Seafire, by Natalie C. Parker

Seafire, by Natalie C. Parker, is a new YA speculative fiction story of a crew of female pirates who are fighting in a post-Apocalyptic world not for gold and glory, but to strike back at the asshole oppressors, patriarchal violent men with a leader who's the sort who wants to hold everyone in an iron fist, etc.  Caledonia, the main character, had to watch as her family's ship was destroyed by the Bullets (the oppressors soldiers)...and she had to live with the guilt that it was she who betrayed them (which she kind of did, though not on purpose).  But Caledonia and her friend and childhood shipmate Pieces decided to fight back.  They found other strong, smart young woman, rebuilt the ship, and took to the seas themselves, attacking the Bullets whenever possible.  But they are of course fighting against overwhelming odds, and don't even dream of "victory."  Yet as events unfold and they pass from danger into danger, still fighting back, they begin to think that hope might not be as impossible as it seemed....

I very much enjoyed the all female, found family of the crew.  Since there were 52 of them, we don't get to meet them all personally, just those who are close to Caledonia, but the ones we meet are interesting and unique, and contribute to the functioning of the ship and its missions each according to their strengths.  At times reading this I was reminded a little bit of classic naval warefare fiction (like the Hornblower books)--tricks and guile and strategy are more important than brute force of arms.  Yet Caledonia is no Hornblower--she doesn't rise to that level of brilliance, and it is her crew that comes forward with the ideas and initiatives needed (which is fine-go crew!).

Tension specific to the story (as opposed to the evil bad guy they have to fight tension) is provided when a young Bullet soldier begs for sanctuary.  Caledonia has his life in her hands, and it is hard for her not to kill him outright.  As well as providing moral and ethical struggle to the plot, this provides a romance sub-thread....a pleasing one, that I did not object to, though I found the relationships between the women, including one murmur of a lesbian relationship, more interesting because less predictable..

I didn't think this was the greatest book since sliced bread, mostly because I was frustrated by a fuzziness to the worldbuilding (I like more history, more backstory to how the bad guys came to power, the sort of thing that lets one imagine how they can be overthrown), and I was also frustrated that the women weren't thinking about end goals (being pirates is all very well, but where does it get you?), but this certainly leaves the story wide open for sequels!

Explorer Academy: The Nebula Secret, by Trudi Trueit

If you have kids around who love (or loved) the 39 Clues series (by which I mean kids who like to read about kids following clues on wild adventures around the world), who also love technology of the very cuttingest edge, and elite schools where high tech survival games are the core of the curriculum, here is good news--they will love the Explorer Academy series from National Geographic Kids Books!

The first book, The Nebula Secret, is out today.  It introduces the young hero, Cruz Coronado, a 12 year-old Mexian-American surfer dude from Hawaii whose mom used to work as a scientist at the Academy before she died in an accident there (a mysterious sort of accident....).  Cruz is accepted into the Academy (a place sort of like Hogwarts for science), and is thrilled to start training as an explorer with his diverse classmates from around the globe.  At first his days there are full of ordinary school-for-the-brilliant sort of happenings, and full of science-y goodness, but then Cruz starts picking up clues that his mother's death wasn't just a sad accident.

And so after this set up first volume, Cruz is launched into a dangerous hunt for the secret she hid from everyone but him...putting his own life in danger!

It's fun, fast, geeky, has lots of full color illustrations that help move things along briskly, and it should be a hit with its target audience.  Here's the book's website if you want to learn more!

nb--I stuck a science fiction label on it, because a lot of the tech is not exactly mainstream yet, but I have reservations about this because, as explained in a note at the end, it is within the realm of near-future possibility (4-D printing, for instance.....)

This week's round-up of middle grade sci f and fantasy from aroudn the blogs (9/2/18)

Here's what I gathered this week; please let me know if I missed your post!

But first--apply to be a judge for the Cybils Awards!  Spend your fall in a beautiful orgy of reading the children's/YA book genre of your choice, and discussing it frankly and lovingly with others! One especially fine category is Middle Grade Speculative Fiction, but there's also YA speculative fiction, which could use a few more applicants.....it might seem daunting to be given a list of 150 or so YA speculative fiction books to read in three months, but fear not!  Not every panelist has to read every book (every book is read by a minimum of 2 people, and with a panel of 7 readers, this cuts down the reading load tremendously), and if it becomes clear to you that a book is not one you're falling in love with, you don't have to force yourself to read it till the bitter end!  Plus if you're interested in the category, you've probably read a bunch of the books that will be nominated already.

The Reviews

Beggone the Raggedy Witches (Wild Magic 1), by Celine Kiernan, at Mom Read It

The Book of Boy, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, at Book Murmuration

The Boy, the Bird and the Coffin Maker, by Matilda Woods, at Magic Fiction 
Since Potter
City of Ghosts, by Victoria Schawb, at Fansided, Avid Reader, NJ Family, and Hypable

City of Islands, by Kali Wallace, at Charlotte's Library 

Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede, at Howl's Moving Library

Dogsbody, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Fantasy Literature

A Festival of Ghosts, by William Alexander, at Bookworm for Kids

Frostborn, by Lou Anders, at Say What?

