   But Ruby and the cast of supporting characters are all prove to be interesting and engaging, and the alchemy is fascinating, and the second two thirds of the book went by rapidly, holding my attention very nicely indeed.

Note--I am always rather interested in how Native Americans exist in alternate histories such as this set in the Americas.  We don't get to learn much about them in this book; there's just one brief mention that they are there, outside the city, but that is a smidge better than nothing....The main characters are all white, though there are a few side descriptions of people who aren't.

Romansgrove, by Mabel Esther Allan, for Timeslip Tuesday

Another older one for this week's Timeslip Tuesday, by an author who I thought I liked lots after the first book of hers I read (A Strange Enchantment) but who I have found less and less personally engaging with every subsequent book....sigh.  She wrote lots and lots of books, and I still look out for them in used bookstores, but they just don't stir the emotional depths of my possibly cynical and hardened heart.

In Romansgrove (1975), we get the reformation of a spoiled girl, Emily, back in the turn of the century (19th into 20th).  Her  father is the lord of an English manner who treats the servants with appalling disregard for their humanity, and she does not question this.  Then two modern siblings (1970s)  move to the country near the ruins of Romansgrove, and find themselves travelling back in time to the pre-ruined manor that was Emily's home.  Travelling with them are ideas about social justice indoctrinated in them by their father, who loathes the English caste system that made his own childhood one of brutal poverty.   But the times they are a changing, and the new lord of the Romansgrove estate, in his new(er) house, is all about breaking down class barriers, and his child is allow to play with the two modern protagonist siblings!!! 

So in any event, Emily's compressed little mind is broadened and she becomes less a spoiled brat and then the house burns down but Emily is saved because the modern kids are there and even though it should be an emotionally gripping bit of reading, it wasn't.  There was no magical thrill to it.   

Mostly the book is about two rather boring modern kids and a spoiled and kind boring century-older kid learning to agree that mistreating servants is bad. Disappointing.  It should have been good--the ruined manor house, the lonely girl, the terrible fire....but it just wasn't.  Possibly I would have liked it more if I hadn't been mentally comparing it to one my favorite timeslips--The Ghosts, by Antonia Baber (my review) which is tremendously gripping, chilling, and memorable!

This Week's Round-up of Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy from around the blogs (10/18/15)

Here's what I found this week; please let me know if I missed your post! (Typed with cold fingers....I hope we get a bit more warmth before Winter comes for keeps!)

The Reviews

Basil of Baker Street, by Eve Titus, at Tor

Becca and the Prisoner's Cross, by Tony Abbott, at Boys Rule, Boys Read

The Book of Kringle, by Derek Velez Partidge and Mary Packard, at The Children's Book Review

The Boy Who Knew Everything, by Victoria Forester, at Fantasy of the Silver Dragon

Brilliant, by Roddy Doyle, at BNKids Blog

The Chosen Prince, by Diane Stanely, at alibrarymama

A Curious Tale of the In-Between, by Lauren DeStefano, at Writer of Wrongs

The Entirely True Story of the Unbelievable FIB, by Adam Shaughnessy, at The Reading Nook Reviews

Firefly Hollow, by Allison McGhee, at Geo Librarian

Five Children on the Western Front, by Kate Saunders, at Reads For Keeps

Fuzzy Mud, by Louis Sacher, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels and Susan Uhlig

Grounded The Adventures of Rapunzel, by Megan Morrison, at Log Cabin Library

Happenstance Found, by P.W. Catanese, at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

The Hollow Boy, by Jonathan Stroud, at The Zen Leaf

The Jumbies, by Tracy Baptiste, at Kirkus (Leila Roy's column)

The Land Without Color, by at This Kid Reviews Books

The Last Hunt, by Bruce Coville, at Read Till Dawn

The Lord of the Hat, by Obert Skye, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Lost Girl, by R.L. Stine, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Mars Evacuees, by Sophia McDougall, at Bibliobrit

