Middle Grade

Monstrous

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by MarcyKate Connolly
First sentence: “I will never forget my first breath.”
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Content: It’s long and slow and while the romance is fairly age-appropriate, it’s not just alluded to. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I’d gear it to the older end of the age range/young YA.

Kymera is a newly formed creation of her Father’s.She’s part girl, yes, but also part bird and part.. something else with a scaled, stinging tail. Her purpose, her father tells her, is to rescue the girls that have been imprisoned by the wizard. She heads into Bryre every night, stinging the guards and bringing out one girl which her father then tells her is being taken to the safety of Belladoma, a nearby country.

If you’re not getting huge creeper undertone vibes from this, I’m really not doing it justice. See: everything is not what it seems. One of the best things about the first half of this book is the unease that Connolly writes into it. I just KNEW something wasn’t right, that Kymera was being too trusting (then again, being new-born she didn’t know any better), that something would go horribly wrong.

And, once she meets a boy, Ren, against her father’s wishes, it does.

I  won’t tell you how it all unravels; the twists and turns are best left to surprise. So, even though this is a slow book, with a lot of internal dialogue and musings, I was still interested enough to keep reading. I loved the dark Frankenstein-like aura it has, though it has a very Grimm-like overlay. Like Connolly couldn’t decide whether to tell a fairy tale or a monster story. But, the mashup works.

Until the end.

See, it turns fairy tale in the end, and I think we were supposed to be Moved by the ending, but I felt cheated. I suppose I wanted some sort of middle-grade happily ever after, and I should be happy Connolly refused to give it to us, but it felt… forced. And that made me dissatisfied.

But, overall, it was a well-done, dark middle grade fantasy.

The Penderwicks in Spring

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by Jeanne Birdsall
First sentence: “Only one low mound of snow still lurked in Batty Pederwick’s yard, under the big oak tree out back, and soon that would be gone if Batty continued to stomp on it with such determination.”
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Review copy intercepted when opening freight at my place of employment.
Release date: March 24, 2015
Others in the series: The Penderwicks, The Penderwicks on Gardham Street, The Penderwicks at Pointe Mouette
Content: It’s a bit more advanced than the younger end of the reading spectrum can handle by themselves, but it makes a wonderful read-aloud. It will be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

The Penderwicks are back! I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. So SO very happy. In fact, I sat down and devoured this book in one day, and then was immediately sad because I should have savored it.

It’s been four years since the last Penderwicks book, and the girls have aged appropriately. Rosalind is off at college, Skye is a senior in high school (as is Jeffrey) and Jane is a junior. That leaves Batty as a fifth grader, the oldest of the younger Penderwicks, her step-brother 8-year-old Ben, and their half sister, two year old Lydia. That’s a lot of responsibility for Batty, who is used to being the youngest. Add to that her beloved Hound’s death (six months prior), and Batty finds herself struggling this spring.

She does make some good discoveries. Their neighbor Nick Geiger has come home from a tour in Iraq, and he inserts himself in the lives of the Penderwicks with nothing but wonderful results. And even though Skye is having some issues with Jeffrey and Jane is surrounded by boys and Rosalind brings home an absolutely awful boy from college, Batty’s finding her own way.

The most wonderful thing about this book is that’s it’s just as good as all the other Penderwicks books. Birdsall is such a fantastic author, capturing the innocence of childhood as well as the more complex of emotions: frustration with being young, a bit of despair, a bit of helplessness. It’s a funny book — the Penderwicks are witty and wonderful — but it’s also one that tugged at my heartstrings and made me cry in the end.  It’s honest, and simple, and absolutely wonderful.

The Swallow

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by Charis Cotter
First sentence: “There’s no place for me,”
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Content: It’s kind of confusing and a little bit creepy, though the chapters are short and to the point. It would be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Polly is lost in a sea of siblings and foster siblings. Her father is a pastor and feels a need to rescue lost children, much to Polly’s dismay. Rose is lost as well, but for the opposite reason: she is the only child of very busy, distant parents who don’t spend much time with her at all. Its 1963 in Toronto, when these two meet, and because they both have an interest in ghosts — well, Rose can see them, so it’s not really an interest — they embark upon a mystery when finding a gravestone with Rose’s name in the graveyard behind their houses.

