Level 2

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by Lenore Applehans
ages: 12+
First sentence: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by my place of employment.
Additional disclaimer: while I wouldn’t claim to “know” Lenore, I have met her on several occasions when she stops in town, and enjoy her company.

Felicia is dead. (That’s not a spoiler.)

She’s been lounging around in her hive in Level 2, revisiting her memories — only the pleasant ones, please; specifically of Neil, her boyfriend at the time of her death — talking to her friends Beckah and Virginia, trying to stave off the ever-increasing boredom. Then, one day, something Exciting happens: the system malfunctions, and Beckah disappears.

Oh, and Julian — an old, not-so-beloved flame of Felicia’s — reappears. And it seems that Level 2 isn’t the happy, peaceful, resting place Felicia thought it was. In fact, it’s a place where a group called the Morati — angels who weren’t quite, well, angelic — are siphoning humans’ energy in order to invade heaven. And they need Felicia’s power.

What the what?

At first take, this is an interesting glance into the afterlife. I liked the use of Felicia’s memories to give us backstory, without having to set up everything first. (Yes, we do eventually learn how she died.) It serves to help us get to know Felicia, to understand her interior motivations.

But, unfortunately, it also allows us to keep our distance.  Which is the first of my problems with this one. I go back and forth between whether I’m a character-driven reader or a plot-driven reader, and I think I’m both. If the plot is slow, I will forgive it if there are fascinating characters. And I’ll forgive wooden or stereotpyical characters if the plot keeps my interest. The problem with Level 2 is that I didn’t have either.

I think we’re supposed to like Felicia, with all her guilt and complexities (not to mention her fixation on Neil). But I just… didn’t. I thought she was whiny privileged, and not at all the Heroine she was made out to be. (Maybe that was on purpose? And there will be More in the next book?) I did like Julian (whom I don’t think we were supposed to), but I felt let-down by his character arc. I wanted more from him. And Neil? Well, lets just say he was arm candy.

The second of my problems is that I felt the plot was uneven: perhaps it was because the memories broke up the flow of the plot, but I felt it came in fits and starts. It was too slow at the beginning, took too long to get rolling, and then ended up going too fast at the end. In fact, I finished the book with a “WHAT? HUH?” expression: I had no clue, really, what just happened. Perhaps that was my fault: I’m not exactly the most careful of readers all the time, so I probably missed something. Either way, the Twist and the Big Reveal did not work for me.

Now, to be fair, I may be being a bit hyper critical. It’s not every day that someone I “know” gets a book published, and advance buzz for this was quite good. I’m always more critical of books with a lot of advance buzz, so I tend to avoid them.  This book reminded me a lot of the Matched series, so I know there will be readers for it. And I’m not sorry I spent the time immersed in this world.

I just wish I had liked it more.

Anna Dressed in Blood

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by Kendare Blake
ages: 14+
First sentence: “The grease-slicked hair is a dead giveaway — no pun intended.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
For the YAckers book group.

Cas is a ghost killer.

How can that be, you ask, since they’re already dead?

Well… some ghosts don’t want to stay dead. And some ghosts start acting out against humans, harming them. And it’s those ghosts that Cas, with his family heritage — his father was a ghost killer before him — and his athame — the knife that does the killing, tackles.

That doesn’t mean everything is coming up roses. In fact, quite the contrary. Cas’s father was brutally  murdered by a ghost outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Cas has been spending the last several years working to get good enough to go back and face whatever it is. And so, when he gets word of an especially violent ghost in Thunder Bay, Ontario, he knows he has to go get it. Her.

Anna Dressed in Blood.

A bit of an aside here: I don’t do horror. Period. Never have, never will. And yet: I found myself attracted to this book. From the ink the color of dried blood, to the violence that Anna does (and she does some violence), to the intense (for me!) climax at the end (they got the ghost with a hundred pages left to go, and I was wondering what Drake was going to do with them; worry not: they’re incredible), I couldn’t put this one down.

Another quick aside: the over quote from Cassandra Clare is “Spellbinding and romantic.” Um. NOT. This is not a romantic book. This is a violent, bloody, intense book. Sure, there’s a bit of love-falling-into, but honestly: don’t let the girl in the dress on the cover throw you off. It’s an episode (or three) of Supernatural. It’s a ghost Buffy (the comparison is aptly made in the book, actually). It’s a ramped-up, less funny Ghostbusters. It’s awesome. Perhaps it’s spellbinding. But it’s not romantic. Unless, of course, you find grappling with a deadly ghost romantic. Then, yeah. It’s romantic.

