by Lauren Myracle
ages: 7-9
First sentence: “Today, my big sister Sandra is taking me to school.”
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I know: I don’t usually do beginning chapter books on here, but I had a book talk last week to do (picture and beginning chapter books) and I thought I’d take a few minutes to read this one so I could talk about it.

First off: will it turn off the boys if I say this is adorable?? Because it IS. So. Freaking. Adorable.

Seven-year-old Ty is in second grade. He’s got two older sisters — one old enough to drive — and a brand-new three-month-old baby sister (and I thought I spread my kids out). He’s been the baby of the family for so long, that he’s not taking to the new addition very well. And that’s putting it mildly.

He does okay at school, though his best friend is in the hospital recovering from a bout of leukemia, and his second best friend is a girl, Lexie, that’s a bit wild. (She brings rubber bands to school because she wants to play “shooting people”. Ty doesn’t want to.) Then they go on a field trip to a local aquarium. Lexie breaks the rules and gets away with it. Ty breaks the rules — he wanders off — and gets in a ton of trouble. It’s not fair.

It does have a happily-ever-after type of ending; Ty does figure things out, with the help of his older sisters, and things do come right in the end. But there’s this moment, when he’s in trouble and his mom is lecturing him that Myracle got spot-on from both the mother and child’s point of view. It was actually the relationship between Ty and his mom that won the book over for me. It was a delightful little story with an absolutely adorable boy as it’s focus.

Worth handing to your first or second grader.

by John Barrowman & Carole E. Barrowman
ages: 9+
First sentence: “The book the old monk was illuminating began with these words:
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Twelve-year-old twins Matt and Em Calder don’t really think there’s anything weird about their drawing abilities. Okay, so sometimes they can fall into their pictures and sometimes their pictures come alive, but there’s nothing unusual about that.

Well, of course they’re wrong, and they find out in a big way when something happens at London’s National Gallery and they and their mother find themselves on the run to Scotland, to live with a grandfather they’ve never met.

Once in Scotland, they find they’re a part of this group of artists/magicians called Animare, people who can bring their art to life. It’s not all fun and games though: there are splits in this group, factions who believe that they myth of Hollow Earth — that there’s a portal to the center of the earth where all the demons are — is real, and those who want to stop. Matt and Em find themselves caught in between these feuding adults, not quite sure which side to believe.

At least, I think that’s what the plot is.

See, while I really liked the idea of melding art and magic — Animare actually have to draw things on paper (or the ground, or skin) in order for their magic to work — I’m not sure this was the best story. (An aside: I only picked this up because A raved about it. So, it does have the kid appeal.) Granted, it’s the first in a series, so there’s really just a lot of set-up going on. Even though there’s an adventure on the island off the coast of Scotland full of danger for our fair heroes, it just all felt kind of by-the-numbers. Which means while it isn’t bad, it isn’t brilliant either.

A says the second one in the series isn’t as good, though it left her on a cliffhanger, so she, at least, will keep going in the series. I’m glad I gave it a try, at least.

by Nora Raleigh Baskin
ages: 10+
First sentence: “My mother says male dogs will fight.”
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Everyone knows sixth grade is a jungle. Trying to navigate the wilds of the middle school cafeteria, the politics of homeroom, the cliques. It’s dog-eat-dog out there. And Elizabeth knows it. Especially since she’s at the bottom of the totem pole. (I just realized I’m mixing my metaphors. Sorry.) She and her single mom run a dog boarding kennel out of their home, which doesn’t earn Elizabeth any points. And while she’s talented at writing, she does, sometimes, have a tendency to exaggerate, which also doesn’t help. Which means she’s prone to bullies.

I’m going to insert here that in many ways I felt like this tried to be 13 Reasons Why for middle schoolers (with added dogs). There were multiple narrators, while we saw events over a couple of months from different vantage points. There’s another bullying incident — a boy pees on another who ends up punching the first boy — that sets things in motion for a big showdown at the end of the book. You got to see the consequences of people’s actions, the inner feelings of the bullies.

But.

It didn’t quite work. For one: the whole dog thing was a bit odd. Especially the whole “inside a dog” chapter. And while jumping between narrators usually provides insight, this time it was just kind of awkward. I wanted to be moved. I wanted to be touched. Mostly, though, I was just confused. Which makes me sad, because I have loved Baskin’s work in the past. And I wanted to love this one again.

by Holly Goldberg Sloan
ages: 10+
First sentence: “We sit together outside the Fosters Freeze at a see-green, metal picnic table.”
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Release date August 29, 2013
Review copy snagged off the ARC shelves at work.

