More new speculative middle grade fiction 2021

 It's so lovely to have time to read.  I talked to a lovely woman today at the doctor's office who was telling me she loved to read to and there are so many good ones to recommend!  Here are some of my newest favorites!

The first one is called The Verdigris Pawn by Alysa Wishingrad.   It's Wishingrad's debut novel, so I hope there are more to come!  It's a fairy tale (squee!!!) about Beau, who is the son of the ruler, called Himself.  Beau's mom died when he was very young and his dad has set him up with a series of tutors.  Himself sets some very high standards for academic performance and behavior that Beau finds hard to meet.  Beau has been playing a strategy game called Fist that involves trying to unseat the king.  Himself seems to be worried that Beau (or maybe someone else) is trying to unseat him through magic and charms.  The Fist set belonged to his mother, so Beau feels connected to it in surprising ways.  When Himself turns up at Beau's apartment, it's to tell Beau that his current tutor is dead and that Himself will be taking over Beau's education.  Beau doesn't think this is a great idea, mostly because Himself has implied that the education will come from Barger, Himself's second in command-a man that Beau doesn't like or trust.  When Barger steals Beau's verdigris pawn-a key piece in the Fist game,  Beau decides to go out to find Fledge in the stables.  Fledge has been giving him lessons in Fist and knows a lot about a lot of things.   A girl, Cressi, turns up in the stables also looking for Fledge and assumes that Beau is an apprentice.  When she figures out who he really is, she starts schooling him on how things are really going in the kingdom, including at the Mastery House, where she grew up.  When Beau accidentally breaks his nose, he finds out that Cressi is a charmer-she can heal people with her magic but Beau tells Barger about it and Barger immediately wants to use Cressi as a way to unseat the king.  This is a wonderful, complicated story with heroes and villains and surprising plot twists.  If you like fairy tales or just exciting adventures, this one is totally for you!

The second one is from an author that I've read before, so it wasn't surprising to me that I thought was awesome.  It's by Greg van Eekhout, who wrote one of my favorites from two years ago-COG.  His latest one, Weird Kid, is another science fiction novel  that I think kids are going to love.  It's about Jake, a kid who really just wants to fit in and be like everyone else, which seems totally normal.  Until you hear that he can shapeshift.  So when his parents ask "Do you need a bucket?" it doesn't mean does he have to throw up or go to the bathroom or something like that but is he going to turn into a pile of goo that they can contain in a bucket.  Jake's dad is proctologist, which is a BIG source of humor through the book and his mom is a very successful real estate agent.  Jake's other friends have sort of fallen by the wayside-Jake's been avoiding them in case he can't hold his shape together.  So on the first day of school, he makes a new friend- Agnes, who is new to the school and a very big fan of Night Kite, a graphic novel series.  Jake is also a fan, which gives them some common ground.  Jake gets some clues that he's about to shape shift and Agnes figures out his secret.  But it turns out that something strange is going on and Agnes is determined to figure out what it is and drags Jake along into her missions.  The story is suspenseful and funny and super fun to read.  If you like science fiction (and even if you don't), you're going to love this one!  I think this one is going to be a terrific find for middle grade kids.  

And check this out!  Click on the image below, and it will take you to a registration page for a Weird Kid Debut party! 

And here's the cover.