This one falls into the category of really odd and quirky middle grade fiction, but readable, if you can get past the premise: a skeleton emerges from the soil in Stanly’s backyard. Only Stanly, his friend Jaxon, Stanly’s little sister Miren, and the Kyrgyzstani babysitter, Ms. Francine, can actually see the skeleton tree, at least most of the time, and Miren calls the skeleton Princy.

Weeeell, as Jack Benny used to say, that’s a lot to take in: a dancing skeleton who may or may not be making Miren’s illness better —or worse. And Stanly wants to take a picture of “Princy”, win a prize, and force his estranged dad to pay attention to his deserted family. Stanly’s and Jaxon’s friendship is a lovely bit of business: Jaxon has OCD, and Stanly simply accepts Jaxon’s fence-post counting and food pickiness as a part of his friend’s personality.

I really liked parts of this book: Stanly’s relationship with his little sister, protective even when he was annoyed with her brattiness; Jaxon and Stanly and their friendship; the total weirdness of having a skeleton growing in a tree in your backyard. However, the sadness of Miren’s illness, the dad’s neglect of his family, and Stanly’s mom’s very difficult financial and living situation finally got to me, and I really didn’t want to finish the book, even though I had to know what would happen to Stanly and Miren and Princy.

Also, I know it’s so minor as to be nitpicking, but I really think Stanly should be spelled with an “e”, “Stanley”. It just looks wrong the way it is in this book.

The Wolf Hour by Sara Lewis Holmes

The Dollmaker of Krakow by R.M. Romero.

Ms. Holmes gives us a story of pigs (three little ones plus a mama pig), wolves, and a girl with a red cap, fusing together the folklore of the Polish forest, the Puszcza, with the tales of the city, of magic flutes and stolen, enchanted girls. It’s a book that talks about the roles we are expected to fill and the changes that we can make if we have the courage to do so. Girls are not supposed to be woodcutters, but Magia, the red-capped girl, knows that becoming a woodcutter like her father is what she is meant to be. And wolves are meant to be the villains of the story, but what if the little pigs are the real tricksters and bad guys, luring the wolves to their doom?

Actually, I thought the setting for this story was somewhere in a magical Poland, but maybe it’s Ukraine or even Russia. Wherever it is set, the tale is dark and creepy but with just enough humor and lightness that it’s perfectly appropriate for middle grade readers who like a bit of scariness and suspense mixed into their fantasy reading. Fans of the TV series Once Upon a Time or Grimm might take to this twisted version of fairy tale world.

The Dollmaker of Krakow is partially set in Poland, World War II Poland, but also in a mythical Kingdom of the Dolls where events mirror to some extent the event in Poland. The evil rats have invaded the Land of the Dolls and enslaved all of the dolls, so when the doll Karolina tries to escape, she finds herself blown the wind into World War II Poland and living in the shop of the The Dollmaker. Karolina and the man known as the Dollmaker become friends with a Jewish violinist, Jozef, and his daughter, Rena, and from that friendship come danger and an opportunity to influence the course of events both in our world and in the Land of the Dolls.

Again, it’s a Holocaust tale, so it’s dark and rather scary, but there is a sense of hope that one person—or one doll— can be brave enough and persevering enough to make a difference and shine some light into that darkness.
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Thieves have been rather popular in middle grade fantasy fiction for the past few years. The “thieves” are usually Oliver Twist or Artful Dodger types, lovable scapegraces who come out of poverty and sometimes end up as princes or kings or long lost sons of rich families. And mostly the thieves are boys. (Megan Whalen Turner’s Thief series, Jonathan Auxier’s Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, The Dungeoneers by John David Anderson, The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen, Jupiter Pirates series by Jason Fry, Chronicles of Egg by Geoff Rodkey, and many more that I’m not thinking of, I’m sure.)

Twelve year old Alli Rosco fits the prototype in some ways. She’s an orphan who never really suited any of the many families looking to adopt, but she didn’t like any of them either. Her mother abandoned her on the orphanage doorstep at the age of three, and Alli has been trying ever since to forget her mother and the brother who didn’t get sent to the orphanage. And she’s also been trying to escape from the orphanage, from any adoptive parents foolish enough to take her home for a trial run, from all of the rules and fences that orphanage life is all about.