Either way, it’s worth the read.

Prince of the Elves

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Amulet, vol. 5
by Kazu Kibuishi
ages: 10+
First sentence: “You’ve never heard about the Great Erlking?”
Support your local independent bookstore:buy it there!
Others in the series:The Stonekeeper, The Stonekeeper’s Curse, The Cloud Searchers, The Last Council

To catch you up (this is as much for me as it is for you):

Emily and Navin’s father died in a car crash, and their mother has been kidnapped. They follow her into this strange world, and discover that their grandfather was a stonekeeper, a role that has passed on to Emily. In this world, the Elf King is a tyrannical ruler, someone who needs to be overthrown. Except he, too, is a stonekeeper, something which gives him unlimited power. It’s up to Emily, Navin, and the friends they collect to work together to overthrow the king.

Up until now, the books have been about Emily learning about her powers, and the kids making and collecting friends as part of the resistance. But (finally!), in this one, I felt like the plot was actually moving forward again. We’ve got an actual physical bad guy, rather than a distant one (kind of like the difference between Sauron and Saruman). We’ve got a battle. We’ve got a gorgeous two-page spread of a monster attacking a ship. (Seriously: it’s amazing.) We’ve got a backstory explaining how the Elf prince became exiled and how the bad guy became the bad guy. We’ve got (some) ANSWERS.

And, as always, my thoughts on the book are the same: gorgeously drawn, brilliantly plotted, and the next one can’t come out soon enough. (I think I need to break down and buy these!)

10 Questions for Mike Jung

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When I decided to resurrect my 10 Question For series, I was in the middle of the 2012 Cybils round one, and, more specifically, I had just finished Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities. I was so enamored with the book and with Mike Jung, I knew he had to be next. Thankfully (I never tire of being surprised that authors are willing to “talk” to me!), he said he’d love to do an interview.

MF: So, Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities (or GGSI, as we ended up calling it on my Cybils panel), is your first book. Congrats! Can you tell us a bit about the process of how it came to be published?MJ: Thanks! I started writing GGSI in 2006, and after a close call with an agent I started seriously querying other agents in 2009. I ended up signing with the Erin Murphy Literary Agency’s Ammi-Joan Paquette in 2010, but before that happened I somehow managed to blunder my way into a friendship with Arthur Levine – we first connected with each other on Facebook, and in mid-2010 (right after I signed with Joan) I got to meet Arthur at the SCBWI Summer Conference. We really hit it off, and fortunately the manuscript that would become GEEKS, GIRLS, AND SECRET IDENTITIES was ready to go. Arthur read it after the conference, acquired it, and ka-blam, dream come true for yours truly.

MF: Where did you get the idea to write a middle grade book about superheroes?
MJ: I knew from the start that I wanted to write middle grade, although it did take some time to keep my writerly voice from zigzagging between MG and YA – I kept inserting a very YA-centric note of cynicism into the manuscript, and I had to exert quite a bit of discipline to get a handle on that. My middle-grade years were powerfully formative for me, and they were the time when books truly embedded themselves in the foundation of my worldview. I read to escape loneliness, lose myself in new worlds, and contemplate the startling fact that people could actually conjure these amazing stories out of thin air. Regarding superheroes, well, I think the next question answers that.

Mike with another author (and Cybils guru) Sarah Stevenson

MF: Fess up: are you a superhero geek? (It seems, from the book, that you may be. Either that, or you did your research well, because you got the fanboy/girl thing down.)MJ: I am a MASSIVE superhero geek, and though it’s been a long time since I’ve read comics with any great frequency, I’ll always be an old-school Marvel and DC devotee. Yes, BOTH Marvel and DC – I’m very bipartisan that way. I owe a great debt of thanks to my older brother, whose comic book collection was vast and lost a whole lot of collectible value because of my tendency to read everything in it, no matter how carefully bagged and boxed up it might have been.