The Girl in the Locked Room, by Mary Downing Hahn, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Missing (Shadow House 4), by Dan Pobleki, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Rose Legacy, by Jessica Day George, at Locus

The Scroll of Kings (The Lost Books 1), by Sarah Prineas, at Redeemed Reader

Sweep: the Story of a Girl and Her Monster, by Jonathan Auxier, at proseandkahn and Reading Rumpus

The Third Mushroom, by Jennifer L. Holm, at My Brain on Books

The Wild Robot, and The Wild Robot Escapes, by Peter Borwn, at The Whispering of Pages

The Wizard's Dog, by Eric Kahn Gale, at Susan Uhlig

Authors and Interviews

Rebekah Stelzer (The Queen and the Knights of Nor) at Chanticleer Book Reviews

Ginger Johnson (The Splintered Light) at Nerdy Book Club

A look at Joan Aiken's life and books at The New Yorker

Other Good Stuff

The latest news from Rick Riordan presents! Lots of new books announced;  basically a series of squees.

How to design a trashy mg book cover at YouTube

All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries 1), by Martha Wells

What with folks (Maureen and Rachel, in this case) whose book taste I share all enthusiastic about the Murderbot novellas of Martha Wells, it was only a mater of time before I started reading them.  And now I have read the first one, All Systems Red (Tor 2017), and want the second and third ones now, in that irrational sort of way someone with hundreds of books to reads wants the ones that aren't on hand.

From what I'd read about Murderbot, trying to avoid spoiling the series, I'd formed an impression of what the books were about--a killer robot, slightly snarky, who's gone rouge and enjoys escapist video watching more than murdering, who makes friends with a human woman in a sci fi adventure of some sort.  This was not entirely accurate.

Murderbot is the name the main character has given itself, although it is actually a Security unit and not designed or educated to kill.  It is neither a robot or a murderer, being instead a mix of the mechanical and living human-ness, and not having ever killed anyone in a murderous sort of way.  And rather than snark being its primary characteristic, shyness is.  The good human friend is true, though, and one of the best parts of the book is watching Murderbot let its guard down to trust and care about that person, and the other secondary character, who are really nice people.

I somehow missed acquiring any details about the actual story, which was, happily for me, one I liked.  Murderbot is working as a security guard for a group of scientists assessing an alien planet, a simple enough assignment until everything goes horribly wrong and it is all Murderbot can do to keep its team alive.  I don't like lots of description of excitements, and though there were plenty of tense things happening here, I didn't feel burdened by too much action, which I appreciated lots.  Murderbot's character held center stage throughout.

So if you like character-driven sci fi, do try these!  I'm going to be pressing this one on my 15 year old son this weekend--the short length of the book makes it a friendly introduction to exo-planet sci fi for the young reader who doesn't read as much as I think he should!  (the last exo-planet story he read was The Green Book, by Jill Patton Walsh, which is very good and which he loved, but clearly it's time for something new!).  I think the tension between Murderbot's status as mechanical property and the person-ness that is just as much a fact of its being will appeal.

Ranger in Time: Hurricane Katrina Rescue, by Kate Messner, for Timeslip Tuesday

Hurricane Katrina Rescue, by Kate Messner (Scholastic June 2018), is my first venture into  the Ranger in Time series for elementary/younger middle grade kids (this is the 8th book).  Ranger is a rescue dog who failed at the last step of his training because of squirrels.  But with the help of a magic first aid kit, which he keeps carefully stashed away from his human family, he travels through time to put his skills to good use.

In this most recent installment of the series, a girl named Clare is struggling to survive the horrific catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, which has flooded her home in the Ninth Ward.  She must keep herself and her grandmother alive while the water rises, until they are trapped first in the attic, and then up on the roof of the house....Ranger can't make all the dangers go away, but he can help, and does, and gradually Clare, her grandmother, and the dog make it to safety, in small, risky steps. Full page illustrations make it even easier to visualize what Clare is going through, although Kate Messner's writing makes everything vivid on its own!

It's the sort of time travel I think of as educational--using the conceit to coax kids who wouldn't be drawn to straight-up historical fiction into learning about the past.  Ranger adds tons of kid-appeal, and is helpful, but the story could exist without him in it.  This isn't a criticism of the book, just a thought on what sort of time travel it is!  Of course, another adventure to having a friendly rescue dog around is that it keeps the horror from being overwhelming; the fact there's a happy ending helps too.

As a story, it's a vivid portrayal of the devastated Ninth Ward, starring a particularly brave girl. A fast, gripping read.

City of Islands, by Kali Wallace

City of Islands, by Kali Wallace, takes readers on a  journey through the oceans between islands, where a young girl meets old magic...and must quickly learn to be part of it before it takes all that she loves away from her!  Actually, it takes readers on a journey to various islands, though there is much ocean travel involved (as islands demand), but I thought "through the oceans" sounded more poetic....

In any event.

12-year old Mara has been twice orphaned, first when her parents died when she was 5, and second when the eccentric bonemage, Bindy, who had been her foster mother, left home one night and never came back.  After a tense year scrounging in the fish market, she became a diver for one of the great ladies of the islands, search for relics of the founders, the sea people who built the city scattered on a small archipelago centuries ago with their magic.  The founders may be long gone (no one knows where, or why), but magical relics can still be found down in the depths, and some people of the islands have enough magic themselves to do small workings of their own.

Mara and her diving partner and best friend Izzy hope for an extraordinary find, one that might give them enough money to secure the futures they want--Izzy happily married with the young woman she loves, Mara getting the education in magic she's been longing for since she found out what magic was.  But the remarkable collection of fantastical bones they find that day when the story opens doesn't bring peace and plenty.  Instead, it cracks open what little stability their lives had.

