Kate's Tales of Books and Bands

If Hannah had known what was going to happen, she would have told her dad, off on a business trip, that she loved him. If she had known, she wouldn't have gotten into a fight with her best friend. And if she had known, maybe she wouldn't have grumped at her mom's advise. But she didn't. And now a devastating earthquake has stranded her and the two younger kids she's babysitting on an island.  There are no grown-ups.  No power.  No water.  No phone service.  Will they make it? The Disaster Days , by Rebecca Behrens, is a gripping story of kids surviving on their own after an earthquake that will set your mind racing!   It's  only Hannah's second time babysitting the neighbor's kids; she's not all that much older than them (she in 7th, Zoe's in 4th and Oscar is in 3rd  Her mother has fussed at her for not being responsible enough to look after anyone, but Hannah feels fairly confident, even if her mother won't be on the island where they live t...

Welcome to this week's round-up of mg sci fi and fantasy blog postings!  Please let me know if I missed anything (anyone is welcome to send me posts during the week for the following Sunday's round-up, including authors and publiscists etc.). The Reviews Anya and the Dragon, by Sofiya Pasternack, at Read Love The Battle, by Karuna Riazi, at Charlotte's Library City of Ghosts, by Victoria Schwab, at Fantasy Literature and Treestand Book Reviews The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz, at Log Cabin Library Dragonfell, by Sarah Prineas, at Puss Reboots The Green Children of Woolpit, by J. Anderson Coats, at Charlotte's Library The Library of Ever, by Zeno Alexander, at Cover2CoverBlog The Lost Girl, by Anne Ursu, at Imaginary Friends Malamander, by Thomas Taylor, at Ms. Yingling Reads Marigold Star, by Elise Primavera, at Nayu's Reading Corner The Red Rover: Origins, by C.E. Whitaker III, at The Write Path Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, by Carlos Hernandez...

Back in the 12th century, two green children were found in the English village of Woolpit.  The boy died, but the girl lived, and spoke of the twilight underground country they'd come from.  They became a legend .  And now J. Anderson Coats has made them the center of a magical middle grade story, The Green Children of Woolpit (Atheneum, September 2019). Except that the center of her story is not actually the two green children, but Agnes, the peasant girl who finds them.  Agnes, whose mind wanders, who can see the wind, who isn't rushing toward growing up like her former best friend, Glory.  Agnes was the only one to hear the green children calling for help.  And because she went to their aid, her own life becomes a nightmare. While the green girl tries to take her place in her family with guile and fairy glamor, Agnes is trapped in the underground halls of the malevolent and sadistic Good People.  To make things right, she must undo the bargain she b...

The Battle , by Karuna Riazi (middle grade, Salaam Reads / Simon & Schuster, August, 2019) has just as much exciting fun as its predecessor, The Gauntlet! It's four years after Ahmad Mirza, his big sister Farah and two of her friends were sucked into a game that came to life, and Farah led the group to defeat the game's architect (as told in The Gauntlet ).  Four years in which Ahmed has gotten into trouble, made no friends, and obsessively drawn the game's city setting, Paheli.  And now Ahmed is sitting in the principle's office, in trouble for sneaking the package his sister mailed to him at school from the school office.  Then Winnie, a "good kid," shows up to explain she was the one who snuck the package out.  And when Ahmed sets off home that day, she follows him. He doesn't understand why, but can't help but hope that Winnie might be a friend....And so the two of them look at the high-tech video game that was in the package-- The Battle -- a...

Welcome to this week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs! Please let me know if I missed your post. The Reviews The 12th Candle, by Kim Tomsic, at Always in the Middle All the Impossible Things, by Lindsay Lackey, at Charlotte's Library City of Ghosts, by Victoria Schwab, at The Zen Leaf The Curse of Greg, by Chris Rylander, at Say What? The Disaster Days, by Rebecca Behrens, at Bibliobrit Frostfire, by Jamie Smith, at Fantasy Literature Guardians of Magic (The Cloud Horse Chronicles #1), by Chris Riddell, at Books for Topics The Girl Who Speaks Bear, by Sophie Anderson, at A little but a lot The Last Kids on Earth and the Midnight Blade, by Max Brallier, at J.R.'s Book Reviews Malamander, by Thomas Taylor, at A Garden of Books (audiobook review) Nico Bravo and the Hound of Hades by Mike Cavallaro, at Jean Little Library Outlaws (Royal Academy Rebels) by Jen Calonita, at Sharon the Librarian The Remarkables, by Margaret Peterson Haddix, a...

