A Mixture of Mischief (Love Sugar Magic #3), by Anna Meriano (blog tour)

A Mixture of Mischief (Walden Pond Press, February 4, 2020) is the third and final book of Anna Meriano's Love Sugar Magic series, that tells the story of how Leo, the youngest daughter in a family of magical baking burjas, finds her own gifts for magic and her own place in her family.

Leo, still fed up about her place as the youngest sister (there are four older ones), is chomping at the bit to learn all she can about the magic that makes her family's bakery so successful.  Finally, her mother is starting to teach her, but before she can relax and enjoy being a dependable part of the bakery, dark clouds appear.  A rival bakery is about to open in town, and her family's magical heirlooms, part of what makes their baking magic work, start to go missing.

But most disturbing at all is the appearance in her life of her father's father, who abandoned his family when he found they hadn't inherited his magic.  Her grandfather has discovered that Leo's' magical gifts might make her just what he wants-an heir to his work as slayer of dangerous magical creatures.

Leo's smart enough to realize he's a threat.  Frustrated by the fact that her parents keep acting like everything is under control, she decides to take matters into her hands.  Her developing magic lets her turn invisible, and with the help of her friends Caroline and Brent, and her cousin JP, she sets out to foil her grandfather and set things right.

It's not a smooth path to figuring out just what her grandfather is up to, but Leo rises to the occasion beautifully (after a few steps in the wrong direction).  All the lovely family dynamics that made the first two books such fun are here, and it's a pleasure to see Leo setting of on the path of magic (and increased bakery responsibilities!).  If you loved the first two books (as I did), you'll love this one too!  

GIVEAWAY

Walden Pond Press is kindly offering a giveaway of this book for American readers. Leave a comment  by February 4 for a chance to win!

Here's the full book tour (for more chances to win!)

• January 27 A Library Mama
• January 28 YAYOMG
• January 29  Open Book Reviews
• January 30 Teachers Who Read
• January 30  Charlotte’s Library
• January 31 Nerdy Book Club
• February 3 Storymamas
• February 4 Latinos in Kidlit
• February 7 Always in the Middle
  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna Meriano is the author of the books in the Love Sugar Magic series, A Dash of Trouble, A Sprinkle of Spirits and A Mixture of Mischief. She grew up in Houston, Texas, and earned her MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in writing for children from the New School in New York. She has taught creative writing and high school English, and she works as a writing tutor. Anna likes reading, knitting, playing full-contact quid- ditch, and singing along to songs in English, Spanish, and ASL. Her favorite baked goods are the kind that open hearts. You can visit her online at www.annameriano.com.

NB for teachers--there's a great educator's guide for the series available from the publisher!

The Good Hawk, by Joseph Elliott

The Good Hawk, by Joseph Elliott (Walker Books US, January 2020), is a magical version of early Scottish history (9th century-ish), with tons of heart and lots of violence that tells of two teens desperately trying to save their kidnapped kin.

15-year-old Agatha takes her job as Hawk very seriously, patrolling the walls of her clan's island home, always on the lookout for danger.  Though many are dismissive of her abilities (she seems to have Down's Syndrome) she knows she's a good Hawk.  She has a special gift, too, one she keeps hidden--she can communicate with animals.  Then one night she makes a mistake, and fires a burning arrow at one of her own clan's boats, and she's no longer allowed to be a hawk.

Her friend Jaime, always anxious, a thinker rather than a doer, was assigned to be an Angler, though he gets seasick. For reasons he doesn't understand, the clan has chosen him for another role--he must marry a girl from a nearby clan, though his own people haven't married for generations.  

Jaime and Agatha are friends, and their friendship ends up saving them both when Jaime's wedding day ends in disaster.  Raiders from Norveg attack while the clan is celebrating, and Jaime, Agatha, and the young girl who's now Jaime's wife, adrift in a boat, look on in horror as the enemy's ships carry away all of the clan who survive.  Knowing it's probably futile, they try to pursue the raiders across the ocean...but fate sets them on a different path.