When it comes to Spider-Man girlfriends, I’ll always be “thumbs up!” on Gwen Stacy and “meh” on Mary Jane Watson. John Byrne’s work on the X-Men was superb, but he started going slowly but surely downhill when Alpha Flight got their own series. There is only one true Silver Surfer, and it was created by Jack Kirby: hallelujah, all hail King Kirby, now and forever. The Sub-Mariner would kick Aquaman’s butt in a fight. I spent six months trying to draw a perfect rendition of Danny Rand’s hand smoldering with the power of Iron Fist. I retain my fondness for the Metal Men. I think Plastic Man’s full potential was squandered. Among DC’s female heroes I’ve always preferred Black Canary to Wonder Woman. I could do this all day…

MF: Being married to a superhero geek, I completely understand! I find humor so subjective. Was it difficult writing a funny book? How did you get the humor to work?
MJ: I totally agree that humor is really, really subjective, and in a way, that took some of the humor-related difficulty out of the equation, because I wasn’t really trying to tailor my writing to anyone’s sense of humor but my own. I’m told that humor is one of my strengths, and I did throw a whole bunch of stuff into GGSI just because I think it’s funny. That’s really all there is to it. I know what I like, I know what I think is funny, and I’ve spent enough time developing my writing skills to know how to make that happen on the page. Sometimes I wish I had a stronger grasp on the defined mechanics of humor, such as they are – the comedy rule of three, and so on – but my understanding of what’s funny about my writing is based solely on having done a whole lot of writing practice and having read a whole lot of books.

I’m also very aware and accepting of the subjective nature of humor. It’s really not possible to write something that’s universally funny – no matter what your sense of humor is like, you’ll always be able to find someone who doesn’t share it. It’s actually a very liberating thought, because it utterly releases us from the need to try and please anyone but ourselves.

MF: I know this is unfair, but do you have a favorite scene or character in GGSI?
MJ: I don’t want to be too spoilery about it, but my favorite part of the book is probably the very end of chapter 26. I never wanted to write a book that was just slaphappy and humorous, or fast-paced and action-packed – my goal from the start was to create a story with a strong, authentic emotional core. I wanted my characters to have emotional experiences with genuine impact, whether it be through the dynamics of peer interactions, the love of parents for their children, or the uncertainty of a friendship that may be lost. The end of chapter 26 is where I was most successful in making that happen, and I think I was able to do it through dialogue, action, and description. I’m quite proud of that section of the book.

MF: I agree: it wasn’t just a superhero book, and it wasn’t just a comedy; it has a good emotional core. Truthfully: I loved Polly, and the role – atypical for a lot of girl characters – she played in the book. Why did you decide to write her that way?MJ: The snide part of me wants to say “Why wouldn’t I?” It’s not the first time I’ve been asked this question, it’s a question that I see asked of a lot of writers, and it’s worth noting that I’ve yet to be asked why I chose to write Vincent the way I did. [Touche: Shannon Hale makes a similar point here. *hangs head in shame*]

Questions like this imply that the unthinking, non-deliberate, default choice would be to create a girl character that isn’t strong, proactive, and dynamic. That certainly has been a default choice in the past, and maybe for some writers it’s still a default choice, but I like to think that we’ve matured enough as a society that it’s no longer perceived as an automatic choice for EVERY writer.

I’m not a Pollyanna about this: I know that as a global community we have far too much room for growth in that respect. But I have spent my share of time thinking about issues of gender bias and societally imposed roles, and as the father of a young girl I believe I bear both an obligation and a responsibility to continue thinking about those things. It’s not hard to do, because my adult life has been filled with strong, intelligent, articulate females, not the least of which are my wife and daughter. Polly is a strong character with an absolutely pivotal role in the book. She’s neither weak nor submissive, and has no trouble speaking her mind and taking action as she sees fit. She may be atypical in terms of girl characters in literature, but she’s not at all atypical in terms of reality. The world is packed to the rafters with strong women and girls.

And, because I couldn’t resist, I sent this tweet out:

MF: You’ve also written a chapter in Dear Teen Me. What were the differences between writing for a middle grade and a teen audience?MJ: The main difference was that I didn’t really think very hard about how to write in a voice that matched the age and experience of my characters, because my DTM letter isn’t fiction. I think writing a YA novel would be entirely different, because I’d need to inhabit the minds of my characters in order to make the novel truly come alive. My DTM letter was written entirely from my own perspective, however, and the things I wrote about (coping with suicidal thoughts, mostly) were things I experienced as a teenager, so I knew the subject matter would be relevant for teens coping with the same difficulties.

