Fiction – Page 16 – Mom Read It

Fiction, Fiction, Humor, Middle Grade, Middle School, Tween Reads

Explore The Matchstick Castle

Posted on January 17, 2017 by Rosemary Kiladitis

The Matchstick Castle, by Keir Graff, (Jan. 2017, GP Putnam & Sons), $16.99, ISBN: 9781101996225

Recommended for ages 9-13

Brian is on track to having the worst summer EVER. His widowed dad has the chance of a lifetime, doing research at the South Pole. His brother is staying with a friend while his dad’s away. Brian’s being shipped off to Boring, Illinois, to stay with his Uncle Gary, Aunt Jenny, and know-it-all cousin, Nora. To add insult to injury, Uncle Gary’s developed a summer school computer program, Summer’s Cool, and is making Brian and Nora keep actual school hours to prevent the dreaded “summer slide”. Just when Brian wants to tear his hair out from boredom, he and Nora discover a house in the woods beyond Uncle Gary’s property. Cosmo van Dash, the boy who lives there, calls the house The Matchstick Castle, and he lives there with his eccentric family – explorers, writers, thinkers, dreamers – and invites Brian and Nora on adventures where they’ll explore the house to recover a lost uncle, run from wild boars and trap giant Amazon bees. A fanatically boring bureaucrat wants to tear the Matchstick Castle to put up another – well, boring – housing development, but Brian, Nora, and the van Dash family will fight to secure their castle.

This story is way too much fun. Told in the first person from Brian’s point of view, we get a narrator who is having the worst summer ever. He’s a sympathetic character: we get only enough information about his family to know that his mother has died, his father is a very permissive parent, and he’s put into a situation that threatens to squash all the fun and creativity out of his life in favor of being safe and predictable. Boring, just like the Illinois town where he’s enduring the summer. The Matchstick Castle and the family that lives there helps bring color and life back to Brian’s world and, in doing so, brings him closer to his cousin, Nora, while also giving Nora permission to let loose and have fun. Tweens will love the van Dashes. It’s a good opportunity to share fun and crazy family stories as a writing or collage exercise, too. I hope this one shows up on summer reading lists; it’s a perfect summertime read.

Fantasy, Fiction, Fiction, Middle Grade, Science Fiction, Tween Reads

I’m a CYBILS Judge!

Posted on January 7, 2017January 7, 2017 by Rosemary Kiladitis

I can finally talk about it! I’m thrilled to be a CYBILS judge again, returning to the Middle Grade Speculative Fiction category. There have been SO many great books published, and I’ll be diving into the finalists this time around, as a second round judge. Wanna see who’s up for the award? Take a look, and adjust your TBRs accordingly.

When the Sea Turned to Silver, by Grace Lin, (Oct. 2016, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), $18.99, ISBN: 978-0316125925

Inspired by Chinese folklore, this companion to the Newbery Honor Winner, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, is the story of a girl on a mission to save her kidnapped grandmother.

The Voyage to Magical North, by Claire Fayers, (July 2016, Henry Holt & Co.), $16.99, ISBN: 978-1627794206

An orphan keeps house for an irritable magician and his equally obnoxious apprentice, and ends up accidentally becoming a pirate.

The Evil Wizard Smallbone, by Delia Sherman, (Sept. 2016, Candlewick), $17.99, ISBN: 978-0763688059

A boy runs away from his uncle’s home, discovers a bookstore run by a self-proclaimed Evil Wizard who won’t let him leave, but calls him his apprentice.

Shadow Magic, by Joshua Khan, (April 2016, Disney-Hyperion), $16.99, ISBN: 978-1484732724

An outlaw’s son is sold into slavery. A girl is the last surviving member of her family, a line of dark sorcerers. Together, they’ll break the rules.

The Memory Thief, by Bryce Moore, (Sept. 2016, Adaptive Books), $16.99, ISBN: 9781945293030

This was published as a Barnes & Noble exclusive in 2016, but is being published in wide release this March.

Twins wander off at a county fair; Benji, the brother, wanders into a tent where he meets an old man who collects memories. He asks to train as a Memory Thief and ends up on an adventure.

The Goblin’s Puzzle: Being the Adventures of a Boy with No Name and Two Girls Called Alice, by Andrew Chilton, (Jan. 2016, Knopf Books for Young Readers), $16.99, ISBN: 978-0553520705

A fantasy adventure filled with dragons, goblins, and puzzles.

The Firefly Code, by Megan Frazer Blakemore, (May 2016, Bloomsbury USA), $16.99, ISBN: 978-1619636361

When a new girl moves to Firefly Lane, a girl and her friends start questioning everything they’ve known.

