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This book was Maggie Stiefvater – a favorite author – writing middle grade fantasy.  How could I resist?

Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures by Jackson Pearce and Maggie Stiefvater. Scholastic, 2015.
Pip Barlett’s world is a lot like ours, except that magical creatures are real.  People raise unicorns for show, and have smaller, cuddlier magical creatures for pets, not always advisably.  No one but Pip, though, can talk to them, and everyone else believes that she’s playing pretend when she says she has.  After a nasty incident involving a herd of unicorns at a school event, Pip is sent away to live with her aunt who runs a veterinary clinic for magical creatures in a different town.  Pip is thrilled to help out in the clinic, even as she’s sad about leaving home and uncomfortable with her snotty older cousin Callie, who wants nothing to do with the magical creatures. She is forced to be more extraverted than she would like and make friends with shy Tomas from down the street, who becomes a worthy friend despite being allergic to nearly everything. Pip works on annotating her guidebook to magical creatures, writing in where the official word falls short of what one would actually need to deal with the creature.  These pages are included in the book: drawings of the creatures with extra-large, cute eyes and Pip’s notes in handwriting next to the typed captions – it is all both funny and adorable.

The action heats up literally as the town is suddenly crowded with Fuzzles, cute and fuzzy creatures that breed very rapidly and catch on fire when scared or excited.  Where did they come from, and why are there suddenly so many of them?  And an enemy arrives, in the form of Mrs. Dreadbatch, an inspector determined to shut down the much-needed clinic.  Pip and Tomas both have to use the abilities that no one else believes in to solve the problems before it’s too late.

This is fun and light, perfect for kids just starting into full-length chapter books.  It wasn’t quite so interesting to me as an adult as I’d wanted, even if I couldn’t really put my finger on anything wrong or missing.  I’d still happily give it to younger kids, though, especially as more books in the projected series come out.  This would be a natural fit for fans of Suzanne Selfors’ Imaginary Veterinary series.

Sorry for the silence, folks!  It was Talk like a Pirate Day, and I throw a huge event at the library and through downtown that is very fun while it’s happening but does not allow me to think about anything else during the couple of weeks before. (Let me know in the comments if you want details on this – I’m happy to share.)

In case you missed it, there is Cybils excitement!  This year’s judges have been announced, and I’m once again honored to be on the Cybils Middle Grade Speculative Fiction team.  Our fearless leader Charlotte and myself are the only ones returning to Round 1 from last year, though everyone else has different Cybils experience, and I spent rather too long yesterday checking on my team members from last round – still doing Cybils, as it happens, but on different panels.  I’ll miss you, friends! And very much looking forward to getting to know my new team members!

But there are still books to be talked about… I first read John David Anderson when Sidekicked was on the Cybils shortlist in 2013, and I loved it.  I was very excited to see this book!

The Dungeoneers by John David Anderson. Harper Collins Children’s, 2015.
This is a story that feels – at least at the beginning – like being plunked down in the middle of a role-playing game come to life.  Colm Candorly, our hero, is a cobbler’s son with eight sisters – which is to say, growing up in poverty.  His family is horrified when he delivers a pile of much-needed coins to pay for his sick sister’s medicine – they know it must be stolen.  But on the way to the magistrate, professional rogue Finn Argos agrees to take Colm on as an apprentice and take him to be trained at Tye Twodin’s famous Guild of Dungeoneers (cue the theme music.)  Finn assures Colm that he, Colm, is no common pickpocket but has the potential to be a Rogue, a key member of Dungeoneering team.

Also on Colm’s new team are the shy young mageling Quinn Frostfoot, tough-as-nails (unless she’s bleeding herself) barbarian-to-be Lena Proudfoot, and druid-in-training Serene (who is a person of color and also has a pet spider named Mr. Tickletoes.) All four kids try to make their way at dungeoneering school, navigating classes in swordplay, spells, and lock-picking, while trying to navigate the social pitfalls of a boarding school and learning about why it is that there is booby-trapped treasure to be found buried in mountain tunnels all over.

So I was going happily on, enjoying the adventures, with my only complaint being that I didn’t see much happening in the way of character development for the rest of Colm’s team, but not minding terribly because of liking Colm fine. Then Anderson pulled his sucker punch, like he does, and suddenly the light adventure was no longer just a light adventure, but contained deep thoughts about morality and loyalty.  I can think of quite a number of young boys and girls of my acquaintance who enjoy making up similar fantasy adventures on their own, and would very much enjoy this book, with its teamwork and adventure and humor.  And I am very happy I read it myself!

Dear readers, my brains are all jumbled with the craziness of back-to-school and planning my library’s giant Talk Like a Pirate Day event. But in my ongoing quest to tell you about books I love, I will do my best to wrap my brain about this.

Jinx’s Fire by Sage Blackwood. Harper Collins Children’s, 2015.
This, my friends, was one of my most eagerly anticipated sequels for the year, and I went extra slowly with it by reading it aloud to my son over the course of several months instead of devouring it in a day or two all by myself.  So worth it!  I’d read the first two to him, but only after reading them first myself.  So be warned: this is the third book in the series and you’ll want to start at the beginning if you haven’t already.

Things are in bad shape, both for Jinx personally and the Urwald in general, as the story opens.  The only bright spot is that Sophie, his master Simon’s wife, is in the Urwald.  Simon, though, is still trapped by the Bonemaster.  There are three separate armies trying to divide the Urwald between them, burning trees and raiding clearings.  Jinx is still trying to convince everyone in the Urwald that they should work together against the armies.  This requires diplomacy, and diplomacy is not something that comes easily to Jinx.  He and Sophie and the werewolf Malthus are also trying to work out how to rescue Simon, studying texts written in deliberately obfuscating language.  Only one thing is clear: if anyone can save Simon, it will be Jinx, and he will have to travel the Paths of Fire and Ice.  If he can figure out what they are and how to do this.  And then there is war, and while Jinx wants to win, he also doesn’t want to kill anyone – this was something that needed a lot of talking about with my son, used as he is to books where no one things twice about getting rid of bad guys however they can.

There is so much to love!  Jinx has to work to figure out his powers, even if he is the Special One, that it doesn’t come easily and that having the powers doesn’t necessarily give him the charisma to win everyone to his cause or get him out of thinking about the consequences of his actions.  There are the maturing relationships with Sophie,going from young child and adult to mostly adult and adult, and Elfwyn, working around the realm of pink fluffy thoughts.  Elfwyn has grown, too, from just being mad at her curse of having to tell the truth to skillfully using it to accomplish things.  And even though I focus on characters, there were plenty of battles and quests, skillfully handled to satisfy my action-loving son as well.  This is another series that I give out to kids in search of new fantasy series, if I can find it in when they come looking.

Note: A while back, I had the unique experience of having someone come into the library looking for recent American fantasy books that had been translated into German for her to give to her grandson in Germany.  I didn’t discover it until just after that patron left, but in case any of you are looking for such a thing, these books are available in German.