Courtney's Book Nook

Bone Talk , by Candy Courlay (middle grade, David Fickling Books, November 5 2019 in the US), is set in the mountains of the Philippines in 1899.  Samkad is ten, on the verge of become officially recognized as a man, and taking his place as a warrior of the Bontoc people, fighting their enemy, another mountain people,  on and off as they have for generations.  His best friend Luki also wants to be a warrior, but she's a girl, and that's not the role awaiting her.   The ancestors are close at hand, giving guidance and protection, the rice grows well, and the world seems to be working as it should. Then the world changes.  An American arrives, with a boy originally from Samkad's village, who grew up in the lowlands.  The man is friendly, sharing knowledge of his strange country and its customs.   But other Americans have come to the Philippines too, bringing war, and they too come to the village.   They are not friends, and Samkad's passage from chi...

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...

Order of the Majestic , by Matt Myklusch (middle grade, Aladdin, May 7 2019), is one to offer kids dreaming of magic, and hoping it will find them one day. 12-year-old Joey Kopecky wasn't one of those kids.  He was content flying under the radar, living an unambitious life of computer gaming in New Jersey, when his life was upended by perfect standardized test scores.  Now he's been offered a place at one of the most exclusive schools in the country, where every kid is a genius.  He feels like a fraud--knowing how to take tests is a skill, certainty , but is it really a hallmark of genius? But one final test, a strange one involving 150 magic tricks to solve, leads to a 151st trick that transports him to the ghostly shell of a once grand magical theater, the Majestic.  It's fallen into ruins, and to get inside Jack must pass through spooky wraiths, but once he makes it, he finds the magician who once made it famous, the Great Rodondo.  Rodondo was once the leade...

Outwalkers , by Fiona Shaw (David Fickling Books, Middle Grade, Feb 26, 2019), is set in a future England that closed its boarders after the Faith Bombings.  To keep people "safe", they are chipped, and warned not to venture into the countryside for fear of the virus that lurks there.  When Jake's parents die, he's sent to one of the government homes, which are basically prisons for unclaimed kids.  Jake escapes, and returns to his old home, where he's reunited with his beloved dog, Jet.  But then he's faced with an impossible journey--escape from England to his grandparents in Scotland, on the other side of a heavily militarized boarder. Fortunately for Jake, he's found by a band of Outwalkers, kids in circumstances similar to his own, who are also trying to head to the free north.  The Outwalker kids have been on their own long enough to learn how to survive...but even once they remove their chips, the journey north is fraught with danger.  When a securi...