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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...
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The Secret

The Secret

All the Colors of Magic, by Valija Zinck

If you are looking for a fun, comfy middle grade fantasy full of color and quirky details, try All the Colors of Magic, by Valija Zinck (Chicken House, December 3, 2019).  I enjoyed it lots.

10-year-old Penelope lives a mostly ordinary life with her mom and grandma.  The ordinary part is being looked after, going to school, and sometimes thinking about her dad, who vanished long ago.  There are less ordinary parts to her life though.  Her hair is gray, she has a whiff of fire smell around her, and it always rains on her birthday.  And she has a knack for hearing things in her head before her ears hear them.

When her mother has a bad traffic accident, leaving Penelope and her grandma on her own for several weeks while she's in the hospital, Penelope finds to her surprise that her hair isn't naturally gray--it's fiery red.  And she discovers her father is still alive, and still in (sporadic) touch with her mother.  With her hair red instead of gray from the paste her mom's been putting on it, her life gets more magical--for instance, she can hear, and converse, with the local road (which adds nice bits of humor to the story).   And now she knows her dad's alive, she wants to find him.

And so she sets out to do just that, on a path that leads both to discovery of her gifts, and to danger--power-hungry men would do almost anything for the opportunities her magic could give them....

There's enough plot and suspense to the story to keep one's attention, without one (me, that is), being made too anxious, and there's humor to further lighten things.  Penelope is a believable, appealing girl, and it's fun to see her magic blooming.  The risk she takes and the dangers she faces are substantive, but not exaggerated past the point where I rolled my eyes (not even close to that point, actually, and I wouldn't have minded a smidge more tension).   And the writing is full of color (literally), with vivid descriptions of the vivid world Penelope lives in (it's our world, but Penelope's family appreciates color....)

All the Colors of Magic was first published in Germany in 2017, making it even more interesting...it's always fun to read middle grade fantasy from other countries!  But it should feel right at home here in the US.  Offer it to young readers who love books of ordinary kids finding extraordinary, slightly whimsical, magic, like Natalie Lloyds A Snicker of Magic.

And now, for my own entertainment, I go to Kirkus to see if they agree with me (if they don't they're wrong, and if they do we are both righter....)  and they do! We both win! "The charming, comforting, and enjoyable tale of a magical girl discovering her (family and hair) roots."   

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

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Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden

Dead Voices , by Katherine Arden (middle grade, G.P. Putnam's Sons, August 2019), is a delightfully spooky sequel to Small Spaces , perfect for a chilling read as winter draws closer! Ollie, Coco, and Brian became close friends under somewhat trying circumstances last fall--the evil Smiling Man trying to turn them into scarecrows--and now winter has come, they're on their way to a fun weekend at a new ski lodge with Ollie's dad and Coco's mom.  They almost don't make it through the intense snowstorm, and when they arrive, they find themselves the only visitors.  The snow keeps falling, trapping them inside, and the power goes out.  And there are ghosts. The day after they arrive another visiter makes it through the snow, a young reporter for a ghost hunting magazine.  The owners of the hotel aren't sure that publicity about the hotel's previous incarnation of an orphanage with a dark, sad, history is what they want, but the young man is keen to get ghost hun...
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Premeditated

I'm going to start with the blurb from the back cover of this book, because it does a remarkable job of introducing the story in very few words: A week ago, Dinah’s cousin Claire cut her wrists. Five days ago, Dinah found Claire’s diary and discovered why. Three days ago, Dinah stopped crying and came up with a plan. Two days ago, she ditched her piercings and bleached the black dye from her hair. Yesterday, knee socks and uniform plaid became a predator’s camouflage. Today, she’ll find the boy who broke Claire. By tomorrow, he’ll wish he were dead. Claire and Dinah are cousins who are incredibly close, close enough that when Claire ends up in a coma in the hospital from a failed suicide attempt, Dinah knows where to look to find Claire's diary (or the computerized version of one, anyway). Dinah figures out what drove Claire to the point of suicide--a boy from the private school that Claire was supposed to attend that fall. Dinah enrolls at the school herself, determined to get...
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Storm

By: D.J. MacHale This is the sequel to SYLO where a small island off the coast of Maine was invaded by the US Navy (the US navy is called SYLO).  The main characters, Tucker, Kent, Olivia, and Tori escaped from Pemberwick and got to Portland, Maine.  In Storm they pick up another character, Jon, a doctor from a Portland hospital.  As it turns out the US Navy is at war with the US Airforce.  Over three fourths of the worlds population is dead.  Tucker, Tori, Kent, Olivia, and, Jon are trying to get to Nevada where a radio signal they picked up said to come if they wanted to fight back.  There is a lot of action and the plot moves along at a good pace.  One thing that was different from the first book was how much you found out about their relationships.  Kent is with Olivia and Tucker is with Tori.  It sort of bothered me that they were so into who was with who when they were trying to figure out why most of the world's population was killed. ...
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