I’ll recap after we select a winner!

Fantasy, Fiction, Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

Sideshow Stalkers and Secrets: Freeks

Posted on January 7, 2017January 7, 2017 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Freeks, by Amanda Hocking, (Jan. 2017, St. Martin’s/Griffin), $18.99, ISBN: 9781250084774

Recommended for ages 14+

Gideon Davorin’s Traveling Sideshow isn’t your run of the mill carny act: the performers are all special. They have necromancers, firedancers who make their own fire, levitating trapeze artists, and supernaturally strong men. Nineteen year-old Mara travels with the sideshow, where her necromancer mother reads tarot cards, but she’s torn between the familiarity of the sideshow and the family atmosphere around her, and the desire to live in a real home. She worries for her mother, who’s showing fatigue from years of communicating with the dead. And when the sideshow pulls into Caudry, Louisiana, she meets Gabe, a townie who has secrets of his own, but embraces her despite knowing almost nothing about her. And then, the attacks start.

It starts when Blossom, a runaway who travels with the sideshow, disappears. Next, their strong man is mauled by a beast that no one seems to see. Is the town – not terribly friendly toward the “freeks” – up to no good, or is there something hunting the supernatural performers? Desperate to save her sideshow family and herself, Mara starts her own investigation and opens herself to the power that her mother has tried to keep at bay for most of her life.

Freeks is a slow build, with Hocking giving us little shakes and scares to start, but when things take off, hang onto something. There’s solid worldbuilding and great character development. The YA romance aspect of it takes over every now and then, but it’s a YA romance set in a carny/suspense universe. Paranormal romance fans will love this one for sure. Pair with Kate Ormand’s The Wanderers for more paranormal carnival storytelling (and its sequel, The Pack, to be published this year!).

Fiction, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

Decelerate Blue wants to slow down society’s frenetic pace

Posted on January 4, 2017December 23, 2016 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Decelerate Blue, by Adam Rapp and Mike Cavallaro, (Feb. 2017, First Second), $17.99, ISBN: 9781596431096

Recommended for ages 13+

In a hyper future, speed and efficiency rule the day. Everything is sped up, from literature’s classics to movies. People end sentences with, “Go”, letting the other person know it’s their turn to speak. Angela is a teen who hates this crazy pace of living, especially when her grandfather is being sent off to a “reduction colony” because he can’t keep his numbers up. Angela goes off in search of something he’s left for her and finds her way into an underground community of citizens rebelling against the hyper society. She joins the movement, but their plan to free society from this delirious pace – a drug called Decelerate Blue – is in danger of being found out by the authorities.

This is a case where I love the idea, but the execution left me a little cold. I love the idea of this crazy hyper society where everything is skin deep; no one has real conversations anymore, and even Shakespeare has been edited for brevity. It’s an outcome that is chilling in its plausibility and is begging for a dystopian telling. Decelerate Blue just didn’t grab me like I hoped it would; the graphic novel had powerful moments, but didn’t sit down and unpack them enough to invest me in the characters. The ending bordered on melodramatic, and left me frustrated. I did want to know more, though: what happened after? Did society examine what happened, or did they continue on as if nothing happened? Will the movement continue? Like I said, great ideas, stumbled in the execution.

An additional purchase for your sci fi collections.

Adventure, Espionage, Fiction, Fiction, Middle Grade, Tween Reads

There’s a Section 13 loose in the Lost Property Office!

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Rosemary Kiladitis

The Lost Property Office, by James R. Hannibal, (Nov. 2016, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), $16.99, ISBN: 9781481467094

Recommended for ages 10-14

Thirteen year-old Jack Buckles is usually pretty great at finding things, but that doesn’t extend to his father, who’s disappeared in London. His mother goes out to search for him, leaving Jack in charge of his younger sister, Sadie. All they need to do is stay in the hotel room until their mom gets back, but Sadie manages to nudge Jack into going for breakfast – and then she swears she sees their dad, and takes off. Before Jack knows what’s going on, he’s learned that his father was a member of a secret society of detectives, and Jack is next in line for membership – maybe. He also learns that a villain calling himself the Clockmaker is holding his dad hostage in exchange for the Ember, an artifact linked to the Great Fire of London. Jack and Gwen, a young clerk at the Lost Property Office, dive into adventure that takes them through the history of London in order to save Jack’s father and her uncle, who worked with Jack’s dad.

