Everybody Sees The Ants

By A. S. King

Whoo-hoo! Another book by King, who also wrote the well-received Please Ignore Vera Dietz. This book lights up a period in Lucky's life (yes, his name is Lucky) from his freshman year in high school through his summer vacation. With a few flashbacks, it is understood early in this book that Lucky has suffered from on-off bullying and torment from a young age. Along with this, his dysfunctional family has failed to help him; his father focuses only on cooking while his mother finds peace only by swimming the days away at the local pool. After Lucky has a scuffle at the pool, Lucky's mom uses it as an excuse to take a vacation in New Mexico. Away from his menial life, Lucky has a chance to meet a positive side that he couldn't see before.

This book's progression was quite clear-cut and easy to follow, though its construction with Lucky's intermittent dreams and flashbacks may confuse more people than me. It was fun to read and a well-written book, but its popularity probably won't soar as it's more of a book to wait out a rainy day. Normally I'm generous with my ratings to accommodate for one-sided opinions, but this book actually does deserve at least a 3.5. It's truly a book of quality, but if you're looking for a 500-page thriller, don't get your hopes up. It was like a Drumstick ice cream cone. You expected a nice treat, and you got it. Nothing less.

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The Princess Who Flew with Dragons, by Stephanie Burgis

I still am busily reading elementary/middle grade speculative fiction a in my roles as a judge for the Cybils Awards (mainly going back to re-read things I read early last year), but I am in good enough shape that I treated myself one dreary day last week to a shiny and new and much anticipated book-- The Princess Who Flew with Dragons , by Stephanie Burgis (Bloomsbury, November 2019). This is the third in the series that began with The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart (link to my review), and it's possibly the one I enjoyed most. I certainly think it was the fastest read; it was a (more or less) single-sitting of about an hour read for me (when I like a book and need to know what's going to happen next, I read faster, and it was relatively short-- 216 pages). Princess Sophia, who we met in Book 2, The Girl with a Dragon Heart , is the main character here, and when her story begins, she's being sent by her older sister, the ruling princess, to a distant city to attend a Worl...

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The Dragon Thief, by Zetta Elliott

In Dragons in a Bag (link to my review), Zetta Elliott introduced a young boy named Jaxon, who was given a job to do by a magical old woman, Ma. He had to return three baby dragons to the world of magic. It didn't go as planned, not that Jaxon knew enough about what was going on to really "plan" anything, but he did his best. It wasn't enough. One of the babies was stolen by Kavita, the little sister of his best friend, Vik. The Dragon Thief (Random House, Oct 22 1019) picks up the story right where we left it. Jaxon is worried about Ma, who has fallen into a strange sleep, and he's desperate to get the baby dragon to the magical world. Kavita is worried about the baby dragon, which grows at an alarming rate when it gets fed. When she realizes she can't keep it safe, her old aunty who lives with her family decides to help her get it home. So on the one hand we have Jaxon and Vik, racing to find Kavita while figuring out how they ca...

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The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away, by Ronald L. Smith (review and interview)

I first had the pleasure of meeting Ronald L. Smith at Kidlitcon back in 2015 (PSA--come to Kidlitcon 2020 in Ann Arbor next March!). His first middle grade book, Hoodoo, a tale of supernatural horror in the south, had just been published, and I enjoyed it very much ( my review ). I likewise enjoyed The Mesmerist (2017), about kids fighting evil in 19th century London ( my review ). I never reviewed Black Panther: the Young Prince (2018)….someday I will. So in any event, I was very excited about his most recent book, The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away (Clarion Books, February 2019). This is the story of an air force kid, Simon, son of a black mom and a white dad, who's obsessed with aliens. He's convinced owl-like aliens have arrived, watching and experimenting on humans. His family has no time or patience for aliens, so Simon is alone with his fears of the Grays, as he calls them. When something very strange happens on a camping trip with hi...

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