Speculative middle grade fiction-May 2022

 It's so exciting to find new books to read!  This week had some terrific ones-check these out!

The first one is called The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill.  I love Kelly Barnhill's work.  I loved Iron Hearted Violet and I loved The Girl Who Drank the Moon.  I might love this one even more.  The narrator in this story at first appears to be an omniscient third person and tells the story of very different characters.  A group of orphans living with kind but poor and elderly caretakers.  An ogress who has been chased from her home by an evil dragon.  A murder of crows.  The mayor of a small village called Stone-in-the-Glen.  The story unfolds a little at a time-the orphans are very different from each other but each one has a strength that supports the family.  The Ogress is just trying to live her best life, in spite of the prejudice of the humans around her.  The mayor is trying to gather as much treasure as he possibly can.  The village was once beautiful and full of thriving businesses and farms, but a fire destroyed the town's library, and with it, the heart of the village.  The mayor has been trying to rally the people around him and mostly it seems to work.  The orphans and their caregivers are getting poorer and poorer because the people of the town and the mayor have gradually been withdrawing their support, so the food is getting more scarce and people of the village don't seem to want to buy the things they are making.  One of the orphans, Cass, comes up with a plan to help the family.  She decides she will run away and seek her fortune elsewhere.  Except that she ends up lost in the woods and sick.  She is rescued by a crow and a blind dog and then the Ogress.  But no one believes that an Ogress can help and so the people of the village try to chase her out.  The solution to this problem is absolutely wonderful.  A fairy tale of the first order with characters you want to be friends with (or maybe slay with a sword, but not the same ones).  The writing is in this one is absolutely gorgeous with places where you'll laugh out loud or burst into loud hiccup-y sobs (ok, maybe that's just me) but in the end, you'll sigh with happiness that you had the opportunity to read a story THIS GOOD.  Thanks Kelly, for telling such an epically terrific story.  

Here is the wonderful cover. 

And check out this book trailer!

The next one is called Hunters of the Lost City by Kali Wallace.  Kali has written several other books but this is the first one of hers I've read.  It's a well crafted story about Octavia, who lives with her family in a walled community.  The community has been sealed since a war 50 years ago and they believe that no one else survived the war and that magical creatures live in the surrounding areas, which is why the walls are important.  Octavia's family has been marked by tragedy.  Her mother, a skilled Hunter (hunting the magical beasts that terrorize the community) was badly injured and although she survived, she can no longer hunt.  Octavia's older sister Hana was killed by the beasts (Ferox, they're called) and the family is mourning.  Octavia would really like to be a hunter-she feels stifled by the walls and wants to go out and see the world but her parents would like her to train to be a magical healer.  Octavia goes out for a hunt and pushes a little too hard to kill a beast and finds herself unable to make it back inside the walls before the curfew starts, but she gets some unexpected help-a girl about her own age shoots an arrow at the Ferox and kills it.  Octavia is stunned to find that there are people beyond her own community.  The girl and Octavia spend the night in a guard house and in the morning, Octavia takes the girl home with her but the adults in the community are not so welcoming.  Octavia has to choose between following the status quo or breaking all the rules that have held the community together.  It's a very exciting story with lots of plot twists and surprises along the way.  There's some very interesting connections that can be drawn between people in power and how they convey the truth to keep what they want, which makes it a compelling choice even to compare to the Ogress and the Orphans.