It’s Mavelous Middle-Grade Monday, hosted by Greg Pattridge at Always in the Middle! Today I’m reviewing two of the 2024 Cybils Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Finalists that I didn’t get to back when I first read them. They are both exciting adventure stories that deal sensitively with kids facing the fallout of the prejudices of older generations.
Accidental Demons
by Clare Edge
Read by Karissa Vacker
HarperCollins, 2024
ISBN 978-1335006974
Listened to audiobook on Hoopla
Bernadette Crowley – Ber – is the youngest in a long line of blood witches stretching back to Ireland. (They currently live in Montana, a rare setting.) Blood witches use drops of their own blood to summon demons to do tasks for them before sending them back to their own dimension. But Ber has recently been diagnosed with diabetes, which means she’s constantly pricking her finger and summoning demons accidentally. She’s also powerful enough that sometimes the demons are much more powerful than she would be allowed to summon on purpose at her age. This is especially bad at school, since the magic obviously needs to be kept secret. Tired of the ruckus all the demons cause and with her parents threatening to pull her out of school, Ber and her sister come up with the idea to summon a low-level demon to stay with her to test her blood sugar magically. No need for finger pricking would mean no accidental demons. They’ll just need to be a little secretive, since summoning demons for long term use is forbidden.
However, the demon they end up summoning isn’t a low-level demon. Finn is a very large, very intelligent demon with goals of their own that have nothing to do with Ber’s agenda and a history with Ber’s great-great grandmother and name sake, the Bernadette Crowley of a hundred years ago. Even though it makes her uncomfortable, being able to know her blood sugar at all times is so marvelous that she agrees to keep Finn a secret from the rest of her family. It turns out that Ber isn’t the only one in the family with secrets, though, as it turns out that Maeve is hiding a secret of her own – one that pushes against their family teachings to keep their magical abilities secret even from other kinds of magic workers. And when the adults in the family find themselves over their heads with a rebellious nearby coven, Ber and Maeve will need to use all the magics and the connections they’ve made to help save them.
It is so rare to find a book starring a kid with diabetes! The last one I can remember is Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez, which I also highly recommend. The diabetes does take a lot of focus in Ber’s life and by extension the story, with all the testing and resulting insulin injections or snacking. Trying to manage all of this in the middle of the adventure is a lot, and leads to situations which are sometimes scary and sometimes hilarious. Kids who have to manage serious health conditions, whether diabetes or something else, will recognize its constant presence. The adventure has tension and humor, as well as looking at issues of inherited prejudice and its perils. I listened to it with great enjoyment, and started it over again just a month or so later to listen to it with my teen, who also really enjoyed it.
Sona and the Golden Beasts
by Rajani LaRocca
Read by Shiromi Arserio
Quill Tree Books, 2024
ISBN 978-0063295407
Listened to audiobook on Libby.
In this colonial-era Indian-inspired fantasy, Sona has grown up in a wealthy Malechian family, the colonial rulers of the country of Devia. Sona herself has never agreed with the official sharp divides between the peoples, especially due to her love of the grandmotherly Devan woman, Ayah, who has cared for her since her mother’s death. Most of all, Sona loves animals and frequently rescues them – kittens, a pony, and, as the story opens, a wounded wolf pup with golden ears. The ears are especially significant because golden ears are how Devans, who have them, can be told apart from Malechians, who don’t. The golden ears mark the wolf pup as one of the Five Sacred Beasts – and it’s clear that she’s being hunted. Sona can also hear music in all the living things around her, despite music being outlawed in Devia, another means of suppressing traditional Devan magic.
The wolf pup – Swara – starts a chain of events that upend Sona’s quiet life. First, Sona learns a family secret with profound impact on her identiy. Then the Hunter comes to find Swara, leading Sona to escape in the night with Swara and her pony to visit Ayah in the village for help. But Ayah is desperately ill from riding through a magical goldstorm to get protection that Sona didn’t know she needed. The only way to save her will be to travel to the other end of the country to get the sacred ingredients. And the only way to travel will be to join forces with Ayah’s grandson, Raag – whose life has led him to develop a deep hatred of all Malechians, most especially Sona, who, even if unknowingly, put his grandmother in danger in the first place.
Sona and Raag’s journey to understanding each other mirrrors the tension in the country as a whole, while their exploration of the country opens Sona’s eyes up to the level of injustice in the country, so that she longs to find a way to improve the lives of everyone there as well as Ayah. This focus helps to give the story an edge, even as the many adventures had, cities explored, and new friends made keep the overall story from feeling as didactic as my review might make it out to be.
This is a beautifully sweeping epic fantasy that feels rounded out in its single volume – great for readers who don’t want to commit to the long series more typical for epics. The social justice aspects would make it pair well with Amir and the Jinn Princess by M.T. Khan. I listened to the audiobook read by Shiromi Arsenio, whose work is increasingly impressing me. This is another winner from Rajani LaRocaa, whose Midsummer’s Mayhem I’ve included on more than one of my lists.
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