Middle grade fiction with cryptids

 I've fallen deep in the dark heart of middle grade fantasy fiction this week and there have been many, many magical creatures!  These were my two favorite ones!

The first one is "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell.  It's not her first book but it's the first one I've read and I thought it was great.  The writing is compelling and beautiful.  I fell into the book but I kept stopping so I could keep going back to it!  As an example, here's the opening line:  "It was a very fine day, until something tried to eat him."   The story is about two kids-Mal and Christopher.  Mal lives with her great aunt Leonor in a place where magical animals are commonplace.  Neither of them knows what happened to her parents, but the man who brought her to Leonor left a big coat that allows Mal to fly.  And then a murder shows up.  Mal narrowly escapes but Lenor does not.  Meanwhile, Christopher is going to spend the summer with his grandfather,  whom he doesn't really know since he has hasn't spent much time with him since his mother died.  However, Christopher's dad has to travel for work so Christopher is going to spend an extended amount of time with Grandad.  Grandad wants Christopher to get to know the place where his mom grew up and encourages him to go out and explore, but forbids him from going to the top of the hill with a view of the lake.   Christopher goes anyway and is very surprised to see a stampede of magical animals and at the end of the stampede, he notices a baby griffin that has been injured.  Christopher takes the baby back to the house and is further surprised when his grandad tells him that he is the gatekeeper between the real world and the magical one and that Christopher will be the gatekeeper one day.   In fact, now would be good, because it turns out that the magical world is in jeopardy.   Grandad gives Christopher a magical map and says that he needs to go to save the magical world.  But the baby griffin wants to go NOW and in trying to return the griffin, they meet Mal.   He and Mal join forces and try to survive, since the murderer is following them as well as figure out why the magical animals are dying.  It's an amazing adventure story with interesting characters and plot twists.  There are big themes and questions, like the value of the natural world, is knowledge of everything a good thing or not, trust, commitment, love.  All the good ones.  I really loved this book and I hope you do too.

The second one is also about magical creatures, but this one is about vampires.  There aren't a lot of vampire books in the middle grade fiction canon so this was a fun surprise.  It's called the Chronicles of Victor Valentine by Z Brewer.  It's about Viktor, who lives with his parents and his annoying, but lovable little sister, Hannah.  They live in a perfectly boring town called Nowhere, and Viktor has been enjoying summer vacation with his best friend Damon, playing their favorite video game, All Vampires Everywhere, about killing vampires.  The boys are lamenting the fact that school is starting and trying to position themselves so that they can rule the school as eighth graders.  Viktor worries that Damon, who is liked by everyone, isn't going to want to be his friend anymore.  A new family moves in across the street and there is a remarkably beautiful girl who appears to be the same age as Viktor and Viktor is surprised that she wants to spend time with him and basically ignores Damon.  At school, Viktor is surprised that the old English teacher has been replaced by a young woman who assigns them Dracula as their first reading assignment.  Viktor is also surprised that his dad has been going out at night to run and coming home with blood on him.  Brewer leaves a lot of breadcrumbs for Viktor to follow so no one will be shocked at the revelation that some of the people that Viktor is closest too are vampires, but there are other surprises at the end of the book that will be surprising.  This was a super fun read.  Brewer nails Viktor's teen angst perfectly.  The problems and characters that are set forth in the story will leave readers (like me!) hoping for a sequel.  Don't miss this one.