Every once in a while there comes a middle grade book that’s perfect. I know, I know: that’s a lot to live up to. But, really: this one is.

To begin with it has an age-old, very tired, depressing premise: 12-year-old Willow Chase’s parents have died in a horrible car accident, and now she has to Deal With Things. But, Holly Goldberg Sloan (whose first book, I’ll Be There, was also magnificent) is such a talented writer she takes a cliche situation and turns it on its head.

Willow Chase is an exceptional girl. She’s a quiet one, obsessed with numbers (counting by 7s, mostly), medical conditions (as in human ones; she’s great at diagnosing things and diseases fascinate her), and plants (her backyard in Bakersfield, CA is practically a garden of Eden.). She’s black, but her adopted parents are white. And she wasn’t fitting in in her new middle school, which is how she ended up in counselor Dell Duke’s office for cheating.

In fact, she was with Dell and two other kids he counsels — a Vietnamese brother and sister: Mai and Quang-ha — when she got the news that she was now an orphan. And that’s when the real story starts. Willow, naturally and believably, doesn’t quite know how to deal with the sudden death of her entire family. (Her parents, conveniently, don’t have siblings or parents either.) But rather than leave Willow to the system, Mai steps in an makes a difference: she convinces her mother to take Willow in.

The real heart and soul of this book — and the real reason it’s so perfect — is that Sloan never makes it feel depressing. In fact, even though Willow’s going through a hard time and Sloan never forgets that, it’s an incredibly hopeful one. She plays with the idea of family and of connectedness in unexpected ways. On top of being absolutely refreshing with her subject matter, she never talks down to her reader. Sure, her sentences are simple — it is a middle grade book after all — but they are never simplistic. She respects her characters and her readers, and knows how to pick the best words to make the book flow, even when it’s being simple.

In other words: practically perfect in every way.

by Jane Kurtz
ages: 8+
First sentence: “I was attending the weekly meeting of the Safety Club and thinking about my birthday party when the best thing and the worst things of my entire life filled me up and knocked me flat.”
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Release date: August 29, 2013
Review copy given to me by a manager at the store.

Anna Nickel is a preacher’s kid, which she doesn’t really mind. Her dad’s just one of the ministers at their church in Colorado, and they’ve got a comfortable life. Then, her dad decides that he needs to uproot everything and move to Oakwood, Kansas — where he’s from — and be the temporary main preacher in the church there while they figure things out.

Anna, and this is a huge understatement, doesn’t want to go.

She protests her new pink room by sleeping in a sleeping bag in the hallway. She flat-out refuses to go to school. Even her usual pick-me-up of Preparing for Any Disaster (tips included in the book) doesn’t work. She doesn’t want to meet new relatives. She just wants. to. go. home.

But she’s only not-quite-10, so of course she can’t. And she has to learn to adapt. Even if it is against her will.

This was an okay book as far as middle grade fiction goes. I liked that — aside from Anna’s dad being overly involved in his work, which makes sense given the situation — the family was a good, solid one. I liked that Kurtz knew how to deal with religion and religious people; she didn’t make them out to be goody-goodies, or angsty, or unreachable. They’re just people trying to muddle through. But aside from that, the book is really flat. The entire conflict was that Anna didn’t want to move. I understand that — I experienced that — but it got old pretty fast in the book (at least for me). I wanted there to be some additional conflict, something more than just not liking small-town Kansas. Or moving.

But, that may have been adult sensibilities coming through. It really is hard to find a good MG book with a decent, together family. So there’s that. At least.

The Imaginary Veterinary Book 1
by Suzanne Selfors
ages: 8+
First sentence: “The weird shadow swept across the sky.”
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Ben Silverstein is being sent to live with his grandpa for the summer. As an LA kid — the full nine yards: salons, designer jeans, pools in your backyard — the idea of spending the summer with his grandpa (whom he hasn’t seen in 6 years) in the small, run-down town of Buttonville sounds like torture.

Then, things start to happen.
He meets Pearl Petal.
He thinks he sees a dragon.
They discover that Dr. Woo’s “worm” hospital is actually a hospital for creatures from the Imaginary World.
They let loose a sasquatch (with foot fungus).
And they are tasked with catching him.

Suddenly, what was a boring summer has taken a turn for the exciting.