The mystery of the bones draws them into the horror of magic being used by a man blinded by ambition for a truly ghastly purpose, one that combined with grotesque surgery leaves its victims monsterous...yet still themselves.  With Izzy and her other best friend, a boy named Fish Hook, are captured by that man, Mara must do everything she can to save them...before they too end up at the bottom of the ocean.  (note--horrible things are done to people, and there is no magical healing at the end, though there may be in future.  The courage of these victims, who may look strange and different, but don't hide what they are, is actually one of the most reaffirming parts of the book).

Fortunately Mara has more affinity to the magic of her world than she'd guessed at, but still it is touch and go, with a whole panoply of desperate deeds, fiendish magic, unlikely new friends, and unguessed at old betrayals....

It's a very gripping story, and the magic is truly fresh and memorable.  Part me also wants to praise the world building--the island city is also fresh and memorable--but the archaeologist in me wasn't satisfied that it was a sustainable maritime economy....I wanted more certainty that the author had thought out all the details of how things worked.  Greenwood Island, as shown on the map, is huge compared to the other islands, but it seems totally irrelevant to Mara's world, which is confined to smaller, stonier islands, built into cities by the founders' magic (and also, less importantly, to the island where the dead are laid to rest). And how do the rich elites stay rich and elite? Yes, they control magic, but where does this actually get them?  And are there reliable sources of freshwater? (these doubts could well just be grown-up me, and therefore irrelevant to the target audience experience).  

But my own doubts aside, Mara is an utterly engaging character, heroic without being unbelievable, talented without being in any way over the top in her gifts.  Like most of her fellow islanders, she has “brown skin, brown eyes, and curly black hair,” and the cover illustration of her does her lovely justice!

Kirkus gives this one a star, saying "Inspiration and excitement from beginning to end."  I would have held back on the star, but can't disagree with their conclusion.

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (8/28/18)

Here's this week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs; please let me know if I missed your post.

BUT FIRST--the call for 2018 Cybils Awards panelists is up!  Being a Cybils panelists is a really excellent way to explore a specific genre in depth, in the company of other readers who are ready to think hard, talk hard, and have a good time together! Middle Grade Speculative fiction is only one of the categories....and all of you who appear these round-ups on a regular basis should think about applying!

The Reviews

Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire, by John August, at Say What?

Bob, by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead, at proseandkahn

Burning Magic, by Joshua Kahn, at Say What?

The Cat and Mrs. Cary, by Doris Gates, at Charlotte's Library 

City of Ghosts, by Victoria Schwab, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Dactyl Hill Squad, by Daniel Jose Older, at Pages Unbound

Dragon Daughter, by Liz Flannagan, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

The House in Poplar Wood, by K.E. Ormsbee, at Waking Brain Cells

Joshua Dredd, by Lee Bacon, at Say What?

The Language of Spells, by Garett Wyer, at Kid Lit Geek

The Long-Lost Home (Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, #6) by Maryrose Wood, at Stray Thoughts

Ms. Mulligan and the Enchanted Ice Cream, by Tiffany Blaine, at Not in Jersey

Nevermore, by Jessica Townsend, at Real Life Reading

The Phantom Tower, by Keir Gratt, at Ms. Yingling Reads and Cover2Cover

The Scroll of Kings (Lost Books #1), by Sarah Prineas, at Elizabeth Fais

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster, by Jonathan Auxier, at Hidden In Pages

Wishtree, by Katherine Applegate, at Geo Librarian

You Wish: The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff, by Jason Lethcoe, at Tales from the Raven

Authors and Interviews

Gregory Funaro (Watch Hollow) at Literary Dust

Jonathan Rosen (From Sunset to Sunrise) at From the Mixed Up Files

A look at Alan Garner's new autobiography, Where Shall We Run To, at Magic Fiction Since Potter

Other Good Stuff

A birthday tribute for Percy Jackson, featuring the jewelry of the gods, at Elizabeth Van Tassel

The Cat and Mrs. Cary, by Doris Gates

The Cat and Mrs. Cary, by Doris Gates (1962), came into my home last weekend when my sister was visiting.  Every visit she sends me a list of a few books to check out of the Rhode Island library system (less ruthlessly weeded than those of many other states) for her, and this was one she'd read as a child and wanted to revisit.  So of course I read it too, and enjoyed it very much.

It's the story of an oldish woman, Mrs. Cary, a widow who has bought herself a little house by the sea, where she lives alone in perfect order.  Then one day a cat enters her life, a cat who can talk to her, and only her.  She'd never wanted a cat, but The Cat is a force to be reckoned with, and he has decided to stay.  Soon after she finds herself agreeing to  host her nephew, who's been badly ill, so that the sea air can revive him, even though she's very doubtful about this.

Brad, the nephew, is doubtful as well, but when he turns out to be a bookish, good-natured boy, Mrs. Cary is much relieved (as Brad is too when he finds out the same about her).  And Brad likes cats very much, so he and The Cat get along like a house on fire, even though they can't speak to each other.  Brad finds Mrs. Cary's one-sided conversations vastly amusing, though some of the neighbors have been startled by them....

The author clearly felt that Plot was needed, so into this gentle story comes Danger and Suspense, in the form of a (small) ring of....wait for it...Parakeet Smugglers!  Brad, Mrs. Cary, The Cat, and a girl also visiting the town foil the smugglers, and all ends well, with The Cat and Brad going home together and Mrs. Cary getting three kittens.