The Nest, by Kenneth Oppel, at Falling Letters

Nightbird, by Alice Hoffman, at Becky's Book Reviews

The Ordinary Princess, by M.M. Kaye, at alibrarymama

Over the Sea's Edge, by Jane Louise Curry, at Charlotte's Library

A Pocket Full of Murder, by R.J. Anderson, at The Book Wars

The Scary School series, by Derek the Ghost, at Always in the Middle

Seabourne: The Lost Prince, by Matt Myklusch, at Michelle I. Mason

A Sliver of Stardust, by Marissa Burt, at The Write Path

This Isn't What It Looks Like, and You Have to Stop This, by Pseudonymous Bosch, at One Librarian's Book Reviews

The Tournament at Gorlan, by John Flannagan, at On Starships and Dragonwings

The Toymaker's Apprentice, by Sherri L. Smith, at Teen Librarian Toolbox and Finding Wonderland

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, by Kelly Jones, at Charlotte's Library

Willie and Me: a Baseball Card Adventure, by Dan Gutman, at Time Travel Times Two

"Mermaids, Pirates, and Terrifying Tales | Middle Grade Series Update" a slew of mini reviews at SLJ

Two at Ms. Yingling Reads:  The League of Unexceptional Children, by Gitty Daneshvari, and The Fate of Ten, by Pittacus Lore

Authors and Interviews

Sherri L. Smith (The Toymaker's Apprentice) at The O.W.L. and The Book Smugglers

Rick Riordan at Entertainment Weekly


Other Good Stuff

Six great MG fantasies starring Sisters, a list by me at BNKids Blog

Shannon Hale kicks of a Stories For All Series of authors guest posting at her blog; here's her own and then you can go to the homepage of her blog and read them all!

How R.L. Stine "became the king of kids' horror" at The Boston Globe

A list of nicely spooky MG reads at Youth Literature Reviews, and another at Postcards from La-La Land

Dark Horse comics to publish graphic novels of the How To Train Your Dragon series (via Galley Cat)

A Tuesday Ten of Alternate Histories at Views from the Tesseract

This mermaid miniature house by artist Peter Gabel is utterly gorgeous; more pictures here at Messynessy and theyt are close ups and they are worth looking at because they are lovely!

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, by Kelly Jones

I'd seen Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, by Kelly Jones (Knopf Books for Young Readers, ages 8-11, May 2015), reviewed on a lot of blogs since it came out, but didn't pay much attention, assuming it was a nice friendly story about a girl taking up chicken raising (which it is).  But either the bloggers were being careful to avoid spoilers in their posts, or I wasn't reading attentively, but I did not know that the titular chickens were so unusual that this was most definitely a fantasy, and neither did I know that the main character, Sophie, and her mom are, to use Sophie's term, brown people (her mom's family is Mexican).

The story is told in letters that Sophie writes to three people,  two of whom she knows won't write back because of being dead--the owner of Redwood Farm Supply, purveyors of unusual chickens, her great-uncle Jim, whose farm her family has inherited, with bonus unusual chickens, and her Abuela.  Sophie's voice in her letters is just lovely, really good reading--she can be forthcoming and to the point, but also reflective, contemplative, and descriptive. 

And she's got lots of interesting things to write about to her Abuela.  She tells how her parents are coping with their new life (mixedly; her dad is unemployed and her mom is frantically keeping money coming in through freelance writing--the book includes everyone's to do lists, and the list of articles the mom is working on at various points is both amusing in its own right and interesting as a metacommentary on the state of the family).  She tells of her own loneliness in an agricultural landscape where people are spread so much thinner than in her old city home, and where what people there are are white (except the mailman, who is an utterly lovely, friendly, reliable, helpful mailman of color. He is a great mailman).  And she talks about her uncle's chickens, who one by one come back to the farm, and who are much more than a bit Unusual (in fantastical ways!)

Sophie has lots of questions for her Uncle Jim and the Redwood Farm folks about keeping chickens in general, and her chickens in particular.  (Bits of Redwood Farms' chicken care correspondence course are shared with the reader, and you can also take their quiz along with Sophie to determine if you are ready to take on the care of chickens).   As the story unfolds, she learns more about her particular birds (and reads The Hoboken Chicken Emergency out loud to them), makes friends, and becomes a more confident member of her new agricultural community, foiling the plot of a would-be chicken kidnapper and making good progress toward becoming a truly exceptional poultry farmer.