But when Alli does escape, she finds that life on the streets is not so easy. And she learns that she can’t trust anyone, but also she can’t live without trusting someone. In fact, Alli must trust a thief, maybe even become a thief, if she is going to survive. She may have to commit herself to follow the rules of the Thieves’ Guild if she wants to remain free of the orphanage, but is that a trade-off she’s willing to make?

Alli is spunky, independent, resourceful, and outspoken, but she also has her own code of conduct that gets tested and crowded by the necessities of survival on the streets. At first, she’s not sure she should steal at all, but she soon realizes that in order to eat she will have to take food from market stalls. The trash cans are not an adequate source of nourishment. Then, Alli get caught in a situation in which she must choose to join the Thieves Guild and become a professional thief or choose to die a slow and painful death. She chooses the Guild, but not without some qualms. What is all of this thieving doing to her soul?

This debut novel by an Oklahoma author has a lot of action and character development, but it also tries to deal with the deeper questions inherent in a story where thieves are the protagonists, the “good guys” to some extent. Is it really fine to steal from the rich, just not the poor? How do you decide who’s rich and who’s poor? Is violence or at least the threat of violence an inexorable part of being a thief? If so, where does one draw the line? Do haughty, selfish rich people deserve to die protecting their valuables? If they do, is it the thief’s fault or the owner’s? Is there “always a price” for everything you get in life? What if someone else ends up paying the price for your survival?

Perhaps the sequel to Rules for Thieves, Shadow Thieves, will answer some of those questions as Alli “must risk everything to save her new family from a rogue organization that is threatening the Thieves Guild’s existence—and the lives of all its members.” I’m looking forward to reading it when it comes out in June, 2018.

Mr Nix acknowledges the “inspiration and positive influence” of five authors in the conception and development of Frogkisser!: Lloyd Alexander, Nicholas Stuart Gray, Diana Wynne Jones, Robin McKinley, and T.H. White. The influences of T.H. White and Lloyd Alexander are easy to spot: a spunky princess (or two or three), Merlin himself making an appearance, a librarian owl who may be a descendant of Archimedes, quests and journeys, bewitching and magicians’ duels. Robin McKinley, too, shows up in the general idea of reworking fairy tales and in the specifics of having mostly female protagonists. I’ve heard of the other two influencing authors, but I’ve never read anything by Ms. Jones (not interested), and although Nicholas Stuart Gray is on my wishlist/TBR list, I’ve never even seen any of his books in the library or the bookstore. Mostly British and only available in Britain< I believe? Have you ever read anything by Mr. Gray? Recommendations?

Nicholas Stuart Gray (23 October 1922, Scotland – 17 March 1981) was a British actor and playwright, perhaps best known for his work in children’s theatre in England. He was also an author of children’s fantasy; he wrote a number of novels, a dozen plays, and many short stories. Perhaps his best-known books are The Seventh Swan and Grimbold’s Other World. Gray often produced adaptations or continuations of traditional fairy tales and fantasy works, as in his Further Adventures of Puss in Boots. His The Stone Cage is a re-telling of Rapunzel from a cat’s point of view. Over the Hills to Fabylon is about a city whose king has the ability to make it fly off across the mountains if he feels it is in danger. ~Wikipedia

As far as Frogkisser! is concerned, I give it a thumbs up. There’s a deliberate attempt to turn traditional fairy tale expectations upside down and surprise the reader, especially in regard to gender. Most of the active characters are female, including female knights, wizards, robbers, and dwarves. And the protagonist is definitely female, Princess Anya, and she’s a girl who’s not about to wait to be rescued by anybody. She will rescue herself if need be, or proactively look for allies and friends to help her in time of need. However, this feminist emphasis wasn’t too annoying and didn’t interfere with the story or the humor.

The story of a younger sister princess who becomes the leader of a frog kissing rebellion against the evil authoritarian sorcerers who have split the kingdom into warring mini-fiefdoms is full of wry humor and the aforementioned subversion. Thieves become heroes; princesses fight battles (and kiss frogs); and even a newt has his moment in the sun, so to speak. Travel along with Princess Anya as she searches for the ingredients for a magical lip balm that will allow her to transform frogs back into whatever they were before they were enchanted and as she learns how the common folk live under the yoke of magical tyranny. A Quest is not half as comfortable or fun as it is portrayed to be in books, but it’s doable if you have a lovable, drooling Royal Dog along as a sidekick and protector.