Although ostensibly a children's book, Mrs. Cary is definitely the main character (perhaps the children's book-ness is why her first name is never given), but this story of a woman more lonely than she admits to herself finding companionship has as much, if not more, appeal for grown-ups. Prefect reading when you need something companionable and undemanding, with bits of humor, if you can cope with/more or less ignore parakeet smuggling as a plot point.  I'll be returning it tomorrow, if any fellow Rhode Islanders are in the mood for such a book....

Gordon: Bark to the Future, by Ashley Spires (a PURST adventure for Timeslip Tuesday)

I utterly adored Binky the Space Cat, the first book of Ashley Spires PURST (Pets of the Universe Ready for Space Travel) graphic novels perfect for early elementary readers (who can read but still not up to large text blocks), but not having readers of that age in my life for a while now, I hadn't kept up with the series.   Browsing in my local library (where I try to check out a few books every time I go in to pick up all my holds so as to support circulation numbers) I was very pleased to find Gordon: Bark to the Future, the newest PURST book (Kids Can Press, May 2018), because it filled two immediate needs--a dog book (for possible use in post I'm working on elsewhere) and a time travel book that I could read in one night (because that is the planning level at which I operate).

Gordon shares a space station/house with Binky and Gracie, the cat commanding officer, working tirelessly to keep out alien invaders (house flies).  But disaster strikes! A horde of aliens descends, Binky is captured, and Gracie neutralized, so it's up to Gordon to save the day!

Gordon is not a PURST of vigorous action; he's a thinker, not a fighter, and on top of that he's a dog, with a short doggy attention span.  He is, however, not a bad scientist for a dog, and has on hand a working time machine!  He uses it to go back five years, to warn Binky so the disaster can be forestalled.  But things go badly wrong when he accidently meddles with the path of the past, and Binky never becomes a space cat.   He has to go back in time to try again...but doesn't have enough fuel.  Is everything doomed?  Of course not.

So it's a cute graphic novel for the young, and it's also a very nice introduction to time travel paradoxes and convolutions.  It might not be fully understood by the young reader, but I think the fact that the pictures show what's happening helps, and most young readers in my experience (basically me and my own children, so an admittedly limited sample) are happy to accept not understanding, absorbing rather than dissecting things that don't make sense.

Personally I liked the conceit of the original Binky book (that Binky just thinks he's a space cat, but isn't really) better than the actual sci fi story of this one.  I like cats better than dogs too (favorite part of this one-- seeing kitten Binky!).  But it's still fun.

Sort answer: a really good time travel story for a demographic with few time travel books to choose from.

Spell and Spindle, by Michelle Schusterman

Spell and Spindle, by Michelle Schusterman (Random House, middle grade, July 2018), is  an excellent pick for kids who like fairy-tale infused creepy noir! I liked it lots too, and found it both clever and moving.

The Museum of Peculiar Arts is shutting down.  The neighborhood around it has gentrified, and now that it's 1952, people aren't interested in the old oddities and curiosities that it holds.  11-year-old Chance loves it, though; he's been helping its old owner, Fortunato,  maintain it, and is especially fond of a Penny, a child-sized marionette, who's possible the last survivor of a legendary puppet show from long ago.  The museum's closing isn't the only big change Chance faces--his family is moving out of the city to one of the bright new suburbs, and Chance hates that idea. 

Penny is likewise unhappy.  Though wooden, she is alive inside...and though her memories are foggy, she knows she does not want to spend years in storage.

Then Forunato offers her to Chance...and he accepts.  When he touches her strings, he hears her voice inside his head, as clearly as she's always been able to hear him.  And then things get creepy. There's a villain in the piece, a puppeteer who is pulling many strings.  One string that he pulls swaps the spirits of Penny and Chance, and now it is his soul trapped in the wooden body, while Penny is free to be alive.  Being a decent person, she's appalled by Chance's fate, but has no clue how to swap back, and conflicted feelings about giving up her new life.

But Constance, Chance's big sister, figures out what's happened. And she is not conflicted at all--she's going to rescue her brother, using her pretty astounding gift of conviction (the sort of conviction that can change reality through shear determination).  And Chance, though for all intents and purposes a damsel in distress held by an evil warlock, is simultaneously doing his best to rescue himself, and his fellow imprisoned marionettes, using the tools he has--his ability to see, and to think (the narrative shifts between his point of view and the two girls).  Penny is also in need of rescue, though the exact particulars of the magic in which she is trapped are a mystery for most of the book, and she also helps with the rescue; not with ostentatious heroics, but mainly with her decency.  

So basically this is a book about three strong characters who are all very likeable, whose relationships are founded on sibling loyalty and complicated feelings about what it means to be alive, trapped in a magical mystery with a distinct touch of 1950s noir (for instance, a radio character named The Storm provides inspiration to the kids, and is alluded to, and even quoted, often).   There's an emotionally satisfying mystery to be unraveled that's bigger and more deeply rooted than the immediate situation.  It also has lots of nice gender-stereotype confrontations, like Chance's parents' dismay when he brings the marionette (basically a giant girl doll) home with him, and Constance's attitude toward fairy tales--"I just don't think it's fair.... that boys with magic are written as exceptionally smart, but girls with magic are written as exceptionally mean." (p 118)

Or as Kirkus (in agreement with me) says in its starred review:

"The beautifully creepy plot deftly weaves together old-time–y fears with fresh outlooks through richly realized characters who feel immediate and modern despite the 1952 setting. Especially well done is the approach to gender, as Chance, Penny, and Constance all struggle with different realities of embodiment and expression without resorting to cheap sentiment or heavy-handedness."

