Book #163 of 2022: Amari and the Great Game by B. B. Alston (Supernatural Investigations #2) It remains hard to avoid Harry Potter comparisons in discussing this middle-grade fantasy series, but this second volume is just as engaging as the first and continues to put an original spin on some common genre tropes shared between …
Continue reading “Book Review: Amari and the Great Game by B. B. Alston”
Book #153 of 2022: Black Bird, Blue Road by Sofiya Pasternack Another outstanding middle-grade Jewish fantasy novel from #ownvoices author Sofiya Pasternack, who had previously dazzled me with her Anya and the Dragon debut. I love this one even more, from all the subtle authentic touches of lived-in Judaism and lesser-known mythological nods to the …
Continue reading “Book Review: Black Bird, Blue Road by Sofiya Pasternack”
Book #146 of 2022: Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson (Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians #6) [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with the first author.] Middle-grade book series are odd, in that their release schedule often outpaces the age of their target audience. That’s particularly the case for the Alcatraz …
Book #86 of 2022: Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao (Zachary Ying #1) This is a solid and charming #ownvoices middle-grade fantasy debut. I’m rounding up my rating slightly since I’m so outside the target audience, and because I appreciate the effort author Xiran Jay Zhao has gone to in conveying …
Continue reading “Book Review: Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao”
Book #2 of 2022: Tristan Strong Keeps Punching by Kwame Mbalia (Tristan Strong #3) Certain scenes in this final Tristan Strong novel are terrific, but overall I would say that the middle-grade #ownvoices fantasy trilogy has never managed to recapture the magic of its first volume for me. As engaging as it remains to see …
Continue reading “Book Review: Tristan Strong Keeps Punching by Kwame Mbalia”
Book #359 of 2021: Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes #1) This is an #ownvoices East Asian retelling of the Wild Swans fairy tale, wherein a princess’s brothers are transformed into birds by their wicked stepmother while the girl herself is cursed to be unrecognizable and warned that each new word from …
Continue reading “Book Review: Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim”
Book #311 of 2021: Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom by Sangu Mandanna Another title in the popular recent mini-genre of Percy Jackson-inspired #ownvoices fantasy stories involving a middle-grade protagonist coming face-to-face with certain mythological beings drawn from the writer’s cultural heritage. In this novel, the Hindu gods and demons are joined by a fun Inkheart …
Continue reading “Book Review: Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom by Sangu Mandanna”
Book #287 of 2021: Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker (Scary Stories for Young Foxes #1) Middle-grade horror can be a tricky genre to pull off, with an atmosphere that’s spookily disquieting yet not full-on terrifying, but this Newbery-winning title from 2019 navigates that threshold nicely. Structured as a series of connected …
Continue reading “Book Review: Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker”
Book #270 of 2021: D (A Tale of Two Worlds) by Michel Faber Not bad, but a pretty typical novel of the child-goes-to-another-world-to-have-a-series-of-strange-encounters variety, a la The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and so forth. The most distinctive part of this book is also its most frustrating, as there’s no consistent and coherent explanation …
Continue reading “Book Review: D (A Tale of Two Worlds) by Michel Faber”
Book #207 of 2021: The Double Life of Danny Day by Mike Thayer This middle-grade novel goes far on the strength of its high-concept premise, which is that the ten-year-old protagonist lives every day twice. He treats the original go-round as a bit of a practice session, either goofing off or scribbling notes on quiz …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Double Life of Danny Day by Mike Thayer”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more