If that sounds convoluted and sort of strange, it’s because this book is, well, convoluted and sort of strange. I think Cotter was going for atmospheric, but for me it just came off as creepy and weird. And unnecessary. Perhaps it was just me; this was the last of the Cybils finalists that I read, and I was worn out on fantasy by this point. But, the characters seemed wooden, the parents unnecessarily strict or absent, the story too forced for my taste.

The twist that happens didn’t work for me, either.

Which is to say, this was my least favorite. Though, it’s probably just me, and there’s some kid out there who loves twisty ghost stories with shocking reveals.

The Castle Behind Thorns

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by Merrie Haskell
First sentence: “Sand woke, curled in the ashes of a great fireplace.”
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Content: There’s death and betrayal and politics, and lots of funny French names, so maybe it’s not for the most reluctant of readers. It’s in the midde grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Sand, short for Alexandre, is the son of the local smithy in a small French duchy. (Well, it’s in one of those offshoots just when France was becoming, well, France.) The duchy castle has been in disrepair for longer than Sand’s 13 years, and surrounded by thorns. No one has gone to see what could be seen  inside.

Then Sand, who has been arguing with his father about attending university (he doesn’t want to), throws a token in Saint Melor’s wishing well, and ends up inside the castle. With no clue how he got there or how he will get out.

A brief aside here: we discover things right along with Sand, and while that generally annoys me, in this book it works to great effect. Sand is disoriented and alone, and Haskell captures that perfectly, transferring Sand’s anxiety and his slow realization that he’s stuck there and no one is coming to get him to the reader. All of which is followed up by his determination to survive and make things work.

During his explorations, Sand finds a body of a dead girl, and straightens her up. And because this place is magical (something which comes on very slowly, and quietly), she wakes up. Suddenly, Sand is not alone, and he and Perrotte — who happens to be the daughter of the long-dead Count — have to work together to find their way out of the castle.

I know it sounds boring, but it’s not. Haskell is a gifted writer, and she captures so many inner emotions and struggles and makes them not only real but captivating. I loved the friendship that developed between Sand and Perrotte (and that it wasn’t a romance!). I loved how they worked together to figure out how to get out of the castle. I loved that Sand’s strengths and Perrotte’s strengths were different and they found a way to compliment each other.

Yeah, all of this is really introspective for a middle grade fantasy novel, but in Haskell’s talented hands, it works well.

More than just well: it works wonderfully.

The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra

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by Jason Fry
First sentence: “Tycho Hashoone was doing his math homework when the alarms started shrieking.”
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Content: There’s some intense moments, and a lot of off-screen deaths. And the names are pretty challenging to sound out. But, it’s a short book that reads quickly, and would be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, though I think 6-8th graders would enjoy it as well.

Tycho is part of one of the great pirating families of the Jupiter alliance. They’ve been capturing ships for booty for generations, flying the same starship, the Comet, making their name and their living. The captainship is handed down from parent to child, and the current captain, Diocletia, is Tycho’s mom. Which means that Tycho, his twin sister Yana, and their older brother, Carlo, are all in competition to be the next captain.

Lest you think that’s the focus of the book, it’s not. Even though their competition is a huge part. No, the real story is the disappearance of Jovian privateers (as the pirates are now called). When the Hashoones capture a freighter that happens to have an Earth diplomat on it (Jupiter and Earth have been at war for decades), that sets off a chain of events that will involve the Hashoones figuring out the dirty politics behind the disappearances.

On the one hand, this is freaking cool. Pirates! In Space! (or as A pointed out, a book version of Treasure Planet.) And, I like the world building that Fry did. He’s come up with some creative ideas for the future, and I liked the way the privateers/pirates balanced politics with business, just on the legal side of outlaw.

But.

The writing was pedestrian, the competition side of the story took up too much time and what I came to consider the “real” story took too long to develop  and was wrapped up too quickly. (Though that last scene was pretty dang awesome.) While I really enjoyed that this was a family business, Fry was juggling too many characters so I felt like I never really got to know any of them. And maybe this is all quibbling — I mean, will kids really care? — but it made the book a less-than-stellar read for me.