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (8/19/18)

A light week; perhaps I was not alone in not having much time for reading because of family visits, summertime fun, home renovation projects, and going to work.....Please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

Amulet Keepers (Tombquest #2), by Michael Northrup, at Say What?

The Brimstone Key (Clockwork Chronicles #1), by Derek Benz and J.S. Lewis, at Say What?

A Dragon's Guide to Making Your Human Smarter, by Laurence Yep and Joanne Ryder, at Say What?

Everland, by Wendy Spinale, at Prose and Kahn (audiobook review)

The Girl in the Locked Room: a Ghost Story, by Mary Downing Hahn, at The O.W.L.

The Language of Spells, by Garrett Weyr, at Read Till Dawn

The Rose Legacy, by Jessica Day George, at Kid Lit Geek and Pages Unbound.

The Law of Finders Keepers, by Sheila Tunage, at The Winged Pen 

Rune Warriors, by James Jennewein and Tom S. Parker, at Say What?

Serafina and the Black Cloak, by Robert Beatty, at The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow

Snared, by Adam Jay Epstein, at Geo Librarian

Sputnick's Guide to Life on Earth, by Frank Cottrell Boyce, at Always in the Middle

The Way Past Winter, by Kiran Milwood Hargrave, at alittlebutalot

two at alibrarymama--Aru Sha and the End of Time, and The Serpent's Secret

This week's roundup of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (8/12/18)

Welcome to this week's roundup of all the middle grade sci fi/fantasy blog posts I found; let me know if I missed yours!  Nothing from me this week, because instead of blogging I took my oldest boy to start his freshman year at Bard College, where I'm sure he'll be very happy, but sob.

The Reviews

Aru Sha and the End of Time, by Roshani Chokshi, at Indictoday

The Assassination of Grangwain Spurge, by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, at Prose and Kahn

Bites Back (Project Terra #2), by Landry Q. Walker, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Chalice of Immortality (Magickeepers 3), by Erica Kirov, at Say What?

Dactyl Hill Squad, by Daniel Jose Older, at The Booklist Reader

A Darkness of Dragons, by S.A. Patrick, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

 Dreaming Dangerous, by Lauren DeStefano, at Say What?

The Girl With the Dragon Heart, by Stephanie Burgis, at Chrikaru Reads

The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale, at Prose and Kahn

The House With Chicken Legs, by Sophie Anderson, at Hit or Miss Books

Ice Wolves, by Amy Kaufman, at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia

The Language of Spells, by Garret Weyr, at Redeemed Reader

The Legend of Greg, by Chris Rylander, at Redeemed Reader

Money Jane: The Hunt for a Legendary Magic Thief (How to Set the World on Fire #2), by T.K. Riggins, at Chanticleer Book Reviews

The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee, at Book Nut

The Scroll of Kings (The Lost Books #1), by Sarah Prineas, at Puss Reboots

The Selkie of San Francisco, by Todd Calgi Gallicano, at The Neverending TBR

The Surface Breaks, by Louise O'Neill, at What Vicky Read

Tilly and the Bookwanderers, by Anna James, at Alittlebutalot

Toaff's Way, by Cynthia Voigt, at Reading Rumpus

Tribute (The Cleaners #1), by Chris Knoblaugh, at Thrice Read Books

The Turning, by Emily Whitman, at Magic Fiction Since Potter

Authors and Interviews

Roshani Chokshi (Aru Sha and the End of Time) at The Story Sanctuary

Charlotte Salter (Where the Woods End) at The Winged Pen

Gavin Neale (The Price of Magic) at Read it, Daddy

Other Good Stuff

New in the UK, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Tom's Midnight Garden, by Philippa Pearce, adapted to graphic novel form by Edith, for Timeslip Tuesday

Tom's Midnight Garden, by Philippa Pearce, is a lovely classic timeslip story, and I'm thrilled that it's now out in the world as a beautiful graphic novel, from French artist Edith (Greenwillow, 2018).

Here's what I said in my post from years ago on the original book (published in 1958):

Tom had been looking forward to the summer vacation--he and his brother Peter had great tree house building plans. But when Peter came down with measles, Tom is sent off to stay with his uncle and aunt, in a small flat that had been chopped out of an old Victorian house. Unable to sleep, Tom is drawn downstairs by the grandfather clock in the hall outside striking thirteen, and opening the back door of the house, finds the Garden...

"a great lawn where flower-beds bloomed; a towering fir-tree, and thick, beetle-browed yews that humped there shapes down two sides of the lawn; on the third side, to the right, a greenhouse almost the size of a real house; from each corner of the lawn a path that twisted away to some other depths of garden with other trees."

Great and terrible is Tom's disappointment the next day, when he opens the same door and sees only dustbins--the land belonging to the old house had been built up years ago. But the next night, the clock strikes again, and Tom steps back again into the past when the garden still existed. There he meets small orphaned Hattie, who also longs for a playmate, and night after night they share the trees, the hiding places, the orchard, meadow, and river, and all the other things that every perfect garden has.

