Shadow Magic by Joshua Khan

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Katy K.

The winner of this year’s Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Cybils Award!

Shadow Magic by Joshua KhanShadow Magic by Joshua Khan. Disney-Hyperion, 2016.
Young Thorn, after a series of events gone wrong that are slowly disclosed to the reader, is up for sale as a slave.  He’s bought by Tyburn, the executioner to Castle Gloom of the dark kingdom of Gehenna.  Naturally, being taken to a place reported to be defended by the undead only increases his desire to escape and continue his hunt for his missing father.  Events on the way change his mind, though, and he is forced to reevaluate his preconceptions about Castle Gloom.

There are no more zombie warriors at Castle Gloom, though there are plenty of bats and its graveyards are impressive.  Its princess, Lilith, Lady of Shadows, is a girl his own age, thrust suddenly into ruling the kingdom by the assassination of the rest of her family, all except her drunken Uncle Pan, who never could use magic anyway.  Lily, being a girl, isn’t allowed to use the family’s magic and so is being forced to marry Gabriel, prince of the Kingdom of Light, to end the war that has defined both kingdoms.  Also joining the group of kids the same age coming together for individual reasons is Prince K’leef of the Kingdom of Fire, held hostage by the Kingdom of Light, who finds Gabriel just as much of an obnoxious bully as do Thorn and Lily.  Lily’s former best friend, her maidservant Rose, never quite makes it into the gang.

Thus follows a pleasing adventure in which, predictably, Thorn puts skills learned from his father to good use and discovers secrets in the castle, Lily finds success in ignoring rules about proper female behavior, and K’leef thinks about his future.  Unpredictably, Lily has some good arguments in favor of using undead instead of living people as soldiers and has a very nasty shock coming to terms with the extent she’s relied on her privilege.  Also unpredictably but happily, K’leef is initially set up to be a traitor but escapes that role, though I still felt his character could have been better developed.

I was a little and perhaps unreasonably put off by little things like Thorn’s written-out country boy accent and added a new item to my list of modern things included in historical fiction and fantasy that make me and no one else twitchy.  This list has included potatoes (a New World discovery), velvet before the 14th century, and walzes prior to the 19th.  Lily has a Labrador puppy, which struck me as wrong. I looked it up to be sure – the breed dates to 1903 – and led me to the Medieval Dog Breeds wiki , where I decided that a lap-sized spaniel would have felt perfect for her.

It’s a high action story with a balance of humor and darkness in a world well-developed enough for more stories. The sequel, Dream Magic, comes out in April.  It would pair well with the contemporary Dark Lord fantasy series by Jamie Thompson.

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Labyrinth Lost

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Katy K.

I first heard about this book from Naz at Read Diverse Books, but it finally made its way to the top of the list when it was declared a Cybils Finalist in the Young Adult Speculative Fiction category.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida CordovaLabyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova. Sourcebooks Fire, 2016.
Alejandra – who usually goes by Alex – has been fighting her magic ever since her aunt Rosaria died and her father disappeared, both, she’s sure, connected to their magic use.  Her older sister has happily embraced her healing powers, and her younger sister her visions of the future – but Alex remained unconvinced it’s worth it. When her magic finally becomes so powerful that she can’t stop it anymore, her family is thrilled and plans a big Death Day celebration to dedicate her powers to the Deos.  Alex hopes both to give her powers back to the Deos instead – with suggestions from a handsome and mysterious brujo boy she meets at the magic shop – and to sneak away from the party early with her best friend, Rishi, whom she hasn’t told about her family’s magic. Continue reading →

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Diverse Reading Round-Up

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Katy K.

This year, instead of focusing just on reading diverse authors, I’m working on something even harder for me – trying to keep up with writing reviews. I’m linking up my reviews of #ownvoices books at Read Diverse Books. Here’s what I read in January and February this year. Links are to my own reviews where available.