Nuts To You

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by Lynne Rae Perkins
First sentence: “One mild day in early November, I took my lunch down to the waterwheel park.”
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Content: There are short chapters, lots of illustrations, and it’s pretty basic vocabulary-wise. Which means it’s perfect for the younger readers as well as those who struggle. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

The book starts out inauspicious enough: the author having lunch on a picnic bench. But then, a squirrel comes up and, after a bit, begins talking to her. He tells her a fantastic story of adventure, of friendship, and of bravery.

Jed the squirrel was minding his own business, really, when he was picked up by a hawk. He manages to escape with some quick thinking (and the ancient squirrel martial art of Hai Tchree), he manages to escape, falling into an unknown part of the forest. Meanwhile his two best friends, TsTs and Chai, have seen Jed’s daring escape, and they head out into the forest to find him.

It sounds horribly corny, doesn’t it? I’ve been putting this book off for months just because 1) talking squirrels?? 2) really??? But trust me: it’s adorable. The squirrels talk to each other, true, but the only reason they talked to the “author” was because they’ve learned English over the years. No magic. Promise. Even so, the way Perkins has imagined the forest is charming, believably true to the animals she portrays, and just delightful.

There are a couple of reasons why. First, it’s the friendship between Jed, Chai (who’s a delightful character in his own right), and TsTs is a wonderful one. They will do just about anything for each other, and they work better together as a team. Second, the footnotes and asides had me cracking up. The voice Perkins chooses to tell this story is part of what makes it so perfect. Third, the illustrations help give the text just the right boost from weird and corny to adorable and fun.

Sure, there are some downsides: the environmental message at the end is a bit tacked on and heavy-handed. And the jokes and asides will probably drive those who dislike intrusive narrators bonkers. But I was completely won over and just wanted to hug the book in the end.

The Luck Uglies

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by Paul Durham
First sentence: “
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Content: There’s a lot of death — most of it off screen — and some pretty intense moments. Throw in a lot of difficult names of places and people, and this is not for the younger set, unless they’re pretty strong readers. Even so, it’d be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Rye O’Chanter has spent her life roaming the streets of Village Drowning, from her home in Mud Puddle Lane to her mother’s store to her the in her friend owns across the village. It’s not been a tough childhood, even though her father has been gone for years, but life in Village Drowning under the protection of the strict, and somewhat cruel, Earl Longchance hasn’t been a walk in the park, either.

The one day, the village is threatened by a beastie that everyone thought was extinct: the Bog Noblin. It had passed into lore: beasties that will eat you if you go outside after dark. The thing is, though: they really do. And when this one brings a heap of trouble on the village (partially because of the stupid Earl), it’s up to Rye — sort of — to stop it.

But she can’t do it on her own. Thankfully, a helpful stranger she calls Harmless shows up at just the right moment.

I’ll say this to start: I ended up liking this book more than I did in the beginning. I had a lot of unanswered questions at the beginning; almost too many for my taste. It was frustrating that I didn’t know the why, or who, or what. Then again, neither did Rye (because of information her mother held back). But, once I started getting answers — almost halfway through — the book picked up for me, and I actually enjoyed the adventure. There was a moment when I was afraid that Rye wouldn’t be allowed to be the hero of her own book (and that the guy was going to Save the Day), but Durham pulled through and allowed Rye to do what needed to be done.

The other thing is that even though there’s going to be a second book, this really is a stand-alone story, and that’s refreshing. I enjoyed Rye and the relationships she had with those around her (her younger sister, Lottie, is adorable). I loved how Durham showed a happy family with caring relationships, and yet Rye was a clever and capable and brave and tough girl. That was definitely something I liked.

So, in the end, this was a really solid fantasy.