But time doesn't stay still. In the past, Hattie grows older, in the present, Tom grows more desperate to enjoy the garden before he has to go home, and his brother Peter grows lonelier. And at last, one night Tom opens the door, and the garden is no longer there.

This isn't a book where Lots of Things Happen. It is subtle in its buildup, and unhurried in its descriptions. The small adventures that Hattie and Tom have in the garden and its environs are not particularly strange and wonderful--but because these two children have become friends across time, each one suspecting that the other is a ghost, their encounters are magical. And because Pearce takes her time in describing each of Tom's visits to the garden, and describes at length as well Tom's daytime thoughts, as he tries to figure out what is happening, the reader gets to follow at Tom's pace, and appreciate it all along with him.

So I was curious to see if the graphic novel would be able to convey both the shear wonder of the garden, and the tight focus on what Tom is thinking.  Yes to both counts, although perhaps more successfully for the later.  Which is a bit ironic perhaps, but the garden the words built in my mind pretty much defies illustration.   Still it is beautiful.  And we really do get a very good sense of Tom in the daylight world struggling to make sense of what is happening, and the ending as presented here is I think even more successful than in the book; it is a bit more sustained and given a bit more weight by the juxtaposition of words and images.

So in short, yay for this wonderful opportunity for kids who wouldn't be drawn to an old English book to meet this lovely story!

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (8/5/18)

Here's what I found this week; please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

The Basque Dragon by Adam Gidwitz and Jesse Casey, at Geo Librarian

Bob, by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead, at Children's Books Heal

The Boy from Tomorrow, by Camille DeAngelis, at Charlotte's Library

Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu, at Confessions of a Bibliovore

The Door to the Lost, by Jaleigh Johnson, at Charlotte's Library

The Dragon of Lonely Island, by Rebecca Rupp, at Semicolon

Earth to Dad, by Krista Van Dolze, at Fantasy Literature

The End of  Infinity, by Matt Myklusch (Jack Blank #3), at Say What?

The Eternal Hourglass (Magickeepers 1) by Erica Kirov, at Say What?

The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty, at Hit or Miss Books

A Friendly Town That's Almost Always by the Ocean, by Kir Fox and M. Shelley Coats, at For Those About to Mock

The Griffin's Feather (Dragon Rider 2), by Cornelia Funke, at  Always in the Middle

The Frozen Telescope (The Uncommoners 3) by Jennifer Bell, at Magic Fiction Since Potter

The Long-Lost Map (Ulysses Moore 2) by Pierdomenico Baccalario, at Say What?

Loot, by Jude Watson, at The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow

The Pyramid of Souls (Magickeepers 2), by Erica Kirov, at Say What?

Small Spaces, by Katherine Arden, at Fuse #8

Spell and Spindle, by Micheller Schusterman, at Rajiv's Reviews

Spindrift and the Orchid, by Emma Trevayne, at Say What?

The Thorn Queen, by Elise Holland, at Say What?

The Train of Lost Things, by Ammi-Joan Paquette, at Michelle I. Mason

Willa of the Wood, by Robert Beatty, at A Backwards Story

Winterhouse, by Ben Guterson, at Rajiv's Reviews


Authors and Interviews

Four authors, including MG fantasy writer Zetta Elliott, talk about self-publishing, at Jane Friedman

The Door To the Lost, by Jaleigh Johnson

The Door To the Lost, by Jaleigh Johnson (Delecorte, July 2018), is one of the strongest middle grade (for 9-12 year olds) fantasies I've read so far this year.  Magic, character, world-building, and plot all work just beautifully together.

Rook is the child of a magical people who came to her current world through a portal.  Her people brought magical wonders with them, and magic was everyone's darling, until the portal closed in an explosion of magic that had horrible consequences.  Just before the explosion, a boatload of children came through from the world of magic, arriving with no memories of their former lives, into a world that now looked at magic fear and suspicion.  Rook was one of those children, who made her own way off into the world, and now she is an exile

An exile with magic.

Rook can make portals with chalk, that open to wherever she wishes them too.  She uses them to escape the security forces of the town that's her base of operations, and to help others in trouble with the authorities get away.   The door she uses most, though, leads to a refuge she shares with another exiled girl, Drift.  It's a space with no other way in or out, and it is their nest.

But the one door Rook can't seem to draw is the door that will lead her and Drift back to their own true home.  And lately Rook's doors haven't cooperated as well as they should.  Doors keep opening into a snowy woods she can't  recognize.  And then one day a shapeshifting fox boy comes out the woods, into Rook's town....and Rook and Drift, with barely enough money for themselves, have another mouth to feed.

That's the set-up.  What happens next is the arrival on the scene of a strangely powerful woman who would use the girls and their magic to open a portal back to the magical homeworld, even though it means taken them on a journey through the Wasteland, the epicenter of the magical cataclysm.  Many adventures ensue, friendships are tested, new friends are made.

Though there's lots of magic (the best sort of middle grade fantasy magic, that doesn't come with instructions, but has to be worked with), and lots of adventuring, at its heart this is a "best friends in exile" story, with a generous dash of "found family" theme, where the magic and adventure serve the emotional arc, instead of taking it over.

Kirkus gave it is star, calling it "your new favorite fantasy." I wouldn't go quite that far, but I do recommend it highly. 

The Boy from Tomorrow, by Camille DeAngelis, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Boy from Tomorrow, by Camille DeAngelis (Amberjack Publishing, middle grade, May  2018), is the sort of book that makes me glad I went with "timeslip" instead of "time travel" for my Tuesday postings, because there isn't any time travel (in the sense of people popping out of their time into someone else's), but time gets very slippery indeed!

