One Word Kill, by Mark Lawrence, for Timeslip Tuesday

One Word Kill, by Mark Lawrence (47North, May 2019) , is a time travel story in which changes to the past create multiple timelines.  It's the story of 15 year old Nick, a math genius who enjoys playing D. and D. with his three buddies, and what happens when a girl, Mia, joins the game.  It's the story of Nick finding out he has cancer.  These concerns, even the fact that Nick might be dying, are back-burnered when a strange man starts stalking Nick, telling him that Mia is in danger and needs his help.

Saving future Mia involves a dangerous heist, and it also involves surviving the violent attentions of a gang of drug-dealing thugs, one of whom is a true psychopath.  Fortunately, the strange man is there to help when things get really ugly.

Turns out (and this isn't much of a spoiler, because it's told to the reader fairly early on) that this stranger is Nick from the future, come back to save future Mia.  Though his timeline's Mia might be in jeopardy, there are many many timelines in which this won't be the case, but future Nick is concerned only about saving the one Mia he knows, so he can't alter his own past too much, or he'll simply go off on a different timeline.  It's a delicate balance, and a delicate premise for the reader to except, because future Nick is making choices that present Nick can't entirely condone, choices that bring tragedy to one of the D. and D. boys.

It's not one that was exactly to my personal cup of tea-the heist and the violence of the gang members, and my inability to embrace future Nick's plans kept me from truly enjoying it.  That's a mater of taste, though, and not a criticism of the book.   It was fun going back to the 1980s, though, and the characters were great. Nick, being thoughtful and smart, and with a mathematical brain, adds a philosophical depth to the rushing around; here's a quote that captures, pretty well, how he's thinking:

"The equations that govern the universe don't care about 'now'. You can ask them questions about this time or that time, but nowhere in the elegance of their mathematics is there any such thing as 'now'. The idea of one specific moment, one universal 'now' racing along at sixty minutes an hour, slicing through the seconds, spitting the past out behind it and throwing itself into the future... that's just an artefact of consciousness, something entirely of our own making that the cosmos has no use for."

This sort of digression seems like it might slow things down, but it actually helps the story stay conherent, keeping the larger time-travel element of the plot in the forefront of the reader's attention.  

The relationship between Nick and Mia starts to become a romance, but given the circumstances, it doesn't get very far, so on that grounds this would be fine for younger tween-ish readers.  It's also quite short, and quite fast-paced (albeit with the aforesaid digressions), so it is not a daunting book, though it does require some focus to wrap your mind around it all.  Kids who want to read it for the D. and D. might feel a bit sore when gaming gives way to real life adventures, but what there is of the game is solid (and the book's title refers back to a spell that's important to the game...).

It's a self-contained story, but leaves room for more.  And indeed it's on Goodreads as "Impossible Times #1" so more should be coming, which pleases me.

The week's round-up of middle grade science fiction and fantasy from around the blogs (7/28/19)

Here's what I found this week; please let me know of anything I missed!

(It may not be the longest list of links ever, but still I visited three blogs new to me and found two books I'd not yet heard of, so that's a win in my book!)

The Reviews

Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer, at Madison's Inkwell

The Bad Luck Lighthouse, by Nicki Thornton, at thereaderteacher

Bad Order, by B.B. Ullman, at Always in the Middle

Banneker Bones and the Alligator People, at Charlotte's Library

Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book, by Jennifer Donnelly, at Pages Unbound

Bone Garden by Heather Kassner, at Log Cabin Library 

The Camelot Code, by Mari Mancusi, at Cover2Cover

Carnival Catastrophe (The Problim Children #2) by Natalie Lloyd, at Log Cabin Library

Changling (The Oddmire #1), by William Ritter, at Carina's Books, Young Adult Books-What We're Reading Now, and Howling Libraries

Darkwood, by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch, at Rachel Neumeier

The Dragon in the Library, by Louie Stowell, at Book Craic

The Morganas and the Jewel of Bar-Ran, by K.T. Dady, at A Garden of Books

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, by Jessica Townsend, at proseandkahn (audiobook review)

Outwalkers, by Fiona Shaw, at Hidden in Pages

The Root of Magic by Kathleen Benner Duble, at proseandkahn and The Book Monsters

A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying, by Kelly Armstrong, at Sharon the Librarian

The Simple Art of Flying, by Cory Leonardo, at This Kid Reviews Books

The Strangers, by Margaret Peterson Haddix, at Becky's Book Reviews

Through the Untamed Sky (Riders of the Realm #2), by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez, at Say What?

The Tzar's Curious Runaways, by Robin Scott-Elliot, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Until the Celebration (Green Sky #3), by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, at Say What?

Urchin of the Riding Stars (Mistmantle Chronicles #1), by M.I. McAllister, at Redeemed Reader 

Authors and Interviews

Chris Colfer (A Tale of Magic) at USA Today








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Banneker Bones and the Alligator People, by Rob Kent

Banneker Bones and the Alligator People, by Rob Kent (Create Space, May 2019) brings 11-year-old cousins Banneker and Ellicott back for a second action packed adventure!  No sooner had they foiled an evil plot involving giant robot bees, as told in their first book  (my review), then they are caught up in an even eviler one.   

