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This week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (8/25/19)

Welcome to this round-up of what I found in my blog reading this week!  Please let me know of any posts I missed.

First up--the call for judges for the Cybils Awards has gone up!  Since 2006, the
Cybils has recognized kids and YA books that combine both literary merit and kid appeal in a variety of categories, and one of these is Middle Grade Speculative Fiction (the category I organize)!  There are two rounds of judging, the first creating a shortlist, and the second picking the winner, and so there's room for lots of folks to join in and be part of the judging panels!  It is lots of fun.  So much so that many of the same folks want do Middle Grade Speculative Fiction every year, and although I love them dearly, it would be great to have some fresh volunteers!

All you have to do to be eligible is to review books somewhere on line--podcasting, book tubbing, blogging, Goodreads reviews, Instagram, etc.

Teens are eligible too (with parents permission if under 18), and being one of the judges for a nationally recognized book award looks great on a college application.....

Here's a post I wrote with more information, and please let me know directly if you have any questions!

The Reviews

Babysitting Nightmares, books 1-3,by Kat Shepherd, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Battle, by Karuna Riazi, at Pages Unbound and A Dance With Books

Cape (The League of Secret Heroes book 1), by Kate Hannigan, at The Children's War

Changling (The Oddmire 1) by William Ritter, at Charlotte's Library

Crumbled! by Lisa Harkrader, at Pages Unbound

Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee, at alibrarymama

Game of Stars. Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond 2, by Sayantani Dasgupta, at alibrarymama

The Haunting of Henry Davis, by Kathryn Siebel, at Always in the Middle

Hidden Scales (Merrows Book 1), by A.M. Robin, at Pages for Thoughts

The Hippo at the End of the Hall, by Helen Cooper, at Read Till Dawn

The House on Parchment Street, by Patricia McKillip, at Fantasy Literature

The Jumbie God's Revenge, by Tracy Baptiste, at J.R.'s Book Reviews

The Lost Girl, by Anne Ursu, at alibrarymama and Semicolon

Mightier than the Sword, by Drew Callander and Alana Harrison, at Always in the Middle

The Minions of Time (The Wormling #4), byJerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry, at Say What?

Moominland Midwinter, by Tove Jansson, at Girl With Her Head in a Book

 Princess Who Flew With Dragons, by Stephanie Burgis, at Moon Dreams

The Secrets of Winterhouse, by Ben Guterson, at Puss Reboots

Silver Batal and the Water Dragon Races, byK.D. Holbrook, at Say What?

Skulduggery Pleasant, by Derek Landy, at proseandkahn

Spark, by Sarah Beth Durst, at Susan Uhlig

The Storm Runner, by J.C. Cervantes, at Geo Librarian

The Unbelievable Oliver and the Four Jokers, by Pseudonymous Bosch, at Geo Librarian

Two at Mom Read It--Hello, Neighbor, by Carly Anne West, and In the Land of Broken Time, by Max Even

Authors and Interviews

Kate Hannigan (Cape) at Middle Grade Ninja

Other Good Stuff

SCBWI has a new grant for writers of mg sci fi and fantasy

Nhận xét

Popular Posts

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...

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...

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...