MG/YA Book Reviews by a MG/YA Author
Table of Contents
Author News
MG/YA Book Reviews
In the Garden
Author News
Welcome to the March edition of Bookcase Bizarro!
First up in today’s author news:
Yes, this is the official cover reveal for my new book, Rogue Wizard: A Garrison Creek Prequel Novella.
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So how did I come up with such an amazing book cover?
I didn’t.
This cover is the work of designer Jessica Bell. Jessica also designed the cover for Shadow Apprentice, so I knew she’d cook up something equally spectacular for Rogue Wizard.
My cover design process has changed a lot since I wrote Shadow Apprentice. At that time, I didn’t know anything about book cover design, and made pretty much every newbie mistake in the book (and probably invented a few more). One of the most important lessons I learned was to leave book cover design alone until I’d completely finished editing and formatting a book. This really matters because an accurate page count is essential for the print book cover design. (Spine width varies depending on the number of pages.) Don’t even ask me how many times I had to ask the very patient Jessica to revise the paperback cover for Shadow Apprentice because:
- the intricacies of book page numbering utterly escaped me
- the page count kept changing because I was still editing
Although I’ve gotten marginally better at page numbering, I’ve learned to rely on Vellum, my trusty formatting program, to count the pages for me. So much easier!
With Shadow Apprentice, I had no idea of what to expect from the process, so I gave Jessica very little feedback. This time around, I had more of an idea of what I wanted and collaborated more with Jessica.
Those of you who’ve already read Shadow Apprentice may remember Horatio, the guard skeleton. I mentioned him to Jessica in my client questionnaire (a book brief for the designer that includes book and print details, as well as descriptions of setting and characters, as well as the book’s target audience).
Jessica offered me three templates to choose from. Each one featured a different central image. To my delight, the third template featured Horatio’s skull wreathed in flames. I loved it! We also needed a motif as striking as the paper birds that appear on the cover of Shadow Apprentice. I suggested using the fire itself as a motif, maybe enveloping the title and the author’s name to symbolize Colin’s out-of-control wizardry. That the fire also envelopes Horatio, a symbol of safety and security, makes the stakes visually clear. (And if you look closely, you’ll see that Jessica has added in writhing wisps of red wizard’s residue that are just visible through the flames.)
Another challenge is that Rogue Wizard and the other books in The Garrison Creek Chronicles are aimed at readers aged 11-15. Readers in this age group are too old for straight-up MG and too young for unfiltered YA. We had to come up with a cover that was not babyish and had a bit of an edge, but wasn’t full-on teenager.
I’m aware that some adults may be less than happy with a skull on the front cover of a middle grade book, but I don’t think that young teen readers will feel the same way. (I went with the young teens.)
This month, we hunker down with a cozy middle grade, small town mystery. Actually, two. So strap on your snowshoes. We’re heading for New England!
A quick note to new readers: books that are available from the Toronto Public Library will be marked #TPL because books don’t have to be new or owned in order to be loved.
MG/YA Book Reviews
Truly Lovejoy is not loving Pumpkin Falls, the small town she and her family move to after her father, a soldier, is injured in Afghanistan. Unable to find work as a pilot because of a missing arm, Mr. Lovejoy agrees to run the family bookstore along with his sister. Pumpkin Falls is small. Pumpkin Falls is not exciting. And Pumpkin Falls is not home. To Truly, at least.
With her mother back in school, her father trying to keep the bookstore afloat, and four siblings competing for their scant attention, middle child Truly feels more overlooked than ever. So when she discovers a letter hidden inside a rare, first edition copy of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, she’s more than happy for the distraction.
As the discovery leads to more clues and letters, Truly and her new crew of friends set off on a madcap treasure hunt that leads them all around the town, and Truly realizes there’s more to Pumpkin Falls than meets the eye.
Between a new book release and the eternally bad news cycle, I decided that “cozy” was the way to go this month. Actually, a Little Library kind of decided it for me. I found this month’s books in a local LL and thought they’d be fun. (And the covers were completely captivating.)
“Cozy treasure hunt” might be a better way of summing up these books than “cozy mystery” (even if the family’s dog is named Miss Marple). Nobody dies in Pumpkin Falls. Instead, amateur sleuth Truly and her friends solve a series of interconnected puzzles that also help Truly tackle her unhappiness over the move. (The first book is also a love letter to E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, and a slew of other Boomer and Gen X children’s book classics.)
The mystery itself is not the central focus of the books, and really functions more as a device to integrate the reluctant Truly into accepting Pumpkin Falls as her new home. I would argue that both books focus as much, if not more, on friendship and family. Character drives the story far more than plot. Plot-driven narratives have become far more common in the 12 years since Absolutely Truly was published, which may help explain the frustration some contemporary readers have experienced with these books. “Too slow,” and “nothing much happens” are the most common complaints. A lot can happen in character-driven narratives, only the emphasis is more on the evolution of the characters and the relationships between them rather than the plot. So in Pumpkin Falls 1 &2, do the characters evolve in interesting ways? Truly absolutely does, and so do the secondary characters, which makes the books satisfying—albeit less action-oriented—reads. It’s still fair to say that these books may not satisfy readers who are expecting a more substantial mystery.