MF: How did you come up with the ukulele song? (Which is also hilarious.)
MJ: Before writing my book my main creative outlet was music – I played the local coffeehouse circuit, performing original songs on guitar and ukulele. I stopped doing that when my daughter was born, but I picked up the uke again last year at the Erin Murphy Literary Agency’s annual retreat. My dear friend Carrie Gordon Watson (who’s also a musician) and I joked around about forming a band to play at the retreat, and somehow we ended up actually doing so. It turned into an incredibly fun and meaningful experience, and got me back into making music. Later that summer I had a conversation with my editor about how hard it is for authors to just come right out and ask people to buy their books, and I had another semi-joking conversation on Facebook about writing a theme song for my book launch party. I let my brain marinate in those two conversations for a couple of months, and then the song pretty much wrote itself.
 
MF: That’s cool! (Can I say that I hope you write one for your next book?) What’s the best book you’ve read most recently? And why did you love it?
MJ: I actually read it in manuscript before it was under contract, but I bought a shiny new copy of Ellen Oh’s PROPHECY, the first book in a YA fantasy trilogy set in ancient Korea. If you like strong female protagonists, rip-roaring action, vividly imagined settings, and extremely creative mayhem, you’ll love PROPHECY – it’s one of the best things out there right now. My favorite book of 2012 just might have been Kate Milford’s THE BROKEN LANDS – when I finished the last page my first feeling was sadness that I’d never be able to read it for the first time again. I also loved Anne Nesbet’s THE CABINET OF EARTHS, Martha Brockenbrough’s DEVINE INTERVENTION, J. Anderson Coat’s THE WICKED AND THE JUST,  Raina Telgemaier’s DRAMA, Courtney Summers’s THIS IS NOT A TEST…uh, yeah. It’s hard to pick just one.

Thanks so much for your time, Mike!

You can check out Mike’s doings on his blog, and on his Twitter feed.

A Jane Austen Education

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How six novels taught me about love, friendship, and the things that really matter
by William Deresiewicz
ages: adult
First sentence: “I was twenty-six, and about as dumb, in all human things, as any twenty-six-year-old has a right to be, when I met the woman who would change my life.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

When I saw this one a while back, I knew, as a professed lover of all things Jane, that I had to eventually read it. Thankfully, my delightful gift exchange partner, Holly, made that eventually sooner rather than later.

I didn’t quite know what to expect from a book like this, or who even it’s intended for. Other Janeites? The random public? Guys who should be reading Jane Austen? (Which they should.)

And the answer is: yes, all of the above.

Deresiewicz weaves his personal story of a 26-year-old, single, angsty Jewish male with analyses of all six of Austen’s books, giving each book a theme that helps him through a time period in his life. He doesn’t go chronologically with her works, but rather in the order that he read them, and with what fit with what period. It’s a book about Austen, yes, but it’s also a book about Deresiewicz’s growth as a person, and the role that Austen played in that.

Having read all the novels many times (though not recently; one of the things I realized while reading this is that it’s been a while since I’ve visited with Austen, and “a while” is too long), he didn’t really say much that I didn’t know. I’m not sure I’m going to look at her novels in a new light now, or anything like that. Perhaps, if I were less than an avid fan, I would have (I also want to give this to the guy at work who disdains all “chick fiction”, calling it “fluffy” and beneath his notice). At the very least, Deresiewicz succeeded in reminding me why I adore Austen.

A couple of quotes, because these stood out:

From the Northanger Abbey chapter (“Learning to Learn”): “Real men weren’t afraid to admit that they still had things to learn — not even from a woman.”

From Mansfield Park (“Being Good”): “To listen to a person’s stories, [Edmund] understood, is to learn their feelings and experiences and values and habits of mind, and to learn them all at once and all together. Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else’s stores — entering into their feelings, validating their experiences — is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness.”

For me, this was a delightful romp through familiar land: watching someone come to a realization that Austen and her small, domestic dramas and comedies really do hold valuable lessons for the rest of us, even 200 years later.