This is How You Lose the Time War , by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone ( July 2019, Gallery / Saga Pres) , is an epistolary love story between two agents (Red and Blue) on either side of a time war that stretches millennia in both directions.  Red and Blue are skilled at manipulating the strings of time, braiding them into patterns that will result in the desired outcomes of the two very different futures that spawned them. But when they begin a correspondence that starts as a taunting challenge, they find that they are braiding themselves together, tugging each other toward a future that seems impossible. It's not a doorstopper of a book (198 pages), so I thought it would be a fast read, but it's not, because all the words deserve consideration, and it's so rich in literary allusions and historical details and epistolary conceits that it demands to be savored.  It' s a very complicated sort of time travel (constant back and forth manipulation of history can make my he...

All the Impossible Things , by Lindsay Lackey (middle grade, Roaring Brook Press, September 2019), is a story about a magical girl finding love, and it's heartwarming and sad and sweet, and a very good read. Eleven-year-old Red (her real name's Ruby, but she's always been Red to her mom) has been in and out of various foster homes since her grandma's death a few years earlier.  She's driven off to her newest placement with no particular hopes that it will be any better than anywhere else, and since she's counting down the days (about a year's worth) till her mom gets out of prison and they can be together again, she has no interest in actually finding a home. But the Grooves, an older couple who run a small petting zoo, welcome her with love, and the promise of home.  And when Red finds out her mom, whose drug addition is what landed her in jail and left Red with her Grandma, is out early, she's torn by her burning wish to be a happy family with her mom,...

Here's what I found this week; please let me know if I missed your post! The Reviews The Age of Akra, by Vacen Taylor, at Jazzy Book Reviews Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor, at Hidden in Pages (audiobook review) Anya and the Dragon, by Sofiya Pasternack, at Ms. Yingling Reads Charlie Hernández and the League of Shadows, by Ryan Calejo, at Nerdophiles and Nicole's Novel Reads The Fire Keeper, by J. C. Cervantes, at B. and N. Kids Blog The Frozen Sea, by Piers Torday, at Book Craic The Girl Who Speaks Bear, by Sophie Anderson, at Book Craic The Green Children of Woolpit, by J. Anderson Coats, at Hidden in Pages Guest: A Changling Tale, by Mary Downing Hahn, at BooksForKidsBlog The Jumbie God's Revenge, by Tracey Baptiste, at Kid Lit Reviews Lalani of the Distant Sea, by Erin Entrada Kelly, at Some the Wiser The Little Grey Girl, by Celine Kiernan, at Cover2Cover Blog M alamander, by Thomas Taylor, at Always in the Middle , BooksYALove , Twirling Book Princess , and Charlott...

When my children were young, we would sometimes make a den of the bed, and they would be young foxes.  They wanted me to be the mother fox (which of course makes sense), but I very much wanted to be a baby fox too, because the dramatic tension and heart-wrenching anxiety of the baby foxes waiting for their mama to come back to them is so much more interesting than the "mother fox keeps her babies safe and nothing can hurt them" story.  Especially when you are stuck being the mother fox. So the point of that little anecdote is that I was utterly primed to read Scary Stories for Young Foxes , by Christian McKay Heidicker (Henry Holt, July 2019), in which mama foxes fail to protect their babies and no den is safe and warm.  It's a series of terrifying episodes in the lives of two young foxes, framed as stories being told to a litter of young fox kids who came to the storytellers cave looking for thrills...and found them! Mia was a happy little fox kit with a mother fox who ...

Malamander , by Thomas Taylor (Walker Books/Candlewick), just came ashore Tuesday in the US, after winning many fans on the other side of the pond in the UK. Herbie Lemon, is, to the best of his knowledge, an orphan, taken in by Mrs, Kraken, the proprietor of the Grand Nautilus hotel in the town of Eerie-on-Sea, and installed as the keeper of its Lost and Found office.  In summer, the town is Cheerie-on-Sea, full of happy seaside visitors, but in winter the visitors leave, and the c and h loose their luster as the snow falls...and the residents murmur of the Malamander, the legendary monster who haunts the cold grey ocean... It's one such winter when a girl named Violet shows up lost at the hotel, and Herbie takes her in.  Violet too is an orphan (also to the best of her belief); her parents vanished on the town's beach long ago and were never seen again.  She's come back to Eerie-on-Sea to try to solve this mystery, and finds her parents story is entangled with the legen...