When they set off flying on their jet packs that night (Banneker is a mad inventor extraordinaire), little did they know they end up following an alligator person into the city sewer!  It didn't go well, but worst of all, no one believes they were attacked by an alligator person.   Possibly this is because Banneker, never one to pass up a chance for the spotlight, proclaims on tv that "This is the start of the alligator people apocalypse!" 

It's actually not, though the alligator people are indeed real, and they are indeed unhappy with the non-alligator people.  The real villain of the piece is an incredibly wealth and powerful man who puts getting even more wealth and more powerful ahead of anything else, including his family.  Banneker might have a nice arsenal of technology and cool gadgets, but the villain has an army of robots and an even greater arsenal.  Banneker, though, has a brain, and he has Ellicott, who provides additional brain power, and a rational balance to Banneker's excess (possibly it's more accurate to say that Ellicott, the real hero of the series, has Banneker as a sort of incredibly powerful loose cannon).  

The book reads as a sort of celebration of the wild fictions of the National Enquirer, mixed with the feel of vintage action and adventure comics.  Lots of kapows!  Lots of robots and jet packs and fabulous wealth.  Lots of "alligator people amongst us."  And kids who love page turning excitement will find plenty here to keep the pages turning.

As well as the obvious (it didn't need to be belabored to be right there in the story) "family is actually more important than wealth" and "there are lines that shouldn't be crossed when pursuing wealth and power"  messages, there's also a more weighty side the story, though, about the ethics of genetic manipulation, and about the rights of non-human persons).  And in the midst of their adventures, Banneker, seen from the outside, and Ellicott, whose point of view the reader shares,  come alive to the reader as interesting characters.

So all this to say that Rob Kent seems to me to have done a really good job of writing the sort of story he wanted to write, and I can imaging lots of readers loving it!  That being said, it isn't actually my personal favorite type of book (I enjoy books in which people stay quietly at home, indulging in simple, domestic pastimes--weeding the garden, going shopping in the village, bantering with clever siblings, perhaps an exciting walk up the hill,, etc.) And this is most emphatically not that sort of book, which, depending on your own taste, either adds appeal or does not.

(for those looking for diverse characters, Bannecker's biracial-- his mom is black, his dad white).  He also has a slew of non-neurotypical characteristics, that don't define him but are part of his being who is). 

(for those leery of self-published books because of bad experiences reading poorly edited prose--there is no need for any worry in that regard!  I am easily annoyed by mistakes (my own included) and was not troubled once during my reading!)

disclaimer: review copy received from the author, who I've known through his blog, Middle Grade Ninja, for years and years.

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (7/21/19)

Here's what I found this week; please let me know of anything I missed!

The Reviews

Amelia Fang Books 1 and 2 Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball and Amelia Fang and the Unicorns of Gliteropolis), by Laura Ellen Anderson, at Word Spelunking

Aru Shah and the Song of Death, by Roshani Chokshi, at Reading Books with Coffee

Asha and the Spirit Bird, by Jasbinder Bilan, at Way Too Fantasy

Battle of the Beetles, by M.G. Leonard, at Arkham Reviews

The Big Foot Files, by Lindsay Eager, at Puss Reboots

Bob, by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead, at Milliebot Reads

Bonefires and Broomsticks, by Mary Norton, at Fantasy Literature

Changling (The Oddmire Book 1), by William Ritter, at J.R.'s Book Reviews, Forever Lost In Literature, Books and Wafffles

Genie in a Bottle (Whatever After #9), by Sarah Mlynowski at Jill's Book Blog

The Girl of Ink and Stars, by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, at Book Craic

The Maker of Monsters, by Lorraine Gregory, at Book Craic

Midsummer's Mayhem, by Rajani LaRocca, at books4yourkids

Moonlocket (The Cogheart Adventures #2), by Peter Bunzl, at Log Cabin Library

Music Boxes, by Tonja Drecker, at Storeybook Reviews

The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away, by Ronald L. Smith, at Rosi Hollinbeck

The Rambling, by Jimmy Cajoleas, at Looking Glass Reads

The Root of Magic, by Kathleen Benner Duble, at Cracking the Cover

Serafina and the Seven Stars, by Robert Beatty, at Sharon the Librarian

The Twelve, by Cindy Lin, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Wild Lands, by Paul Greci, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Authors and Interviews

Ronald L. Smith (The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away) at Charlotte's Library

William Ritter (The Oddmire) at From the Mixed Up Files

Other Good Stuff

"So Your Kid is Reading Harry Potter... a Christian Family's Response" at Redeemed Reader

The call for Cybils Award judges will be coming soon (mid August).  Visit the Cybils Instagram for tips on how to prepare! If your interested in being a panelist for middle grade speculative fiction (the category I run), and have questions, please let me know! charlotteslibrary at gmail dot com (it feels very old school to write email address this way; is it still necessary?)

and finally,  I have a new kitten!  Here is little Meeple (this is actually a color picture; a symphony of gray...)