Agatha and Jaime must travel across the mainland of Scotia instead, a place whose inhabitants were killed by a plague.  It's not, in fact, empty.  Nomadic Highland bull riders come to their aid, and thanks to Agatha's gift, help them along their way.  It wasn't just the stories of plague, though  that kept Agatha and Jaime's clan from leaving their island--there are stories that Scotia is home to deadly shadow spirits.  And this story is true, but the shadows were made to be a weapon....and poor, mad Queen Nathara, left all alone in a decaying castle with only the shadows when all those around her died, can command them...

It's an exciting adventure, told in the alternate voices of the two teenagers, in which the world of the story keeps getting bigger and bigger.  The beginning, where the kids are held tight in place by the traditions of their clan, is almost claustrophobic in its rigidity (and was slow to grab my interest) but as they venture out on their quest, they learn to value themselves for who they are, and not for what the clan expects them to be.  The magic of the world likewise keeps building, with the violence and tension of the shadows, and Agatha's growing realization of how important her gift with animals can be, makes this much more than a simple alternate history adventure.

Agatha's difference in thinking and moving are presented as being what they are, not something pitiable, but simply there, though her clan is not always accepting of her; some call her retarch.  She proves herself a hero, though--she is, indeed, a good Hawk, and her character is really what makes this book stand out.  Jaime's point of view provides a good contrast, giving the reader a more nuanced understanding of what's happening.

The violence of the book (the shadows rip people apart pretty ripingly) and the age of the main characters, suggest a YA audience, but there's an upper middle grade feel to the central quest and there's no romance for the main characters; I'd be comfortable giving it to an 11 or 12 year old as well as to older readers.

This  is first book in the planned Shadow Skye trilogy, and I'm very curious to see what Agatha and Jaime do next!

Here's the Kirkus review, which makes some additional points.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

The Wind Eye, by Robert Westall, for Timeslip Tuesday

This week's Timeslip Tuesday book is an older English one--The Wind Eye, by Robert Westall (upper MG/YA 1976, still in print).  Westall's work ranges from picture books to adult, often exploring how the past hits the present in dark and mysterious ways.  Which is what happens in The Wind Eye....

It begins when a family, comprising a mother and her teenaged son married to a father with two daughters (one a young teen and one a little girl), setting off to the northeast coast of England to stay in the old house the father has just inherited.  They are not a happy family.  The kids get along fine, but the parents are not getting on well at all.

And then the past and the present collide.   St. Cuthbert still is a real person to the people of this part of the Northumberland coast, and he becomes so to the kids as well when they find a boat that travels back to his time, taking them out to the island that was his retreat from the world.   Along the way, there's a Viking raid, the miraculous curing of the youngest girl's burned hand, and the just as miraculous dispersal of the mother's constant fury at everyone and everything, an angry mob of locals protective of their saint, and the unassailable fact of the story that St. Cuthbert is real, and can work miracles. There's also considerable tension about whether everyone is going to make it back from the Dark Ages to the present in one piece....

So this sounded like one I should really love.  But it wasn't what I wanted it to be.  Before I say why, I want to say that it's well-written, and powerful, and vivid and magical.  But.

They inherit an old house on the coast in the north of England full of fascinating old things. Do we get to spend lots of time exploring and tidying the old house finding interesting things? No.

Does the mother, unsympathetically furious all the time, get stuck with all the domestic work in this old house with dubious modern amenities and no emotional support,  with no indication to the reader that she might like to have had different choices? Yes, and this is not something she gets angry about in particular.  Does she end up almost lobotomized by St. Cuthbert when he removes her constant state of angry tension so that she can't even drive past the speed limit?  Yes.  Does she find peace in baking? Yes.  Does she get any part of the time travel adventuring? No.  Do I like this?  No.  The fact that she is furious and over-reacting all the time (until the magical intervention of St. Cuthbert) is understandable, but exaggerated; it dehumanizes her almost as much as her pacification does.

The father seems like a decent chap at first, but it's made clear that he too is  not right--he's all encyclopedic knowledge, all conviction about facts, all distain for anything requiring belief without fact.  And when his fanatical atheism and St. Cuthbert clash, he almost dies (but doesn't), and is forced to admit he was wrong.  This tension between belief and fact is the central point of the book, and this bothered me because I don't think there has to be such a chasm between being a fact loving  historian and a lover of story/legend/the numinous that was a large part of the tension between the atheist father and Cuthbert as living proof of the power of God.  It was not a nuanced portrayal of an atheist realizing he was wrong.