Usually when I'm reading a book I enjoy this much, I don't notice the illustrations, but Katie Kath's pictures add to the friendliness so well I couldn't help but appreciate them!  There are lots of them, and this, coupled with the relatively short letters, lists, and other breaks in the text make this a good one for young readers who aren't quite ready for doorstoppers.

It is a sweet and funny and warm story, so much so that I almost (but not quite) wished I still had chickens myself.....and it is so nice to see everyday magic that's really honest a goodness magic popping up in real life (daily life type magic) happening to a brown American girl like Sophie (not many of these.  I can't think of another one like it).

Oddly Normal, a graphic novel by Otis Frampton, with giveaway!

Oddly Normal, by Otis Frampton (Image Comics, March 2015)

Oddly Normal is a ten-year-old girl with pointed ears and green hair, the daughter of  a half-witch.  Oddly's mother came from Fignation, a world of magic, to investigate our world, fell in love with an ordinary human, and stayed.  Oddly has been subjected to taunts all her life, but they still hurt, and when her clueless parents are surprised no one has come to her tenth birthday party, she snaps, and wishes with all the force of her being that they would just disappear!  And they do, much to Oddly's surprise--she's never had any magical abilities before. 

Furtuantly, her aunt from Fignation shows up for the party, and takes Oddly home with her to Fignation.  At first, seeing all the weird variety of Fignation's inhabitants, Oddly thinks her new middle school might finally be a place where she herself isn't so odd after all.  But being a kid from ordinary Earth isn't a ticket to popularity, and things are just as bad, if not worse--at least on Earth she wasn't hunted by a vampire boy's slavering hounds!

The illustrations are vivid and full of peculiar and monstrous details, many of them amusing, and Oddly is a relatable young heroine for those who feel that they don't belong, or whose parents don't understand them.  Fantasy fans will be pleased by the wide variety of Fignation's unusual denizens, and bookish readers will be tickled by the sprinkling of literary references.

In short, young graphic fantasy fans of ten or so will find much to appreciate!

This is the first book of a series, and ends somewhat abruptly, with no resolution to Oddly's troubles. Fortunately for fans of Oddly's fish out of water adventures, the second book (shown at right in the picture at the top of this post) comes out November 5, with volume three coming shortly thereafter.

If you'd like to win a copy of Oddly Normal volume 1, just leave a comment by midnight next Saturday, Oct. 24!

Here are the other stops on the Oddly Normal blog tour:

Monday, October 12: Guest post, Log Cabin Library

Tuesday, October 13: Interview and review, Kdub's Geekspot

Wednesday, October 14: Guest post and giveaway, A Library Mama

 

Thursday, October 15: Interview, review, and giveaway, The Book Monsters

 

Friday, October 16: Interview, Outright Geekery

 

 

The Caretakers Guide to Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull, illustrated by Brandon Dorman

Back in July, 2006 Kendra and Seth, two ordinary kids, entered the world of the extraordinary when they went to stay with their grandparents, the caretakers of Fablehaven.   In the years that followed, four more books in the series were published, and millions of copies were eagerly read by the many fans of the series.

As far as I know, Fablehaven was the first (fictional) large sanctuary for magical creatures--individual magic creatures had been cared for in earlier books, but Fablehaven is huge, and full of multitudes of different beings.  All those who have enjoyed exploring its secrets and meeting its inhabitants will be pleased to learn that there is now a visual guide to those multitudes--The Caretakers Guide to Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull, illustrated by Brandon Dorman (Shadow Mountain, Oct 13).  This lavishly illustrated handbook brings all the details of Fablehaven to life--you can learn more about your favorite monsters, all the different magical artifacts and potions, and explore the many specific locations within the preserve.

It's a bit more than an encyclopedia--little handwritten notes, offering comments and clarifications from some of the characters are scattered through the illustrations, making it especially fun for fans of the series, who will feel like they are meeting their old friends again!

Kids who really enjoy the specifics of fantasy worldbuilding, who really want to study different kinds of dragon, for instance, will enjoy this, even if they might not have read all the books.  I myself have never been a true fan of Fablehaven, but even so I happily read this book, thinking how useful it would be as inspiration for young creators of their own fantasy worlds!  And fans of Fablehaven, for whom it was created, will love it. 