Navigating Early

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by Clare Vanderpool
ages: 10+
First sentence: “If I’d know what there was to know about Early Auden, that strangest of boys, I might have been scared off, or at least kept my distance like all the others.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by my place of employment.
Additional disclaimer: I’ve chatted with the author on numerous occasions when she’s stopped into Watermark.

It’s 1945, and Jack Baker’s father has come back to Kansas from serving in World War II. Except, he came home to a son he doesn’t recognize and a wife who recently died. So, he packs up the house and tows Jack up to Maine to attend a boarding school near the Naval station where he’s based.

None of this sits well with Jack.  He’s a Kansas boy, through and through: loving the wide-open spaces, the sky, the heat, the wheat fields. And so Maine, especially Maine in the fall, throws him for a loop. Not to mention that he’s lost his anchor — his mother — and he’s adrift in the sea of boys and New England customs (like rowing), that are completely foreign to him.

Until he meets Early Auden, a boy who only listens to Billie Holiday when it rains; who lives in the school basement and only comes to class when he feels like it; and — most amazingly — has all the digits of pi memorized, seeing colors, patterns, and stories in the numbers. It’s all overwhelming for Jack; he really has no idea how to deal with everything. Until fall break, when Early leads Jack on an adventure, both literal and metaphorical, to find something that neither boy thought they were looking for.

It’s an evocative novel, one which explores loss and belonging, of being uprooted and searching for a place to fit.  To be honest, everything I said about Moon Over Manifest works here as well: even though the novel isn’t set in Kansas, Jack’s love for his home state comes through loud and clear. (And after 6 1/2 years here, I’m beginning to see what it is to love about being here.) But, Vanderpool also creates a sense of the Maine wilderness, of the early- to mid-fall glory of the woods, of tramping around in the rain. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the two climates.

In fact, the thing I enjoyed most about the novel was the way Vanderpool juxtaposed elements: Kansas and Maine; the death of a mother with the death of a brother; Early and Jack’s story with that of Pi’s (pi the number becomes Pi the character in Early’s mind; the numbers tell his story.); the various characters Early and Jack meet on their journey. It kept me interested throughout, wondering how everything would weave together in the end.

Actually, the end was probably my least favorite part: while it came to a conclusion, I felt something was, not quite fitting together. It doesn’t have a happily-ever-after bow — something I appreciated — but it didn’t quite sit well with me either.

But that’s a small quibble in an otherwise excellent book.

The Second Life of Abigail Walker

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by Frances O’Roark Dowell
ages: 9+
First sentence: “The fox had been stepping into stories since the beginning of time.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Sixth grade has not been the best for Abigail Walker. Her best friend recently moved away, and she’s been caught up in a group of mean-ish girls because her mother wants Abby to be friends with them. In addition, her parents (especially her dad) are always on her case about eating, since she’s a bit more overweight than they’d like her to be. Between these two things, all Abby wants to do is hide in her closet and eat candy bars.

I’m going to interject here:  I want to give this one to parents. Just so they can see the effect their comments have on their children. The parents in this one earn a great big huge OY, PEOPLE. I want to smack them.

Anyway. Abby starts frequenting the field across the street from her house, and discovers a fox, which bites her (not hard). She also meets a boy, Anders, and his father who is recovering from PTSD from his tour in Iraq. Between Helping Anders with his dad and the fox, Abby begins branching out, discovering a strength in her to make new friends and to begin to stand up to her parents.

Aside from the whole parent-issue thingy, this was just an okay book. Abby is dealing with lots of issues, and I was glad to see her being to make things right. For a while, I was thinking O’Roark Dowell would wrap everything up in a nice bow, and I was quite glad she didn’t. (I should trust her more; she rarely steers me wrong.) The only real misstep in this one was the fox; I was never quite sure why the fox really needed to be there. It seemed like it belonged in a different book, one that was wholly an animal fantasy, rather than a middle grade issue-oriented book.

But aside from the fox, it was a sweet story about a girl who’s trying to figure out who she really is in the face of everyone’s expectations.

