Here is my mostly-annual post about the seven fantastic books my fellow Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Cybils panelists and I chose, narrowing down from nearly 100 nominees. As always, while I truly love the books we chose, and I do see the need to have a shorter list, there are lots of titles that I loved that got missed, so I’m including those as well.
If by some chance all of these are new enough that they’re all checked out at your library, you can also take a look at my Ones that Got Away posts from previous years: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018 , 2017, and 2015.
Here are a couple of Cybils reviews that I had waiting and am sharing with you, while I go put together a list of the finalists and my favorites that didn’t make it for your perusal. Both of these books play with and against stereotypes of evil and good.
The Demon Sword Asperides by Sarah Jean Horwitz. Read by Mark Sanderlin. Algonquin Young Readers, 2023. ASIN B0BLWJ7X4D. Listened to audiobook on Libby.
The Demon Sword Asperides has been peacefully hanging out in disreputable bars in the underworld since he made a deal to keep his last, extremely evil master, Amyral Venir, trapped between life and death – literally, with his sword body through the evil sorcerer. Now, though, Asperides is hearing rumors of the third moon returning – which could both bring back his evil former master and unmake Asperides. That means Asperides has to find a new master, and quickly – one who can help him stop both of these possibilities.
That someone is young Nack Furnival, recently turned out of his clan of knights for letting a young enemy escape. Nack is desperate to prove himself worthy of being a demon-hunting knight himself, the pinnacle of which is earning an angel blade with a spirit that will magically increase his strength and fighting prowess. So when, following a very awesome pair of independent married knights, Sir Willa and Sir Barb, he finds Asperides, he’s ready to believe that Asperides is the angel blade he’s been hoping for – even if Asperides is rather more than he’d been expecting. Eventually joining Nack and Asperides is twelve-year-old Therin, a novitiate of the Sisters of the Missing Moon who is in very high demand as she is the one who delivered the original prophecy.
This story of found family and redemption is laugh-out-loud funny and at the same time unexpectedly moving. Asperides is especially snarky, while Nack’s dream of once more being accepted by his family is one that’s easy to feel. It has echoes of Horwitz’s earlier Dark Lord Clementine while broadening the focus and staying entirely its own. This is a delightful story I look forward to rereading.
The Dark Lord’s Daughter by Patricia C. Wrede. Random House, 2023. ISBN 978-0553536201. Read from a library copy.
14-year-old Kayla and her (adoptive) mom and younger brother are out for a day at the state fair when they’re whisked away to an alternate dimension by a person telling them that Kayla is the daughter of the previous Dark Lord, whose final wish was that she be found and inherit his kingdom. It’s startling for everyone when Kayla’s tablet turns into a talking gargoyle-type creature, though it does at least enhance her look as a possible Dark Lady. But with minions afraid she’ll kill them and relatives scheming to take her place, life in a castle isn’t quite what Kayla was expecting. There’s some hilarity as her aunt tries to dress her in black and acid green outfits with plunging necklines that her mother absolutely refuses to let her wear and her little brother insists on exploring everywhere – especially where he shouldn’t. Kayla can see that the kingdom is struggling and needs leadership, so she isn’t willing to just try to go home as her mother wants. She’ll have to find her own way to claim the castle without resorting to the evil deeds that neither she nor her mother want her to be involved in.
This hearkens back a little bit to The Dark Lord Clementine, with the major difference that Kayla has been raised on Earth without magic, taught that kindness and equity are virtues. And it’s a lost princess book, except that Kayla doesn’t want to be a princess, and has brought her mother and little brother along, neither of whom are willing to be left out, even if Kayla’s magical sense does mean that she knows more than her mother about what’s going on. All in all, this is an entertaining romp of a book that pushes against the expected.
Here’s the final book from my Baking Fantasy list – I enjoyed it just as much as I was hoping.
Just a Pinch of Magic by Alechia Dow.
Read by Renee Dorian and Amber Dekkers.
Feiwel & Friends, 2023
ISBN 978-1250829115
Listened to audiobook on Libby. Ebook and print also available.
Wini has grown up helping in her family’s magical bakery in the tiny magical village of Honeycrisp Hill*. Her dream is to use her own food-focused magic in the bakery for the rest of her life- but for that to happen, the bakery has to stay open. She’s hoping that if she alters one of her grandmother’s old spells, she’ll be able to make their own supply of bottled love instead of needing to purchase expensive bottles of it.