Alec and his mom have moved from the city out into an old house in a small town after his parents split up.  It's a lovely old house, full of secrets...not the least of which is an old Ouija board.   Fooling around with the board one night with a new friend, Danny, Alec opens up a line of communication to Josie, the girl who lived in the house 100 years ago, and they become friends across time.  Josie has left letters for Alec to find, filling in details of her life, and when the Ouija board is replaced by a phonograph that lets them actually talk, their friendship becomes even more real.

Josie's life is not happy; her spiritualist mother is cruel and downright abusive to her little sister Cassie.  And Alec can only watch from 100 years away...distracting the girls with stories and songs not yet written, and finding more about their lives in the library archives, though he can't bring himself to find out everything....he doesn't want to know, and neither does she.  But Josie and Alec both know that she and Cass must escape their terrible mother and the virtual imprisonment in which they live, even though it will end their friendship.

And so the ending is bittersweet, with one final letter coming to wrap up all the loose ends long after she has died.

It's told in alternating perspectives of the two kids, so that the reader gets to see both sides of this strange friendship.  It's almost like reading two different overlapping stories, because the characters and their lives are so beautifully delineated and just right for their particular time periods.  External interest in Josie's side of things is added by her mother's spiritualism (she's rather famous, and good at what she does), and on Alec's side of things by his having to cope with his parent's divorce and his new life.  There's a generous dollop of creepiness, though never going over the edge into supernatural horror, although Cass's doll, with whom she has a physic bond that is more than a bit disturbing, comes close.

In short, it is rather a magical book, blending contemporary and historical fiction beautifully!  "Spellbinding." says Kirkus.

(sigh.  Instead of interesting letters about their lives left by my boys in our own old house, children of days to come will find, hidden in the walls, little notes saying "you are stupid" and other witty jests.)

Two fun underwater picture books

Sometimes it's a nice change when the books you get in the mail, unasked for and unexpected, are picture books!  Especially when they are fun, and rather relatable, picture books such as one can happily write about.  Both are by Carrie Bolin and Jessica Firpi, illustrated by John Graziano, from Ripley Publishing (May 2018).

Bremner and the Party is the story of a puffer fish who becomes just a mess of nerves when he gets a party invitation.  All those horrible anxieties many of us feel are his--will he be too early? too late? will everyone else know each other?  and so forth.  But he has one anxiety that is more particular to him--will he puff up if  the stress gets to be too much?  He bravely goes to the party anyway, and sure enough, he puffs....but many other guests are puffer fish too, and they join him, and all is well!  Though most of us don't puff, we might well have other quirks that make us feel different and awkward, so it's a nice message that other people might be dealing with similar things, and you can be social and make new friends regardless!  A nice reminder for all shy readers that they probably aren't alone in feeling dread when facing the prospect of a party, and that quite possibly they will have a good time after all.

Sharkee and the Teddy Bear starts with a teddy bear falling into the ocean...Sharkee has never seen one before, but he wants it, and now it has sunk out of sight, so he drags his fishy friend by the fin to ask all sorts of other sea creatures if they have seen it.  A fairly standard, but gently humous, hunt ensues, leading to an ending of surprising sweetness when the bear is found, cradled in the many arms of a baby octopus.  Sharkee is tempted to be fierce, and take it by force, but instead he snuggles down and cuddles both the bear and the octopus....

In short, two pleasant and entertaining picture books!

(I was surprised they are from Ripley, but this mystery was solved when I cleverly read the jacket--the heroes of both books are mascots at Ripley's aquariums, the shark in the US and the puffer fish in Canada).

This week's round-up of middle grade science fiction and fantasy from around the blogs (7/29/18)

Welcome to this week's round-up; please let me know if I missed your post!

The Reviews

Across the Dark Water (Riders of the Realm 1), by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez, at Dogpatch Press

The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, at Booklist Reader

Bob, by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead, at Geo Librarian

The Boggart Fights Back, by Susan Cooper, at The Booklist Reader

A Chase in Time, by Sally Nicholls, at Minerva Reads

The Door to Time (Ulysses Moore 1), by Pierdomenico Baccalario, at Say What?

Dragons in a Bag, by Zetta Elliott, at Say What?

Ends of the Earth (School for Spies 3), by Bruce Hale, at Say What?

The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. Holm, at Pages Unbound

The Girl With the Dragon Heart, by Stephanie Burgis, at Family Bookworms

Ghost Boys, by Jewell Parker Rhodes, at Books My Kids Read

The Lost Continent (Wings of Fire 11), by Tui T. Sutherland, at Hidden in Pages and Charlotte's Library

Night Flights, by Philip Reeve, at Magic Fiction Since Potter

The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt, at The Book Smugglers

The Secret War (Jack Blank 2) by Matt Myklusch, at Say What?

The Turning, by Emily Whitman, at Charlotte's Library

The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery by Allison Rushby, at The Children's War

TwoSpells, by Matt Morrison, at Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers

The Very Little Princess, by Marion Dane Bauer, at Tales from the Raven

Two Han Solo books, at Boys Rule Boys Read

Authors and Interviews

Armand Baltazar (Timeless – Diego And The Rangers Of The Vastlantic) at The Geekiverse

Kim Ventrella (Bone Hollow) at Watch.Connect.Read.