The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away, by Ronald L. Smith (review and interview)

I first had the pleasure of meeting Ronald L. Smith at Kidlitcon back in 2015 (PSA--come to Kidlitcon 2020 in Ann Arbor next March!).  His first middle grade book, Hoodoo, a tale of supernatural horror in the south, had just been published, and I enjoyed it very much (my review).  I likewise enjoyed The Mesmerist (2017), about kids fighting evil in 19th century London (my review).  I never reviewed Black Panther: the Young Prince (2018)….someday I will.  So in any event, I was very excited about his most recent book, The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away (Clarion Books, February 2019).

This is the story of an air force kid, Simon, son of a black mom and a white dad, who's obsessed with aliens.  He's convinced owl-like aliens have arrived, watching and experimenting on humans.  His family has no time or patience for aliens, so Simon is alone with his fears of the Grays, as he calls them.  When something very strange happens on a camping trip with his dad, Simon is convinced he was targeted by the aliens, and that a chip has been implanted in his stomach.

Are the aliens a projection of Simon's own anxieties (he feels his father is disappointed in his lack of athleticism, fondness for gaming, and his social insecurity), or are they a real threat, that no one else around him believes in?  His parents think his fears are psychological, and take him to a psychiatrist who medicates him, but Simon doesn't cooperate.   Readers must keep guessing; Simon's other obsession, the fantasy book he's writing, makes it clear that he's a tremendously imaginative, creative person, and are the Grays simply another story he's telling himself?

Whether or not the aliens are real, Simon's distress certainly is, and the scary tension keeps growing throughout the book!  Young fans of sci fi horror creeping into our world will love it, especially those who feel that the grown-ups don't take them seriously.

Here are some questions I had for Ronald L. Smith, that he graciously answered.

What inspired you to write Owls? 

Well, I have a lot of ideas brewing in my brain. I thought it would be cool to try something more contemporary than my other books. I have an unhealthy fascination with UFOs and aliens so I thought it would be a good subject. Also, the book is set on an Air Force base, which is where I spent my life growing up. There is a whole subculture around military bases that people don’t know about. It’s a certain way of life. Since I know it well I thought it would provide a good backdrop. Also, aliens and UFOs are a timeless subject.

Part of what makes Owls so interesting is the uncertainty about the whether the aliens are real or not.  When you started writing Owls, did you know which way you were going to go?

Yes. But the book also changed a little in edits. The big idea stayed true to what I envisioned. 

Likewise, although Owls is a middle grade book (9-12 year olds) it felt to me like it could easily have been born a Young Adult book....did you always think of it as middle grade, or were there times it wanted to be YA?  (would you like to write YA?)

I always thought of it as MG. That’s the category I like most. It would be a little different, though, if it were YA. My main character, Simon, would have had different hopes and fears. A younger protagonist allowed me to tap into the mind of a twelve-year-old and imagine how he would handle such a weird subject. As to writing YA, I have some ideas. Maybe one day!

(a question for those of us who have read the book...) Do you think the ending is entirely happy?  

Well, I’ll leave that one up to the reader. It’s hopeful but also kind of disturbing! 

Which of your books did you most enjoy writing, and what are you working on now?

Oh, wow. I’m sure you know the answer, as you’ve interviewed a lot of writers. I can’t really say which is my favorite. They all have their challenges and bright spots. I really enjoyed writing Owls. It was fun to write something contemporary but with one disturbing—albeit big—element to it. My next book is called GLOOMTOWN. It’s a fantasy novel about two kids named Rory and Isabella who live in a town called Gloom. The sun never shines there. But there’s a reason for that. There’s also a creepy mansion called Foxglove Manor, Black Sea mariners, a carnival and a scary group called Arcanus Creatura. It’s gonna be fun! 

Finally, any advice for young writers and/or young believers in aliens? 

For young writers, read a lot. Fiction. Nonfiction. Comics. Graphic novels. Memoirs and biographies. Newspapers. Just read. Reading is your best teacher. Share your work with like-minded friends and writers. Try to write a little each day, even if it’s just your own thoughts. And if you believe in aliens, you’re not alone! (See what I did there?) 

Thank you, Ronald!  I'll look forward to Gloomtown.  I love creepy mansions!

The Square Root of Summer, by Harriet Reuter Hapgood, for TImeslip Tuesday

For those of us for whom summer feels faintly unreal, with its langerous heat and the disaloution of the routines of the school year, and all the work that needs doing outside, here's a romantic timeslip story of in which reality does indeed become unraveled. The Square Root of Summer, by Harriet Reuter Hapgood (Roaring Brook Press 2016), is a story of a teenaged girl's grief and growing-up, the wormholes that are moving her back and for from her past to her present, and her efforts to understand what's happening through math and introspection.