The Caretaker's Guide to Fablehaven is also a gateway to the first book in the Fablehaven sequel series, Dragonwatch (coming Fall 2016), and holds clues to the characters and creatures that will appear in the new books.

Last call for Cybils nominations! Here are some un-nominated Elementary/Middle Grade Spec. Fic. books!

Haven't nominated an Elementary/Middle Grade book for the Cybils yet?

Do you love one of these eligible titles?

Click on the link HERE by Midnight October 15 and nominate it!

 

The Sword of Summer, by Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion, October 2015)

The Orphan Army, by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, May 2015)

 

 

 

The Second Guard, by J.D. Vaughn (Disney-Hyperion, April 2015)

 

 

Villain Keeper, by Laurie McKay (HarperCollins, February 2015)

 

 

 

The Arctic Code by Matthew J. Kirby (Balzer & Bray, April 2015)

 

 

MInrs by Kevin Sylvester (Margaret K. McElderry Books, September 2015)

A Riddle in Ruby by Kent Davis  (GreenWillow, September 2015)

  

 

 

Wonder at the Edge of the World by Nicole Helget (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, April 2015)

 

Icebreaker, by Lian Tanner (Feiwel & Friends, August 2015)

 

 

The Lost Prince by Matt MyKlusch (Egmont USA, April 2015)

Over the Sea's Edge, by Jane Louise Curry, for Timeslip Tuesday

Jane Louise Curry has written  many books that sound like they ought to be right up my alley, but always they fall short of my hopes for them.  Over the Sea's Edge (1971) is the latest in this long string of disappointments.  It is the story of a modern boy who swaps lives with a medieval Welsh boy.  Now Dave is Dewi, the boy charged with looking after his lord's pack of hounds, and gradually his modern memories fade and Dewi's reality takes over.  It is a tense time for Wales, with lots of internal fighting as well as the Normans to fight, and when Prince Madauc is almost killed in Dewi's own castle's courtyard, Dewi finds himself caught up in a great adventure.

Me--time travel to medieval Wales!  yes please.

Madauc has heard tales of a land far to the west, where riches are to be had, and he's determined to go there and get them to secure his own position in Wales.  So a boat is built, and it reaches the Americas...

And things go down hill as far as I am concerned. 

Me--oh God no. Can we just not with white people inserting romanticized white savior people where they don't belong?

The people they meet in North America are a strange amalgam of Mayan/Mississippian cultures, with a colony of earlier Welsh descendants taking center stage.  And there's strange dark magic going on to add to unconvincing Native North American worldbuilding, which the Welsh contingent saves everyone from.   I was, like, "gah."  It was not a convincing, realistic, well-rounded picture of Native North America, it was the setting for a Welsh prince to explore.  And Madauc, who at first seemed to have promise as an interesting character, gets pretty single minded about the gold thing, and Dewi stops thinking interesting thoughts about the situation as his memories of modern times vanish pretty much utterly. 

And they fall in love with beautiful Native Girls, Maduac's a Mayan priestess type girl with long flowing dark hair who thought he was a god, and Dewi with a nice little Welsh descendant.  "Falling in love" is perhaps the wrong term, as it implies a depth of emotion; "wanting to snog" is more accurate.  The (possibly) Mayan young woman seems to have a strong character, but because of the language barrier, she doesn't get to talk till the end of the story, so basically she is simply an amalgam of long dark hair (which she unconvincingly wears loose and flowing), Native "superstition", and regalia. 

I also dislike pre-Columbian North Americas that are empty enough so that Europeans can think to themselves greedy thoughts about what to do with all that empty land, because in fact North America was pretty firmly inhabited already.

I also dislike medieval Europeans who seem essentially lacking in any culture themselves.  This group of travelling Welsh folk weren't believable in any cultural sense either.  No thoughts about Christianity for instance.  No superstitions of their own in evidence.  No strong feelings of difference when confronted with other cultures. 

The North American setting is a continuation of Jane Louise Curry's earlier book, The Daybreakers, which I guess I will have to read some day if I want to read every time travel book published in English for kids in the 20th century.  Having read its Kirkus review, I'm not leaping at the opportunity. 