The kids where good characters, though, and the time travel was really good--they'd go sailing out on a clear day, and the mist would come, and they'd be back in Cuthbert's time, occasionally seeing the goat-riding devils that tormented him, etc.....

Quite possibly, if you aren't me, as is the case for the many readers who love this book, it will speak to you more than it did to me.  But for me it was an "I really didn't mind reading this at all and parts of it were very good and I like St. Cuthbert but I will not feel the need to re-read it" sort of book.

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (1/26/20)

Here are the posts about mg fantasy and sci fi that I gleaned in my blog reading this week!  Please let me know if I missed yours.

The Reviews

Agent Weasel and the Abominable Dr Snow, by Nick East, at Library Girl and Book Boy

Agent Weasel and the Fiendish Fox Gang, at Twirling Book Princess

The Bootlace Magician, by Cassie Beasley, at Sloth Reads

The Haunting, by Lindsey Duga, at Not Acting My Age and Cracking the Cover

The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day, by Christopher Edge, at Charlotte's Library

Nevertell, by Katherie Orton, at Booktrailers for Kids and YA

Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, by Carlos Hernandez, at Sonderbooks

Serafina and the Seven Stars, by Robert Beatty, at Good Reads With Rona

A Sprinkle of Sorcery, by Michelle Harrison, at Book Craic

The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady, by Gerald Morris, at Leaf's Reviews

Urchin of the Riding Stars (The Mistmantle Chronicles, Book 1) by M.I. McAllister, at Semicolon

Wild and Chance, by Allan Zadoff, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Wolf Light, by Yaba Badoe, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Authors and Interviews

Sunayna Prasad (The Frights of Fiji) at Andi's Middle Grade and Chapter Books

Other Good Stuff

At Postcards from La-La Land, it's selkie time!

Tomorrow is ALA Awards day--will a fantasy/sci fi book win the Newbery?  I'm thinking not (realistic mg is very strong this year), but if one did, I bet it would be The Lost Girls, by Anne Ursu...what do you think?

The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day, by Christopher Edge

I'm still holding on to the middle grade sci fi/fantasy books of 2019, with a slightly over the top grim determination to read all the ones at hand before the end of January...(fortunately January 2020 is not a huge mg sci fi/fantasy release month, so I'm sure I can catch up on this year's in just a few days of reading!).

The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day, by Christopher Edge, is an English import that came out here in the US back in April 2019 (Delecorte), and in 2018 in the UK.  It's a story of sisters caught in an altered reality, with time and space gone wonky, with birthday balloons and tasty food meeting a horror of chaos and despair.

It's Maisie's tenth birthday, and her parents are making a huge effort to give her a great party.  The greatness of the party is supposed to make up for the fact that none of her friends are coming.  Maisie in fact has none at all.  She's a home-schooled science and math prodigy, who's never had a chance to socialize with other kids (me--not really convincing that her parents would have tried harder on this front, because clearly they care about her lots).

Maisie's jealous of her older sister, 15-year-old Lily, who isn't doing great at school but who has friends.  Lily, in turn, is jealous of Maisie, not just for being so incredibly brilliant, but also, a bit, for being protected by their parents.  Her "friends" aren't, in fact, all that great.

So anyway, here's Maisie getting reader for her party.  But then the narrative breaks.  And here's Maisie, alone in the house, with a black void outside, that starts creeping inside bit by bit.

Back and forth between normal birthday Maisie, happy on a sunny day, thinking about her life, and chaffing at it's limits, and learning things about Lily she hadn't realized before, and Maisie trapped by dark matter (?)  some other cosmic vortex of destruction and reality altering implosion (?), alone and scared.  She can't call her parents, but when she tries her sister, Lily picks up...and before the connection breaks off, Lily says she'll try to put things right.

