The Book Search

I'm having SUCH a good time reading middle grade speculative (or fantasy) fiction for the CYBILS awards.  I LOVE being a first round panelist.  It can seem overwhelming at times (90 chapter books before Christmas?!  GAH!!) and then you open one up and it's awesome and amazing and wonderful and then you remember, why it seems like such a good idea to do this!   This first one is exactly like that.  It's called "The Spinner of Dreams" by K. A. Reynolds.  It's about Annalise, who is 12 and was born cursed.  Her left hand is twice the size of her right and it has a black broken heart on it.  The people of the village know about the curse and are not happy to have someone cursed living in their midst, so her wonderfully kind and loving parents have built fences around the house to protect her but as she had grown bigger, her big hand had grown more powerful and the people of town more afraid of her.  Her parents decide to get her a pet (since sh...

I've been plowing through the fantasy fiction list for  CYBILS.  The librarians at my local library are stunned that I want to check out 12 books at a time.  I'm not sure if they're more surprised that I want to read that many or that I can CARRY that many at a time.  Either way, there have been some amazing titles! The first one is called a companion, but I think you could totally call it a sequel.  I'm not sure how well it stands alone, because I loved the first one SO MUCH.  This one is called The Bootlace Magician and it's by Cassie Beasley.  It's the companion or sequel to Circus Mirandus, which came out a couple of years ago.  The Bootlace Magician opens with Micah living in the Circus Mirandus.  He's a knot tier and doesn't really see how tying knots is going to be anything magical but he keeps going.  His guardian, the Lightbender, gives him a lot of support, as do the other magicians in the Circus Mirandus.  Micah's hopin...

I'm super excited to get to be a part of the CYBILS awards this year.  In case you don't know what that is, CYBILS is a group of people who blog about literature for young people and each year, they give out several awards in different categories.  I'm SO lucky this year to get to be part of the first round panelists for speculative fiction (which some people call fantasy fiction).  I've got a lot of reading to do over the next few weeks, but I thought I'd share a couple of the best ones here. My first new favorite is science fiction.  It's called "We're Not From Here" by Geoff Rodkey.  This story starts with Lan, who is living with his (or possibly her-in the book, Lan's gender is never specified, which was amazing to me!) family on Mars.  Earth has become uninhabitable and Mars is on it's way to also becoming uninhabitable.  Happily, there is another planet (very far away) that is willing to take them.  So Lan's family along with an...

Some stories are hard to tell.  Here are two that must have started in a place where it was hard to tell these stories.  They are voices we haven't heard very often, but these story tellers told them brilliantly. The first one is called "Maybe He Likes You" by Barbara Dee.  It's about 12 year old Mila who is in 7th grade and lives with her mom and her little sister.  Her dad is more absent than Mila would like.  Mila has a tight group of friends that she hangs with.  They are celebrating her friend Omi's birthday on the playground and have a group hug, when the boys from the basketball team come and ask to join the group hug.  Mila feels really uncomfortable  but tries to be a good sport because her friend Zara likes one of the boys and Mila doesn't want to make a scene.  But then the boys seem to keep wanting to touch her and keep making excuses about how and why it happens.  Mila continues to feel uncomfortable about it and the boys ...

I do love middle grade fiction.  Middle grade fiction has such an amazing array of topics that it's willing to discuss and hash out.  Here are my two new favorites. The first one is just about to be published.  It's called "Roll With It" by Jamie Sumner.  It's about Ellie who is 12.  She lives with her mom and because Ellie has cerebral palsy, she is mostly in a wheelchair.  Ellie's mom is worried about Ellie, but also about her dad (Ellie's grandfather), who is suffering from dementia.  So Ellie's mom decides to quit her job and move in with her parents.  Ellie thinks is on one hand, great.  She loves her grandparents and loves spending time with them.  On the other hand, terrible.  Her grandparents live in a small, single wide trailer.  Their trailer isn't handicapped accessible, which makes things difficult.  Ellie doesn't really have any friends at home, so she's not sorry to leave any of them behind.  She finds...

I LOVE picture books.  I love how the authors and illustrators can use both words and images to tell stories.  I how the pictures can illicit emotional responses in ways that words can not.  I love how engaged my really little kids get with a great picture book.  Here are a couple of new ones to look for. The first one is called "My Footprints" by Bao Phi.  It's about Thuy, who is being teased and laughed at by kids at school.  When Thuy goes home, her two moms try to help her feel better.  Thuy notices different tracks in the snow and decides to create tracks from the strongest possible animal to protect herself from the bullies.  Her moms offer different suggestions, including mythical animals from their own cultural backgrounds.  Together they come up with a brand new animal.  It's a lovely story about coming up with strategies for coping in general and specifically with bullies.  The connections to different cultures is affirm...

I got some terrific new books this week from Netgalley-compelling, adventurous books! The first one is called "The Okay Witch" by Emma Steinkellner.  It's a graphic novel (not my favorite) about a girl named Moth, who is 13 and struggling with all the usual middle school issues-friends, clothes, her mom, teachers.  But on Halloween, Moth discovers that she's actually a witch and her mom is a witch too.  Her mom chose to give up being a witch because her coven had been chased into hiding hundreds of years ago.  Her mom wanted to live life in the real world and not in the utopia that her own mother had created.  Moth is stunned at this revelation and has to decide if she wants to live a magical life or if she wants to live in the magic free zone her mom has created.  Complicating matters are a cute new boy in town and the evil doers that chased Moth's family into hiding in the first place.  It's a really fun, adventurous story and I liked it a lot, eve...