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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

Weird Little Robots, by Carolyn Crimi

I often find it annoying when people say they'd have loved a book when they were a kid themselves, mostly because they don't explain why and are just saying it as shorthand for "this book didn't work for me as an adult" which is fine, but why not just say that?   That being said, Weird Little Robots, by Carolyn Crimi (Candlewick, October 2019), is one I'd have really related to as a kid!

Penny Rose is new in town, and has no friends yet.  In the shed behind her house, she starts making little robots out of bits and pieces of salvaged stuff (trash to those with no vision), and to her delight, they come alive!  They can move and communicate of their own volition!

Then, after initial uncertainty, Penny Rose becomes friends with Lark, a neighbor girl.  Lark is an unusual girl, not just because she's an avid birdwatcher and birds bring her little gifts, and she too had no friends.  Penny Rose introduces Lark to the robots, and together the girls work to turn the shed into a magical world for them to play in.  And girls and robots are happy.

But then, Penny Rose is invited to join a secret science club.  The members are two cool popular girls, who seem really nice, and one boy, who doesn't.   Joining means leaving Lark behind....and putting her robots in danger (it's not a nice boy).  Fortunately Lark is able to forgive Penny Rose's unkind withdrawal from their friendship, and helps her save the robots.  And Penny Rose becomes a better friend, telling the science club girls that she won't join unless Lark is invited too.

So the appeal to young me comes from having a neighbor friend to build wildly and creatively with, which I did, though we had no magic robots.  That part of the story, before the invitation to the science club brought tension, was my favorite bit.  There's lots of detail about small found things (including bird gifts) being used to make other things, and it was delightful.

The strained friendship wasn't delightful, of course, and this thread of the story was less interesting and relatable to grown-up me (there are no cool girls I wish were my friends in my daily life, nor is there any friendship drama going on that I'm aware of).  A lot of the intended audience, though, are suffering through such things, and doubtless will relate, and perhaps even be heartened by Penny Rose's new-found maturity and loyalty.

The magic of the robots is never explained, it just is.  And this is something that, regardless of your age, will bother you, or not, depending on your personality.  It kind of bothered me a bit, but it would have changed the story too much to try to Explain things that couldn't be explained anyway, so I shrugged it off.

In any event--I'm an archaeologist, which means I'm trained to walk with my eyes on the ground and pick things up, and I have a box of found things in my barn that I was hoping my boys would turn into art, but that never happened.  So if you are a new kid to my neighborhood, you are welcome to come over and create with me!  Especially if you know how to solder.  Even more so if birds bring you cool small things on a regular basis.

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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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