But reality is collapsing around Maisie, and the darkness is pressing in....and in the other timeline, something shattering is about to happen as well....even finding out why and how this has happened doesn't help her get out of it.  Finally trapped Maisie has to do the unthinkable if she can get her life back to normal, and so she does.

And then comes a page of binary numbers that means nothing to me,  The reader (me) is left wondering, as the author intends,  what is "real."

Give this  to young readers who like their sci fi/fantasy claustrophobic and entrapping, with science (and bravery) the only way to make things come out right in the end....It's on the short end for mg fiction these days, which will add appeal for some readers; though there are plenty of twists, it's more novella than novel in feel.  No one could call this book over-blown (except perhaps with regard to Maisie's wonderfully unapologetic enthusiasm for figuring out the universe...)

In short, the twists are nicely twisted, and the lonely dark of the chaos world is beautifully balanced by the sunny birthday world.   And though Maisie is super smart, she's not insufferable, and though Lily is a teen aged jerk sister, she has more to her than that. Not one that particularly spoke to me (perhaps because of the particular way the twists twisted), but one I'm happy to recommend.

final note--the currency was Americanized for this edition, but the food and a few other things were not (a bit disconcerting!).  I wish publishers wouldn't Americanize at all!  I think that US kids today, exposed to life outside this country, can cope with more than they are being given credit for.  And in a book like this, where the stairs become an Escher-esque nightmare, spending pounds instead of dollars isn't all that odd.....

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (1/19/20)

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

The Reviews

Alien Superstar, by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver, at Good Reads with Rona

Boy Band of the Apocalypse, by Tom Nicholl, at Always in the Middle

Cog, by Greg van Eekhout, at Sonderbooks

The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz, at Geo Librarian

A Dash of Trouble (Sprinkle of Spirits #1), by Anna Meriano, at Leaf's Reviews

The Girl who Stole and Elephant, by Nizrana Farook, at Lily and the Fae (I haven't read this myself yet, so not sure it counts as fantasy....)

The Girl with the Dragon Heart, by Stephanie Burgis, at Book Criac

Lampie and the Children of the Sea, by Annet Schaap, at Whispering Stories

The Mystwick School of Musicraft, by Jessica Khoury, at Sharon the Librarian

Race to the Sun, by Rebecca Roanhoures, at Ms. Yingling Reads, Book Page, and Bookshelf Fantasies

The Red Winter (The Tapestry #5), by Henry H. Neff, at Say What?

The Revenge of Magic, by James Riley, at Imaginary Friends

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood and Co. #1), by Jonathan Stroud, at Sloth Reads

The Seeking Serum (Potion Masters #3), by Frank L. Cole, at Cracking the Cover

Snow White and the Seven Robots, by Stewart Ross, at Sharon the Librarian

The Thief Knot, by Kate Milford, at Charlotte's Library, Geek Dad, and The Neverending TBR

Time Sight, by Lynne Jonell, at Semicolon

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia, at proseandkahn (audiobook review)

The Twelve, by Cindy Lin, at Charlotte's Library

Washed Up (Boy Band of the Appocalypse #2), by Tom Nicoll, at Always in the Middle

The Winterhouse Mysteries, by Ben Guterson, at Puss Reboots

A Wolf Called Wander, by Roseanne Parry, at Semicolon

Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow, by Jessica Townsend, at Leaf's Reviews


Authors and Interviews

Michelle Harrison (A Sprinkle of Sorcery) at Book Trust ("the books that made me")

Other Good Stuff

A list of mythological fantasies beyond Rick Riordan, at Jean Little Library

Scary middle grade books ranked, at Falling Letters

Tor is kicking off a close re-reading of Prince Caspian; here's the intro. post

The Twelve, Cindy Lin

I am still stubbornly refusing to say good-bye to the middle grade sci-fi/fantasy books of 2019.  Though I did read around 200 of them, when I went through the Goodreads list of 2019 MG fiction, I found some that I had overlooked.   If I'd started focusing on 2020 back when it started, I don't know when I'd have gotten around to reading those books, and I'm very glad to have read them, so here I am.

