What are you currently reading?
Morbid Curiosities by S. Hati - A girl attending an elite science academy discovers there is more to the school, it's experiments, and the strange happenings in the surrounding communities.
What did you recently finish reading?
Auntie Q's Golden Claws Nail Salon by Van Hoang - After getting in trouble a girl is sent to work off her debt at her estranged aunt's nail salon.
What do you think you'll read next?
Harper Sharp, Kid Detective by Jarrett Williams
Title: Eureka
Author: Victoria Chang
Genre: historical fiction/verse novel
Age range: middle grade
Similar book: One Big Open Sky by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Summary (provided by publisher): The year is 1885. San Francisco is dangerous for Chinese immigrants like twelve-year-old Mei Mei. She must venture on her own, without her family or friends, to Eureka, California, where it is supposedly safe.
But 300 miles from home, Mei Mei misses her Ma Ma's kindness, helping out in her Ba Ba's store, and playing hide-and-seek with her best friend, Hua Hua. Despite her fear and the increasing violence against her community, she finds hope in an unexpected friend, the giant Redwood trees, and a new dream: learning how to read in English. As the world around her grows more scary, Mei Mei discovers her own power, as well as the joy of found family, the importance of courage, and the nature of freedom.
What I liked: Oftentimes a verse novel focuses only on a character's thoughts and emotions, leaving us with little action or setting. This book manages to balance description with reflection. The resulting text is sparse but meaningful. It is able to reflect dangers and cruelty without becoming exploitative.
What I didn't like: The problems and solutions are a bit over-simplified and the exploration is, necessarily, fairly shallow. This is the sort of book you might use in conjunction with other, more in depth, information about racial violence in the 1880s.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
I've long been a fan of survival stories, so this book about sisters stranded on a mountain during a volcanic event sounds right up my alley. Let's give it a listen and see if it lives up to it's promise.
What are you currently reading?
Where Ella Went by Laurie Morrison - When their friend and soccer captain leaves town without warning, a group of middle schoolers dig into what happened and why she left.
What did you recently finish reading?
Penelope Positano Sees it All by Katie Cotugno - Penelope is finally allowed to get a dog. She doesn't know what her perfect dog will be, just that she'll know it when she sees it.
What do you think you'll read next?
Coyote Queen by Jessica Vitalis
Title: Tested
Author: Anna Monders
Genre: dystopia
Age range: middle grade
Similar book: Flawed by Cecelia Ahern
Summary (provided by publisher): For as long as Mikayla can remember, her future has been laid out for her. As an Elite in a world divided by genetic Elites, Defectives, and Expendables, she’ll live up to her stellar Genetic Report Card score of ninety-four by excelling academically, gaining acceptance into the Elite Scholars program, and eventually working for GenIn, the company that saved humanity after the catastrophic Great Dying.
All seems to be going as planned until a surprise assignment during Mikayla’s class changes everything. Soon, she’s reconnecting with a friend she thought she’d lost forever and—for the first time in her life—questioning the society she has put her trust in.
But if Mikayla isn’t the model citizen she always believed herself to be, then who is she?
What I liked: Monders doesn't fully follow the standard dystopian fiction pattern. Most authors would have the protagonist realizing that the system is flawed and then leading a revolution against it. That's not where this book goes. Instead it's a bit slower, more about Mikayla beginning to question the system and the narrative she's always heard about the importance of the division. This is a book more about small changes and beginning to think for yourself than about true revolution.
What I didn't like: The small revolution approach cuts both ways. While it's more realistic, it also is less compelling. There isn't the excitement of taking down a damaging system. And the realizations that Mikayla has about human value are equally small and nebulous. The book is trying to help us see that everyone has value but never truly shows that.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
Title: A Tale of Plagues and Perfumes
Author: Jake Halpern and Peter Kujawinski
Genre: fantasy
Age range: middle grade
Similar book: Goat Magic by Kate Wheeler
Summary (provided by publisher): The last thing Nia wants is to be branded a "Sinsory." Where she comes from, that's just as deadly as the plagues that sweep through the land. That's why she keeps her unusually keen sense of smell a secret. Only two people in the city of Yerat know of her special abilities: her beloved Auntie and her best friend, Fox. But when the worst plague in a century hits their desert continent, all of that suddenly changes.
An invitation arrives in the shape of a jar of blackcurrant jam. Nia is asked to attend the Cloister, a select and secluded school for children with heightened senses. There she meets Scentiers, like her, but also Gazers, Whisper-Gatherers, and many more, whose sensory powers go far beyond what regular folk can smell, see, or hear.
It's there that Nia learns her nose knows far more than she ever dreamed . . . maybe enough to find the cure for the plague. Or even sniff out the sinister secrets hiding in the Cloister's walls.
What I liked: World building is the strongest feature of this book. Not only do we have a unique approach to magic - characters with specific sensory powers - but we also have distinctive settings. The individual elements work together well to create a complex plot where the setting plays vital roles. The characters are mostly believable.
What I didn't like: There are a fair number of leaps of logic and reliance on coincidence. And many of the twists are telegraphed pretty heavily far in advance of their eventual reveal. The magical elements will make this a hard sell for some.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
It is one of my goals this year to use up some craft kits that I have had stored for months, even years. I just finished up this needlepoint kit that I was gifted some time ago, started, and promptly abandoned.
