The Green Children of Woolpit, by J. Anderson Coats

Back in the 12th century, two green children were found in the English village of Woolpit. The boy died, but the girl lived, and spoke of the twilight underground country they'd come from. They became a legend. And now J. Anderson Coats has made them the center of a magical middle grade story, The Green Children of Woolpit (Atheneum, September 2019).

Except that the center of her story is not actually the two green children, but Agnes, the peasant girl who finds them. Agnes, whose mind wanders, who can see the wind, who isn't rushing toward growing up like her former best friend, Glory. Agnes was the only one to hear the green children calling for help. And because she went to their aid, her own life becomes a nightmare.

While the green girl tries to take her place in her family with guile and fairy glamor, Agnes is trapped in the underground halls of the malevolent and sadistic Good People. To make things right, she must undo the bargain she became ensnared by, but it is a very tricky business to try to outsmart the fairies....

It's top notch historical fantasy, with lots of shuddery horror and magic. It's not a swords and sorcery sort of fantasy, but a more personal journey, though one full of magical dangers. Agnes, and the green girl too, both become very real for the reader, and I found their struggle to take back their lives from the Good People totally engrossing.

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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 Clockwork Ghost (York, book 2), by Laura Ruby

The Clockwork Ghost , by Laura Ruby (middle grade/YA, Walden Pond Press, May 15 2019), continues the adventure begun in The Shadow Ciphe r without missing a beat. Twins Tess and Theo, and their friend Jaime, are still following a twisting trail of impossible clues through an alternate New York of mechanical marvels. They still have more questions than they have answers. And they still have enemies, most notably a nasty piece of work and his henchwomen who want to eliminate the threat they might pose to greedy plans to revamp the city. There's no point in recapping the story. It is a dream of puzzles and ciphers and mechanical machinations as clues are found and followed. And it is a very bright and vivid sort of dream, that doesn't make sense exactly but never leaves the reader twitchy and wondering if there will be an ending or not. And the clues and such are cool, and are anchored into the history of the city. But what I loved most were the three ki...

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