LeseLust & LeseLiebe

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...

The Good Hawk , by Joseph Elliott (Walker Books US, January 2020), is a magical version of early Scottish history (9th century-ish), with tons of heart and lots of violence that tells of two teens desperately trying to save their kidnapped kin. 15-year-old Agatha takes her job as Hawk very seriously, patrolling the walls of her clan's island home, always on the lookout for danger.  Though many are dismissive of her abilities (she seems to have Down's Syndrome) she knows she's a good Hawk.  She has a special gift, too, one she keeps hidden--she can communicate with animals.  Then one night she makes a mistake, and fires a burning arrow at one of her own clan's boats, and she's no longer allowed to be a hawk. Her friend Jaime, always anxious, a thinker rather than a doer, was assigned to be an Angler, though he gets seasick. For reasons he doesn't understand, the clan has chosen him for another role--he must marry a girl from a nearby clan, though his own people h...

This week's Timeslip Tuesday book is an older English one-- The Wind Eye , by Robert Westall (upper MG/YA 1976, still in print).  Westall's work ranges from picture books to adult, often exploring how the past hits the present in dark and mysterious ways.  Which is what happens in The Wind Eye.... It begins when a family, comprising a mother and her teenaged son married to a father with two daughters (one a young teen and one a little girl), setting off to the northeast coast of England to stay in the old house the father has just inherited.  They are not a happy family.  The kids get along fine, but the parents are not getting on well at all. And then the past and the present collide.   St. Cuthbert still is a real person to the people of this part of the Northumberland coast, and he becomes so to the kids as well when they find a boat that travels back to his time, taking them out to the island that was his retreat from the world.   Along the way, there's...

I am still stubbornly refusing to say good-bye to the middle grade sci-fi/fantasy books of 2019.  Though I did read around 200 of them, when I went through the Goodreads list of 2019 MG fiction, I found some that I had overlooked.   If I'd started focusing on 2020 back when it started, I don't know when I'd have gotten around to reading those books, and I'm very glad to have read them, so here I am. I'm really surprised that The Twelve , by Cindy Lin (HarperCollins, July 2019), didn't get more buzz (or at least, more buzz that trickled down to me).  This is a debut East Asian zodiac fantasy that is a really fun adventure, with tons of kid appeal and fascinating magical powers! Usagi's island home was supposed to be kept safe from invasion by the powers of the 12 zodiac warriors, trained in the use of the magical gifts of their signs on Jade Mountain, home to not just the warriors and their heirs, but to 12 wonderfully magical treasures.  But the Dragon warri...

The Thief Knot , by Kate Milford, is the third of the Greenglass House series (though there are other books set in the fictional town of Nagspeake). The first, Greenglass House, will always have a special place in my heart, because not only did I myself love it, but it was the last book I read out loud to my little one (now 16), and he loved it too....So it was a treat to anticipate returning to Nagspeake with The Thief Knot (it's a real pleasure to keep a book you really want to read out for a few days, so that every time it catches your eye you get a happy zest moment), and a treat to actually do so (because it was really good)! The Thief Knot is essentially the story of a group of kids coming together to solve a mystery--in this case, the kidnapping of a politician's little girl, Peony.  Best friends Marzana and Nialla had been wanting excitement, and despite all the curious and dubious things about their home in the Liberty district of Nagspeake (full of shifty characters w...

The Obsidian Compass , by Liesl Shurtliff (middle grade, Katherine Tegan Books, Oct 2019) continues the time travelling adventures of three siblings adventuring through time that began with The Mona Lisa Key (link goes to my review).  That first book ended with Mateo, Ruby, and Corey getting home again safely, after many dangerous and difficulties aboard a time travelling ship captained by a ruthless man who was trying to use Matteo, in particular, for his own selfish purposes. But getting home safe wasn't to be the end of their time travelling.  Mateo needs to find his friend, Jia, one of Captain Vincent's crew, who was in danger of being dumped somewhere in time by the captain after she crossed him to help Mateo and his siblings.  Captain Vincent still has the obsidian compass that allows him to time travel, so Mateo decides to try to make his own, and against all odds, he succeeds.  But when he starts using it, he gets his family snarled anew in danger. As they ...

