City of the Plauge God, by Sarwat Chadda

City of the Plague God, by Sarwat Chadda (Rick Riordan Presents, January 2021), brings Mesopotamian deities to New York city to great effect.   

Sik seems to be an ordinary Iraqi-New Yorker boy, going to school, working hard in the family deli, and grieving for his brother Mo, killed in an accident while doing humanitarian work in Iraq.  Sik, however, is the only 13-year-old in the city being hunted by Nergal, the Mesopotamian god of pestilence, who thinks Sik has something he wants. When Nergal's grotesque minions attack, he's saved by the sudden appearance of  a sword-wielding girl, Belet, the adopted daughter of Ishtar (goddess of war and passion).  Nergal then tries to force Sik's hand by spreading pestilence and disease across the city, starting  with the deli and Sik's parents, but since Sik has no clue what it is he's being asked to hand over, he can only watch in horror (from the comfort of Ishtar's very upscale home...).  

Sik isn't a heroic fighter, and pestilence is hard to beat with a sword in any event.  So when disaster strikes Ishtar, leaving the kids on their own, they are at a loss. Then in Central Park, in a glass greenhouse ziggurat, Sik meets Gilgamesh, who gives him a quest for the one thing that can stem Nergal's tide of death and decay--the flower of immortality.  To get there he'll have to travel through the land of the dead and use his wits to make it through many challenges.  

Fortunatly, he's not alone, because waiting for him there is his brother.  And Sik has the great blessing of being able to talk, working out bitterness and regrets as they travel together to save the world.

I'm realizing that I'm making it sound like a quest story, and it is except that the quest doesn't really take up all that much of the book.  Before we get to that point, there's much running around a fly-infested rotting city pursued by Nergal's gastly minions (there's also flying over the city in chariots pulled by winged lions...), as well as less action packed bits  of discussion, plotting, Ishtar being Ishtar and Belet being Belet (being Ishtar's adopted daughter is not easy...).   

The talking swords, disgusting minions,flying lions, and small bits of humor, will appeal lots to many readers; others will prefer the more introspective bits about grief, friendship, and family.  Little details, and little extra touches, like the line of cuneiform at the bottom of each page, bring a Mesopotamian zest that may well have readers looking for more about this ancient culture.  Sic's Islamic faith isn't a driver of the plot, but it's there and real (and rather surprisingly unthreatened by his trip to the land of the dead...).  And as an inclusivity bonus, toward the end we learn that Mo and another minor character were a couple.

The fact that this book came out during the current pandemic is just coincidence, but it's really such a different, exaggeratedly fantastical, kind of plague that I didn't find it a distressing reminder of the real world.

Of all the Rick Riordan Presents books, this is the one that felt to me closest in the structure of the story to the myths that it borrows from (possibly because I read the Epic of Gilgamesh fairly recently), and I although I of course wasn't aware of this until about 2/3 of the way through, it added to my overall appreciation, which was great.

(Middle grade readers might know Sarwat Chadda as the author of the Ash Mistry series (Hindu mythological adventures), but might not know that he is also Joshua Kahn, the author of the most excellent Shadow Magic series).

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs (3/14/21)

Welcome to this week's round-up, and a sad farewell to our lost hour.  Please let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews

The Ash House by Angharad Walker, at Rajiv's Reviews

Begone the Raggedy Witches, by Celine Kiernan, at Leaf's Reviews

City of Secrets, by Victoria Ying, at Pages Unbound

The Crowns of Coswald, by D.E. Night, at Lost in Neverland

Dragon Mountain, by Katie & Kevin Tsang, at Litericious

Hollowpox (Nevermore #3) by Jessica Townsend, at Completely Full Bookshelf

Legacy of Blood (Spartan Warrior #3), by Michael Ford, at Say What?

The Midnight Gaurdians, by Ross Montgomery, at Spread Book Joy (You Tube)

Oddity by Eli Brown, at Log Cabin Library

One Jar of Magic by Corey Ann Haydu, at Rajiv's Reviews

The Storm Keeper's Battle, by Catherine Doyle, at Sifa Elizabeth Reads

Unlocked by Shannon Messenger, at Justine Laismith

Two at Ms. Yingling Reads--The Serpent's Nest (Young Captain Nemo #3), by Jason Henderson, and The Memory Thief (Thirteen Witches #1), by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Two at Bookends--Da Vinci’s Cat, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, and The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. (as told to his brother), by David Levithan

The spring issue of Armadillo Magazine (which I had never heard of before this week; my loss) is full of great reviews from the UK

And here are some reviews from The Guardian

Authors and Interviews

 Marie Arnold (The Year I Flew Away) at MG Book Village

Kaela Rivera (Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls) at MG Book Village 

Mikki Lish and Kelly Ngai (The Magician's Map), at Library Girl and Book Boy

Chris Wormell (The Magic Place) by Library Girl and Book Boy and A Cat, a Book, and a Cup of Tea

A Cat, a Book, and a Cup of Tea

Donna Galanti (Unicorn Island) at Literary Rambles

Nick Goss (Hacker Jack) at Middle Grade Ninja podcast

Other Good Stuff and a Sad

RIP Norman Juster.  

V.E. Schwab’s City of Ghosts Is Getting a TV adaptation, via Tor

The new Hans Christen Anderson museum in Denmark looks remarkable, but I will wait a few years to give the topiary a chance to grow to match the vision shown here.

The Bone Maker, by Sarah Beth Durst

Sarah Beth Durst has been a favorite author for ages, and is among the select few whose books get a place on my bookshelf of favorite contemporary sci fi/fantasy. Here is the relevant shelf, as well as a less relevant one, with several more not shown at all:

As you can see, I have enough room on the shelf for one more of her books before I have to re-arrange.*  And that book will be The Bone Maker (Harper Voyager, March 9, 2021), her newest adult fantasy.

Kreya was the leader of a small group of heroes that defeated the evil bone maker Eklor, who had used bone magic to animate an army of murderous constructs in a bid for power.  Kreya's husband Jentt was killed in that battle.  25 years later, Kreya is desperately practicing her own bone magic in an isolated tower, following Eklor's forbidden path of using human bones to bring Jentt back to life.  The only thing holding her back is the difficulty in acquiring those bones (people in this country are cremated)--Eklor murdered and killed, but Kreya won't, and the bones she's gotten ahold of have only been enough for a few days of Jentt's life at a time.  She knows, though, where a lot of unburned bones can be found--the battleground where Eklor was defeated.  A forbidden place, guarded by soldiers, located within a deadly jungle.  

It's not a journey she can make alone, so Kreya enlists the help of one of her old companions, Zera, who has gotten fabulously wealthy from her gift of making bone talismans (which briefly grant the user gifts such as speed, strength, stealth, etc.)  What they find at the battlefield (after a difficult journey) appalls them--a new army of killer constructs.  Eklor, it seemed, wasn't defeated.  So the original group is all regathered (with Jentt brought fully back to life, at a great cost to Kreya), and they revisit the battlefield to confirm that Eklor's back.  They barely escape with their lives.

None of them have any interest in being heroes again.  

At this point, about halfway through the book, I was afraid they were going to just revisit what they did the first time, but happily the plot twisted.  And instead of being a story about fighting, it became a story in which the group have to solve a mystery.  Since I prefer to read about people thinking more than I enjoy people fighting, this made me happy!  One reason for this preference is that when people are thinking, there's also a lot more opportunity for recognition of ambiguous moral choices and interesting reflections about grief, friendship, and mindfully choosing what you want from your one wild and precious life.  Which isn't to say that there wasn't a lot happening--after all, with a mass murder megalomaniac trying for his second chance at world domination, there's a lot that happens, not much of it pleasant.

Kreya is a great, really solidly developed, character, who carries the book.  Hers is the primary pov, and the supporting cast pretty much orbits around her  (Zera gradually becomes more three dimensional, in step with her and Kreya rebuilding their friendship, which makes for nice reading, the other three guys are not as deeply explored).  The magic of bone working wins second place in book carrying--it is really nifty!  My only hesitation about the book was my unassuaged feeling of anthropological uncertainty about how the society functioned, coupled with some geographical uncertainty.   This was also the first book I've read in ages that was this long (496 pages), which is a different type of reading than I mostly do (middle grade, and old comfort reads).  But though it could perhaps have been a bit shorter for my personal taste, I was so invested in the story that nothing else was really important and I was sad to have finished.

Recommended in particular to those no longer in their first flush of youthful heroics, and fans of older women friendships that make it possible to save the day.  Fans of T. Kingfisher's books set in her fantasy world (like Clockwork Boys, and Paladin's Grace) should enjoy this one lots, as similar themes are explored.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

*back to my bookshelf--perhaps the best solution will be to move all of Pratchett to their own shelf, with lots of room to grow, because I want all the Discworld books in hardcover, and move Diana Wynne Jones to her own appropriately sized bookshelf....and that will free up a lot of space, which is good, because all the other authors (Kate Milford, Stephanie Burgis, Leah Cypess, Sage Blackwood, Rachel Neumeier, and more) are still writing new books.....(except that Sarah Crowe, the author of Bone Jack just to the right of the SBD books hasn't written anything since, sigh) and also I am slowly working on replacing ARCs with hardcopies, while keeping many of the ARCs, so there is a clear need to plan for future growth  (I hope to use part of my anticipated stimulus money on a couple of additional lally columns in the basement, to ensure that this book growth isn't too much for the poor old house...)

Time Travel for Love and Profit, by Sarah Lariviere, for Timelip Tuesday

Time Travel for Love and Profit, by Sarah Lariviere (YA, Penguin Random House, January 2021) is a ground-hog day sort of time travel, but with an interesting twist that makes it unique.

Nephele is starting her freshman year of high school with her best friend, and so isn't worried that she's a social awkward math prodigy with no other social network, taunted by other kids for her hairy arms.   But then her friend dumps her, and she takes a nose dive into self pity.  When she finds a book called "Time Travel for Love and Profit" in her parents' used bookstore, she's inspired.  Clearly what she needs to do is restart freshman year, and this time do it as a cool kid.

So she invents a time travelling machine, and sure enough, there she is starting freshman year again, this time with cool clothes and shaved arms, determined to crack the popularity code.  It doesn't work.  So for the next ten years, she keeps on trying.  

But there's a terrible twist to it--although she herself stays fourteen, everyone else is growing older, and though she herself remembers everything, the time travel works by messing with the minds of those around her.  Her parents have blurred out her date of birth, for instance, and even worse, they start to freeze when she presses them on this and other issues.  Solving the time travel problem doesn't leave her much time for friends, and she's still just as obsessed and social awkward as ever, so nothing is any better.

Then in the tenth try (after the first few tries, the rest are just referenced in passing...), two new kids show up at school, and for reasons that escape her, they are determined to make friends with her.  And they succeed, and Jazz, a great kid with a sad past of his own, becomes more than just a friend.  So Nephele is faced with a choice--keep redoing her life to try to fix the mistake that's snarled her parents minds, watching them age, loosing friends, and seeing people she cares about die, or accept that this is now the life she's going to live....

Nephele still has lots to learn about life, but her story ends on a hopeful note.

She's an interesting protagonist, not immediately appealing, but as the reader gets to know her better, increasingly sympathetic.  And when her social world starts opening up, the two new kids and the progress of their friendship make it a much warmer story.  There are lots of little humorous bits, and lots of though-provoking bits, that helped keep my reading momentum up even when I was wondering if I would loose patience with Nephele's continued do-overs.  

It's very odd time travel, in that Nephele is the only one caught in the quantum entanglement she's created.  She is resetting herself, but not the outside world, which is marching on.  Places she knew aren't there any more, smart phone technology is evolving, and of course there's the discomfiting fact of seeing others get older.   

It's a YA book, but one I think kids in 7th and 8th grade would especially enjoy--they're still at the beginning stage of figuring out who they are, and will probably find Nephele more relatable than older readers.  It's a blatant affirmation that being a weird kid is ok, and if you look for other weird kids you can find your people, which can be a useful message.  

Recommended for those who like "high school coming of age from friendless geek to more confident friended person who is still weird" stories, who have a tolerance for high level theoretical math painted with broad brushstrokes....Not recommended so much for those who like everything to make sense and who need firm closure.

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, by Nizrana Farook

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, by Nizrana Farook (Peachtree, March 1, 2021, middle grade), is a very fun adventure with a young Robin Hood type heroine.  Chaya pilfers from the rich to help the poor and unfortunate, and there are many poor and unfortunate folks living in the local villages. But when she goes too far in her pilfering, and takes some of the queen's jewels, she sets in motion a rapid fire chain of events that she can't stop.   It involves elephant stealing, an unwelcome ally (Chaya has no interest being friends with the rich merchant's daughter, but friendship happens), a perilous journey (with the elephant, who is very helpful) through the jungle, and ultimately the overthrow of the tyrannical king.  Along the way there are also wild animals, bandits, and Chaya's own people turning against her when the king takes out his anger on them because he can't catch her....

I think this one will have lots of Gen Z appeal.  In true Gen Z style, Chaya has identified a problem the adults aren't dealing with, and is plunging in to fix things by redistributing wealth. She is pretty certain she is always right and that her moral compass is the correct one, she's totally loyal to her best friend, and, of course, she's young and so not great at predicting long-term consequences (many are the moments during the book in which she realizes that she's being bludgeoned with consequences on all sides, and finds it rather annoying/worrying). Probably many Gen Z kids would befriend elephants if they had the chance, too.

I enjoyed it lots, and appreciated the Sri Lankan setting (Sri Lanka is Nizrana Farook's family homeland).  Which leads to one little niggling question in my mind--is this fantasy, because it's a slightly imagined version of Sri Lanka, or is it realistic fiction? A girl jewel thief stealing an elephant and setting in motion events that bring down a king is possible in the real world, though unlikely....thoughts? (Is Robin Hood realistic fiction????).

Sort answer--give this to kids who love elephants, jungle adventures, and things being fair.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (3/7/21)

Welcome to this week's round-up of mg fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs!  Please let me now if I missed your post.

The Reviews

Alessia in Atlantis: The Forbidden Vial, by Nathalie Laine, at The Children's Book Review

Amari and the Night Brothers by B. B. Alston, at The Hub (audiobook review), Tar Vol on, and Children's Books Heal

Birth of a Warrior (Spartan Warrior #2),  by Michael Ford at Say What?

Don't Turn Out the Lights, edited by Jonathan Maberry, at Twirling Book Princess

The Dreaded Cliff by Terry Nichols, at Log Cabin Library

Ghost in the Headlights, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Hollowpox (Nevermore #3), by Jessica Townsend, at Charlotte's Library

The In-Between, by Rebecca Ansari, at Book of Secrets

The Memory Thief, by Jodi Lynn Anderson, at The Bookwyrm's Den, Jill's Book Blog,  and Nerdophiles

Mort the Meek and the Raven's Revenge, by Rachel Delahaye, at Book Craic

Book Craic

The Raconteur's Commonplace Book, by Kate Milford, at Puss Reboots

The Storm Keeper's Battle, by Catherine Doyle, at Bellis Does Books and Scope for Imagination

The Thieving Collectors of Fine Children's Books, by Adam Perry, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Thirteenth Fairy, by Melissa de la Cruz, at The Bookwyrm's Den

The Weather Weaver, by Tamsin Mori, at Book Craic

Authors and Interviews

Alyssa Colman (The Gilded Girl) at MG Book Village

Other Good Stuff

Some new ones out in the UK, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

Hollowpox: the Hunt for Morrigan Crow (Nevermore #3), by Jessica Townsend

This past week my domestic tasks and my 7000 daily fitness steps for which my insurance will reward me ($25 a month, aka 2 books) have been made infinitely more palatable by the audiobook of Hollowpox: the Hunt for Morrigan Crow (Nevermore #3), by Jessica Townsend (hardover published by Little, Brown, October 2020 in the US). Gemma Whelan, the narrator, is brilliant!  (nb:  because I've listened to the whole series, I don't know how anything should be spelled, so I might make mistakes...)

This is the third installment of the story of a cursed girl, Morrigan Crow, who was whisked away to Nevermore in the Free State the night she was supposed to die, and who has found there a life of magic.  Morrigan, it turns out, is a Wundersmith, able to gather magic around her and use it to make marvels happen.  She's also the only Wundersmith in Nevermore; 100 years ago, a Wundersmith named Ezra Squall revealed himself as an evil monster, and is now an exile.  For a year, Morrigan studied with her cohort of other gifted kids at Wunsoc (the Wunderous Society), but no-one has taught her how to use her powers...except Squall, in brief, strange, and terrifying encounters.

This year is different.  This year she's introduced to a group of scholars studying the long gone Wundersmiths and their arts, with the help of Stolen Hours--vignettes of the past that can be visited.  Morrigan gets to visit Stolen Hours in which Wundersmith kids were taught by masters...and she is thrilled.  

But outside of Wunsoc, terrible things are happening in Nevermore.  Wuimals--persons who have animal bodies, or physical traits of animals, are becoming infected by a mysterious ailment, the Hollowpox, that first drives them into vicious frenzies, and then strips them of their intelligence, leaving them simply animals.  Wunimals have only been accepted as equals in society fairly recently, and when infected individuals attack other citizens (sometimes fatally), prejudice against them explodes, and increasingly harsh measures are taken to keep them off the streets.

Morrigan is desperately wants to help, but her only real hope is to make a deal with the man she fears as much as the Hollowpox, Ezra Squall....the one who created the disease.

On the one hand, it was rather a strain listening to a story of terrible contagion and bigotry and injustice.  It was almost too much of an echo of 2020.  On the other hand, though, this makes it a rather powerful and timely lens in which to look back at our own world's troubles, and reflect on those, and grow.  

The twists and turns of the plot (and there were many of these!), and even more so, the lavishness of the light fantastic soothed and engrossed me--these books, though not breaking any tremendously fresh new fantasy ground, have lovely, lovely magical superstructure to it that is just delightful! In this book, for instance,we get to travel to the library of Nevermore, and it is marvelous (and dangerous....).  Arguably, the magical whimsy is so generous that it slows the story down, but I am totally ok with that in this particular case (possibly because I was listening to it, and couldn't skim description the way I would while reading, and so was compelled to enjoy it for what it was).

Morrigan's story arc keeps progressing.  She is only 13, and still learning that her actions have consequences, and still making some questionable decisions about many things, but she's learning.  New levels and vistas of the magic of Nevermore are revealed in this book, and that's delightful too.  I would, I think, have liked more development of Morrigan's relationships with the other kids in her Wunsoc unit--there's not real deepening of this here. In general, there are lots of characters, and not enough time to develop them all, and because I'm interested in every one of them, I want more.

I also, of course, want the next book on audio now. It really hurt me to not be able to look at the end to see what would happen so I wouldn't have to worry, as I would have done if I'd been reading the phsycial book, but I think this way was better.

This week's round-up of MG sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (2/28/21)

Hello all, and good riddance to February!  Here's what I found in my blog reading this week; please feel free to let me know if I missed your post, or if you are an author, a post about your book!

The Reviews

Aster and the Mixed-Up Magic by Thom Pico, at Cover2CoverBlog

Behind the Canvas by Alexander Vance. at Leaf's Reviews

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents, by Roopa Raveendran-Menon, at Charlotte's Library

Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge, at Hidden in Pages

The Dragon and Her Boy, by Penny Chrimes, at A little but a lot

The Girl and the Ghost, by Hanna Alkaf, at Not Acting My Age

The House at the Edge of Magic, by Amy Sparkes, at Book Craic

Into Darkness (Stuffed, #2) by Liz Braswell, at Rajiv's Reviews

The Last Rabbit, Shelley Moore Thomas, at Cracking the Cover

The Lion of Mars, by Jennifer Holm, at A Kid's Book a Day

Mort the Meek and the Ravens’ Revenge, by Rachel Delahaye, at Scope for Imagination

One Jar of Magic, by Corey Ann Haydu, at Word Spelunking

The Prince Warriors and the Unseen Invasion, by Priscilla Shirer with Gina Detwiler, at Say What?

The Raconteur's Commonplace Book, by Kate Milford, at Charlotte's Library

A Sprinkle of Sorcery, by Michelle Harrison, at Bellis Does Books

Stuffed (Stuffed #1) by Liz Braswell, at Rajiv's Reviews

A Tangle of Spells by Michelle Harrison, at Bellis Does Books

Unicorn Island, by Donna Galanti, at Always in the Middle and alibrarymama

Unlocked,by Shannon Messenger, at Justine Laismith

When You Trap a Tiger, by Tae Keller, at Of Maria Antonia

The Year I Flew Away, by Marie Arnold, at Fantasy Literature

Authors and Interviews

Jnna Lehne (Bone Tree) at MG Book Village

Mike Johnston (Confessions of a Dork Lord) at Middle Grade Ninja podcast

Christian McKay Heidicker (Scary Stories for Young Foxes: the City) at Fuse#8

The Spooky MG team share their 2021 releases

The Raconteur's Commonplace Book, by Kate Milford

It's disconcerting, in this time of social isolation, to find oneself trapped in an inn by a flooding river with a crowd of strangers. This is how The Raconteur's Commonplace Book (Clarion, Feb 23, 2021), the latest fantasy by Kate Milford set in the fantastical town of Nagspeake, begins. Although happy to be back in Nagspeake, I felt twinges of social discomfort, and I also felt a bit uncertain about my ability to keep all the characters straight, exactly as I would in real life.

But of course, this inn, and these people, are not at all like real life. They have strange secrets, pasts that haunt them and desires that drive them, and here they are trapped together in Nagspeak, where the "laws of nature" are more like suggestions, easily ignored. To pass the time while the rain keeps falling, they take turns telling stories.

The stories are rich and strange. Some I loved, some liked, but all hooked me in one way or another with their magic and fear and hope and sadness, and choices both good and bad. The writing is lovely, and all the stories made vivid images in my mind. I now want to go back to re-read all the other books, because these stories pick up on, amplify, or simply reference many things from the earlier books; having read this, my experience of the other books will be enriched. And then I'll read this again, knowing more about the storytellers (and able now to keep them straight in my mind), and the stories will be even more replete with interest and meaning.

Though the book is a series of linked stories, it's not a short story collection per se. The links between the stories and the bits between the stories, where we spend time with the people telling them, are strong enough that the book tells a whole story with people you end up caring for (albeit with lots of bits I'd like to know more about!). So if you aren't really a fan of short stories, do not be put-off!

The book is marketed for middle grade readers (9-12 year olds), but it might be hard to get them past the beginning, what with the large number of grown-ups milling around inside the inn. There is one young girl, but she's not an immediate point of view character. That being said, kids in that age range are just as likely to enjoy magical stories of twistiness and interconnections as anyone else.


My final thoughts:

--I would not be at all surprised if this book won awards.

--I would not be at all surprised if its young readers remember it for the rest of their lives (like how I remember Joan Aiken's short stories, first read when I was 8-10, a train of thought that leads me to recommending Milford's books to Aiken fans....)

--As well as big magical descriptions (ships and buildings and ice tunnels etc), Kate Milford is generous with descriptive details of small, particular things in her books and I enjoy them lots. Very few writers take the time to include small hand-carved albatrosses, for instance. The intersection of little carved animals and card houses was one of my favorite bits.

--I thought it was a lovely book.

Here's what I really thought (most of my very realest thoughts come to me as food metaphors):

Reading this book was like sitting down with a box of gourmet chocolates, each sumptuously crafted, each decorated with a little flourish of some sort, and each with a slightly different, slightly complicated flavor, and going mad and eating them all at once and not regretting it because it was wonderful but also sort of thinking that taking it more slowly would probably have been best while also thinking that an even bigger box would also have been nice...

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents, by Roopa Raveendran-Menon, for Timeslip Tuesday

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents, by Roopa Raveendran-Menon (middle grade, Regal House Publishing, Feb. 5, 2021), is the 450th book I've reviewed for Timeslip Tuesday.  In the course of reading lots and lots of time travel books, I've generally thought of them falling into two main camps--Time Travel tourism/education, in which the time travel experience serves to teach lessons about past or about life, and Time Travel for profit, which is mostly heists of things from the past and future.   There are other smaller camps, like Time Travel to right old wrongs, and then there a very small sub-category, of Time Travel that doesn't actually drive plot or characters in any way on its own, but enables it (or small bits of it, like Hermione's Time Turner....).   There might be more of these than I'm aware off, because they don't get catalogued as "time travel," but I count them for my own purposes, which is to have a book to write about on (most) Tuesdays!

So in any event, Chandu and the Super Set of Parents is a book in which a time travel device is a key mechanism in the story; it's also, and more importantly, a whacky adventure full of wild imaginings and vivid descriptions.

Chandu is fed up with his parents' expectations and hopes for him--his engineer father expects him to be a great mathematician and engineer, and his mother hopes he'll just be safely ordinary.  Chandu doesn't exactly know what he wants himself, but neither of the two parental options appeal.  When he does well, but not well enough, on a math exam, the threat of a boarding school even stricter and more demanding than his current school looms--and both his father's pick and his mother's are equally dreadful.  

That night, sore at heart and feeling unloved, he sneaks out of the house, and finds himself lost on a forest path he's never seen before.  It leads him to The Exchange Your Parents Shop, and the strange proprietor offers him the opportunity to enroll in the Happily Ever After Program, that finds kids their perfect parent.  And so Chandu sets out to spend a day and a night with a series of utterly extraordinary parents.

(This is where the time travel comes in--he takes with him a device that resets time after each visit, with no time passing in his own life....)

Traveling by elephant, peacock, hot air balloon, and tiger, Chandu is taken from one set of parents to the next. He gets to be (briefly) the child of math geniuses, movie superstars, famous athlete, extraordinary crafters, and parents who are utterly obedient to his every whim. All the parents are over-the-top extremists-- entertainingly, and rather horrifically, so--and in the end, he realizes that he prefers his own parents after all.

It's a bit slow to get going, mainly because it doesn't focus on Chandu's point of view for the first few chapters. But once he starts visiting parents, it becomes lots of fun! There's tons of vivid description, not just of the parents and their peculiar set-ups and expectations, but of more mundane things, like food--delicious Indian food appears throughout!

Chandu does get the chance at each visit to realize that he has his own particular strengths and interests, and returns to ordinary life with more confidence. He also returns to parents who act a lot more supportively than they did at the beginning of the book, when they really were awful (so much so that I couldn't quite believe they were so decent at the end).

Not quite to my own personal taste, though I did enjoy the various parents, but is one I can recommend  as a read-aloud for an elementary school aged kid (the first few chapters, in particular, I think, would be more likely to hook a young reader if read out loud to them).

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (2/21/21)

Welcome to 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 (and I hope you all are warm and safe!  I myself found, thanks to my recent water bill, that there are 10000 gallons of unaccounted for water somewhere in my house, which you would think would have made their presence known in some wet and horrible way, but no. I have ordered a stethoscope to trace the water flow along the pipes, as there is flow even when all the fixtures are turned off; wish me luck).

First, congratulations to Rival Magic, by Deva Fagan, this year's Elementary/Middle Grade speculative fiction Cybils Awards winner! (here's the link to winners in all categories--lots of great reading!)  Please do think about joining the Cybils as a panelist next fall--it's lots of fun, and we are always happy to welcome new folks!  Look for the call for panelists in August)

The Reviews

Curse of the Night Witch (Emblem Island #1), by Alex Aster, at Say What?

The Dragon and her Boy, by Penny Crimes, at Book Craic

Ellie Makes Her Move (The Spyglass Sisterhood #1), by Marilyn Kaye, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Finn and the Intergalactic Lunchbox, by Michael Buckley, at Carstairs Considers

Hatch by Kenneth Oppel and Sophie Amoss, at Puss Reboots

The Hatmakers, byTamzin Merchant, at Cracking the Cover and Sifa Elizabeth Reads

Hide and Seeker, by Daka Hermon, at Book Den

Hoax for Hire, by Laura Martin, at Say What?

Kingdom of Secrets, by Christyne Morrell, at Bit About Books

Kingston and the Magician's Lost and Found, by Rucker Moses and Theo Gangi, at Log Cabin Library, Always in the Middle, and Ms. Yingling Reads

The Monsters of Rookhaven, by Pádraig Kenny, at Book Craic

Mulan: Before the Sword, by Grace Lin, at Say What?

The Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club, by Alex Bell, at Book Craic

One Jar of Magic by Corey Ann Haydu, at Waking Brain Cells

Rival Magic, by Deva Fagan, at Say What?

Semi-Magical Witch (Eva Evergreen #1), by Julie Abe, at Say What?

The Silver Arrow, by Lev Grossman, at proseandkahn

Story Magic, by Laurel Gale, at Susan Uhlig

That’s A Wrap (Dragon Detective #4), by  Gareth P Jones, at Readaraptor

Thirteens, by Kate Alice Marshall, at Say What?

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia, at never not reading

Twist, by Sarah Cannon, at Charlotte's Library

When You Trap a Tiger, by Tae Keller, at Book Nut

A Wish in the Dark, by Christina Soontornvat, at Say What?

The World Between Blinks, by Amie Kaufman & Ryan Graudin, at Denise Newton Writes and The Book Muse

Five at Feed Your Fiction Addiction, from her Cybils Awards Reading--Dragon Assassin, by Arthur Slade, The Girl Who Speaks Bear, by Sophie Anderson, Mulan: Before the Sword, by Grace Lin, Bones in the Wall, by Susan McCauley, and The Barren Grounds, by David Alexander Robertson

Authors and Interviews

Eden Royce (Root Magic) at Harper Stacks

Rucker Moses and Theo Gangi ( Kingston and the Magician’s Lost and Found) at Whatever

Other Good Stuff

“Would You Like Wings?”: An Invitation to Transformation in The Magician’s Nephew at Tor

At The Horn Book, a gathering of mg sci fi/fantasy for Black History Month

New in the UK, from Mr. Ripley's Enchanted Books

"The Changing Face Of Fantasy Chapter Books" (Book Riot podcast)

Twist, by Sarah Cannon

Twist, by Sarah Cannon (middle grade, Feiwel Friends, February 2020) is the story of three kids trying to save their Oklahoma town from monsters, while keeping a whole bevy of magical creatures safe as well.  It's a fun one for kids who like magical creature mayhem, and "horror" that stays on the light side of things, with no actual gruesome violence. 

Eli is an aspiring horror writer, and has typed out (this being the 1980s) many grotesque monsters, and sent many kids to unpleasant ends.  Neha, a newish kid who's Indian-American, fills her notebooks with drawings of an imaginary town.  And Court is the sort of kid who plunges into experiences without a second thought, and who's become well-practiced at cleaning up the mess that inevitably results.  

When Court picks up a page torn out of Neha's notebook by a jerk on the school bus, she finds out Neha's secret--her imaginary town is populated by a wide range of bizarre beings, who are living their lives in the homes she's drawn for them.  But monsters have also come to Neha's town, and her friends are in danger.  Eli gets drawn in to the plan to save the creatures by bringing in them into the real world, and now the three of them have homes that are over-run with mischievous, hungry, loyal, impossible creatures! (which fortunately can't be seen by grown-ups, though the adults can see the resulting mess...)

But the monsters don't stay trapped in Neha's drawings.  Soon they break through to our world too, and they are happy to prey not only on the creatures, but on kids.  So Court, Neha, and Eli, with a little help from younger siblings, and some inspiration from the D. and D. game run by Court's big sister,set out to take back their town.

The creatures are wonderfully unique, and very entertaining to read about, especially if you like chaos (as an adult, the chaos was too much for me--I would not want all these creatures eating me out of house and home).  The bad monsters are scary, and capable of real harm, but don't actually get a chance to do it (lots of kids get attacked, but manage to beat back the monsters or escape them).  There's lots of humor, with 1980s pop-culture references and slapstick creature mayhem bits, but the part that entertained me most was that instead of collapsing under the weight of monster foiling, the three protagonists are amusingly up-beat a lot of the time, reacting with sarcasm and exasperation when things go badly (which they do...).  

It's a struggle to defeat the monsters, and it's not an entirely satisfying ending, but the three kids do a great job mustering their forces and thinking creatively.  Especially recommended to kids who like to make creatures up themselves!

Super Potato's Mega Time-Travel Adventuire, by Artur Laperla, for Timeslip Tuesday

Here's a fun graphic novel for younger kids (6-9 year olds ish) for this week's timeslip Tuesday-Super Potato's Mega Time-Travel Adventure, by Artur Laperla (August 6th 2019 by Graphic Universe). Yesterday I also read a YA book that I thought would be today's post (Hello Now, by Jenny Valentine, which was billed as time travel by the library system), but I decided that interdimensional eternal existence isn't time travel, and I didn't actually like it much in any event, so I fell back on my fall back plan, which was spending ten minutes reading Super Potato, and here I am.

I actually enjoyed Super Potato (S.P.) very much.  Though this is the third book in the series, I had No Trouble At All grasping the backstory--macho, good looking, egomaniac superhero, Super Max, turned into a  potato with the same superpowers by a bad guy.  Several years have passed.  Now Scientists have made a time machine, to give S.P. a chance to go back and foil the bad guy before the transformation happens, so S.P. travels back in time (which makes him very sick to his stomach.  Suspension of disbelief is required, because of course potatoes don't have stomachs...)

S.P. has only a limited window of time in the past...but when a nasty sewer swamp villain shows up, boasting about kidnapping Olivia, who was constantly getting kidnapped and rescued by Super Max, S.P. can't just do nothing.  So it's off to the sewers to save the damsel in distress, who is pretty fed up about it all and gets an awesome kick in to show she's not altogether helpless.

But this adventures makes S.P. miss his date with destiny, and he is still a potato when the time machine brings him back to the present.   The thoughtful reader (which would be me) thinks that he let himself get distracted by the side quest because he's actually happier as a potato; it's clear he has mixed feelings about his past self (with good reason!).

And indeed, he is much nicer as he is now.  He is an awful winsome little flying potato dude, and I found him charming!  (nb--the cover doesn't do the cuteness justice, because it's zoomed in on him so much.   In most of the illustrations, he is a small potato drawn to scale, so much cuter, flying around in his little cape...)