Diverse Authors

 

White Authors, Diverse Characters

 

  • Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers – I didn’t note in my original review, but this is chock full of diversity of all kinds. Just among the humans, brown is the default human skin color and one of the techs is a Little Person. There are also multiple interspecies as well as same-sex romances.
  • The Sunbird by Elizabeth Wein – Part of Wein’s less-well-known Arthurian spin-off series. This is set in medieval Ethiopia, told from the point of view of Telemakos, mixed-race son of Mordred and an Ethiopian princess. Just as suspenseful as you’d expect from the author of Code Name Verity.
  • Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie – the final volume in the Imperial Radch trilogy, which began with Ancillary Justice.
  • The Goblin’s Puzzle by Andrew S. Chilton – review to come.

[Updated 1/24/18 to link to reviews written after this post was first published.]

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The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Katy K.

This is one I heard about from British bookish folk, and then had to wait a very long time for it to come out in the U.S., where it just came out last year, and a bit longer for it to burble to the top of the pile.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky ChambersThe Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Harper Voyager, 2014.
As our story opens, Rosemary Harper has just been hired as a clerk for a small, ramshackle tunneling ship that never was so official as to have someone to handle their legal paperwork before.  She’s got her secrets, but has at least legitimately gone through the training she’s claimed to. The crew of the small ship consists of some humans, including Captain Ashby; the cranky and anti-social Corbin who manages the algae the supply the ship’s power; and Jenks and Kizzy, the fun-loving techs.  It also includes the pilot, Sissix, a member of a cuddle-loving lizard-like species; Dr. Chef, who sounded rather like a large caterpillar; and Ohan the navigator, deliberately infected with a virus that allows for seeing through space/time, so that Ohan is now considered plural.

The ship’s work of creating the tunnels through space which allow for practical interstellar travel is considered unglamorous, but it does allow for lots of adventures.  Though there is a big mission towards the second half – the “angry planet” of the title – this is about the characters and the vignettes, as well as observations on cultural differences, both between species and between the different groups of humans.  I saw some people complaining about these in their Amazon reviews, but I liked the feeling that it gave me of classic sci-fi, only with modern ideas and characters I actually cared about.

It’s hard to avoid comparisons to Firefly with the ragtag crew and the cobbled-together ship, though this one goes on much more official missions.  But if you, like me, enjoyed the interpersonal relations in Firefly as much as the official Plot, this might be for you.  My love, when I described it to him, though it might be rather like his beloved Maturin/Aubrey seafaring books, which are much more about the journey than the destination.  This is written for adults, with references to a fair amount of sex and illicit drug use, none of it explicit.  I’d give it to sci-fi loving teens if I knew them and probably their parents well.  Definitely recommended for anyone looking for a character-focused space ramble.

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Towers Falling

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Katy K.

I was interested to see what the author of Cybils finalist Bayou Magic would do with the topic of September 11, just recently far enough in the past for students to need to learn about it in school.

Towers Falling by Jewell Parker RhodesTowers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Little, Brown and Co., 2016.
The good news is that Deja’s family is still together.  The bad news is that they’re at a homeless shelter.  Her father can’t hold down a job, and her mother can’t make enough to afford housing for their family of five. Deja has to start at a new school, along with taking care of her two younger siblings.  When her new teacher tells the class that they’re going to be learning about 9/11, she wonders what it could possibly have to do with her. As she works with her new friends, Ben from Texas and Sabeen, whose family is from the Middle East, she learns a whole lot about the connections that hold families and communities together, and how the effects of the past reverberate into the future, and what America and being American means to different people.  It turns out that this event that she thought had nothing to do with her has directly affected her family.

It is so hard to write a book on such hard topics that works for middle grade kids. The adults here emphasize both the importance of knowing what happened because it’s had such a large effect on daily life to this day, but also that kids shouldn’t be exposed to the videos to see the full horror of that day.  Deja is attending the school that in real life saw the events unfold through their windows. But Rhodes keeps the story positive by showing people of lots of different ethnic backgrounds using the past to create a better future.  This is a friendship and family story, just as much as it is a history story, and an excellent entry point to start discussions on 9/11 for older elementary and middle school students.