 Last summer, Gottie (short for Margot) lost her grandfather, the cornerstone of her family. Before that, she lost her childhood soulmate, Thomas, when he moved away and left her with a hole in her memory. After that, she lost her heart to her older brother's friend Jason, who ended up dumping her. Now Thomas and Jason are both back in her life, but she is unsure of where her heart stands in relationship to them. And her bottled-up unhappiness and uncertainty is pushing her away from her best friend Sophia.

When wormholes to her past start opening up in front of Gottie, the cork to her bottled-up feelings is popped. And as she revisits her past, though she's mostly just a spectator, things change. Some seem like changes of the better--chance to fix mistakes. Other changes seem disastrous. Gottie, fascinated by theoretical physics, tries to make mathematical sense of what the universe is doing around her, but instead finds both the math, and her forced introspection, starting to make more sense of her own life and choices. And so in the end she comes to the point of being able to hold on to real love, while still mourning what has been lost. I loved Margot's fascination with math. It didn't made mathematical sense to me, but since I figured it wouldn't I didn't try hard; on the other hand, I liked reading the math, and it did work for me as metaphor (although almost everything works for me as metaphor...). I liked the way the time slips played out, forcing Gottie to look at her past choices and how they continue to play out. I wasn't quite convinced that her grief was sufficient catalyst for it all to happen, as us readers are led to believe, but whatever (catalyst shmatalyst, as long as it's a good story). And I'm never really a fan of childhood best beloved friend morphing into true love, but again, it worked for the story. I was somewhat thrown off at first by Americanisms; in a book by an English author set in England I don't expect to find college, kindergarten, and Jello....but the Americanisms only caught my eye the first part of the book, as if some Anglo-averse editor lost interest, because "jumper" instead of sweater, for instance, appeared later on...On the other hand, it's been thirty years since I lived in England, and so maybe they do say college to mean university more commonly these days. Short answer--not my favorite time slip YA, but a pleasant romantic story with interesting time slip physics.

this week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (7/14/19)

Here's what I found this week; please let me know of anything I missed!

The Reviews

And All Between (Green Sky #3), by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, at Say What?

The Book of Dust, by Philip Pullman, at Girl With Her Head in a Book

Brightstorm, by Vashti Hardy, at Charlotte's Library

Changling (the Oddmire #1), by William Ritter, at Metalphantasmreads, Storythreads, and Bookworm for Kids

The Haunting of Henry Davis, by Kathryn Siebel, at From My Bookshelf

The House with Chicken Legs, by Sophie Anderson, at Arkham Reviews

The Longest Night of Charlie Moon, by Christopher Edge, at Middle Grade Mafia

The Lost Tide Warriors, by Catherine Doyle, at Book Craic 

The Magic Bed-Knob, by Mary Norton, at Fantasy Literature

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, by Jessica Townsend, at Heather's Reading Hideaway

The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, at Read Till Dawn

Serafina and the Seven Stars, by Robert Beatty, at the B and N Kids Blog

Ship Rats: A Tale of Heroism on the High Seas, by Rhian Waller, at Nayu's Reading Corner

Simon Grey and the March of a Hundred Ghosts, by Charles Kowalski, at The Reading Bud

A Small Zombie Problem, by K.G. Campbell, at Lost in Storyland, Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers,  and From My Bookshelf

Authors and Interviews

Kara LaRue (The Bland Sisters series) at From the Mixed Up Files

Rajani LaRoca (Midsummer's Mayhem) at Taleoutloud and Michelle I. Mason

Caroline Carlson (The Door at the End of the World) at Stephanie Burgis

Nicole Valentine (A Time-Traveller's Theory of Relativity) at My Brain on Books

Juliette Forrest (The True Colours of Coral Glen) at thereaderteacher.com

Other Good Stuff

What's new in the UK, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

A booklist of favorite mice at Redeemed Reader

Disney news rounded up at A Backwards Story

"A Debut Middle-Grade Author's Life-Changing Tweet" at Publishers Weekly

Congratulations to Cressida Cowell, just named Waterstones Children's Laureate for the coming year!

The Kitten Kingdom is a fun new fantasy series for elementary readers

I don't tend to seek out books for early elementary grade kids, but I'm by no means averse to reading them when they come my way (not just because it's a fast way to notch a few more books read with an eye to meeting my Goodreads goal for the year).  I just read the first two books in a new series for kids 5-8ish--Kitten Kingdom: Tabby's First Quest, and the second book, Tabby and the Pup Prince, by Mia Bell (Scholastic, May 2019) and am happy to recommend them!

Tabby is a kitten princess, but she and her brothers sometimes find it hard to behave with royal decorum (they are kittens, after all).  And Tabby dreams of having wild adventures...One day an adventure falls into the kittens' paws when the evil lord of the rats, Gorgonzola, steals the magic scroll that confers the power to rule on their parents.  If it isn't recovered, the rats will take over the kingdom of Mewtopia!  So Tabby squelches a bit of self-doubt and transforms herself and her brothers into heroes (the Whiskered Wonders) and leads her brothers on a quest into the subterranean rat realm to find it....and saves the day.