The State of the TBR Pile 12: Jan 2013

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I know you’re dying to know: what does a Cybils’ panelist read after the Cybils are done? Well… this:

A Jane Austen Education, by William Deresiewicz (Christmas present #1)
Navigating Early, by Clare Vanderpool (Because she’s local, and her book launch party at work is soon.)
The Dragon’s Tooth, by N. D. Wilson  (Holdover from the Cybils; I really want to read the first.)
Tokyo Heist, by Diana Renn (Because Leila said it was good.)
Almost Home, by Joan Bauer (Because it’s on the MG Cybils shortlsit.)
Son, by Lois Lowry (Because I NEED to read this.)
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake, by Jenny Wingfield (Bookgroup book)
The Diviners, by Libba Bray (Christmas present #2)
Anna Drenched in Blood, by Kendare Blake (YAckers book)
Big Boned, by Meg Cabot (Because I’m curious about the Heather Wells series.)
Bomb, by Steve Sheinkin (Because I should. And it’s getting Newbery buzz. It’s that time of year.)

Not shown:
Level 2, by Lenore Appelhans (Same reason as Clare’s book, actually. It’s not shown because C is currently reading it.)

What’s on your pile?

The Best of 2012 On the First Day of 2013

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Or, in other words: the Cybils shortlists are up!

It took some doing to get our shortlist, but in the end, I think we’ve got a good one. And I have to say that this was the best, chattiest, funnest panel I’ve ever been on. Hooray for Middle Grade SFF! 🙂

Follow the link to see what the other panels came up with!

Beswitched
by Kate Saunders
Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers
Nominated by: Ms. YinglingWhen Flora, off to boarding school under duress, wakes up on the train to find that she’s now on her way to school way back in 1935, her horror is great. How will she survive? Though she manages to adapt to the nasty bathrooms, alien food, and strict education, and befriends the roommates who had accidentally summoned her back in time, she can’t help but wonder if she’ll ever get home again.

Beswitched is a Must Read for anyone who loves British boarding school stories, historical fiction and time travel, combining all three in an utterly delightful fashion. But its appeal is more general than that. Flora’s struggles with an alien time and its alien culture are convincing and very amusing, and her growth as a character, from selfish brat to good friend and decent person, make her story one that will resonate with many readers.
— Charlotte Taylor, Charlotte’s Library

Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities
by Mike Jung
Arthur A Levine
Nominated by: Jeannie MobleyWho says encyclopedic knowledge of superhero trivia isn’t an important skill? Vincent Wu knows more about Captain Stupendous than anyone. That must be why he’s the only one who notices a change in the Captain after he fights a giant robot and rescues Polly, a girl in Vincent’s class. And why is Polly suddenly interested in what Vincent knows about Captain Stupendous?

Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities takes a light-hearted look at a world where superheroes are real, including humorous touches such as all kids having Stupendous Alerts on their phones. Ultimately, Vincent needs all his allegedly useless knowledge to figure out how to save his family, his town, and the world. This science fiction adventure is a geek’s fantasy written in a way so everyone can enjoy the ride.
— Sondy Eklund, Sonderbooks

The Cabinet of Earths
by Anne Nesbet
HarperCollins
Nominated by: Jessalynn Gale“It was his own grandmother who fed Henri-Pierre to the Cabinet of Earths, long ago when he was only four.” Now the strange and beautiful Cabinet is calling for another keeper—Maya, who’s only just arrived in Paris with her parents and her extraordinarily charming little brother James. But what exactly do Cabinet-Keepers keep? The answer is at the heart of debut author Nesbet’s shimmering fantasy: to find it, follow Maya through the door of 29 avenue Rapp (watch out for the bronze salamander!) and into the magical underworld of Paris, a place where science and magic combine to challenge mortality, morality…and Maya’s little brother.
— Anamaria Anderson, Books Together

The False Prince: Book 1 of the Ascendance Trilogy
by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Scholastic
Nominated by: Natalie AguirreThis first book in the Ascendance trilogy begins in the midst of an episode of roast-theft. Our resourceful and inventive orphan-boy hero, Sage, soon becomes the unwilling servant of a man named Conner. Connor wants to use one of the four orphans he has purchased–or kidnapped–to save the kingdom of Carthya from civil war or takeover by a hostile neighboring kingdom. But after Conner chooses one boy to be his false prince and heir to the throne, what will happen to the others? In light of Conner’s ruthless character, it can’t be good.