The Lost Property Office stumbled a bit for me because I had trouble unraveling exactly what the Lost Property Office was. Was it the secret headquarters of the secret society? Was it a more amorphous concept that I wasn’t getting? The action kicks in quickly and the pace doesn’t let up, but a bit more exposition would have given me a more helpful grasp on the story; I found myself getting lost trying to relate all the subplots and elements. I wasn’t a big fan of Gwen, who I found more obnoxious than a foil/humorous frenemy.

This one’s an additional purchase for your puzzle and mystery/espionage fans. Pair this with Gitty Daneshvari’s League of Unexceptional Children, and James Ponti’s Florian Bates series. The Alex Rider series is always a good pick for adventure fans, too.

Fiction, Science Fiction, Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

Scythe is a brilliant must-read!

Posted on December 24, 2016December 23, 2016 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Scythe, by Neal Shusterman, (Nov. 2016, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), $18.99, ISBN: 9781442472426

Recommended for ages 12+

Scythe is my first Neal Shusterman book AND one of the best books I’ve read this year. Society lives in a utopia. We’ve defeated death, poverty, hunger, you name it. Do people turn to a Star Trek-type society and explore space and do good things? Nope, they “turn the corner” when they get tired of looking old, having surgery to bring them back to a younger face and body. They stop doing, stop trying to achieve; it’s a stagnant society that doesn’t die. That’s where the Scythes come in.

Someone has to help with population control, so Scythes are chosen to end life. There are rules: Scythes can’t glean too much from one particular race or gender; they really shouldn’t love what they do too much, and they can’t glean out of rage. Citra and Rowan are two teens chosen to be a Scythe’s apprentices, much to their consternation; things get worse when they are told that only one will become a Scythe, and the first order of business will be to glean the other.

Citra and Rowan learn that the world isn’t nearly as perfect as many want to believe, and they witness a group of Scythes who hold mass gleanings – mass murder – where they revel in what they do. They discover that this society is no stranger to corruption.

Shusterman creates a brutal world wearing the guise of a utopia in Scythe. The characters are brilliant and awful, getting inside the reader’s head and heart. He builds a society that’s stopped moving forward, where the only progress to be made is by a Scythe, dealing indiscriminate death. He gives the Scythes a comprehensive history, with journal articles by previous Scythes throughout the book, ceremonies, and rituals. It’s an intense, fantastic book that readers who want somewhere to go after reading The Giver series should read immediately.

I didn’t want to put the book down and I never wanted it to end. Thankfully, we’ll be getting another book in the series, because the ending left me breathless.

A must-read, must-add book for any bookshelf. Scythe has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and School Library Journal. Kirkus has also named Scythe one of the Best Books of 2016.

Animal Fiction, Fiction, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction, Intermediate, Middle Grade

Geronimo Stilton goes to the ends of the earth in his latest graphic novel adventure

Posted on December 21, 2016 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Geronimo Stilton #18: First to the Last Place on Earth, (Nov. 2016, Papercutz), $9.99, ISBN: 9781629916033

Recommended for ages 6-10

Journalist mouse and time traveler Geronimo Stilton’s latest adventure takes him and a group of friends (including his younger sister, Thea!) back to 1911, where they join explorer Roald Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole. They have to beat the awful Pirate Cats, who plan to sabotage the expedition and ruin history, so Geronimo will need to stay extra sharp!

The Geronimo Stilton graphic novels are fun because they’re another addition to the Stilton family of storytelling. The stories are original – no rehashes of the chapter books here! – and offer kids some interesting facts mixed in with their fun. Geronimo is insanely popular, as are all his spinoff titles; your intermediate and middle grader readers will gobble these up. You won’t even need to booktalk this book – just put it out and stand back.

Want to use Geronimo to promote your exploration titles? I don’t blame you. Talk up Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Antarctic expedition; Matthew Henson’s exploration of the North Pole, and the lost Franklin expedition of 1845. Nomad Press’ Mysteries and Mayhem: Survival is a good book to talk up, and the I Survived series will always get kids listening and reading.

Fiction, Historical Fiction, Young Adult/New Adult

What makes a monster? Matthew J. Kirby explores in A Taste for Monsters

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Rosemary Kiladitis

A Taste for Monsters, by Matthew J. Kirby, (Sept. 2016, Scholastic), $18.99, ISBN: 9780545817844

Recommended for ages 12+

Evelyn is a young woman left to fend for herself on the streets of Victorian London’s infamous East End. Orphaned and disfigured by her work in a matchstick factory, she seemingly has few prospects; she applies to London Hospital as a nurse, and is instead assigned to be the maid to the hospital’s most famous patient: Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. As she attends to Merrick, she finds a gentle, beautiful soul with whom she shares a love of Jane Austen, easy conversation, and sadly, pain.