In her second adventure, Tabby and her brothers are apprehensive when a state visit from the neighboring dog royalty means they'll have to entertain a puppy, something they've never even met before.  Fortunately the cat royals have a magic orb that will allow them to produce all the food cats and dogs love best.  But then the orb is stolen by Gorgonzola and his rat minions!  The puppy prince joins the Whiskered Wonders, using his gifts of sniffing and fetching to bring the orb back safely.

These are entertaining books, with fast paced adventures and entertaining illustrations.  The text is substantial without being overwhelming for readers still finding their feet, and the second book has the added bonus of the kittens and puppy working together despite their differences.  There's no nuance in the villainy of the rats, but Gorgonzola is an age-appropriate enemy.

Well I remember the relief I felt when my boys would find a new series they liked, and I could relax for a bit about what to give them to read next! Books 3 of Kitten Kingdom, Tabby and the Catfish, is out this July, and book 4, Tabby Takes the Crown, comes out in October.

Charming fun.

disclaimer: review copies received from the publisher

Brightstorm, by Vashti Hardy

Back to blogging after vacation time, happily with a book I loved to write about!

Brightstorm, by Vashti Hardy (published in the UK March 2018, Scholastic), is a gorgeous middle grade adventure, one of my favorite books of the year so far!  I am so happy that some savvy Rhode Island librarian (Ashaway RI to be precise) reached across the Atlantic to add it to our state library system!

Twins Arthur and Maudie are left destitute in an alternate version of London when their father never returns from a voyage in his airship to reach the South Polaris on the mysterious Third Continent.  He's considered guilty of failing to render aid to his chief competitor in his quest for the polaris, the powerful Eudora Vine.  Then Arthur and Maudie are taken on as crew by a young captain, Harriet Culpepper, who flies an airship like no other.  She's determined to beat Eudora in a second race to the polaris, and Maudie and Arthur are determined to all they can to help, partly for the large cash prize and the thrill of it, but in larger part, especially for Arthur, to find out what really happened to their father.

The journey through the skies goes smoothly, but disaster strikes when they reach the third continent.  Their ship has been sabotaged, and now they've crashed into a wasteland where giant  beasts, who apparently attacked their father's crew, prowl through the snow.  Harriet, Maudie, Arthur, and the indominable ship's cook, Felicity, race through bitter cold across treacherous ice...but Eudora Vine is an enemy who will stop at nothing.

In the end, the mystery of their father's death is solved, Eudora is thwarted, and all is well. 
Not only is it a good story, with a steady buildup to the exciting race at the end, but it has great characters.  I'm of course all in favor for strong girls who are geniuses at mechanics, like Maudie and Harriet, but it's also lovely to see a boy like Arthur, who isn't particular gifted at practical, boy-coded things find his own gifts of intuition, observation, and thoughtful communication.  It's this later gift that wins the group surprising allies who keep them alive in the cold south.  Arthur was born without his right arm, and though this is a hindrance in some respects, and though he's sick of people's reactions, it's not a handicap that defines him in anyway, which I also appreciated.

A final appreciation is  for the condemnation of rapacious, violent colonial exploration and exploitation, not made a heavy handed Point of, but made very firmly clear.

An even more final appreciation--Harriet's airship has a great onboard library which both twins love.

And one more quick one--Felicity the cook is a real hero! (her actual age isn't specified, but she read as a middle-aged women to me, which was nice for me).

In short, a quick bright read that's a true delight!

The Opposite of Always, by Justin A. Reynolds, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Opposite of Always, by Justin A. Reynolds (Katherine Tegan Books, March 2019), is a sweet, funny, poignant time travel YA with a lot going on in its briskly turning pages.

Jack, a high school senior, and Kate, a college freshman, meet and fall hard for each other.  Their chemistry is immediate, and their enjoyment of each other's company seems to Jack to promise the possibility to love.  Jack's two best friends, Franny, the boy he's been best buddies with forever, and Jillian, the best friend he was in love with before she started going out with Frannie, hit it off with Kate when they finally get to meet her, and all seems golden when she agrees to go to prom with Jack.  But then Kate doesn't show up on prom night, and Jack is only just able to find her in the hospital to say good-bye before she dies from complications of sickle cell anemia.

That isn't the end of the story.  Jack loops back in time to meet her all over again.  Over and over, trying to save her, and sometimes messing up his friendship with Franny and Jillian, and not saving Kate after all.  Some choices are disasters, others promise that Jack might be able to get through Kate's medical crisis to a happy ending...

Jack and Kate are a great couple, even after seeing their relationship multiple times.  Their lively banter is a delight!  Franny and  Jillian are solid supporting characters, each with their own issues (Franny's dad, for instance, is just getting out of prison, though there's lots more to Franny's story) and any reader would want to have these friends.  It's also nice to see good parents--Jack's mom and dad are supportive and present in Jack's life, and madly in love with each other, and they also are beautifully supportive of Franny.

