Hard vs. Soft Magic

We had a great discussion about the merits of hard magical systems compared to soft magical systems yesterday.

Sabriel and Mistborn were mentioned as great examples of hard magical systems. Advocates of this system pointed out that with fixed laws and rules, a hard magical system creates a more realistic world.

Soft magical systems made for great "human experiences" in books like Harry Potter and Graceling. Frustration was expressed by the hard advocates that in soft magical systems characters were often "special" by birth and not by skill.

In the end the score was 4 - hard, 3 - soft, with one undecided.

Jelle did a great job facilitating the discussion. It was great that we avoided fisticuffs over the algebraic implications.

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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 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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The week's round-up of middle grade science fiction and fantasy from around the blogs (7/28/19)

Here's what I found this week; please let me know of anything I missed! (It may not be the longest list of links ever, but still I visited three blogs new to me and found two books I'd not yet heard of, so that's a win in my book!) The Reviews Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer, at Madison's Inkwell The Bad Luck Lighthouse, by Nicki Thornton, at thereaderteacher Bad Order, by B.B. Ullman, at Always in the Middle Banneker Bones and the Alligator People, at Charlotte's Library Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book, by Jennifer Donnelly, at Pages Unbound Bone Garden by Heather Kassner, at Log Cabin Library The Camelot Code, by Mari Mancusi, at Cover2Cover Carnival Catastrophe (The Problim Children #2) by Natalie Lloyd, at Log Cabin Library Changling (The Oddmire #1), by William Ritter, at Carina's Books , Young Adult Books-What We're Reading Now , and Howling Libraries Darkwood, by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch, at Rachel Neumeier The Dragon in the Library, by Louie Stow...

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