I'm really surprised that The Twelve, by Cindy Lin (HarperCollins, July 2019), didn't get more buzz (or at least, more buzz that trickled down to me).  This is a debut East Asian zodiac fantasy that is a really fun adventure, with tons of kid appeal and fascinating magical powers!

Usagi's island home was supposed to be kept safe from invasion by the powers of the 12 zodiac warriors, trained in the use of the magical gifts of their signs on Jade Mountain, home to not just the warriors and their heirs, but to 12 wonderfully magical treasures.  But the Dragon warrior betrayed them, allowing invaders to sweep in, and conquer her home.  Orphaned, and with her little sister to look after, Usagi lives a hand to mouth existence, keeping her Rabbit powers and her sister's Horse powers as secret as she can manage. When her sister publicly uses her powers, and is captured to be sent with other zodiac gifted children to the Dragon's training ground, Usagi doesn't know what to do to save her.

But fortunately, there are those who can help her.  Usagi is taken in by a small group of surviving zodiac heirs, travelling back to Jade Mountain with the treasure they'd set off to find.  If Usagi can master her Rabbit magic, maybe she too can become an heir, and eventually a Warrior....But the one surviving warrior, a woman who is the Tiger, doesn't seem to think much of her, and when an expedition to confront the renegade Dragon, recover lost treasures, and save the captive children, is planned it's touch and go if Usagi will be allowed to join it...

The fist part of the book sets the stage, and primarily tells of Usagi's journey with the two young heirs to Monkey and Rat toward Jade Mountain, with dangers and unlikely friendships along the way.  The second tells of Usagi's training on Jade Mountain, and her progress discovering her full potential, with the Tiger Warrior as a formidable, but protective, teacher.  The third, most action packed, is the desperate struggle inside the Dragon's encampment, which ends with a cliffhanger and sets the stage for the sequel.   Since I have a fondness for "school" stories, the training part was my favorite, even though it sure wasn't Usagi's (patience being a hard lesson for her to learn, what with her sister in danger...), but the whole ensemble was gripping and very entertaining reading!

We stick pretty close to Usagi's perspective on what's happening, which is somewhat limiting; I would have liked more backstory and character development for the other heirs, and a bit more detail about the larger world.  I was never quite sure about the relationship between the Blue Dragon and the invading enemies, for instance, but that's quite possibly because I was racing along with the magical adventures!

If you love middle grade stories of magical powers being not only discovered, but taking work to get good at, found families and betrayals, check it out.  Bonus points, of course, if you're a Chinese mythology geek.

The Thief Knot, by Kate Milford

The Thief Knot, by Kate Milford, is the third of the Greenglass House series (though there are other books set in the fictional town of Nagspeake). The first, Greenglass House, will always have a special place in my heart, because not only did I myself love it, but it was the last book I read out loud to my little one (now 16), and he loved it too....So it was a treat to anticipate returning to Nagspeake with The Thief Knot (it's a real pleasure to keep a book you really want to read out for a few days, so that every time it catches your eye you get a happy zest moment), and a treat to actually do so (because it was really good)!

The Thief Knot is essentially the story of a group of kids coming together to solve a mystery--in this case, the kidnapping of a politician's little girl, Peony.  Best friends Marzana and Nialla had been wanting excitement, and despite all the curious and dubious things about their home in the Liberty district of Nagspeake (full of shifty characters with pasts not talked about, magical "old iron" that transforms itself, and lots of secrets), they hadn't found a good adventure.  When Peony is kidnapped, and Marzana's parents (who fall in the "pasts not talked about" category) are asked to use their connections to help find her, Marzana and Nialla decide that they will help too.  They are joined by four other kids, each with their own unique attributes and abilities, and set to work to hunt for clues, starting in their own school....

And a delightful tangle of clues they are too, with false leads and improbable connections taking the kids into places in the own neighborhoods that blow their minds!  It's not just the place that was familiar being made extraordinary to the kids; the stories they learn about each other and their families do the same. Along the way, the kids themselves are changed. For instance, Marzana doesn't exactly overcome her crippling self-doubt once and for all, but she is able to trust her new friends and her ability to make decisions as leader of the group, and able to make mistakes, realize she has, and set things right.