Kal has grown up in Boston with her single journalist dad, waiting for the day when he’ll say it’s safe for her to try the word magic she must have inherited from him. Finally, they’re moving to Honeycrisp Hill to open a bookstore there, and Kal hopes to have more time with her father to herself, instead of him being traveling most of the time. Trouble soon intrudes on this dream, as her estranged grandfather insists on joining them, and way too many people in Honeycrisp Hill ask her if the bookstore is really haunted.
As the bakery and the bookstore are across the street from each other, Wini and Kal meet right away. They might not hit it off immediately, but they both have an incentive to make a friend who isn’t familiar with their histories – Wini is the daughter of the now-banished witch who cursed Honeycrisp Hill, and Kal struggles with anxiety.
Then Wini’s slightly illegal, definitely above her spell grade enchantment goes spectacularly wrong. Now there’s a dark shadow swooping around town, and the Enchantment Agency sends investigators to find out who might have called the evil into the town. Meanwhile, Kal is struggling as the new girl in magic classes where everyone else has been practicing their spellcraft for years. And even if the spell didn’t work all the way – could it be coincidence that Wini and Kals’ dads are flirting with each other?
The dual narrators are a perfect choice for this two-perspective story, helping to keep the two characters distinct. This is a book filled with sweet treats, magical books, family secrets uncovered, and kids learning to make friends – in other words, delectable.
*Here I find myself wishing that a town that the story claims to be over 200 years old wasn’t named for an apple variety I remember being new in my lifetime, and go down a rabbit hole of researching more appropriate apple names. Winesap Way? Russet Knob? Roxbury? (the name of a real town in Massachusetts where the first American apple cultivar, the Roxbury Russet, was developed.) Do you have a great alternative name?
Just in case you’re still looking for a gift to give to a kid in your life, here are two beautiful books, each suited to a different kind of kid, or perhaps different moods. Both of these have been nominated for the Cybils this year. Side note: is it just me who rolls my eyes at lists of gift books that start at $50 each? I have never been able to afford books that pricey for the many people I gift books to at the holidays. These are both priced at $20 US, which seems very reasonable for books with color illustrations on nearly every page.
My Head Has a Bellyache by Chris Harris. Illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi. Little, Brown, 2023. ISBN 978-0316592598. Read from a library copy.
I confess that I nominated My Head Has a Bellyache for the Cybils based on what I’d heard about it, and then read it a poem or two a day up until last week until I finished it. I am still glad I heard about it! There’s nothing wrong with Shel Silverstein, of course, but I am always happy to see new and truly funny books of poetry for kids come out. There are lots of poems in this, describing crazy dreams, the conflict between a kid’s story-telling and his mom calling him to dinner, meteor strikes, one written to Future Me, and much, much more. Nearly all the poems rhyme (I know teachers who look for non-rhyming examples to give kids). While most of them are standard AABB, there are lots of creative word choices, a page of limerick haiku and haiku limericks, poems for more than one voice, and some that require creativity from the reader to figure out, such as a poem that travels around the page and one where snakes have taken over some of the letters, changing the meaning of the words. There are running gags, like the word “buffalo” that wanders out of one page and travels in and out of multiple other spreads before reappearing late in the book, and a poem made out of the page numbers at the bottom. For yet more variety, there are even a couple of thoughtful reflections on time and nature. I was reading this at work, so my coworkers had to put up with me reading poems or whole shorter poems aloud to them, or just laughing out loud. Illustrations by Andrea Tsurumi are cartoonish digital line drawings with color washes, which show kids (and a few adults) of lots of ethnic backgrounds and add to the overall humor of the book. These would be lots of fun to read out loud, and would also be a good choice for kids who either don’t have the focus for a novel or who read through novels so quickly that a book that’s good for dipping in and out of is the best choice.
Three Tasks for a Dragon by Eoin Colfer. Illustrated by P.J. Lynch. Candlewick, 2023. ISBN 9781536229998. Read from a library copy. Ebook and audiobook available from Libby.
