Fluttering Butterflies

Here's what I found on-line this week; please let me know about anything I missed! The Reviews The Afterwards, by A.F. Harrold, at Randomly Reading Carnival Catastophe (Problim Children #2), by Natalie Lloyd, at Children's Books Heal Earth Swarm, by Tim Hall, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books The Invasion (Animprophs) by K.A. Applegate, at Lost in Storyland The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, by Lamar Giles, at Randomly Reading The Magical Apothecary, by Anna Ruhe (and why it should be translated into English), at A Dance with Books Malamander, by Thomas Taylor, at Diva Booknerd The Mortification of Fovea Munson, by Mary Winn Heider, at Sharon the Librarian The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norman Juster (new audiobook review), at Locus Podkin One-Ear, by Kieran Larwood, at Say What? The Root of Magic, by Kathleen Benner, at Mom Read It Rumblestar, by Abi Elphinstone, at Amy the Zany Bibliophile The Sacred Artifact, by Caldric Blackwell, at Red Headed Book Lover Silent Lee and the Adventure of ...

A recent article, YA Twitter Can Be Toxic, But It Also Points Out Real Problems" by Molly Templeton on Buzzfeed , took me back in time: "In the late 2000s, the science fiction and fantasy (SFF) community — which overlaps greatly with YA — had something of a reckoning. Eventually known as RaceFail ’09 , it was, as author N.K. Jemisin wrote in a blog post a year later, “a several-months-long conversation about race in the context of science fiction and fantasy that sprawled across the blogosphere. It involved several thousand participants and spawned several hundred essays — and it hasn’t really ended yet, just slowed down." RaceFail started as MammothFail, when Patricia Wrede's Thirteenth Child was widely called out for its erasure of Native Americans (there were lots of mammoths, but no indigenous people).  I was part of that conversation, and it was a watershed moment for me as a reader, a reviewer, and a purveyor of books for my own kids. Here's my review of ...

The Last Beginning , by Lauren James (YA, Sky Pony Press, 2018) is a joyful, chaotic romp of a time travel adventure that I devoured in a single sitting. Clove, a Scottish teenager in 2051, gets hit with two emotional wrenches in one week.  Her best friend Meg, who she has a crush on, has just fallen in love with a boy, Clove's cousin.  On a more earthshaking note, Clove's parents tell her that she is adopted, and that her birth parents, Matt and Kate, are famous for saving the world from a bioterrorist threat developed by England, and then disappearing.  Clove sets the family's AI device, nicknamed Spart, to work trying to track them down (she is a whiz at computer programing). And in the meantime, her mother has almost finished getting her time machine up and running. Spart the AI delivers the strange information that  Matt and Kate keep showing up in history, starting in 1745.  So Clove decides that she will use the time machine to go back to find them, to tr...

Here's what I found this week; please let me know if I missed your post! The Reviews Charlie Hernández and the League of Shadows, by Ryan Calejo, at Latinx in Kid Lit Chronicles of ancient Darkness, by Michelle Paver (series review) at Fantasy Faction The Curse of Greg (An Epic Series of Failures #2) by Chris Rylander, at Ms. Yingling Reads Dragon Captives (Unwanteds Quests #3), by Lisa McMann, at Say What? The First, by Katherine Applegate, at proseandkahn (audiobook review) The Girl Who Sailed the Stars, by Matilda Woods, at Always in the Middle and Two Points of Interest Have Sword, Will Travel, by Garth Nix and Sean Williams, at Milliebot Reads and Tales from the Raven The House with Chicken Legs, by Sophie Anderson, at Say What? The Ice Garden, by Guy Jones, at Hidden in Pages The Lost Tide Warriors, by Catherine Doyle, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books Midsummer's Mayhem, by Rajani LaRocca, at alibrarymama The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly, by Rebecca K.S. Ansari...

Mr. Penguin and the Lost Treasure , by Alex T. Smith (Peachtree, April 2019), will delight young readers (1st-4th grades) who enjoy easy to read, quirky, and funny mysteries. Mr. Penguin has always dreamed of being an adventurer.  So when he sets up shop along with Colin, a spider friend, offering his services to the townsfolk, he expects to be inundated with requests for help.  Finally the phone rings.  Boudicca Bones, owner of the Museum of Extraordinary Objects (who's human) needs his help finding the treasure supposedly hidden in the museum. So Mr. Penguin and Colin set out, and find that being adventurers isn't a walk in the park!  Beneath the Museum is a marvelous and dangerous landscape, full of things that could seriously damage anyone exploring there.  And then the danger gets even more dangerous, when the adventurers face a dastardly double-cross!  Fortunately, Edith (another human) who lives in the park with her pigeon friend, Gordon), thought Mr...

Here's a fun timeslip story for kids that mixes computer gaming with the story of King Arthur and medieval magic-- The Camelot Code: The One and Future Geek , by Mari Mancusi (Disney-Hyperion, November 2018). The time has come for Arthur to pull the sword from the sword and become king!  But when Guinevere, his best friend, accidently drops a magical treasure down Merlin's enchanted well, and Arthur tries to get it back, he falls in himself....and travels through time to our present.  Merlin has set up the well to serve as a connection to the modern era, where he enjoys the benefits of Wifi, and plays an online fantasy game, Camelot's Honor, with two ordinary kids, Sophie and Stu. When Merlin realizes he's lost Arthur to the future, he calls Sophie and Stu back into the past.  With the help of Merlin's magic, Stu becomes a stand-in for Arthur, and Sophie goes back to the present to try to bring him back before the future is irrevocably changed.  And Guinevere travel...

It's always so exciting when an author you enjoy has a new book coming.  I'm thrilled to be hosting the cover reveal for Rival Magic, by Deva Fagan; it sounds great, and looks great too! First the synopsis: A young wizard’s apprentice discovers that the best magic is not the biggest or the brightest, but the magic unique to you, in this cinematic middle grade fantasy. Antonia may not be the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen, but she’s worked hard to win her place as apprentice to renowned sorcerer Master Betrys. Unfortunately, even her best dancing turnip charm might not be enough when Moppe the scullery maid turns out to be a magical prodigy. Now that Betrys has taken Moppe on as a second apprentice, Antonia’s path to wizarding just got a bit more complicated. But when Betrys is accused of treason, Antonia and Moppe are forced to go on the run. To prove their master’s innocence—and their own—the rivals must become allies. As their island province teeters on the brin...