Boys of Blur

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by N. D. Wilson

First sentence: “When the sugarcane’s burning and the rabbits are running, look for the boys who are quicker than flame.”
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Content: There are some intense moments, some violence, and some reference to abuse. It’s pretty intense, so while it’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, I’d hesitate giving it to the younger part of that age range.
There’s so much going on in this slim book, that it’s difficult for me to know where to start. 
There’s Charlie Reynolds, who had an abusive father, but whose mother was strong enough to leave and who found Mack, a former professional football player from a small town in Florida, to help keep her and Charlie safe. They got married and had an adorable little girl, Molly.
There’s Cotton Mack, the homeschooled son of one of Mack’s cousins, whom Charlie meets when he’s in Florida to attend the funeral of Mack’s former football coach.
It’s after that funeral that things start getting weird for Charlie and Cotton. Like ancient mythical men on mounds wielding swords weird. Like panthers that are tame and the zombie-like Stank (aka Gren) who feed off of envy and greed. And somehow it falls to Charlie and Cotton (well, mostly Charlie) to stop the Gren from rising and destroying their town.
In many ways, this one is reminiscent of The Dark is Rising: an ancient force pitted against a boy, who didn’t know he had it in him to face that ancient force. The difference is that this one is very southern, and is liberally scattered with African Americans. Which brings me to my one problem: why did the white kid have to be the one to save the world, in the end? Why did Cotton have to be taken out of commission? Although I really liked the book, with its mix of football and mythology and family, I was disappointed by this.
I don’t know how much that affected my enjoyment in the end, because Wilson does know how to pace a book, and he’s incredibly tight in his timing, and he knows how engage a reader. So, overall, I’d consider this one a win. 

The Forgotten Sisters

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by Shannon Hale
First sentence: “Miri woke to the rustle of a feather-stuffed quilt.”
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Others in the series: Princess Academy, Palace of Stone
Release Date: February 24, 2015
Review copy snagged from the ARC shelves of my place of employment.
Content: There’s some violence, but nothing graphic. And some kissing, which may be ew-inducing in the younger set. Still, I think it belongs in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, though it might do better with the 5-7th graders.

Miri finished her year at the Palace and was looking forward to going back home to Mount Eskel, seeing her family, enjoying getting back to the life she once had before the Princess Academy changed her path. But, her winding road isn’t finished yet: the neighboring country, Stora, is threatening invasion, and in order to pacify them King Bjorn has offered up some distant cousins as a bride to the aging Storan king. And Miri is sent, unwilling and unprepared, to the swamp of Lesser Alvan to find these cousins and whip them into shape for a royal wedding.

What Miri finds when she gets to the swamp are three motherless girls — Astrid, Felissa, and Sus — who have been resourceful enough to find a way to survive without the help of the castle. They were supposed to be getting an allowance, which has been stolen by the local village overlord. They were supposed to have servants and a family, and they’ve been robbed of that, too. However, they made to, and once Miri figured out how to connect with them, things went well.

In fact, Astrid and Sus were my favorite characters. Felissa was nice enough — her main characteristic, as Hale often reminded us, was smiling — but Astrid was tough, no-nonsense, responsible, and just plain amazing. Sus soaked up the knowledge, and there’s a scene at the end (I won’t spoil it) where she talks coolly and rationally and logically and in the end makes everyone listen to her. Miri,too, was a bastion of resourcefulness: she adapted to the swamp life and fought back against the bandits and robber barons. She fought for justice and did so in a way that wasn’t violent.

The thing that kept running through my mind while reading this was that it was a girl power book, but not in the way we usually think of it. Usually, we want our girls to be like guys: kicking butt, fighting. But, Hale has given us girls and women who Do Things and stand up to people without violence, without force. In fact, you can look at this book as the myriad of ways women survive what men in power do to them. From making decisions to making war to actual physical violence, men can be (are often?) cruel and unthinking. But, women can survive and flourish.

It never got didactic or heavy-handed, though I did think some of the twists and turns of plot were a bit much. It came together in the end, though, in a very satisfying way. Because above all, Hale is a consummate storyteller. And this is definitely a good story.

El Deafo

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by Cece Bell
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Content: There’s a little talk of Love (she has a crush) but other than that, it’s quite accessible for the 3-5 grader. It’s in the middle grade graphic novel section at the bookstore.

This one has been on my radar for a long time, and (like too many other things), I can now say I Should Have Read it Sooner!

It’s the mostly-true (except for the part where she’s a bunny) story of Cece Bell, and her experiences as a deaf child in the 70s and early 80s. She lost her hearing due to a bout with meningitis when she was four, and as a result had to wear a hearing aid and use a Phonic Ear during school. It’s not something she really enjoys at first, even though she realizes it gives her a sort of super-power.

But, the story is really only incidentally about being deaf, it’s more about finding a way to belong and a friend. Bell is very practical about the friends she made, not sugar coating anything. But, it’s not a harsh book; on the contrary, it’s a very sweet and often hilarious story. And it’s good that it’s out there to remind readers that it’s because of our differences that life is interesting.

Very highly recommended.