What was interesting (from a Time Travel book perspective) about Over the Sea's Edge is that Dewi never goes back to being Dave, and the book ends with Dave (originally Dewi) back in our world, appreciating his good education and not remembering much about being a medieval Welshman.  (At least, I think they never swapped back.  I might have to re-read the end a year from now to make sure, because this time around I had run out of interest).  It really rare that time travelers don't go home again, and in this case it helped the book achieve a reasonably satisfying ending (viz plot), because both boys are happier in their new times. 

But really my take home message is "never read any fiction about the medieval Welsh in North America."  I likewise strongly disliked Madeline L'Engle's An Acceptable Time.

Here's what Kirkus said about this one back when it first came out.

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (10/11/15)

I was at Kidlicton in Baltimore this past weekend, and somehow had other things to do than read Bloglovin, which is why I'm late getting this up.  Kidlitcon was Great as always (the only bad thing was the alarm clock in my room going off ever hour the first night, and it couldn't be unplugged), and do come next year! (Melissa of Book Nut is hosting it in Kansas!!!!  yay Melissa!).

So Cybils nominations close Oct. 15....and there are lots of elementary/middle grade speculative fiction books that can still be nominated (which you can do here)!  Here's a nice little list at Views from the Tesseract; The Dragon's Guide is now nominated, but none of the rest are....

And here's the round up; let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

Alistair Grim's Odditorium, by Gregory Funaro, at The Reading Nook Reviews and The Book Wars

The Caretaker’s Guide to Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull, at Mom Read It, Cracking the Cover, Ms. Yinging Reads, and The Book Monsters

Castle Hangnail, by Ursula Vernon, at Fantasy Book Critic

Circus Mirandus, by Cassie Beasley, at Becky's Book Reviews

The Copper Gauntlet, by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Crenshaw, by Katherine Applegate, at Randomly Reading

The Enchanted Egg (Magical Adoption Agency) by Kallie George, at Sharon the Librarian

Escape from Baxter's Barn, by Rebecca Bond, at Log Cabin Library

The Fog Diver, by Joel Ross, at Log Cabin Library

Fuzzy Mud, by Louis Sacher, at For Those About To Mock

The Imaginary, by A.F. Harrold, at Sharon the Librarian

Jinx's Magic, by Sage Blackwood, at Book Nut

The League of Unexceptional Children, by Gitty Daneshvari, at Mom Read It

Lockwood and Co. series, by Jonathan Stroud, at Project Mayhem

A Nearer Moon, by Melanie Crowder, at Log Cabin Library

The Nest, by Kenneth Oppel, at Challenging the Bookworm, Waking Brain Cells, and In Bed With Books

The Perfect Match, by E.D. Baker, at Sharon the Librarian

Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures, by Jackson Pearce and Maggie Stifvater, at Log Cabin Library

The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, at Leaf's Reviews

The Sleepwaker Tonic, by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller,  at Buxton's Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

The Sword of Summer, by Rick Riordan, at School Library Journal  (nb--I don't think I'll be including other reviews of this one; they aren't hard to find and it's not like we don't know it exists)

A Tangle of Knots, by Lisa Graff, at Pages Unbound

Took, by Mary Downing Hahn, at BooksForKidsBlog

Tristan Hunt and the Sea Gaurdians, by Ellen Prager, at Kid Lit Reviews

The Unmapped Sea, by Maryrose Wood, at Leaf's Reviews

Upside-Down Magic, by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle and Emily Jenkins, at The Reading Nook Reviews and  Log Cabin Library

Westly: A Spider's Tale, by Bryan Beus, at Cracking the Cover and Log Cabin Library

Winterling, by Sarah Prineas, at The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow

The Worst Witch and the Wishing Star by Jill Murphy, at Sharon the Librarian


Two at Tales of the Marvelous--My Unfair Godmother, by Janette Rallison, and The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie, by Kirsty Murray

Clover's Luck (Book 1 of The Magical Adoption Agency) by Kallie George

Clover's Luck (Book 1 of The Magical Adoption Agency) by Kallie George (Disney-Hyperion February 3, 2015, out in paperback Oct 6) is a charming magical creature fantasy for the young--give this one to the third or fourth grader who dreams of having a magical pet of their own!