The Moon Over Crete , by Jyotsna Sreenivasan (1996, Smooth Stone Press), is a slightly older children's time travel story, interesting for several reasons. It's the story of a modern girl, 11-year-old Lily, whose mom is Indian American, and whose dad is European American.  Lily is finding it difficult being a girl--her best friend is interested in dressing to impress boys, a boy in her class is sexually harassing her and no one is doing anything about it, her mother isn't letting her do things (like go exploring off in the woods) that she'd be allowed to do if she were a boy.  Lily's flute teacher, Mrs. Zinn, is the only one who seems to understand Lily's growing resentment. And happily for Lily, Mrs. Zinn is a time-traveler, fond of visiting ancient Crete, where (in this fictional world) there is almost utopian gender equality.  Mrs. Zinn offers Lily the chance to go to ancient Crete with her for a few weeks,  and Lily accepts.  Having an experienced adult guid...

Here's what I found this week in my on-line reading of interest to us mg fantasy and sci fi fans! Please let me know of anything I missed. First-- You have until Friday the 13 to apply to be a Cybils judge !  Please do; we'd love to welcome new folks to the wild reading and discussing fun that is the Cybils, and I, in particular, would love love love to welcome new folks to the category I'm responsible, Elementary Middle Grade Speculative Fiction. The Reviews Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire, by John August, at Imaginary Friends Briar and Rose and Jack, by Katherine Coville, at Cracking the Cover Charlie Hernandez and the League of Shadows, by Ryan Calejo, at Eli to the nth Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden, at Rajiv's Reviews Dragon Slippers, by Jessica Day George, at Middle Grade Book Village The Girl who Speaks Bear, by Sophie Anderson, at Magic Fiction Since Potter Hunters for Hire (Monster Club #1), by Gavin Brown, at Say What? Jagger Jones and the Mummy's Ankh, ...

The Little Grey Girl , by Celine Kiernan (Candlewick, Sept 3 2019), is the sequel to Begone the Raggedy Witches, which if you enjoy middle grade fantasy and haven't read yet, I strongly recommend you do!  Preferably before you read The Little Grey Girl, which picks up right after Raggedy Witches. Mup's mother defeated her own mother, leader of the Raggedy Witches who exercised brutal dominion over a magical land.  Now Mup's family is moving to that land.  Her mother doesn't want to pick up where the old queen left off, though her magical power is just as great.  She'd much prefer to be part of a consensus building sort of leadership.  But there are those who feel strong authority is the only way to guard against the return of the old queen and the power of the Ragged Witches who are still around... The castle that is now Mup's home is rather cold and dreary, and sits atop the dungeons where the old queen had tortured many prisoners, including Mup's father. ...

Delia and her cohort of kids training at the Time Museum to journey across the ages are back in another adventure-- The Time Museum, Vol. 2 , by Matthew Loux (First Second, June 2019).  This graphic novel has all the brightly illustrated fun and excitement of the first volume ( my review ), and even more danger and suspense. Delia and the other kids are getting ready for their next time travel mission, with the help of none other than Richard Nixon.  Nixon is a surprisingly capable instructor, and the tips and tricks he provides during training come in very useful indeed when things start going wrong.  Their mission sounded straightforward--travel back to 18th century Versailles to patch up French/US diplomatic relations, but it quickly becomes complicated by a temporal loop that brings future versions of themselves back in time too.  And then things become very strange indeed when all of them travel to a dystopian future, where an old enemy awaits.... I have to conf...

Nothing from me this week; it was "taking kid back to college" time.  But here's what I found on other blogs!  Let me know if I missed your post.  And just a reminder--you have a little less than 2 weeks to apply to be a judge in this year's Cybils Awards !  I'd love to welcome new folks to the Middle Grade Speculative Fiction team! The Reviews The Author's Blood by Jerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry (The Wormling #5) at Say What? The Battle, by Karuna Riazi, at Muslim Reads Cape (The League of Secret Heroes Book 1 by Kate Hannigan, at The Children's War Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation, by Stuart Gibbs, at Geo Librarian City of Ghosts, by Victoria Schwab, at proseandkahn Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden, at Ms. Yingling Reads and Word Spelunking The Dragon Princess, by E.D. Baker, at Puss Reboots The Little Grey Girl (The Wild Magic Trilogy #2) by Celine Kiernan, at Log Cabin Library Oh, Rats! by Tor Seidler, at Ms. Yingling Reads Riverland, by Fran W...