It hasn't actually been particularly snowy or cold here in southern New England yet this winter, but if you are looking for chills, and lots of snow, try The Forgotten Girl , by India  Hill Brown (Scholastic, November 2019), a middle- grade story of friendship in the present, and remembering the past. Iris is feeling a bit fed up at her school in small town North Carolina.  She's having trouble getting her Step Team, and herself, the recognition they deserve (part of nasty pattern of racism at the school).   She has her best friend Daniel, though; they have been inseparable for years, in and out of each other's houses, having each other's backs. One cold winter night, Iris can't resist the lure of the freshly fallen snow, and signals to Daniel (they can see each other's windows) to convince him to sneak outside with her. Daniel's superstitions grandmother is terrified of snow, and its spirits who can capture children, so snow play is forbidden to him, and th...

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 t...

An Encyclopedia of Tolkien: the History and Mythology that Inspired Tolkien's World , by David Day (Canterbury Classics, October 2019), is the latest in the author's guides to Middle Earth.  If you have a young bibliophile, who has just read Lord of the Rings and fallen hard for it, this is a perfect gift.  It is a tremendously attractive book, bound in soft leather with a green silk bookmark, the sort of book 12 year old me would have died to own, and one that would have inspired me to head down wonderful rabbit holes exploring myth and history. Day produced an earlier encyclopedia, Tolkien: the  Illustrated Encyclopedia , back in 1991.  However, the focus of this particular effort sets it apart.  It is not meant as a guide just to the people, places, and events of Tolkien's world, but as a guide to the bits of history and legend that (maybe) Tolkien had in mind (unconsciously or not) when he created them.  (Day tends to ignore the "maybe" part of this, la...

I still am busily reading elementary/middle grade speculative fiction a in my roles as a judge for the Cybils Awards (mainly going back to re-read things I read early last year), but I am in good enough shape that I treated myself one dreary day last week to a shiny and new and much anticipated book-- The Princess Who Flew with Dragons , by Stephanie Burgis (Bloomsbury, November 2019). This is the third in the series that began with The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart (link to my review), and it's possibly the one I enjoyed most.  I certainly think it was the fastest read; it was a (more or less) single-sitting of about an hour read for me (when I like a book and need to know what's going to happen next, I read faster, and it was relatively short-- 216 pages). Princess Sophia, who we met in Book 2, The Girl with a Dragon Heart , is the main character here, and when her story begins, she's being sent by her older sister, the ruling princess, to a distant city to attend a Worl...

If you are looking for a fun, comfy middle grade fantasy full of color and quirky details, try  All the Colors of Magic , by Valija Zinck (Chicken House, December 3, 2019).  I enjoyed it lots. 10-year-old Penelope lives a mostly ordinary life with her mom and grandma.  The ordinary part is being looked after, going to school, and sometimes thinking about her dad, who vanished long ago.  There are less ordinary parts to her life though.  Her hair is gray, she has a whiff of fire smell around her, and it always rains on her birthday.  And she has a knack for hearing things in her head before her ears hear them. When her mother has a bad traffic accident, leaving Penelope and her grandma on her own for several weeks while she's in the hospital, Penelope finds to her surprise that her hair isn't naturally gray--it's fiery red.  And she discovers her father is still alive, and still in (sporadic) touch with her mother.  With her hair red instead of gra...

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson Published : 9.20.11 Pages: 423 Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.  Elisa is the chosen one.   But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can't see how she ever will.   Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess. And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake. Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.  Most of the chosen do. The Rest of th...

Echo   Alicia Wright Brewster   Publication : April 25th 2013 Genre : YA Sci-Fi The countdown clock reads ten days until the end of the world. The citizens are organized. Everyone's been notified and assigned a duty. The problem is . . . no one knows for sure how it will end. Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit. They travel toward a single location from every corner of the continent. Fueled by the two suns, each Mage holds the power of an element: air, earth, fire, metal, water, or ether. They harness their powers to draw energy from the most readily available resource: humans. Ashara has been assigned to the Ethereal task force, made up of human ether manipulators and directed by Loken, a young man with whom she has a complicated past. Loken and Ashara bond over a common goal: to stop the Mages from occupying their home and gaini...