Though we revisit the same general timeline of events multiple times, there's enough that's different in the repercussions, in the dialogue (these are some of the snappiest teens in their jokes and comebacks and banter I've read), and in Jack's growth as a character (it's not dramatic growth, but rather a growing up a bit, and realizing he can't fix things as if he were a puppeteer).

The cast of characters is diverse; as shown on the cover, Jack and Kate are both black, and Reynolds makes this clear very naturally and gracefully, without dumping direct description all over the place.  Franny is Latinx, Jillian's dad is West African.

I enjoyed it very much, and though it's well over 400 pages long, it only took a few hours to read it because the pages were turning so fast (and of course at one point they turned very quickly indeed to the end, because I had to make sure it turned out all right.  Which it does).  My only regret is that somehow Kate's death, even the first time, didn't make me all that sad, even though I liked her lots.  I'm not sure why this was; perhaps because I went it to the story knowing about the time loop, but I would have liked to have found it more moving.....

We never know why or how the time loop happens, which might bother some people (and bothers Kate herself a little bit when she finds out--she wonders why the universe would bend itself to save her--but that's not something I myself care too much about.

short answer--a really impressive debut, and a great read!

Bad Order, by Barb Bentler Ullman

My first try at writing my thoughts about Bad Order, by Barb Bentler Ullman (Stirling Children's Books, June 2019), went through some rip in the reality of Blogger, and so I'm quickly trying to redo it before the deathless prose of my first try is lost.

(which is appropriate, given what the book is about.  But sigh).

In any event, this is the story of a little boy, Albie, who doesn't speak.  He does, though, communicate telepathically with his loving big sister, Mary, sending her "memes," as she thinks of his messages.  One snowy day Mary, Brit and Albie are out for a walk, when Albie sends a frightening meme--"Bad order." He can't convey anything more specific, but it's clear that he's perceived a wrongness.  Then the kids see a mysterious red mist, that pulls at them.  To their horror, anyone pulled in by the mist becomes distorted, angry, and violent.  Clearly the mist is part of the "bad order" Albie was sensing.

When news of the violence engendered by the mist spreads, the Feds arrive to try to stop it, but the agents are no better at fighting it than anyone else.  Fortunaly three holographic alien constructs, trying (and failing) to pass as human, also arrive, and they help the kids get out of the hands of the Feds via a flying Volkswagon bus.  They also explain that the bad order is much worse than the mist; there's a rip in the interdimensional fabric of the universe.  Albie, who is linked to the creation of that rip, can fix it again...maybe.

It was impossible for me to not think of a Wrinkle In Time.  There's the special little brother and his protective big sister, the three aliens trying to be human, the group of friends trying to save the universe, and there's even Mary and Albie's missing scientist father, whose final experiment went wrong.   But though this similarity was a distraction, it didn't keep me from appreciating Bad Order on its own merits (and this was helped by Mary and Meg being nothing alike).

Partly this was because the group of kids, including Brit's big brother Lars (a helpful, goodhearted teen, who takes the kids seriously, which is pretty rare in middle grade fantasy), are really likeable.  Partly it was because the three alien constructs are really truly funny.  Partly because the threat was explained in almost believable science, and so suspension of disbelief was pretty easy.  But mostly because the red mist was terrifying, transforming ordinary people into monstrous versions of themselves, and the horror the kids felt was really well done.

So if you are in the mood for a horror tinged book that comes to a warm ending after some sci fi high jinx, this might be just the thing for you!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

disclaimer 2:  my first try was better. Sigh again.

this week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi is up (6/30/19)

Here's what I found on-line this week; please let me know about anything I missed!

The Reviews

The Afterwards, by A.F. Harrold, at Randomly Reading

Carnival Catastophe (Problim Children #2), by Natalie Lloyd, at Children's Books Heal

Earth Swarm, by Tim Hall, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

The Invasion (Animprophs) by K.A. Applegate, at Lost in Storyland

The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, by Lamar Giles, at Randomly Reading

The Magical Apothecary, by Anna Ruhe (and why it should be translated into English), at A Dance with Books

Malamander, by Thomas Taylor, at Diva Booknerd

The Mortification of Fovea Munson, by Mary Winn Heider, at Sharon the Librarian

The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norman Juster (new audiobook review), at Locus

Podkin One-Ear, by Kieran Larwood, at Say What?

