The latest speculative middle grade fiction

 We've been traveling and in my opinion, long plane rides plus great books equal a really great trip.  These two brand new titles were great to have a long to keep the plane ride from getting boring! 

The first one is called The International House of Dereliction.  It's written by Jacqueline Davies who wrote a series of books that started with The Lemonade Wars about a brother and sister who have a disagreement and decide to solve the problem by raising money through a lemonade stand.  It was a very popular series in my elementary school library, but this one goes in a really different direction.  This one is about Alice, who lives with her very loving parents.  Her mom is a professor and her dad is a building inspector and loves to fix things.  Their family history is long and well documented and Alice, who is home schooled, has strengths from both sides of the family.  They move often because they do such a good job fixing up the properties that the college gives them, that the college is able to sell them for a lot more money after they've lived there, so when the family is asked to move AGAIN, they decide NOT to fix anything, which is hard!  But it turns out, the house next door is abandoned and ready to be torn down, so Alice decides to go over there and see if there's anything she can fix.  It turns out that there are ghosts living in the house and the ghosts proceed to school Alice in the after life-there are Past Dues, Settled Ones, Wanderers, and Captives.  Each different kind of ghost has a different job to do before they can move on.  The ghosts in this house are also ruled by the House, which can make things happen if it's unhappy.  Alice works very hard to try to help each of the ghosts and each one has an interesting story and an interesting solution.  I really liked this story.  The characters were quirky and some were almost cartoonish, but in a good way.  The solutions to each ghost's story were compelling and because they were each from different historical time periods, it was fun to see how Alice solved their mysteries by doing research and talking to different people who worked at her mother's college.  This is a not too scary ghost story and I think kids are going to like this one a lot.  It would be a fun one to use to talk about the importance of careful research as well as comparing and contrasting different time periods in history.  Don't miss it!

The second one is called The Hunt for the Hollower.  It's written by Callie C. Miller.  If you check out her website, you'll see Callie's been super busy on lots of different kinds of projects, but this is her first book.  The Hunt for the Hollower is about Merlynda and Percy, who are twins.  They are descendants of Merlyn the Magician, and it's believes that ONE of them is going to be the Septimum Genus-a super magician.  Everyone is sure it will be Percy because Merlynda struggles with even the simplest of magic and Percy often has to clean up after her.  Merlynda has a best friend named Neci.  Neci's parents own a successful root vegetable business and are expecting Neci to follow in their footsteps, but Neci REALLY wants to be a knight.  Merlynda and Percy's parents decide to go on an extended trip to study and give lectures on magic, they invite Uncle William to come and supervise the twins.  The twins have their own ideas about what they're going to do-not sit and study and read like their parents told them, but summon an elemental stone, a super powerful piece of magic, to try to get Merlynda's magic under better control.  Would you be surprised to hear that things don't go exactly the way the twins think it will?  Not me either!  But what does happen is that Merlynda summons her familiar (a magical animal assistant) and is told that SHE is going to be the Septimum Genus, which everyone thinks is a big mistake.  Percy disappears through a portal and Merlynda is off on a quest to save him.  OF COURSE, she needs her knight, Neci, by her side and together they try to figure out how get Percy back.  This is a super fun ride.  The dangers the pair face together are formidable and surprising.  Some of it is scary and some of it is hilarious but all of it centers around Merlynda being able to harness her own power, in spite of years of hearing and feeling like she's inadequate.  Kids who like magical mysteries are going to love this one.  It would also be a great one for comparing to other adaptations of traditional stories, like the Rick Riordan books.  Don't miss this one either!

 

Check out this gorgeous cover! 

Here she is reading an excerpt!