K.A. Reynolds (The Land of Yesterday) at Literary Rambles

Other Good Stuff

Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain Tells a Fresh Story with Old Tropes at Tor

It is almost August, and that means the call for Cybils Judges is right around the corner!  If you want to be part of a really great reading experience, get ready to apply!   That means making sure you have reviews up on your reviewing platform of choice for the category you're interested in (like, for instance, middle grade speculative fiction, the category that I'll be chairing again this year).  Here's an older post I wrote about why you should apply, and you can learn more at the Cybils website.  You're also welcome to ask me questions directly!

24 Hour Readathon--Intro post plus Wings of Fire: the Lost Continent

Hi I'm Charlotte, reading from Rhode Island.  There is no particular book I'm hoping to read: I'm hoping the 24 Hour Readathon this weekend will help me make progress in general; the thought of spending a good chunk of tomorrow eating ice cream and reading is very appealing!  It is horribly muggy here in Eastern Standard Time....

Half an hour into reading, I've finished the book I was on--Wings of Fire: The Lost Continent, by Tui T. Sutherland (Scholastic, middle grade, June 2018).   This is the latest installment in a long-running and very, very popular series of books about young dragons.  There are several series-es, each starring a fresh group of young dragon characters, and The Lost Continent is the start of a new set of adventures.  So it's a reasonable place to start your Wings of Fire reading, if you really don't want to go back to the beginning (The Dragonet Prophecy; here's my review).

The Lost Continent wasn't, of course, lost to the tribes of dragons who already lived there, and young readers who love all the care and attention paid to making each tribe of dragons distinct and special will love meeting three new varieties of dragon.  It wouldn't be much of a story, though, if the three groups of dragons lived in harmony and nothing happened.  So, as it is the case throughout the books, there is bitter and unjust conflict in which bad things happen to good dragons.  There is also genocide and the worst dragon-racial injustice of any of the previous books.  This made it hard reading, especially at first, because until I got invested in the particular dragon characters, I wasn't at all sure I wanted to spend time with the Hivewings and the Silkwings (the Tree Wings weren't on those first few pages, because genocide).

But Blue, the young Silkwing who's the central protagonist, grew on me, and then he teams up with Cricket, a most unconventional Hivewing who is my most favorite dragon of the whole series.  She is smart and sharp and thinks for herself and loves books and questions things, which makes her a great candidate for an important role in the revolution!  It makes her a good balance for Blue, as well--he's an interesting sort of hero, because he doesn't actually want to cause trouble; he wants to cooperate.  When he realizes that cooperation is no longer an option., because of terrible circumstances, he has to practice very hard at not following rules.

And once again I find myself in the position of closing the book, and wanting the next one now!  Especially since, as we knew would happen from reading the ending  reading the previous series, Moon gets to enter this story too!

I just looked back at my review of The Dragonet Prophecy, and see that I said:

But even beyond those details of story, what pleased even cynical me most was that there were themes here that I was happy to have my son think about--loyalty to friends transcending blind loyalty to tribe, the need to empathize with other points of view, the need to try your best to shape your own destiny, and not be someone's tool, and the senselessness of war.

and I continue, with this new adventure, to appreciate the way in which Tui T. Sutherland can make readers think, and care, and want to change, bad and difficult things without being preachy, and to show darkness, but with the hope that it can be lifted.

The Turning, by Emily Whitman

The Turning (Greenwillow, July 24, 2018) is Emily Whitman's first foray into middle grade, and I hope there will be more mg to come from her!

This is the story of Aran, a boy born to a selkie mother, who is late to take his own seal form.  He keeps up with his seal kin as best he can; even though he's not able to become a seal, he is still a phenomenal swimmer, and doesn't suffer from the cold.  But he's growing too big for his mother to help him travel for long distances, and his kin are beginning to worry that he'll never become truly one of them (after all, his father was human), and he might even pose a danger to their survival (a boy swimming with seals attracts attention....)  When his mother sets out on a long distance mission to seek council from the wise elders far to the north, she reluctantly finds a human home in which he can wait for her.  And so Aran must live as a human boy...

It is hard.  The minutia of being human (the cloths, the food, the daily life) are difficult, but more worryingly, Maggie, the woman he's staying with has a husband, prone to drunken violence, and though he's out at sea, there's the risk he might come back before Aran's seal mother does.  He makes a good friend, a bi-racial girl named Penny, who he learns to trust, and he learns to read, discovering the magic of books with her and her grandfather.  Being human isn't so terrible after all, but the call of the sea is strong, and Aran longs to swim again with his selkie family.

And then his mother doesn't come back when she promised too.  And the drunken husband comes home, and Maggie's life is in danger.  Aran flees out into the open ocean, with only the moon for company, but he can only swim so far....

Fortunately, there's a happy ending that makes the worrying worthwhile!  (Kirkus really didn't like the ending, for what it is worth, but I think that is a perfect ending for young middle grade readers!)

Give this one to myth and magic loving, dreamy sort of readers on the younger middle grade side (9-10 year olds), who will be entranced by Aran's life as both boy and seal child.  Though of course the particulars of Aran's situation won't be shared by those readers, his difficult situation of growing up into a conflict of who he's expected to be, who he wants to be, and who he's going to be able to become is deeply relatable.  Aran's naivete is understandably great, and young readers, with the advantage of having lived as humans their whole life, will be moved by his journey toward understanding and accepting his dual identity.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher