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Geeks and the Holy Grail (Camelot Code #2), by Mari Mancusi, for Timeslip Tuesday

The first book in the Camelot Code series, The Once and Future Geek , mixed time travel between the medieval world of King Arthur and our own, and it is a very entertaining book.  The second book in the series, Geeks and Holy Grail (Hyperion, October 2019), is also entertaining (though not quite as funny; King Arthur as a modern day high school student is hard to beat....). When Morgana, sworn enemy of King Arthur, attacks the druids of Avalon, Nimue, the youngest of them, takes the Holy Grail and runs with it.  King Arthur is dying, and only the Grail can save him.  Desperate to keep it from falling into Morgana's hands, she stumbles into Merlin's Crystal Cave.  But instead of Merlin there to help her (he's on vacation in Los Vegas, in our time), there's only his very inexperienced apprentice, Emrys.  His attempt to hide the grail works, in a sense--as a small, flatulent dragon, it sure doesn't look much like a grail.  But it isn't much use to Arthur as a...

The Secret

The Extra

By: Kathryn Lasky

While reading this historical fiction book I thought it was completely fabricated.  The book was about a girl, Lilo, who is taken to a concentration camp with her parents.  Her dad is sent away and Lilo and her mom, Bluma, are picked by Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite filmmaker, to be in a movie.  Lilo, Bluma, a boy named Django, and everyone else picked go to the set where they are going to film the movie.  From then on, mostly bad things happen.  The reason I didn't realize this book was based on fact was because of the lack of emotion.  I didn't feel connected to Lilo at all even though the book was based on someone who actually was picked to be in Leni's film.  It was as if Lasky was talking to me, recounting her day, and no matter what she said I just sort of said "oh, that's nice" because I wasn't really paying attention.  The problem was that what she was saying wasn't nice.  I should have been more invested in Lilo and what happened to her, but I wasn't.  One problems was that the book was very scattered.  There never seemed to be a point.  When she was making the film she was just trying to stay alive.  She was obviously falling in love with Django but wasn't saying anything about it.  She didn't like Leni, but there was nothing she could do about it.  She was worried for her mom but not that worried.  There was never an end in sight because Lilo didn't really think about the future.  She never had any insight into what would happen next.  The book is clearly split into two sections.  The second one has almost nothing to do with the first section.  The second section came out of the blue and I can't figure out the need for it.  By the end of the book basically everything Lilo worked towards failed.  If she prevented something once, it just happened later, except once it happened she wasn't upset about it because she had given up.  The whole book just felt like a series of rather random and unfortunate events.  The only thing that had the inkling of feeling was Lilo's relationship with Django.  The reason this was better than her relationship with anyone else was because it never stated the fact that she fell in love with him, well that is, it didn't state it until late in the book. For once, I, as the reader, had to actually draw a conclusion for myself.

This book was like a bitter apple.  Overall, just not that good.  It has that fresh bite that sticks with you even after you've finished it.  The apple was bitter, sour, and hard.  There wasn't any juice.  Being a fan of historical fiction, this book was a big let down.  I would give this book a 1.5.

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Order of the Majestic, by Matt Myklusch

Order of the Majestic , by Matt Myklusch (middle grade, Aladdin, May 7 2019), is one to offer kids dreaming of magic, and hoping it will find them one day. 12-year-old Joey Kopecky wasn't one of those kids.  He was content flying under the radar, living an unambitious life of computer gaming in New Jersey, when his life was upended by perfect standardized test scores.  Now he's been offered a place at one of the most exclusive schools in the country, where every kid is a genius.  He feels like a fraud--knowing how to take tests is a skill, certainty , but is it really a hallmark of genius? But one final test, a strange one involving 150 magic tricks to solve, leads to a 151st trick that transports him to the ghostly shell of a once grand magical theater, the Majestic.  It's fallen into ruins, and to get inside Jack must pass through spooky wraiths, but once he makes it, he finds the magician who once made it famous, the Great Rodondo.  Rodondo was once the leade...

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 R...

The Shores Beyond Time, by Kevin Emerson

The Shores Beyond Time , by Kevin Emerson, is the third book in the Chronicle of the Dark Star series that began with Last Day on Mars , and continued in The Oceans Between Stars (links to my reviews).   Basically the premise is humanity, and an alien race with whom humanity is at war, are out among the stars after our sun went nova (and some other stars have too), both races looking for new homes (the aliens because humanity decided the Telphon's planet would be a great new home, and essentially nuked it, so there are only about three hundred of them left).  One human boy, Liam, and one Telphon girl, who goes by Phoebe, became friends on Mars and Liam met an ancient time travelling alien of a different species (as told in the first book) and were both separated from their people on a long lonely space flight, and Liam started travelling in time himself (the second book). In this third book, Liam and Phoebe find themselves at the heart of the mystery of the supernovas and the...

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