Courtney's Book Nook

I'm still holding on to the middle grade sci fi/fantasy books of 2019, with a slightly over the top grim determination to read all the ones at hand before the end of January...(fortunately January 2020 is not a huge mg sci fi/fantasy release month, so I'm sure I can catch up on this year's in just a few days of reading!). The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day , by Christopher Edge, is an English import that came out here in the US back in April 2019 (Delecorte), and in 2018 in the UK.  It's a story of sisters caught in an altered reality, with time and space gone wonky, with birthday balloons and tasty food meeting a horror of chaos and despair. It's Maisie's tenth birthday, and her parents are making a huge effort to give her a great party.  The greatness of the party is supposed to make up for the fact that none of her friends are coming.  Maisie in fact has none at all.  She's a home-schooled science and math prodigy, who's never had a chance to socialize ...

Here's what I found this week; please let me know of anything I missed! The Reviews Alien Superstar, by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver, at Good Reads with Rona Boy Band of the Apocalypse, by Tom Nicholl, at Always in the Middle Cog, by Greg van Eekhout, at Sonderbooks The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz, at Geo Librarian A Dash of Trouble (Sprinkle of Spirits #1), by Anna Meriano, at Leaf's Reviews The Girl who Stole and Elephant, by Nizrana Farook, at Lily and the Fae (I haven't read this myself yet, so not sure it counts as fantasy....) The Girl with the Dragon Heart, by Stephanie Burgis, at Book Criac Lampie and the Children of the Sea, by Annet Schaap, at Whispering Stories The Mystwick School of Musicraft, by Jessica Khoury, at Sharon the Librarian Race to the Sun, by Rebecca Roanhoures, at Ms. Yingling Reads , Book Page , and Bookshelf Fantasies The Red Winter (The Tapestry #5), by Henry H. Neff, at Say What? The Revenge of Magic, by James Riley, at Imagi...

I am still stubbornly refusing to say good-bye to the middle grade sci-fi/fantasy books of 2019.  Though I did read around 200 of them, when I went through the Goodreads list of 2019 MG fiction, I found some that I had overlooked.   If I'd started focusing on 2020 back when it started, I don't know when I'd have gotten around to reading those books, and I'm very glad to have read them, so here I am. I'm really surprised that The Twelve , by Cindy Lin (HarperCollins, July 2019), didn't get more buzz (or at least, more buzz that trickled down to me).  This is a debut East Asian zodiac fantasy that is a really fun adventure, with tons of kid appeal and fascinating magical powers! Usagi's island home was supposed to be kept safe from invasion by the powers of the 12 zodiac warriors, trained in the use of the magical gifts of their signs on Jade Mountain, home to not just the warriors and their heirs, but to 12 wonderfully magical treasures.  But the Dragon warri...

The Thief Knot , by Kate Milford, is the third of the Greenglass House series (though there are other books set in the fictional town of Nagspeake). The first, Greenglass House, will always have a special place in my heart, because not only did I myself love it, but it was the last book I read out loud to my little one (now 16), and he loved it too....So it was a treat to anticipate returning to Nagspeake with The Thief Knot (it's a real pleasure to keep a book you really want to read out for a few days, so that every time it catches your eye you get a happy zest moment), and a treat to actually do so (because it was really good)! The Thief Knot is essentially the story of a group of kids coming together to solve a mystery--in this case, the kidnapping of a politician's little girl, Peony.  Best friends Marzana and Nialla had been wanting excitement, and despite all the curious and dubious things about their home in the Liberty district of Nagspeake (full of shifty characters w...

welcome to another week of middle grade sci fi/fantasy goodness, gathered by me from around the blogs for your reading pleasure!  Please let me know of any posts I missed. The Reviews The Big Shrink (Upside-Down Magic #6), by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins, at Puss Reboots The Book of Secrets, and The Book of Answers (The Ateban Cipher books 1 and 2) by A.L. Tait, at Always in the Middle Brown, by Håkon Øvreås, at Charlotte's Library The Good Hawk, by Joseph Elliott, at Log Cabin Library Jinxed, by Amy McCulloch, at Ms. Yingling Reads and Waking Brain Cells Magical Mischief, by Anna Dale, at Leaf's Reviews The Mask of Aribella, by Anna Houghton, at Book Murmuration The Monster in the Lake, by Louie Stowell, at Book Craic The Obisdian Compass (Time Castaways #2), by Liesl Shurtliff, at Charlotte's Library Orion Lost, by Alastair Chisholm, at Book Craic and Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books Secondhand Wishes, by Anna Staniszweski, at Ms. Yingling Reads The S...

The Obsidian Compass , by Liesl Shurtliff (middle grade, Katherine Tegan Books, Oct 2019) continues the time travelling adventures of three siblings adventuring through time that began with The Mona Lisa Key (link goes to my review).  That first book ended with Mateo, Ruby, and Corey getting home again safely, after many dangerous and difficulties aboard a time travelling ship captained by a ruthless man who was trying to use Matteo, in particular, for his own selfish purposes. But getting home safe wasn't to be the end of their time travelling.  Mateo needs to find his friend, Jia, one of Captain Vincent's crew, who was in danger of being dumped somewhere in time by the captain after she crossed him to help Mateo and his siblings.  Captain Vincent still has the obsidian compass that allows him to time travel, so Mateo decides to try to make his own, and against all odds, he succeeds.  But when he starts using it, he gets his family snarled anew in danger. As they ...

One of the joys of being a first round Cybils Awards panelist is getting to read charming books that weren't on your radar at all.  A case in point, for those of us reading for Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction, was Brown , by Håkon Øvreås, illustrated by Øyvind Torseter (American edition 2019, Enchanted Lion). This is the first book in the best-selling, award winning, and much beloved My Alter Ego is a Superhero series, and it's a great one to offer the elementary school aged kid who's past early chapter books, but for whom the generously illustrated, fewer words per page books are just right. Rusty's beloved grandfather has died, and to make things worse, bullies are wrecking the fort he's built out in the woods with his best friend, Jack. What Rusty needs is a superhero to save the day, and so he becomes one himself! With his brown clothes and cape, and armed with cans of brown paint and advice from his grandfather's ghost, he gets revenge as th...