Wayward Bookshelf

Omni and the Blazed Boy by Benjamin Ver Burg & Sheri Ver Burg This debut novel offers quite a lot to middle grade readers! It's got engaging main characters, dragon bonding (and hopefully riding in the coming books?), a magic school, creative world building, an ensemble of characters who end up being fast friends, and some good puzzles and mysteries that need to be solved. My personal favorite element was the nature of the world itself - it is unique and I imagine would be very intriguing for young readers. And as a reader who enjoys all things dragons, I also really liked the method of finding a dragon to bond with, and the classification of dragons by the type of magical breath they possess. There are a few elements that will feel familiar to the more avid young scifi/fantasy fans: the magic school and after-hours shenanigans that ensue are not unlike what we see at Hogwarts. And in an effort not to spoil any of the fun surprises the story holds, suffice it to say there are...

Under the Smokestrewn Sky by A. Deborah Baker This is the fourth and final book in the Up and Under series, and what a journey it's been. I love reading books based in folklore and faery tale, and Baker/McGuire is so very adept at weaving new tales from these ancient ideas. In the Up and Under series (and the Alchemical Journeys by association) the main mythos at play is that of the Winter King and Summer Queen who are supposed balance each other perfectly as the wheel of the year turns, but as we all know, sometimes things can get out of balance, and that is where the stories come from. (Funnily enough, I have also just finished Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith , which features the same lore in a big way, so clearly this sort of thing is right up my reading alley) In the first book of this series, Over the Woodward Wall , Avery and Zib climb an unexpected wall in the middle of a road and find themselves in an entirely different world. The rest of the tale is their journey to tr...

  The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones Diana Wynne Jones has been a favorite author since I was about 11, and I have been gradually collecting and reading all of her extensive catalog of books for the past decade or so. This year my partner gave me this one for my birthday. Short version: I loved it! All the stars! Long version: Jones is easily one of the reasons that I love portal fantasy so much because she was one of my earliest introductions to it, and she does it So. Well. In Homeward Bounders, she has created more of that parallel world magic goodness. The basic premise is that all the worlds are actually run by some demons who are playing tabletop games with the worlds themselves. (Also having finally started playing dnd last year, this aspect was fun for me to read too.) And when Jamie stumbles upon them at their game, they remove him from play as a random factor and make him a Homeward Bounder - which basically means he bounces from world to world and is given som...

Yvain: The Knight of the Lion by M.T. Anderson I honestly wish I had this book when I was in my British lit survey in college, not because I didn't enjoy reading the epic poems out of my Norton Anthology, but because the illustrations are terrific, and really gave this old poem some new context. (And because this graphic novel includes some pretty great commentary on the poem at the end of the volume.) As I said, the illustrations really made this book stand out, to the point that it caught my eye from the shelf at the local library, which is why I ended up reading it. Andrea Offermann is the illustrator, and she does a wonderful job at pairing the medieval origins of this poem with the comic book panel style illustration. I especially enjoyed the images on the couple pages that read like a tapestry, the opening and closing with the eagle, and the time Yvain spends lost and half-crazy in the wilderness. Another thing that this format does is allows the story to convey more t...

The Ravenous Gown: And 14 More Tales about Real Beauty by Steffani Raff After the first story in this collection made me laugh out loud several times, I knew I had to get this book and keep reading. All the stories have alternative takes on beauty, and feature witty, self-sufficient characters who take active roles in shaping their respective destinies. From conquering dragons to having incredibly smelly feet, issues both fantastic and mundane are addressed in this excellent read-aloud for all ages.

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan Echo is a beautifully crafted story that starts as a fairy tale, and meanders its way into a World War II era civilian setting by way of a very unique harmonica. As the harmonica changes hands, those who play it are changed too. And each character has a quality that makes them different from their peers, a birthmark, an ethnicity, etc. As they encounter challenges they find confidence and strength in their music. A wonderful, moving read for young and old alike.