Book #77 of 2020: Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? by Lemony Snicket (All the Wrong Questions #4) I’ve been somewhat lukewarm on this prequel series, but it goes out on a suitably climactic high note, with most of the action confined to the tight spaces of a speeding train. Lemony Snicket …
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Book #59 of 2020: Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation by Stuart Gibbs (Charlie Thorne #1) There’s a certain ludicrous National Treasure energy to the basic concept of this middle-grade spy novel — in which the CIA recruits a twelve-year-old girl genius to help them track down a secret formula that Albert Einstein revealed on …
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Book #45 of 2020: Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse A delightful middle-grade fantasy novel that incorporates elements of traditional Navajo folklore while avoiding the paint-by-numbers plot that such modernizations often entail. (I hesitate to call the work #ownvoices, since author Rebecca Roanhorse is not Navajo herself and she makes clear in an afterword …
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Book #36 of 2020: When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket (All the Wrong Questions #2) Technically an improvement over the first Unfortunate Events prequel, in part because this volume leans more into the clever wordplay and less into the vague allusions to larger plots (although those are definitely still present). I also …
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Book #30 of 2020: Throwback by Peter Lerangis (Throwback #1) I love the character interactions and the depiction of historical New York City in this middle-grade time-travel adventure, but it’s maybe a bit overstuffed with plot. (The hero is nominally trying to save his grandmother from dying on September 11th, but he spends most of …
Book #22 of 2020: Lalani of the Distant Sea by Erin Entrada Kelly I like the idea behind this wandering maritime adventure — think The Voyage of the Dawn Treader crossed with Disney’s Moana, roughly — but I feel like it would have been stronger if the point-of-view had stuck with the title heroine throughout …
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Book #21 of 2020: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (Akata Witch #1) This middle-grade series debut has some terrific #ownvoices African-inspired fantasy worldbuilding, but it lags behind in matching that with any significant narrative development or character arcs. So much of the novel consists of either pure exposition about the setting or else the protagonist …
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Book #1 of 2020: The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #4) Overall this is another fun Percy Jackson adventure, but there are a few issues that are bugging me about the series at large. Four volumes in, it still feels like author Rick Riordan is retelling ancient Greek …
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Book #247 of 2019: Star Wars: Force Collector by Kevin Shinick Theoretically, there could be a decent story told about a Force-sensitive youth retracing the path of the earlier Star Wars movies and setting up the sequel trilogy. But this attempt unfortunately misses the mark for me. The characters are flat and juvenile, the overarching …
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Book #230 of 2019: Homerooms & Hall Passes by Tom O’Donnell (Homerooms & Hall Passes #1) This middle-grade adventure story is lightweight but pretty fun, tracking a band of thirteen-year-old heroes who get magically trapped in the setting of their favorite tabletop roleplaying game, which happens to resemble a middle school of our reality. I …
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