Clover is pretty sure she is utterly unlucky, and this feeling is confirmed when her pet bird escapes (she has especial bad luck with pets, which hurts, because she loves the so).  She follows the escapee into the woods, very sorry for herself, and rather anxious, for the people in her village always made a point of staying far from the Woods, knowing the forest to be a strange and unchancy place.   But Clover is plucky and keeps going, and sees a sign that seems to be written just for her, calling for volunteers who love animal s to help at the M.A.A.A.  So follows the directions to The Magical Animal Adoption Agency, where no pet is too unusual to adopt.

And by "unusual" the agency really means "unusual"--enchanted toads, unicorns, and even a young dragon are currently in residence.  Clover is thrilled to have found the best way imaginable to spend her summer!  But when the proprietor of the M.A.A.A. takes off almost immediately, leaving Clover in charge, she has more responsibility than she wants.  Strange folk come seeking to adopt the creatures, and it's up to Clover not just to feed and water the animals, but to make sure they are going to the right homes....which is a pretty challenging task that makes for fun reading!  Lots of small twists and turns of story lead to happy endings, and Clover realizes she's not unlucky after all!

Like I said above, a nice friendly story great for elementary school readers who would rather cuddle dragons than slay them!  There are nice bits of humor, and Clover is a pleasantly relatable protagonist, force to rise to a challenging occasion.  Lots of good description brings the agency and its denizens to vivid life, and the sense that there is more magic out there beyond the Woods adds a touch of depth and complexity to the world building. 

Clover's Luck is eligible for the Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Cybils Award this year, but has not yet been nominated (edited to add--I take it back. It's been nominated as an early chapter book, although I am thinking it might be on the less early chapter book side of things....it's a fuzzy line).  If you are interested in nominating an EMG Speculative Fiction book , or any other book from the past year in a variety of categories, please head over here to the Cybils Award site by Oct 15!

Dayshaun's Gift, by Zetta Elliott, for Timeslip Tuesday

Dayshaun's Gift, by Zetta Elliott (Create Space, Sept 2015, older elementary), is the second of her City Kids books, in which urban kids get a chance to have magical adventures.  The first was The Phoenix on Baker Street (my review), which was a rare example of lovely magic coming into the lives of kids in a modern urban setting.  This one is a time travel story, and so less extraordinarily fantastical, but it's good too.

Dayshaun would (unsurprisingly) rather stay peacefully at home playing video games than go out into the heat with his mother to work in the community garden in their Brooklyn neighborhood.  But she insists...and I guess either she's more consistently forceful mother than I am, or Dayshaun is a more cooperative child, but after only limited resistance from his part the two of them set off to the historic area where their garden is planted.

Working amongst the cabbages, the heat gets so intense that Dayshaun is driven to putting on his grandfather's worn old hat...and with a wave of dizziness, he's transported 150 years back in time!  He keeps his head remarkably well, and becomes friendly with two local kids who don't seem to notice anything odd about him, and he goes with them to take food to a group of African Americans who have been forced to flee from their homes in Manhattan because of the rioting there related to the Civil War military draft.

Dayshaun is moved by the plight of the refugees, and forms a bond with one old man in particular, who gives him a handful of heirloom tomato seeds he'd brought with him when he escaped slavery in Virginia.  Dayshaun, who soon afterwards finds himself in his own time again, gives them to his mother to plant, and so the heritage of generations can grow again, making this garden an even more special place.

It's a story full of history and creates a lovely sense of a place rooted in the past. I'm a gardener myself, and am all in favor of urban greenspaces, so I appreciated that aspect of the book lots, and I think I would  have back when I was the age of the target audience.   It's not one for every kid though--there is little tension, and no sense of danger to Dayshaun.  He has a remarkably stress-free time travel experience, though he is clearly aware of the horrible stress endured by the refugees.  This lack of urgency to the plot makes it, I think, one perhaps better suited to peaceful reading out loud to a seven or eight year old than one to give a reluctant reader who demands excitement (though of course the basic story of time travel offers some excitement in its own right!).  And reading it outloud gives kids a chance to hear about race riots in the past with a grownup who can clarify and comfort, if needed.   Kids growing up in Brooklyn will especially appreciate this new look at their own place, but Dayshaun is a relatable protagonist for any kid forced to spend Saturday away from their electronic devices.

Here's a nice afterward by the author.

disclaimer:  review copy received from the author