While the book fits into the “cozy” category, it also possesses a certain edginess. Truly’s father’s first name may be Jericho, but a wall has tumbled down upon him. Suffering from PTSD and a deeply buried grief over losing his best friend as well as his arm, Jericho comes across as an overly strict and somewhat frightening control-freak for most of the book. He is highly unlikeable, and very believable.
What I found most unbelievable was that teenage Truly doesn’t yell back at him. She’s carrying a load of resentment over the move, and as the tallest girl in Pumpkin Falls, she’s self-conscious about sticking out. You’d think that her father’s behaviour would tip her over the edge. In fact, I kept on silently urging her to fight back against him and her own compliance. Instead, Jericho’s sister steps in when his rules get too crazy. Her negotiating tactics are a primer in how to outmaneuver a pig-headed, controlling parent.
Truly’s youngest sister, Pippa, speaks with a lisp, and her speech is written phonetically. This has the effect of sidelining Pippa to the role of perpetually cute baby sister, diminishing her actual frankness and spunk.
I’m about three-quarters of the way through the sequel, Yours Truly, and it picks up more or less where it left off. I was glad to see that Truly has not magically embraced Pumpkin Falls. She still finds the town small and unexciting. When her cousin and best friend, Mackenzie, is invited to spend spring break with the Lovejoys, Truly can’t wait. Only her happy expectations for the visit are upended by her pesky sister, Lauren, who keeps trying to tag along, and Mackenzie who starts flirting with a boy that Truly herself may like. Again, the mystery functions more as a device to bring people together. (This time, it involves maple syrup sabotage, and a diary written centuries ago by the very first Truly Lovejoy.)
Delicious-sounding recipes for Mini Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (Absolutely Truly) and Bookshop Blondies (Yours Truly) are included.
For upper middle grade readers, especially for fans of cozy mysteries (emphasis on the “cozy”). (#TPL)
In the Garden
This month’s photo shoot features—drum roll, please—lettuce!
It’s an open secret that I love lettuce with textured leaves and coloured foliage. (The photos below will testify to that.) These plants, and others, have brightened up my writing studio considerably during a very long winter. (Not that I’m complaining. I love winter!)
In garden adventures this month, a cheeky mouse devoured an entire pot of lettuce seedlings. Fortunately, the mouse didn’t gnaw below the soil line on the one survivor plant. It’s valiantly regenerating. And all the Swiss chard has spider mites. I’d been putting off spraying them with insecticidal soap, trying instead to maintain a moist environment to deter the mites. As a result, some of my lettuce plants developed fungal infections, and the mites spread.
It’s sometimes easy to forget that entire eco-systems exist beneath the living canopy of a garden.
From L-R, T-B
Black Dragon coleus, Red Salad Bowl oak leaf lettuce, Lolla Rossa lettuce, mouse-gnawed Simpson Elite lettuce, view from my writing chair, Simpson Elite lettuce.
Thirteen-year-old Ermin is a gifted mechanic and the worst student at St. Anselm’s Training School for Orphans. She’s just failed her exams for the third time—something nobody’s ever done. Worse, Ermin’s been running her own repair business for money—something that’s expressly forbidden. If the headmistress finds out, Ermin will go to prison. Her future will be over before it’s even begun.
But that’s not her only secret.
Her best friends, Colin and Georgie, are wizards in a world where magic is strictly controlled. Ermin worries that her friends will be captured, drained of their power, then banished. When Georgie’s caught aiding the Wizard’s Resistance, Ermin repairs a broken flying carpet so all three of them can escape.
Hesitant to join the Resistance because of her lack of magical power, Ermin steals an experimental device from a wizard hunter that could destroy every wizard in the Creek. She’s faced with a choice: either smash the device or convert it into a different kind of weapon—one that not only helps wizards but just might get her an apprenticeship at the prestigious Guild Academy.
Ermin’s got one chance to get it right. If she fails, she risks losing her two best friends… and her dreams.
Find Shadow Apprentice at your local library, bookstore, or favourite online retailer.
Thanks for being a Bookcase Bizarro reader! I’ll be back next month with more author news, and more MG and YA book reviews. See you then!
#IMWAYR is a weekly blog hop hosted by Unleashing Readers and Teach Mentor Texts. Its focus is to share the love of KIDLIT and recommend KIDLIT books to readers of all ages.
Greg Pattridge also hosts weekly MG blog hop MMGM every Monday at his website, Always in the Middle.