I myself have no yearning to solve mysteries, but if ever there was a group of kid detectives that I could join, it would be this one.  I feel they might value my skills as historian/archaeologist/person able to draw to scale underwater (although no drawing to scale underwater was needed to crack this particular mystery).  My lack of innate detecting ability makes me unable to comment on the manner in which the mystery was solved--when I read, I almost never see clues and if I do I assume the writer has failed somehow and made things too obvious.  In this case, I went into the book with a bit of bird knowledge that let me make a connection before it was pointed out in the book, but that being said, I found this mystery satisfying (although the group dynamic was really what I enjoyed, and the really truly fabulous architecture. Nagspeake's always had great fabulous architecture, but it went up a notch here).

So if you enjoy kid detectives in fantastical settings (with a bit of actually magic and fantasy elements to it), you will love The Thief Knot!  It would probably be pretty confusing to read this one before any other Nagspeake books, and part of the pleasure is seeing old friends from the first two books, but as a story it stands on its own just fine.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

This week's round up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (1/12/20)

welcome to another week of middle grade sci fi/fantasy goodness, gathered by me from around the blogs for your reading pleasure!  Please let me know of any posts I missed.

The Reviews

The Big Shrink (Upside-Down Magic #6), by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins, at Puss Reboots

The Book of Secrets, and The Book of Answers (The Ateban Cipher books 1 and 2) by A.L. Tait, at Always in the Middle

Brown, by Håkon Øvreås, at Charlotte's Library

The Good Hawk, by Joseph Elliott, at Log Cabin Library

Jinxed, by Amy McCulloch, at Ms. Yingling Reads and Waking Brain Cells

Magical Mischief, by Anna Dale, at Leaf's Reviews

The Mask of Aribella, by Anna Houghton, at Book Murmuration

The Monster in the Lake, by Louie Stowell, at Book Craic

The Obisdian Compass (Time Castaways #2), by Liesl Shurtliff, at Charlotte's Library

Orion Lost, by Alastair Chisholm, at Book Craic and Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Secondhand Wishes, by Anna Staniszweski, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Seeking Serum (Potion Masters #3), by Frank L. Cole, at Wishful Endings

The Squire's Tale, by Gerald Morris, at Leaf's Reviews

A Tale of Magic, by Chris Colfer, at J.R.'s Book Reviews

The Thief Knot, by Kate Milford, at BooksForKidsBlog

A Time Traveler's Theory of Relativity, by Nicole Valentine, at Karen Pokras

Willow Moss and the Lost Day (Starfell #1), by Dominique Valente, at Twirling Book Princess 

Zahrah the Windseeker, by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, at Tsundoko 

Authors and Interviews

Lindsay Currie (Scritch Scratch) at MG Book Village (cover reveal with interview)

Other Good Stuff

I love the chance to see what's new in the UK thanks to Mr. Ripleys Enchanted Books!

The Obsidian Compass (Time Castaways #2), by Liesl Shurtliff, for Time Slip Tuesday

The Obsidian Compass, by Liesl Shurtliff (middle grade, Katherine Tegan Books, Oct 2019) continues the time travelling adventures of three siblings adventuring through time that began with The Mona Lisa Key (link goes to my review).  That first book ended with Mateo, Ruby, and Corey getting home again safely, after many dangerous and difficulties aboard a time travelling ship captained by a ruthless man who was trying to use Matteo, in particular, for his own selfish purposes. But getting home safe wasn't to be the end of their time travelling.  Mateo needs to find his friend, Jia, one of Captain Vincent's crew, who was in danger of being dumped somewhere in time by the captain after she crossed him to help Mateo and his siblings.  Captain Vincent still has the obsidian compass that allows him to time travel, so Mateo decides to try to make his own, and against all odds, he succeeds.  But when he starts using it, he gets his family snarled anew in danger.

As they journey through time and space (in an old VW minibus), Mat realizes that saving Jia isn't enough; Captain Vincent needs to be stripped of his power in order for Matt's family to be safe.  Family secrets are revealed that make Matt question his relationship with his mother in particular--she once controlled the obsidian compass, with Vincent as her partner, and before she even adopted him, she knew a Mateo would play a role in the quest for something even more valuable than time travel--the promise of eternal life....