This book was nominated for the Cybils in the audiobook category, and I’m sorry to say that it is a case of the author not being the right choice to narrate her own book.  She made a couple of narrative choices that make sense individually – Deja is understandably unhappy, and sounds it. The text is lyrical, and she emphasizes this by carrying the words together in long arcing phrases.  The net effect, though, was that the book is read in a sustained whine that got under my skin like a kid begging for candy.  I had to stop the audio (which had kindly been provided to me by the publisher), and turned instead to the print version from the library, which worked beautifully.  Your mileage may vary, of course – but I recommend reading this book in print.

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12 Girl-Led Read-alouds for K/1s

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Katy K.

There’s been a lot of discussion about how people think that boys will only read or enjoy books about other boys.  I beg to differ.  It’s taken several months – but here at last is a list of girl-led read-alouds suitable for kindergartners and first graders, to go along with my lists for 2/3s and 4/5s.  Here are girls that both girls and boys will be able to relate to and enjoy.


Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke – Experience life in Africa and the trials and joys of living with a large family with well-meaning but trouble prone Anna Hibiscus.  Atinuke is a professional storyteller, so her stories work very well read aloud.

Gloria’s Way by Ann Cameron contains stories of neighborhood friends, a girl’s love for her mother and more, told in poetic language, with lots of humor and deep life lessons tucked gently inside.

Lola Levine is Not Mean by Monica Brown – Lola Levine is a spunky, soccer-loving Jewish-Peruvian girl, who gets called mean near the beginning of this book for accidentally kicking a classmate during recess soccer.  She works out her feelings by writing lots of notes ending in “Shalom, Lola Levine.”

Mango and Bambang: the Not-a-Pig by Polly Faber – Mango is a girl who’s good at almost everything.  She has time to know because her father is always busy in his office.  But when she finds a frightened tapir hiding in a crosswalk, her scheduled life takes a turn for the whimsical in this Cybils award-winning story that highlights the power of empathy.

Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Susan Guevara – Traditional stories where girls break out of traditional molds are a life-long favorite of mine, and folk tales are great for stretching the attention span without the commitment of a chapter book.  Master storyteller Jane Yolen retells stories including Atalanta the Huntress and Li Chi Slays the Serpent.

Picture Perfect by Jacqueline Jules – Sofia Martinez has a personality much bigger than the place she feels is given her in her large family. Hilarity ensues as she tries to focus a little more attention on herself.

Raising Dragons by Jerdine Nolan (picture book) – Growing up on a farm, a girl learns how to take care of animals – but even her parents are surprised when she hatches a dragon egg that appears on the farm in this substantial picture book.

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker – if this isn’t a classroom classic already, it should be.  Clementine is used to people saying “Clementine, pay attention!” when she is paying attention – to things her seat mate being gone too long or the lunch lady and the janitor kissing in her car.  She is definitely allergic to sitting still. Every one of these stories is laugh-out-loud funny while tugging on the heart strings.

Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones – Introduce kids to a master fantasy writer with one of DWJ’s offerings for younger readers.  Earwig is an orphan used to getting what she wants, and she’s not about to let go of that, even when she’s adopted by a very strict witch.

The Mystery of Meerkat Hill by Alexander McCall Smith – Young Precious Ramotswe is full of curiosity.  When her new friends’ cow goes missing, Precious is on the case.  This is told in a conversational style that’s meant for reading aloud.

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren –Pippi is the classic rule breaker with a heart of gold and a huge sense of fun – a classic every child needs to read.

The Princess in Black by Shannon and Dean Hale – I’m putting this on my list for younger readers, as it is a book meant for younger readers. But I’ve the princess who hides her superhero identity under fluffy pink dresses make kids of all ages and genders laugh out loud.

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Evil Wizard Smallbone

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Katy K.