And then the ghosts come. They visit nightly, terrifying Merrick and Evelyn, who stays with him to support him through the nightly terrors. Evelyn discovers that the ghosts are the restless spirits of women murdered by Jack the Ripper, whose work makes gruesome headlines. Evelyn takes it upon herself to help these spirits find peace so that they’ll leave Joseph alone, but are they really haunting him? And is Evelyn putting herself in the Ripper’s sights by getting involved?

This is my third Kirby book, and it’s safe to say I am hooked on his writing. His historical fiction places you right in the middle of the action, and his fantastic elements are so believable – especially in an age where spiritualists ran wild – that I had no problem believing that ghosts existed and sought out the kindness of a gentle man like Joseph Merrick. The character development is brilliant and complex; the characters had a depth to them that made we want to sit with them and share tea and conversation. There’s a thread of tension running through the book that will keep readers turning pages, whether it’s the tension between Evelyn and several key supporting characters in the novel, the tension of waiting for the spirits to arrive, and the gripping conclusion. Historical fiction fans that appreciate a touch of the supernatural will love this book; readers interested in the Jack the Ripper story or the Elephant Man will love this book. Conservative readers may shy away from some of the gory descriptions of the Ripper’s victims as read from the newspapers and sideshow attractions. There’s some excellent YA Ripper-related fiction available, including Maureen Johnson’s The Name of the Star; the graphic novel From Hell is another great booktalking and display choice. There is a children’s picture book about The Elephant Man by Mariangela Di Fiore that would be a good display choice. Get this book on your shelves and into hands.

Matthew J. Kirby is an Edgar Award-winning novelist.

Fiction, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade, mythology, Tween Reads

The story of Artemis, Greek goddess of the hunt

Posted on December 13, 2016August 29, 2019 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Artemis, by George O’Connor, (Olympians #9), (Jan. 2017, First Second), $9.99, ISBN: 9781626725225

Recommended for ages 8-12

The latest in George O’Connor’s graphic novel series on the Olympians gives readers the origin of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, nature, archery, wild animals, young women, and sudden death (yes, you read that right). Like a lot of gods and goddesses, Artemis and her twin brother, Apollo, were born when Zeus introduced himself to Leto, daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe. Artemis assisted with her brother’s birth, despite being only 9 days old, and when the family was invited to live on Mount Olympus, was protective of her mother, who, for obvious reasons, wasn’t really in Hera’s favor.

I love this series because it really utilizes the graphic novel format to bring these myths back to life. When I was a kid, I had history and mythological comics that breathed life into their stories, splashing the pages with the color and action that infused them. O’Connor’s Olympians series is good, solid story-telling that brings mythology back to kids and adults alike. Put these books out with your Rick Riordan books; your Greek mythology nonfiction books (D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths is brilliant and often used in schools), and, for readers who are ready for them, Gillian Cross and Neil Packer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

Fiction, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade, Science Fiction, Teen, Tween Reads

Block and Jam! Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars!

Posted on December 8, 2016December 8, 2016 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Trish Trash #1: Rollergirl of Mars, by Jessica Abel (Nov. 2016, Papercutz), $14.99, ISBN: 9781629916149

Recommended for ages 10+

About 200 years from now, Trish “Trash” Nupindju lives with her aunt and uncle on a Mars-based moisture farm. Mars is colonized, but settlers live and work under brutal conditions and live in abject poverty. Trish cuts school one day try out for the Novas, a hover derby team – think roller derby, but a little more off the ground – because she wants to become a star and leave this red rock already. She finds herself on the wrong side of hover diva Hanna Barbarian, but she lands a spot as team intern. Life’s starting to look up, until Trish discovers a weak and injured Martian, whom she takes in.

Rollergirl of Mars is the first in a new science fiction trilogy by Harvey Award-winning author Jessica Abel. It’s a promising beginning, but I’ve got a few questions; the biggest one being, does living on Mars age humans differently? Trish is supposed to be 7 1/2 years old, but looks and acts like a teenager. I hope this gets fleshed out in future issues. I love the idea of hover derby (I’ve mentioned being a frustrated derby girl when I’ve reviewed derby books here in the past), and the match in the first issue has energy that readers will enjoy. We’ve got a diva conflict setting up, and some family drama on the horizon, so there are quite a few elements set up here to move future narratives forward. I love the diversity reflected here, too. Give this to your Roller Girl readers who are ready for some more realistic, gritty art and storytelling, and talk this up with your teens. There’s a great Trish Trash section on Jessica Abel’s author page, too.