Selfors has written a solid early-middle grade fantasy. It’s got adventure and friendship, and enough fantastic and silly situations to be entertaining for any reader. But the narrative is simple enough that it makes a great in-between book for early or struggling readers.  And the illustrations by Dan Santat added immensely to Selfor’s storytelling, not to mention the “enrichment” activities in the back.

I’m not going to say that middle grade fantasy really needs another series, but this one is a great addition.

by Christopher Healy
ages: 8+
First sentence: “A true hero plays the flute.”
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Others in the series: The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom

When we last left our Fair Heroes, they had just vanquished the witch and put the Bandit King into his place. Back home, though, everything is not all roses. Liam is still engaged to Briar, but he’d rather NOT marry her. Ella and Frederic are still engaged, but he’s quite concerned about the time she spends with Liam. Gustav is hiding from Rapunzel. It seems the only people who are happy are Snow and Duncan, who is currently writing the Hero’s Guide to Being a Hero. And even the popularity of the League of Princes, after about 15 minutes of (bard) fame, is waning.

What they need is a new adventure. That comes in the form of Briar Rose, determined to Have What She Wants. Specifically: Liam. She also has this diabolical plan to conquer and rule ALL of the thirteen kingdoms, and is using the League as a means to her ends. Of course she’s not the only “bad guy”: the Bandit King is back, as King of Rauberia and there’s an even badder guy in town: the Warlord of Dar. How will the League of Princes handle this?

Well, much like they do in the first book: with of silliness, laughs, luck, and heart. Yeah, sure, this is more of the same as the first book, but why mess with a good thing? I loved the characters (A has a soft spot for Duncan), and the situations were so over-the-top it was endearing rather than off-putting. The chapter titles were ridiculous, as were the “book” quotes underneath. (My favorite? “There is no I in League of Princes.”) I loved how the girls held their own with the guys, and how everyone (even Frederic!) found their strengths and used them to help them achieve their ends. It really was a team effort, and I appreciated that. Oh, and I should give a brief but heartfelt nod to the illustrations, which really are delightful.

The story’s not done, either. While the story wrapped up (yay!), Healy left us with a bit of a cliffhanger, which only serves to make me eager for the next installment of the League of Princes.

(And, as a quick follow up to my concern: I do think that this one is something both boys and girls are reading. Which makes me very happy.)

by Christ Grabenstein
ages: 10+ (or a very bookish 9-year-old)
First sentence: “This is how Kyle Keeley got grounded for a week.”
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Ever since I turned the last page of this book, part of me has just wanted to sit down and write this: “What you’d get if you crossed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with The Westing Game and threw in a bunch of book references. Not perfect, but really good.”

That really does sum it up. But I suppose you want a plot, yes?

Mr. Lemoncello, of the title fame,  is world-renowned, slightly eccentric, game maker. (Both of the board and electronic kind). He’s one of those self-made billionaires who want to give back to the community, which in this case, is Alexandriaville, Ohio (another one of those “everywhere” states, like Kansas). The community’s library closed down 12 years ago, so some kids have gone their entire lives without a library (which really is sad). Mr. Lemoncello’s designed and paid for a new state-of-the-art (read: really cool technology integrated with the books; one of my favorite things was the floating elevator/ladder thing in the fiction section) library. And made a contest out of the grand opening.

Kyle Keeley is a seventh grader in Alexandriaville, and a huge fan of Mr. Lemoncello. So, of course he had to get in to the contest (which is only open to seventh graders). And he does, along with 11 other 12-year-olds. The contest itself is twofold: the first part is to get in. The second part — and the bulk of the book — is getting out. There is a puzzle that the contestants need to solve in order to get out, and the winner gets something… big.

This is where those comparisons I mentioned at first come in. The characters are very Charlie-esque, fitting into their stereotypes (Sierra as the Bookish Girl, Andrew as the Jerk, Charles as the Entitled One, Kyle as Charlie, and so on) in order for the story to unfold as it should. I would complain about the use of stereotypes, but it worked in this setting. I rooted for the kids I was supposed to and cheered when the ones I loathed got booted.

But the GAME. The game was clever and fun and fantastic. I tried to figure it out as I went along, but I’m not as observant as some readers, and so didn’t get it before the characters did. No matter: I enjoyed being along for the ride. And the LIBRARY — with it’s holo windows on the ceiling and it’s holographic displays– is a 21st century dream. I so want someone to build this.

And the book references were amazing. I’m sure I didn’t get them all, but the ones that I did get, I loved. It’s the perfect mix for me: bookish, fun, and whimsical.

I just hope there are kids out there who will enjoy it as much as I do.