Today, a review of a Cybils Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction finalist.

Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia ShermanThe Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman. Candlewick, 2017.
Nick Reynaud’s life has been harsh since his mother died, leaving him in the hands of his uncle and cousin Jerry, where the care ranges between neglectful and abusive.  His runaway attempts have gotten better over the years, though this time, he’s forced to leave without the bag of supplies he’s gathered for himself.  He winds starving and freezing at an old house with the sign Evil Wizard Books.  The old man there, who introduces himself as the Evil Wizard Smallbone, isn’t any too friendly, but won’t leave a boy out in the cold to starve.  He tells Nick he’ll take him on as an apprentice, knowing that Nick will only learn what he, Wizard Smallbone, chooses to teach him, because Nick can’t read.

Nick, though, is an accomplished liar.  He can read, and the bookstore seems to want to teach him magic, starting with E-Z Spelz for Little Wizardz. Nick learns spells in secret, while Smallbone teaches him to do the cooking and take care of the animals – two dogs, two cate (Hell Cat and sweet orange Tom), as well as assorted barn animals.

Smallbone is the guardian for the small tourist town, though he’s been there for so many centuries with things mostly stable that many of the villagers no longer believe he’s really necessary.  That doesn’t stop them from being furious when Smallbone’s nemesis, the evil wolf Fidelou, along with his pack of coyotes, are able to come onto territory that should be blocked.  Dinah, a 10-year-old scientist, exposes the fraying boundaries through her curiosity.

This is a book that is brimming with colorful personality, including of course tough and cautious Nick and gruff Wizard Smallbone (how evil is he really?), but also the many animals, Dinah and her mother, and the bookshop itself.  It sounds trite to say that Nick has a journey to believing in himself, but it’s framed more as a path to figuring out what he really wants.  That and his path to wanting to help anyone but himself are genuine and delightful without feeling overwrought.  There are also some genuinely surprising and equally fun twists.

While there is no real ethnic diversity in this book, Delia Sherman is one of the few middle grade authors openly in a same-sex marriage.  It’s also notable for a book with an older middle grade hero in that there is no hint of romance of any kind, either for Nick or any of the adults.  This can be a selling point for the older elementary and middle grade students who are quite opposed to having any romance in their books, as many are.

The modern-day setting in rural Maine is quite different, but writing about this reminds me of the many similarities between this and Sage Blackwood’s Jinx, one of my favorite series.

 

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Cybils Winners

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Katy K.

Cybils 2016Hooray!  Hooray!  The Cybils winners are out, and for the first time ever, a book that I nominated made it to be the winner.  The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz is the winner in the Audiobooks category.  I love this book so very much!  If you haven’t yet read it, do yourself a favor and do it now!  And though I read and loved the audiobook version, the illuminations in the print version are also charming. cover of the Inquisitor's Tale by Gidwitz

Other winners I’ve read include Elementary Non-Fiction winner Giant Squid by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Eric Rohmann; Poetry winner The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan, one of my favorite audiobooks that didn’t quite make it to the shortlist, and of course Young Adult Speculative Fiction winner Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.

I have several more finalists checked out right now – I’m taking a course right now that’s cutting into my fiction reading time – and hope to be back with more reviews when I’ve finished them.

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Two Naomis

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Katy K.

Tomorrow is Cybils Day!  I’m still reading finalists at home and am happy to report that my daughter gave two thumbs up to Early Chapter Books Finalists Weekends with Max and His Dad by Linda Urban.

Thanks once again to Brandy at Random Musings of a Bibliophile, who brought this book to my attention.

Two Naomis by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Audrey VernickTwo Naomis by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich & Audrey Vernick. Balzer + Bray, 2016.
Naomi Marie is a very smart girl who does West African dance, keeps trying and failing to start up new clubs at her library branch, and who loves the bakery at Shelly Ann’s the best.  She’s also quite bossy with her little sister Brianna, though I’m sure she would say she’s just trying to help.  She and her dad do board games and puzzles when she goes over to his nearby apartment.