This book by two award-winning Irish creators starts out in classic fairy-tale style: Prince Lir is sent by his stepmother and stepbrother to rescue a maiden from a dragon. If he does not, he will be banished from his beloved kingdom, because he, truthfully like all the kings from the past few hundred years, is unable to summon the wolfhounds sacred to the kingdom. But Prince Lir is neither a brave warrior nor the classic fool. He’s a scholar and scientist, determined to use his wits to save the maiden and be able to return home without harming the dragon – because why would a scientist want to harm such a rare species? Prince Lir is honest enough not to see the treachery, but the maiden, Cethlenn – a palace servant taken to the dragon by the stepbrother – is much cannier. The dragon, Lasvarg, doesn’t trust humans in general, but the tasks that Prince Lir offers to perform for him are worth the small risk that Lasvarg will lose his new servant. Thus many traditional elements are combined to make a tale that feels both classic and fresh. What truly pushes this into gift book quality are the full-color, often full page illustrations on nearly every page, turning the slim book into something to savor. (I’m really curious how they make up for this lack in the audiobook – perhaps with extra music?) All the characters read as white, and the expected romance, though understated, is heterosexual. I would still count this as having some diversity, as we get some passages from Cethlenn’s point of view, and she is definitely economically underprivileged. And with a scientific prince, a clever maidservant, and a glorious dragon, there is a lot to enjoy here.
I’m reading my Cybils nominations far faster than I’m able to blog them, but here are two recent reads that I really enjoyed, both classic epic fantasies with unconventional twists.
Abeni’s Song by P. Djèlí Clark. Starscape, 2023. ISBN 978-1250825827. Read from a library copy.
Abeni has grown up content in her quiet village in the jungle, secure in her family. She’s looking forward to the harvest festival on her birthday – the day the story opens – and her coming of age the following year. The only sign that things might be changing is that she and all the other children she knows have woken up from dreams of a song. But this year the normal excitement is shattered – first by the old woman the village calls a witch, who comes in telling the village elders – the elders! – that they have ignored her warning for too long and danger is upon them. Before Abeni knows what’s happening, a group of strangely fierce women warriors invade the village, striking down all the strong warriors of the village, the children have run away following a man in a goat mask playing a beautiful song on a pipe, and the village itself has been set on fire. The last thing her mother did before going to defend the village was to give Abeni to the witch. This means that Abeni survives – but is stuck living with the witch.
Abeni decides to do whatever it takes to find her parents and the other children in the village. Everything she has thought about the world and herself is expanded as she learns more of what she can do and the world and the struggles outside her village. There’s a deep grounding in African folklore, with echoes of the Pied Piper, modern guerilla warfare, and the slave trade mythologized. It’s a rich, absorbing story that is clearly not wrapped up in this first book. I will have to wait for Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold, due out in August 2024. Children of the Quicksands and Ikengaare other recent books set in Africa, though they are clearly modern-day, while Abeni lives in an unidentified past.
Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston by Esme Symes-Smith. ISBN 978-0593485774. Labyrinth, 2022.
In a classic fantasy medieval setting, a nonbinary child yearns to be knight of Helston, like their father. But Helston has strict traditions involving gender roles – girls only do magic, the gentler art, while boys do fighting without magic. Callie left their mother and her expectations behind years ago, living with their father and his new partner in a camp for similar outcasts. When Callie’s dad is summoned back to court to help train the prince, Callie is determined to go with him and become a knight themself. On the way, they cross paths with a dragon and learn of a fearsome witch who lives in the wilds outside the main city of Helston.
Once there, though, Callie’s ambitions are immediately and forcefully stalled by the chancellor, Lord Peran, who effectively runs the kingdom. Lord Peran is determined to make Callie into a proper girl, while forcing their father to teach magical Prince Will to be properly manly and violent. Callie befriends Lord Peran’s daughter, Elowen, who knows how to blend in as well as how to use her magic in truly powerful ways. Together, perhaps they can help the prince and the kingdom embrace all their strengths to help Helston fend off impending attackers. Even though Callie is confident in who they are, they grow a lot over the course of learning how to work through this powerful opposition. This is a book with a message, and it doesn’t shy away from that message either for the reader or in the dialog between characters. I found I did not mind this, as I still believed in the characters and their mission, and it was just so much fun overall. Usually I’m very picky about modern touches in my medieval fantasy, and this had a couple, including frequent uses of “kid” and “kiddo” and some eating of potatoes. I was willing to forgive the use of “kid”, though, as modern readers would no longer be familiar with any Middle English words with the same shades of meaning, and perhaps this not-quite-European setting had native potatoes. I’m currently on hold for the second book, Sir Callie and the Dragon’s Roost, and hope that our main characters will be allowed to just go on being their own fabulous, unconventional selves while confronting the further enemies of the realm. This is a good one to give to fans of Tamora Pierce.
Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden were two books that I read and reread more times than I could count as a child. I was very happy to see these two fantasy retellings in my Cybils nominations pile this year. They are quite different from each other, but both work whether or not you’ve read the originals.
The Grace of Wild Things by Heather Fawcett. Balzer + Bray, 2023. ISBN 978-0063142626. Read from a library copy. Ebook and audiobook available from Libby.
Here is a magical reimagining of Anne of Green Gables. Orphaned Grace has decided to give up on the orphanage – she’s been rejected by so many prospective families because her unsettling gaze makes it clear that she’s a witch. Figuring that if she’s going to be labeled a witch, she might as well get some training, she walks a great distance to the house in the woods that’s rumored to belong to a witch and offers to be her apprentice. The witch is suitably witchy, with a grandmotherly appearance and excellent baking skills, the better to lure children into her oven. She doesn’t want an apprentice, but Grace sweet-talks her into letting Grace stay on, even though Grace’s familiar, a raven called Windweaver, isn’t allowed in the house.
In short order, Grace meets an annoying fairy boy called Rum, swears eternal friendship with the neighbor girl, Sareena Khalil, and has to make her way at the village school. At the same time, she has just a year to work through all 100 spells in the witch’s spellbook to earn a full apprenticeship, trying to find increasingly impossible ingredients.
There’s a darker edge to this story as the witch (who’s forgotten her real name) really does eat children, though no named children are harmed – sensitive readers be forewarned. “Matthew” is mostly out of the picture, so that his sweetness isn’t there to balance the witch’s tartness. Still, Grace’s eternal optimism, big feelings, love of poetry, and belief that she can be a witch and use her powers for good carry the day. Since you don’t need to know the original to understand this one, it’s an engrossing read both for lovers of Anne and those unfamiliar with her.
Moongarden: Plotting the Stars 1: by Michelle A. Barry. Pixel+Ink, 2022. ISBN 978-1645951261. Read from a library copy.
In a future where plants have turned toxic and forced humans to escape Earth, 12-year-old Myra is a first year student at the Scientific Lunar Academy of Magic, S.L.A.M. for short. She’s having a tough time – she’s in a room full of girls who don’t like her, had a fight with her best friend shortly before leaving, and is regularly skipping classes to escape the intense pressure she feels. The pressure is because her parents are both famous Number Whisperers, whose magic focused around numbers. Myra is good at math, sure, but she doesn’t have that critical magical ability that makes for a Creer. Without that, she’ll be kicked out of the school and disappoint her parents forever.
On a day when she’s exploring an abandoned part of the school, she finds a hidden laboratory, and with the help of a small and friendly robot, Bin-Ro, she’s able to open another secret door and find a secret garden. A whole garden, when just having seeds is enough to condemn people to prison! As she spends more time around the unfriendly director due to her school troubles, she learns that the food supply of the school and perhaps the solar system is at risk – but that she might have the forgotten skills to save them. Along the way, Myra will have to make friends with people who can help her – Canter, a popular older boy, one of her roommates, and even one of the Reps, or cloned servants that she’s been taught to ignore.
It took me a little while to see the Secret Garden parallels here – there is a secret garden, and Bin-ro is a cute substitute for the friendly robin in the original, but Myra isn’t an orphan and the other kid characters don’t align directly with those in the original. The stakes are also a lot higher here, as Myra is trying to recover knowledge lost after being made illegal decades earlier. It ends in a quite cliff-hangery way, so you might want to have book 2, Seagarden, on hand when reading this one. It was released October 2023, and I definitely want to track it down once I’m done with my Cybils reading.
For more middle grade classics remixed, try Breadcrumbs orThe Real Boyby Anne Ursu or The Gilded Girl and The Tarnished Garden, both by Alyssa Colman.
I love baking and reading about baking, so I’ve gradually put this list of baking-related fantasies together over the past seven years. It’s finally long enough to deserve its own list rather than just “if you like this, you may also enjoy…” at the bottom of the other posts. The books range from stand-alones to trilogies, from kingdom-changing historical to personal scale contemporary and lots in between. I hope you enjoy them – and are maybe inspired to bake something yourself!
Baker’s Magic by Diane Zahler. Ebook available through Hoopla. Standalone. Orphaned Bee learns she has baking magic as she starts an apprenticeship – only to find that’s what she has to defend the princess against a power-mad wizard.
A Dash of Troubleby Anna Meriano. Ebook and audiobook available through Libby. First of a trilogy. Leo(nora) discovers that her family bakery sells magical baked goods and is determined to learn how herself, with hilariously disastrous results.
The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis. Ebook and audiobook available through Libby. First of a trilogy. Young dragon Aventurine sneaks out of her family’s cave, only to be turned into a human by a frightened wizard. What will save her is friendship – and her growing love of chocolate.
Just a Pinch of Magic by Alechia Dow. Ebook and audiobook available through Libby. I’m still waiting to read this 2023 Cybils nominee. I hear it involves a girl trying to save her family’s magical bakery by casting a spell that goes terribly wrong, in a story that involves making new friends and trying to set up single parents for romance.
Midsummer’s Mayhem by Rajani LaRocca. Audiobook available through Libby and Hoopla. First of a duology. Youngest child Mimi feels like she’s lost in the crowd and tries to win a baking prize from a local bakery. Mayhem breaks loose, and she discovers that the new bakery is run by none other than Titania, Queen of Fairies.
A Taste of Magicby J. Elle. Book 2 due out 2024. Kyana finds out she has magic that she can channel through baking, but when her inner city magic school is at risk of closing due to lack of funds, she’ll have to use magic, baking, and her brains to come up with a solution to save it.
Winnie Zeng Unleashes a Legend by Katie Zhao. Ebook and audiobook available through Libby. Book 2 of the trilogy is out now – book 3 is due out in 2024. Winnie only decides to open the family cookbook due to a school rivalry – but when she does, she’s able to see demons around her, and learns that her family’s traditional mooncakes can defeat them.
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. Ebook and audiobook available through Libby. Standalone. Orphaned Mona, an apprentice baker with small baking magic, suddenly has to find out why all the magical people in the city are disappearing, before it happens to her, too. This is both quite dark for middle grade, and very funny.
Here are two lovely, cozy Cybils-nominated middle grade fantasy books that are perfect for reading aloud as well as solo. Remarkably, both of them achieve this while being set in the aftermath of significantly traumatic events – and both have cats who play important roles.
The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass. Feiwel & Friends, 2023. ISBN Feiwel & Friends. Read from a library copy. Ebook and audiobook available from Libby.
A boy, a cat, and maybe a ghost join to bring a small town’s library back in this sweet story. Mortimer the cat has two jobs: keeping the mice away from the food in the Historical House, and watching over the cart of library books that are all that’s left of the collection since the library burned down. But when one of the secret residents of the Historical House, Al, builds a Little Free Library in front of the house and puts the old books on it, Mortimer decides to stand guard by the books instead.
Al, the former Assistant Librarian, spends her time in the house making applesauce, tea, and cheese trays to give to Ms. Scoggin, the ghostly librarian, and Mr. Brock, the other ghost, as well as remembering times in the old library both good and bad.
Evan is the kid who first discovers the Little Free Library and works to solve the mystery of why the books in it are all stamped as having been returned to the library the very day of the fire, why one of them was checked out in the name of a bestselling author he doesn’t think is from their town, and why the site of the library has been allowed to go to weeds and never been rebuilt. Also, why his father won’t answer questions about this topic.
Despite the trauma of the fire, this is a sweet and cozy mystery, with partnerships developing between Mortimer the cat and the mice he’s formerly rerouted, Al learning more about herself, and Evan learning about his father and exploring with his friend, whose parents have kept him extremely sheltered until elementary school graduation, which happens during the book.
The House of the Lost on the Cape by Sachiko Kashiwabe. Translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa. Illustrated by Yukiko Saito. Yonder, 2023. ISBN 978-1632063373. First published as Misaki no Mayoiga by Kodansha, 2015. Read from a library copy. Ebook available from Libby. Audiobook due out April 2024.
This story from the author of Temple Alley Summer(and many other beloved Japanese books that haven’t been translated) begins, as an opening note tells us, the day in March of 2011 a 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit the area of Tōhoku in Japan. In the chaos following, we focus on three people, all meeting in the same gym that’s being used as an emergency shelter. Kiwa is an elderly woman who was just preparing to move, of necessity, from living on her own to living in an eldercare home. Yui is a young woman who decided to use the chaos of the earthquake to run away from her abusive husband, while newly orphaned Hiyori (about 8) was being sent off to live with an uncle she’d never met. Despite her fear of her husband, Yui takes charge of Hiyori when she’s separated from her social worker, and Kiwa claims them both as family at the shelter, saving them both from unwanted discovery. Kiwa is quick to make friends and is able to find an empty traditional-style house overlooking the sea for them to fix up and live in. Yukiko Saito’s pencil illustrations are beautifully helpful here, showing the characters, the traditional tatami mat room with its square sunken fireplace, as well as scenes from the stories Kiwa tells Yui and Hiyori.
At the beginning, this appears to be entirely realistic fiction, punctuated by Kiwa’s stories about the legends of the area. As time goes on, though, it becomes clear that Kiwa has personal connections to the spirits of the area – and that the earthquake or the subsequent tsunami have let something dangerous loose. It will take all three of them working together to stop whatever it is – and Yui and Hiyori will need to face their personal demons to do this. Hiyori’s trauma has expressed itself in her being unable to speak, which makes this especially challenging. Though Yui’s abuse all happened before the story begins and we never get any graphic scenes of it even in flashbacks, I feel like it’s a rare and important acknowledgment that intimate partner violence can happen, and that escape and healing are possible. It’s also rare in having an adult character like Yui who needs to grow herself- though I see that the movie adaptation made her a teen. Hiyori also goes from being a very passive character in the beginning to being able to take personal initiative as the story progresses. Even before I knew about the adaptation, the book felt to me like a Miyazaki film, with its wonderful found family, a strong sense of place with lots of nature, and magic slowly seeping through into everyday life. ‘Even before I knew about the adaptation, the book felt to me like a Miyazaki film, with its wonderful found family, a strong sense of place with lots of nature, and magic slowly seeping through into everyday life.
Continuing on with my Cybils reading, I have two beautifully illustrated stories of dogs, both great for reading aloud as well as independent reading. I confess I’m more of a cat person myself, but these doggos still won me over.
Elf Dog and Owl Head by M.T. Anderson. Illustrated by Junyi Wu. Candlewick, 2023. ISBN 9781536222814. Read from a library copy. Ebook and audiobook available from Libby.
Under the Mountain, the Elves hunt with their magical dogs for the giant Wyrm… but outside the mountain, Clay knows nothing of this and is just trying to survive quarantine, with the unbearable pressure of being too close to his family and their troubles – sibling fights, lost income, not enough computer access for school, not able to see even his best friend. When the strange white dog with even stranger ears appears, everything gets better. Elf Dog* is always filled with joy and leads him on trails to places Clay has never seen before in all his exploring, including to a town of owl-headed people who dress as if it were still the 1600s. Making friends with an owl-headed boy improves his life even more. But when the Folk under the Mountain realize that Elf Dog has escaped, and the Owl Headed-people realize that their child is breaking their rules, the two boys have to work together to save Elf Dog while staying safe themselves.
M.T. Anderson’s books often combine familiar elements in original and very unexpected ways – his Pals in Peril series being a favorite example. This is also original and yet completely different from his previous books. It is that perfect speculative fiction combination of the recognizable fairy tale elements with the struggle of the pandemic, the joy of dogs, the out-of-the-blue owl-headed people – an engaging plot arc with a resonant emotional truth. Junyi Wu’s stippled black-and-white illustrations are the perfect complement. You can read more about the history behind the book in an interview with M.T. Anderson at a Fuse #8 Production. *I am sure that Elf Dog had a name, but sadly, I returned the book before taking notes and can no longer remember it.
The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers. Illustrated by Shawn Harris. Knopf, 2023. ISBN 978-1524764203. Read from a library copy. Ebook and audiobook available from Libby.
Johannes is a free dog who lives in a great park, running all over as the Eyes for the Bison, the wisest creatures in the park, who live in an enclosure. The philosophical seagull Bertrand, shy squirrel Sonja, clumsy pelican Yolanda, and the raccoon Angus act as Assistant Eyes, working together to keep up with the happenings of the park to keep everything safe for its animal residents. Their peaceful way of life is put at risk as Johannes is first kidnapped by some Trouble Travelers, as the animals call them, and then accidentally brings himself to the attention of the park guards, who are very concerned about the stray dog loose in the park. These experiences, though, encourage Johannes to come up with a dangerous and selfless plan to help his friends.
It takes a lot to do an animal story well – it’s very easy for the animals to feel too much like people, or for the story to verge too much towards either violence or sugary sweetness. Here, the animals feel like animals, and the book feels epic without magic because of Johannes’ poetic voice:
“I run like a rocket. I run like a laser. You have never seen speed like mine. When I run I pull at the earth and make it turn. Have you seen me? You have not seen me. Not possible. You are mistaken. No one has seen me running because when I run human eyes are blind to me. I run like light. Have you seen the movement of light? Have you?”
The Eyes and the Impossible by David Egger p 12
Johannes is very sure of himself and his important place in his world, but this confidence is broken down over the course of the story, as the learns how much bigger the world is than he thought, and that he is not truly invincible, as he’d always believed. With meditations on freedom, community, and art alongside the adventures, I feel like this would make a good read-aloud. I’d still want the print book on hand, though, for the gorgeous illustrations – classical landscape oil paintings to which artist Shawn Harris has added Johannes, matching the style of each one. It’s also just been named one of Publisher’s Weekly best children’s books of 2023. This is one to be savored.
Today I have for you two stories of monsters that, while taking readers along on adventures to solve murders, also ask them to question who the real monsters are.
Between Monsters and Marvels by Alyssa Wishingrad. HarperCollins, 2023. ISBN 978-0063244870. Read from a library copy. 10/15/23
Everyone on the island of Barrow’s Bay seemed to love Dare Coats’ mild-mannered father as much as they hate Dare herself. Her father, the official monster hunter, never pushes back against those who argue that since no monsters have been seen in a century, they no longer need a monster hunter. Dare, of course, picks fights with anyone who says he’s useless – until he dies under highly suspicious circumstances that could be either human or monster. Her mother quickly remarries the wealthy town mayor, who promptly burns all of Dare’s father’s papers. And when Dare insists on investigating, she is shipped off to the dirty city on the mainland to live with her aunt, who lives in the formerly popular theater she once starred in. Once there, a still determined Dare finds herself struggling to know who to trust and where to look for more answers to her questions. Can she trust her aunt’s loyal servant? The street urchin who turns up to help whenever she’s lost? Or the owner of the rival theater across town who says he was friends with her father?
This book contains a wonderfully dark Edwardian atmosphere, complete with a secret society, an old sailor with a mysterious background, striking factory workers, a child theater star, an adorable and cuddly animal of indeterminate breed and origin, a murder mystery, and a prickly heroine who is set on figuring things out for herself, no matter what anyone tells her. It has larger themes of the power of stories to shape beliefs, and what happens when traditional stories are challenged.
Don’t Want to Be Your Monster by Deke Moulton. Read by Davin Babulal and Noah Beemer. Tundra Books, 2023. ISBN 978-1774880494. Listened to audiobook on Libby.
Mom and Mama try to keep life as normal as possible for 10-year-old Adam, his 14-year-old brother Victor, and their college-age older sib. But things are not really normal for a family that is awake only at night, keeping windows tightly shuttered and the driveway concealed with branches during the day. Adam enjoys their homeschooling lessons and knows the stories of all their siblings, but is still frightened by the possibility of vampire hunters. Victor, on the other hand, feels overly confined and wants to spend more time learning the “cool vampire stuff” their moms aren’t teaching them. Even their meals come home in plastic tubes, carefully selected and siphoned by Mom, a phlebotomist. (Mama, a healer in times when vampires were more accepted, now works as an astronomer at the university.)
The two boys used to get along, but lately things have been rough. One night, Victor sneaks Adam out to see a late-night showing of the “classic” (I feel old now) vampire movie “The Lost Boys”, conflict breaks out. Victor wants to practice his skills by convincing the ticket vendor they’re old enough to get in; Adam is worried about the exposure. Then, on the way home, they pass a bloody murder scene – and then learn that it’s part of a string of killings. Adam is horrified and wants to help; Victor, with significant trauma around the mortals from his own past, doesn’t think the mortals deserve it. But Adam feels strongly enough that he’s willing to sneak out, and in doing so, meets some mortal kids his own age who also want to find the murderer. He might be able to help them – if he can do so without revealing his secret to them, and while keeping them a secret from his family.
This is on the surface an homage to the campy vampire horror films of the past, and has plenty of fun scenes of the kids jumping through trees, but there’s a lot of nuance underneath. It ties the hatred of vampires in with antisemitism and other blind prejudice, subtly at first, but with growing strength, while still telling a taut and character-centered story. This was so good, y’all! My own kid isn’t into scary books enough to want to read it, but I passed the audiobook on to my love, who’s also enjoying it.
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