Sage is a feisty and surprising character with plenty of hidden depth. The action and adventure are front and center in this non-magical tale set in a fantasy world, but children will also find lots of food for thought on the nature of courage and friendship and leadership in this rags to possible riches story. Readers may figure out some of the twists and turns of this tale of adventure and false identity, but they will question their own guesses every step of the way until the ending takes the unsuspecting reader completely by surprise and leaves us all wanting more.
— Sherry Early, Semicolon

The Last Dragonslayer (The Chronicles of Kazam)
by Jasper Fforde
Harcourt
Nominated by: itsmeerincMagic has been vanishing from the Ununited Kingdoms. Instead of the great magic once practiced, sorcerers find themselves using spells to unclog drains and magic carpets to make pizza deliveries. Ever since Mr. Zambini disappeared, fifteen-year-old Jennifer has been left to run Kazam Mystical Arts Management, where she must look after a building full of eccentric sorcerers and strange creatures. When an unusual upsurge in magic coincides with multiple predictions of the death of Maltcassion, the last dragon, Jennifer finds herself involved in even bigger magic–and with bigger responsibilities. The Last Dragonslayer is a humorous take on magic in the modern world, giving readers plenty of adventure while poking fun at high fantasy tropes. Readers will be left wanting a Quarkbeast of their own as they follow Jennifer’s madcap introduction to Dragonslaying and learn why Dragonslayers may occasionally be called upon to save dragons.
— Jessalynn Gale, Garish & Tweed

The One and Only Ivan
by Katherine Applegate
HarperCollins
Nominated by: Bigfoot ReadsIvan, a mighty silverback gorilla captive since infancy, is resigned to his glassed-in life of staring humans, without a gorilla’s instinctive troop-protecting purpose. When his owner buys baby elephant Ruby–and after a mid-story climactic loss–Ivan questions his narrow existence and stops referring to his shopping-mall confinement as a “domain” and begins seeing it for what it is: a cage. Ivan bravely vows that he will save Ruby from his twenty-six-year fate.

Anthropomorphism can be a tricky business–finding the animal voice, yet giving it human depth–but Applegate not only pulls it off, she gives readers a character as existential as Wilbur and as stoic as Charlotte. Written in a prose-like economy of words befitting Ivan’s astute observations on life, the author captures the voice of a gorilla, but quietly speaks to the greater themes of humanity. As Ivan would say, “Humans waste words. They toss them like banana peels and leave them to rot. Everyone knows the peels are the best part.”
— Cheryl Vanatti, Reading Rumpus

The Peculiar
by Stefan Bachmann
Greenwillow Books
Nominated by: Monica EdingerIn Victorian England, where faeries have been trapped for hundreds of years, a young halfling boy, Bartholomew, and his halfling sister Hattie survive by the mantra “don’t get noticed.” However, when the halfling boy across the street disappears, Bartholomew lets his curiosity get the better of him. He finds himself in a dangerous world of magic and fast-paced action, as he struggles to find out where and why nine half-breed children have been brutally murdered. And the stakes only get higher when Hattie is kidnapped. The Peculiar is a wholly original mix of mystery, steampunk and chilling faerie stories, reminiscent of Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Stroud. With a dash of humor and definitely a hero (or two) to root for, this one is sure to have everyone clamoring for the next book in the series.
— Melissa Fox, Book Nut

My Best of 2012

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It’s my fifth year doing this! It’s also the post (well, the one several years ago), that prompted another local blogger to say “Book Nut: it’s not just a blog name, it’s a diagnosis.” Which I still agree with. I have discovered that doing this is a ton of fun, and starting about mid-December, I scroll through all my archives, dreaming up awards. Enjoy!

By the Numbers:

Middle Grade Fiction: 89
YA Fiction: 47
Graphic Novels: 8
Non-Fiction: 19
Adult Fiction: 25
(Number of those that were sci-fi/fantasy books: 88)
(Number of those that were audiobooks: 14)

Grand Total: 188

Abandoned: 6

Not bad; more than the past couple of years, but not as many as my peak. Also: I knew my middle grade and fantasy totals would be out there this year. But, as I’m going through these awards, I realize that it was a really fantasy-heavy year overall. That’s not a bad thing: there was a LOT of good stuff out there. However, on the downside, I probably won’t have read the book that will win the Newbery before it does.