Naomi E. is an only child living with her father, since her mother has moved to Hollywood to be a full-time movie costume designer.  Her father might forget to fix real meals once in a while, and Skype just isn’t the same as living with her mother.  She might be Jewish – the text talks about her attending a cousin’s bat mitzvah. Her favorite bakery is definitely Morningstar.

Both Naomis prefer to be called just by their first names, actually.  And life might not be perfect, but it’s pretty okay.  Both of them are resentful when their parents decide that they need to work on being best friends, and that they must both come up with different names to make things easier when they’re together.  Naomi E’s slight interest in checkers is certainly not a large amount of common ground with Naomi Marie’s interest in all sorts of other, more recent board games.  But their parents sign them up for Girls Gaming the System coding class together and start taking them to bakeries together – an exercise certain to disappoint girls with their own decided opinions.

Brianna openly expresses doubts about the arrangement, wondering with a four-year-old’s candor if it’s really OK for “white Naomi” to play with her own black dolls.  The older girls are much less concerned about their skin colors and more concerned about having friendship forced on them, a friendship that comes with the growing realization that it means that their parents are giving up on the relationship with the other parent.

This is a pitch-perfect middle grade story that looks with warmth and sympathy on two girls learning to find the positive side of a difficult situation.  Each Naomi is written by a different author, giving them very distinct voices.  Give this one to kids who enjoy realistic stories of family (with normal but happily not tragic levels of family stress), friendship, and excellent baked goods.

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Illuminae

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Katy K.

I put the sequel to this book, Gemina, on my want-to-read list after reading the Book Smugglers review of it.  (Those Book Smugglers!  Always lengthening my list!) I started this one when it was nominated for a Cybils Audiobook award, and am happy to say that it is a Cybils Young Adult Speculative Fiction Finalist.

Illuminae by Kaufman and KristoffIlluminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.
Breaking up with your boyfriend is a bad enough start to the day, but Kady’s day gets even worse when her planet is bombed and she has to flee her high school.  With the ex-boyfriend, Ezra.  OK, it was an illegal mining planet – but bombing is still extreme.  Through interviews, chat transcripts, private journal entries and more, we piece together Ezra and Kady’s stories.  The enemy ships are still after them.  Ezra is trained to be a pilot, while Kady uses her computer skills to try to figure out just what is going on.  It’s far from simple, as there are government secrets, cover-ups, a brain melting plague and a rogue AI – just to name a few of the factors.  Meanwhile, headings and notes at the beginnings of the sections make it clear that this is an investigation being put together for the very corporation that bombed the planet to start with.

It’s a fascinating story even if we the readers have to agree with Kady’s early assessment that there’s no good reason to bomb a planet when you could use legal paths to shut down the mining if that’s your goal. Our babysitter and teacher extraordinaire Aunt Silly pointed out that it’s a great book for kids who have difficulty reading but want to look and feel competent: at 600 pages, it’s hefty enough to give a great deal of book street cred, but it’s broken up into very short chapters with lots of white (or in some cases black) space, and the action is very fast.  There’s enough character development and deep issues to think about to keep it from being just action fluff, things like to role of government, the meaning of possessions, and ethics around artificial intelligence.  My son is currently reading this after deciding it would be a good school reading time book.

I listened to part of the audiobook as well as reading it in print.  I feel torn about it, honestly.  They tried so very hard to make the audiobook an amazing experience, with a full cast, music, and so on.  It’s very well done, but there are still a lot of unique aspects to this that just don’t translate to audio, like ship diagrams, spiral text, or just one white word on a black page.  It would work very well paired with the print book, though, especially for kids with reading issues.  I’ve been focusing on that because, having a sci-fi loving son with dyslexia, it is so hard to find print, non-graphic novel books that he will even pick up, let alone finish (that’s going to take a while here, but still!)  But this is a flat-out awesome story for every science fiction fan.

I hear the second book is even better.

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