Parents are often missing in middle grade fantasy, so it's a change that both of Matt's parents are along for the adventure, and care deeply about keeping him and his siblings safe.  The twist about his mother's past, though, keeps her from smothering her son's adventures...instead, the reader, and Matt himself, aren't always sure about her motivations.....

There's not as much wild time travel bouncing from place to place here as there was in the first book--the plot hones in much more sharply on Matt's journey of discovery, and the choices he has to make.  There's still plenty of excitement, though, and an entertaining cast of supporting characters helps make the pages turn quickly.  The final third of the book, especially, is fast reading!

Unanswered questions remain, leaving readers anxious for book three!

short answer--not entirely my cup of tea, but I enjoyed this one more than the first book--I liked that there was more focus on character, and less galivanting....

I'm counting this one as a diverse fantasy--Mateo is adopted from Columbia.

Brown (My Alter Ego is a Superhero, book 1)

One of the joys of being a first round Cybils Awards panelist is getting to read charming books that weren't on your radar at all.  A case in point, for those of us reading for Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction, was Brown, by Håkon Øvreås, illustrated by Øyvind Torseter (American edition 2019, Enchanted Lion). This is the first book in the best-selling, award winning, and much beloved My Alter Ego is a Superhero series, and it's a great one to offer the elementary school aged kid who's past early chapter books, but for whom the generously illustrated, fewer words per page books are just right.

Rusty's beloved grandfather has died, and to make things worse, bullies are wrecking the fort he's built out in the woods with his best friend, Jack. What Rusty needs is a superhero to save the day, and so he becomes one himself! With his brown clothes and cape, and armed with cans of brown paint and advice from his grandfather's ghost, he gets revenge as the superhero Brown. Things escalate, though, and so Brown is joined by two other heroes--Jack as Black, and Lou, a neighbor girl who isn't quite as good a friend yet, as Blue. Together they target the bullies with their paint...and though there's plenty of trouble for them to get into, at last they are victorious.

Although the kids have no actual super-powers, the ghost of Rusty's grandfather is an important character in the story, adding magic, good counsel, and love to the shenanigans. It would make a lovely one to offer a kid going through a similar grieving process. The many charming illustrations and the audacity of the kids' "superhero" antics help make this kid friendly, and they'll finish this one looking for the next book (at the Enchanted Lion website, I was pleased to see that Black is apparently "coming soon").

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

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

Happy New Year!  Here's what I found this week in my blog reading; please let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews

Cog, by Greg van Eekhout, at Raise Them Righteous

The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz, at Raise Them Righteous

The Darkdeep, by Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs, at Twirling Book Princess

The Door to the Lost, by Jaleigh Johnson, at Feed Your Fiction Addiction

Esme's Wish, by Elizabeth Foster, at Book Craic and Hasanthi's Book Blog

The Forgotten Girl, by India Hill Brown, at Charlotte's Library

The Healing Star, by A. Kidd, at Always in the Middle

The Key of Lost Things (Hotel Between #2), by Sean Easley, at Say What?

Jinxed, by Amy McCulloch, at Sharon the Librarian

Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8), by Shannon Messenger, at Carstairs Considers

Over the Moon, by Natalie Lloyd, at Raise Them Righteous

The Root of Magic, by Kathleen Benner Duble, at Not Acting My Age

Stoop Sale Treasure, by Corey Ann Haydu, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery, by Allison Rushby, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Winterhouse Mysteries, by Ben Guterson, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Other Good Stuff

My favorite time slip books from the past decade (Charlotte's Library)

The Cybils short list for elementary and middle grade speculative fiction was announced! (if you think being a Cybils panelist for emg sf sounds like fun, which it is, look for the call for panelists next August!) You can find all the shortlists here.

Cog, by Greg van Eekhout
The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz
Homerooms and Hall Passes, by Tom O'Donnell
Love Sugar Magic: A Sprinkle of Spirits, by Anna Meriano
Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, by Carlos Hernandez
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia
We're Not From Here, by Geoff Rodkey