And now this year’s awards:

Best Adult Fiction: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
Best YA book: Code Name Verity
Best Middle-grade book: Three Times Lucky
Best MG Fantasy: You’ll see what we come up with on our shortlist tomorrow!
Best YA Fantasy: Bitterblue
Best Sci-Fi/Distopian: Ready Player One
Best Graphic Novel: Fables, the Deluxe Edition, Volume 1
Best Non-Fiction: Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Best MG/YA Non-Fiction: Amelia Lost
Best Romance: Highland Fling

Best Mystery (I read more than one this year!): The Sherlockian
Best Audiobook: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
Best Jacket Flap: Cold Cereal

And in other categories…

Okay, okay, so the hype isn’t always wrong: Water for Elephants, In the Garden of the Beasts 

Love stories aren’t always romances: Every Day

Cover love: Vessel, Splendors and Glooms
 
Worst cover, good book: Seven Tales of Trinket

Food love: Kitchen Counter Cooking School; Food Rules; Dearie; The Spice Necklace; Yes, Chef

Feeding my new-found interest in steampunk: Goliath, The Peculiar, Steampunk
*Swoon*: Grave Mercy


Long Title, Good Book:  The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Best in-person book group book: Outcasts United

Best Nook book: Factory Girls

Best YAckers book: The Raven Boys (our discussion)

Favorite reread: Anne of Green Gables


Woot, dragons!: Seraphina, Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy, The Last Dragonslayer, Dealing With Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, Dragon Castle

Fine. I cried: A Monster Calls, The One and Only Ivan, The Fault in Our Stars, Wonder

Books I should have read AGES ago: I, Robot; Brave New World; Good Omens

Give it up for the Awesome Heroines: Cold Fury, Grave Mercy, Blood Red Road, Unspoken, Hex Hall, Code Name Verity

Guys rock: Curveball, Stupid Fast, The Fault in Our Stars, Ghetto Cowboy, Liar & Spy

Boarding school rules: Ordinary Magic, Beswitched

Snorting milk outta my nose award: Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny — Detectives Extraordinaire, Sports from Hell, Good Omens, Cold Cereal, The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom; Bossypants.

Proof Stalin was evil: Between Shades of Gray, Breaking Stalin’s Nose

Best book with the worst characters: Before I Fall


It’s not Megan Whalen Turner, but it’s close: The False Prince

Series I devoured: Rae Carson: The Girl of Fire and Thorns/The Crown of Embers. Rachel Hawkins: Hex Hall/Demonglass/Spell Bound. Jacqueline West: The Shadows/Spellbound/The Second Spy; Patrica Wrede: The Enchanted Forest Series. Ally Condie: Matched/Crossed

Favorite reviews: Something Like Fate, Mark of Athena, Fake Mustache, Keeper of the Lost Cities


The Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge book: Shadow of Night

Better than Glee: Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy

The Guinea Pig award: Drop Dead Healthy

Odd isn’t a strong enough word: Railsea, Fake Mustache

Woo-hoo, they’re back!: Goliath (also, Waah: It’s Over!), Caddy’s World, The Mighty Miss Malone, The Unseen Guest, Midnight in Austenland, Clementine and the Family Meeting

Loved it, but can’t seem to sell it: Gilt, Splendors and Glooms, Grave Mercy,  Palace of Stone, Breadcrumbs, Ready Player One, Nerd Camp

Can we have the sequel NOW?: Unspoken, Days of Blood & Starlight, Froi of the Exiles, The Raven Boys, The Crown of Embers, Amulet: the Last Council, Legends of Zita the Spacegirl

Fancy names does not a fantasy make: Throne of Glass, What Came from the Stars

Indulging in my desire to carry around a photo of Nathan Fillion: Frozen Heat

Books I finished but didn’t feel the love for: Jepp, Who Defied the Stars; Wildwood; Ilium

Disappointing book by an author I respect: Mark of Athena,What Came from the Stars, Why We Broke Up, Purity

Author everyone else loves that I discovered I liked: Meg Cabot (Size 14 is Not Fat Either), J. R. Moehringer (Sutton), Pauls Toutonghi (Evel Knievel Days)

First-time authors I’d love to see more from: T. M. Goeglin (Cold Fury), Mike Jung (Girls, Geeks, and Secret Identities), Eowyn Ivey (The Snow Child), Anne Nesbit (The Cabinet of Earths)

What are some of your bests this past year?