The Root of Magic, by Kathleen Benner, at Mom Read It

Rumblestar, by Abi Elphinstone, at Amy the Zany Bibliophile

The Sacred Artifact, by Caldric Blackwell, at Red Headed Book Lover

Silent Lee and the Adventure of the Side Door Key, by Alex Hiam, at The Write Path

Time Sight, by Lynne Jonell, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Train to Impossible Places, by P.G. Bell, at Sarah Withers Blogs

Where the River Runs Gold, by Sita Bramachari, at Book Craic

Wooden Bones, by Scott William Carter, at Millibot Reads

Authors and Interviews

A.M. Howell (The Garden of Lost Secrets) at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Max Brallier (The Last Kids on Earth) at the B. and N. Kids Blog

Other Good Stuff

A round-up of every Dark Crystal thing coming later this year at Tor

Beyond Harry Potter: 35 Fantasy Adeventure Series Starring Mighty Girls at A Mighty Girl

Mammothfail and me

A recent article, YA Twitter Can Be Toxic, But It Also Points Out Real Problems" by Molly Templeton on Buzzfeed, took me back in time:

"In the late 2000s, the science fiction and fantasy (SFF) community — which overlaps greatly with YA — had something of a reckoning. Eventually known as RaceFail ’09, it was, as author N.K. Jemisin wrote in a blog post a year later, “a several-months-long conversation about race in the context of science fiction and fantasy that sprawled across the blogosphere. It involved several thousand participants and spawned several hundred essays — and it hasn’t really ended yet, just slowed down."

RaceFail started as MammothFail, when Patricia Wrede's Thirteenth Child was widely called out for its erasure of Native Americans (there were lots of mammoths, but no indigenous people).  I was part of that conversation, and it was a watershed moment for me as a reader, a reviewer, and a purveyor of books for my own kids.

Here's my review of Thirteenth Child.

The conversations that took place on line were a real wake up call for me, and I set out to do what I could to promote diverse books.  Here's my post about what I did in the immediate aftermath, which included a trip to the local bookstores to try to put my money where my mouth was by buying diverse books (this did not break the bank). Subsequently I made a concerted effort to seek out diverse middle grade and YA fantasy and science books, and started compiling the list of my reviews  (around 240  of them so far).  In the past few years, my attention has shifted some from my own blog; I now write for the B. and N. Kids Blog, where I try to make sure diverse books get included (which is annoying to me for the purpose of my own list of review, because once I review a book there I don't review here, so my list is missing all the Rick Riordan Presents books, for instance....).

It was good to have this reminder of MammothFail because I have been becoming complacent, and need to make sure I keep reviewing diverse books here, and supporting new authors by actually buying books from local bookstores (I've mostly just been keeping up with what comes in the mail....).  Happily I think it would actually take more money than I have to go back to the same bookstores I went to in 2009 to buy every book with non-white kids on the cover (I can't go today, but will try to later this week....), but of course they're still outnumbered by the white kids and animals, as this infographic from CCBC shows (the full article in which this image appears can be read here):

.

I squirm a bit reading some of my 2009 thoughts; "own voices," for instance, wasn't something that had come into my consciousness, and I'm glad for all the folks on twitter who keep educating and informing me.  That being said, this reminder of MammothFail also made me badly miss the blogging days of yore; twitter is a thin substitute for the conversations that took place in blog comments. Reading blogs made it easier to connect to people in meaningful ways, both because you could say more and give more context in posts than in tweets, and because you actually could get to know the people you were interacting with.  Of course, blogs attracted toxicity too, and for many of us it was an echo chamber, so it wasn't perfect, but I still miss those day!

And just for kicks, looking back at 2009, I found another controversy I'd forgotten about.  From my post about it:

There was a bit of a stink recently when it was revealed that a new anthology, The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF, edited by Mike Ashley, had in it not a single story by a woman or a person of color--here's the table of contents, and some interesting reading in the comments. I found at Feminist SF-The Blog this quote from Ashley, explaining that this "...probably has something to do with my concept of “mind-blowing”. Women are every bit as capable of writing mindblowing sf as men are, but with women the stories concentrate far more on people, life, society and not the hard-scientific concepts I was looking for."

The Last Beginning, by Lauren James, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Last Beginning, by Lauren James (YA, Sky Pony Press, 2018) is a joyful, chaotic romp of a time travel adventure that I devoured in a single sitting.

Clove, a Scottish teenager in 2051, gets hit with two emotional wrenches in one week.  Her best friend Meg, who she has a crush on, has just fallen in love with a boy, Clove's cousin.  On a more earthshaking note, Clove's parents tell her that she is adopted, and that her birth parents, Matt and Kate, are famous for saving the world from a bioterrorist threat developed by England, and then disappearing.  Clove sets the family's AI device, nicknamed Spart, to work trying to track them down (she is a whiz at computer programing).

And in the meantime, her mother has almost finished getting her time machine up and running.

Spart the AI delivers the strange information that  Matt and Kate keep showing up in history, starting in 1745.  So Clove decides that she will use the time machine to go back to find them, to try to figure out what happened to them and why they keep showing up a various crisis points of history.  The time machine works, and Clove becomes friends with Ella, a girl a little older.  She also meets then-Matt and then-Kate, and unfortunately changes the past.  When she returns to her own time, everything is horribly altered, and she starts disapparating...but a bit more time travel shenanigans patches things up.

I don't want to go into any more details about what happens next, but it involves lots more time travel, Ella and Clove falling in love (Ella keeps popping up....and has an interesting story of her own), and Matt and Kate saving the world....