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Effie Truelove’s grandfather Griffin Truelove refuses to teach her to do magic, until it’s too late. When Effie needs magic and all the friends she can find to protect her grandfather’s library from the Diberi, evil users of twisted magic, she does find the friends, but the magic is a little tricky. Effie and her newfound friends—Maximilian, Wolf, Lexy, and Raven—must fight off the Diberi both in this world and in the Otherworld, and Effie must find her own way through the most important book that her grandfather gave her, a book called Dragon’s Green.

The world-building in this first book in a series called Worldquake is a little complicated, and I’m not sure I got it all. But what I did get, I liked. There are magical books, and Spectacles of Knowledge, and a ring of power, and portals to Otherworld, and dragons, and princesses, and liminals (not sure about that one), and boons, and magical currency that only works in the Otherworld. That’s just a sampling of all the concepts and magical rules and properties that have to be understood to get through Dragon’s Green. As I said, it’s complicated.

And yet, I enjoyed the complications. I think the story could have been stretched, explained and slowed down a little, but I often think that while reading modern fantasy. Tolkien and Nesbit and George Macdonald took their world-building at a lot more leisurely pace, uninfluenced by movies and TV. I wish the television pace could stay on TV and that books could be books instead of movies-in-the-making. However . . .

I did like the writing in this middle grade novel. Here are a few samples of Ms. Thomas’s vivid descriptions and explanations:

“Mrs. Beathag Hide was exactly the kind of teacher who gives children nightmares. She was tall and thin, and her extraordinarily long fingers were like sharp twigs on a poisonous tree. She wore black turtleneck sweaters that made her head look like a planet being slowly ejected from a hostile universe, and heavy tweed suits in strange, otherworldly pinks and reds that made her face look as pale as a cold moon.”

“The dragon . . . noticed Effie, and started. He looked at her rather the way you might look at a pepperoni pizza when you were sure you had ordered a margherita. He blinked and looked again, taking her in, up and down and up and down, until he took a step back and frowned. The piano music continued as if this were the most elegant restaurant, rather than an appointment with death.”

“Odile Underwood had tried very hard to keep magic from her son. For a start, she had called him Maximiliam, which she had felt to be quite an unmagical name. She had also made sure they lived in the least magical place imaginable. A bungalow by the sea (but with no sea view). What could be less magical than that? Maybe a semi-detached on a new housing estate, but the bungalow had at least been cheap.”

Final verdict: I like it, and I would like to continue the story with the next book in this series, The Chosen Ones (publication date: May 29, 2018).

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This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

A ghost story seems appropriate for today, All Hallows Eve, and a ghost story that takes place in Scotland is particularly fun. Journey’s End starts out mysterious and kind of confusing with the first three chapters set in three different time periods with different characters, but the confusion clears up fairly quickly and the mystery and spookiness remain throughout to the end.

Nolie Stanhope, from Georgia, is spending the summer with her dad in Journey’s End, a village on the coast of Scotland that is sustained by a mysterious fog bank, the Boundary, that hovers just off coast and swallows up any boats that try to go into the fog. Yes, the boats and people simply disappear if they get too near the wall of fog, and now boats take tourists near the Boundary to give them an adventure, but not too near. Nolie’s dad is a scientist who is studying the mysterious and perilous fog, and Nolie’s new friend, Bel, helps out in her family’s business, a souvenir shop where tourists can buy woolly Scots stuffed lambs and postcards and other knickknacks as memories of their trip to the Boundary.

Much is made in this book of the differences between Scots speech and American vocabulary, maybe a little too much. Nolie wonders why Bel is talking about carrying a flaming torch to explore a cave, and Nolie and Bel trade words to reference everything from mad/crazy to bum/bottom to holy cow! or holy hairy coo! Frequent word discussions and interpretations add humor to the story, but maybe they are a little too frequent by the end of the book. Still, we Americans do enjoy a Scottish dialect and accent, and I’m sure, vice-versa.

The ghost story itself is standard: a person was wronged long ago, and her ghost hangs about with the unfinished business of revenge in mind. The fog, the Boundary, is an interesting touch, and it was just scary enough, with just enough humor, for middle grade readers, without becoming evil or morbid. If you’re up for a good ghost story, I’d recommend this one.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

For more middle grade ghost stories, I can recommend:

The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston, and its sequels.
Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.
The Court of the Stone Children by Eleanor Cameron.
The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co., #1) by Jonathan Stroud, and sequels.
The Swallow: A Ghost Story by Charis Cotter.
The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage
The Saracen Lamp by Ruth M. Arthur.
Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett.
The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn by Dorothy Hoobler.