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and sci fi from around the blogs (2/14/21)

Welcome to this week's gathering of posts of interest to fans of middle grade fantasy and sci fi!  Please let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews

Amari and the Night Brothers, by B.B. Alston, at Bellis Does Books

The Amazing Adventures of Jimmy Crikey, by Wallace E. Briggs, at Jazzy Book Reviews

The Ash House, by Angharad Walker, at Charlotte's Library

Cathedral of Bones, by A. J. Steiger, at The Southern Bookseller Review

City of the Plague God, by Sarwat Chadda, at Rajiv's Reviews

The Crowns of Croswald, by D.E. Night, at Ashleigh's Bookshelf

Dragon Legend, by Katie and Kevin Tsang, at A little but a lot

Dragon’s Cure by Kandi J Wyatt, at The Faerie Review

Horton Halfpott by Tom Angleberger, at Leaf's Reviews

Ida and the Unfinished City, by Carolyn Cohagan, at Always in the Middle

Jinxed, by Amy McCullough, at Dead Houseplants

Kingston and the Magician's Lost and Found, by Rucker Moses and Theo Gangi, at Proseandkahn

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

The Lost Wonderland Diaries, by J. Scott Savage, at Kidlit Underground

Mañanaland, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, at Sonderbooks

The Map of Stars, by Laura Ruby, at Leaf's Reviews

Maximillian Fly, by Angie Sage, at Say What?

One Jar of Magic, by Corey Ann Haydu, at The Children's Book Review and Ms. Yingling Reads

Root Magic, by Eden Royce, at Charlotte's Library

Unicorn Island, by Donna Galanti, at Log Cabin Library and The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow

The Window, by Dave Cole, at Charlotte's Library

The Zombie Stone (Zombie Problems #2), by K.G. Campbell, at Word Spelunking

Two at Ms. Yingling Reads--Flood City, by Older, Daniel Jose, and Stone, Nic. The Vanished (Shuri: A Black Panther Novel #2)

Authors and Interivews

B.B. Alston (Amari and the Night Brothers) at Shelf Talker

Nicole Lesperance (The Nightmare Thief) at The Winged Pen

Donna Galanti (Unicorn Island), at From the Mixed Up Files, Word Spelunking, and Geo Librarian

Corey Ann Haydu (One Jar of Magic), at The Children's Book Review and Crafty Moms Share

Jamie Littler (Escape from Aurora), at Nerdy Book Club

Craig S. Phillips and Harold Hayes Jr (Kingston and the Magician's Lost and Found) at Middle Grade Ninja

K.G. Campbell (The Zombie Stone) at MG Book Village

MG Book Village

Other Good Stuff

Brian Jaques Redwall is coming to Netflix (from Tor)

Head over the the Cybils Awards website for this year's winners at 9am PST!  Which shortlisted elementary/middle grade speculative fiction book will take the top honor???

https://www.thefaeriereview.com/2021/02/kids-korner-dragons-cure/

Root Magic, by Eden Royce

Root Magic, by Eden Royce (Walden Pond, January 2021), is a must-read middle grade fantasy book of 2021! It's a gripping mix of historical fiction (1963 South Carolina), magic that's a part of the author's culture, and family joy (mixed with sorrow and worry).  But what it is most of all is the story of a girl growing up, realizing her power and recognizing where where it comes from and the responsibilities it brings.

Jez and her twin brother, Jay, have had a mostly happy childhood, playing in the marshes and fields around their home in the Carolina low country. But just before they turn 11, their beloved grandmother dies. She was a cornerstone of the Gullah Geechee community, a practitioner of Root Magic that had been passed down from ancestors captured in Africa. The kids' uncle, Doc, is also a practitioner, and begins to teach Jez and Jay.

Rootwork has protected Jez's community for generations, and she's excited to be part of it. They need protection as much as they ever have--the Sheriff's deputy is a nasty piece of work, terrorizing her family. Jez has a great gift for Root, but will it be enough to keep her family safe?

Throw in some ghosts, a witch, some red wolves (in true fairytale fashion, Jez saves a trapped wolf, who later helps her when she needs it most), and then add more ordinary school troubles (Jez is the target of mean girls, and this is the first year she's every made a good school friend, a friendship that brings its own complications), and some sibling tension (Jay is not as skilled at Root or at school as Jez, and worries he's being left behind, while Jez in turn feels he's turning away from family in favor of friends) and you have a great book!

Jez is a great character, sad and anxious at times, but full of joy at others. Though there is trauma and tension, her family is warm and loving, and those who are tired of dead or absent mothers will love Jez's mother! Her father is missing, and the kids don't know what became of him, and this small piece of the plot comes in at the end, part of the closure after the nasty Deputy comes to terrorize the family one last time.

The idea of a kid learning her family's magic is a solid middle grade fantasy plotline, but this is not ordinary fantasy. Eden Royce drew on her family's tradition of Rootwork, and their experiences in the 1960s, in writing the story, and though some things read as fantastical fantasy (like the witch), mostly this reads as real world magic, and her writing makes it all come to vivid life.


A lovely book! (for what it is worth, Kirkus agrees with me...which isn't always the case....)