I was very doubtful about how easy a time of it Clove had in 1745, but it turns out there's an explanation for this that made me smile.  And though there are many bifurcations and manipulations of time, I managed not to get overwhelmed with confusion.  Clove and Ella's romance is very sweet, as is the love between all the different Matt and Kates, and the love in Clove's nuclear family.  The story includes on-line exchanges between the characters, some from the future, including Clove's chats with Spart, and some steamy exchanges with Ella, and these lighten the weight of the world saving and time travel confusion very nicely, and made me chuckle.

This is the sequel to The Next Together, but it stands alone just fine, and quite possibly works better if you have never read that one (which is the story of Matt and Kate).  Not knowing the details of their lives makes the reader feel closer to Clove as she figures things out.  Although of course reading about Matt and Kate second might mean their story is less gripping...so really one should probably read both books first!

But in any event, I liked this one lots, and am glad to have an excellent lesbian sci fi time travel with smart girls saving the world to recommend! (we need more!)

this week's round-up of mg sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs

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

The Reviews

Charlie Hernández and the League of Shadows, by Ryan Calejo, at Latinx in Kid Lit

Chronicles of ancient Darkness, by Michelle Paver (series review) at Fantasy Faction

The Curse of Greg (An Epic Series of Failures #2) by Chris Rylander, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Dragon Captives (Unwanteds Quests #3), by Lisa McMann, at Say What?

The First, by Katherine Applegate, at proseandkahn (audiobook review)

The Girl Who Sailed the Stars, by Matilda Woods, at Always in the Middle and Two Points of Interest

Have Sword, Will Travel, by Garth Nix and Sean Williams, at Milliebot Reads and Tales from the Raven

The House with Chicken Legs, by Sophie Anderson, at Say What?

The Ice Garden, by Guy Jones, at Hidden in Pages

The Lost Tide Warriors, by Catherine Doyle, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Midsummer's Mayhem, by Rajani LaRocca, at alibrarymama

The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly, by Rebecca K.S. Ansari, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Monster Catchers, by George Brewington, at Confessions of a Book Addict

Nooks and Crannies, by Jessica Lawson, at Completely Full Bookshelf

The Once and Future Geek (Camelot Code #1), by Mari Mancusi, at Charlotte's Library

Once Upon a Frog (Whatever After #8) by Sarah Mlynowski, at Jill's Book Blog

Over the Moon, by Natalie Lloyd, at Susan Uhlig

Return of the Evening Star, by Diane Rios, at Always in the Middle

Silver Batal and the Water Dragon Races, by K.D. Halbrook, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Space Dragons, by Robin Bennett, at Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers and A Garden of Books

The Storm Keeper's Island, by Catherine Doyle, at Susan Uhlig

Thomas Wildus and the Book of Sorrows, by J.M. Bergen, at Book Dust Magic

The Tunnels Below, by Nadine Wild-Palmer, at Kids' Book Review

Wildspark, by Vashti Hardy, at BookCraic

Authors and Interviews

Kobe Bryant (The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, created by Bryant, written by Wesley King) at B. and N. Kids Blog
Tara Tyler (Windy Hollow-Beast World #3), at The Cynical Sailor and His Salty Sidekick and Writer's Alley

Other Good Stuff

I hosted the cover reveal for Rival Magic, by Deva Fagan

Mr. Penguin and the Lost Treasure, by Alex T. Smith

Mr. Penguin and the Lost Treasure, by Alex T. Smith (Peachtree, April 2019), will delight young readers (1st-4th grades) who enjoy easy to read, quirky, and funny mysteries.

Mr. Penguin has always dreamed of being an adventurer.  So when he sets up shop along with Colin, a spider friend, offering his services to the townsfolk, he expects to be inundated with requests for help.  Finally the phone rings.  Boudicca Bones, owner of the Museum of Extraordinary Objects (who's human) needs his help finding the treasure supposedly hidden in the museum.

So Mr. Penguin and Colin set out, and find that being adventurers isn't a walk in the park!  Beneath the Museum is a marvelous and dangerous landscape, full of things that could seriously damage anyone exploring there.  And then the danger gets even more dangerous, when the adventurers face a dastardly double-cross!  Fortunately, Edith (another human) who lives in the park with her pigeon friend, Gordon), thought Mr. Penguin might need some help, and comes to the rescue!  The day is saved, the bad guys are caught, and Mr. Penguin and Colin are famous (poor Edith gets a reward, but not the fame....).

It's a fun fast read, that should go down very nicely indeed for younger readers. I didn't see the twist coming, and it upped the level of tension beautifully! The illustrations are amusing, and Mr. Penguin, in his own unheroic and not tremendously useful way, is an appealing character (Colin is much more useful, and I actually liked him better!).  Young pedants might be annoyed that Mr. Penguin lives in a igloo and can't swim, but they can get over that.

And as is so often the happy case with series starters for the young, there's not too long to wait for the next installment--Mr. Penguin and the Fortress of Secrets comes out October, 2019!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.