Bookcase Bizarro: MG/YA Book Reviews, October 2025

MG/YA Book Reviews by a MG/YA Writer

Table of Contents

Author News

MG/YA Book Reviews

In the Garden

Author News

Welcome to the October edition of Bookcase Bizarro!

In author news, I’m still working on the developmental edits for Rogue Wizard, a Garrison Creek prequel novella. (All current subscribers will get a free ebook of Rogue Wizard when it’s ready, since I’ll be using it as a reader magnet to attract more signups to my blog newsletter.)

I received some good comments on how to up the stakes and raise tension, and how to be tougher on my main protag, Colin. I always have a hard time putting my characters through literary hell. I rush through their most painful moments in first drafts, unable to bear the intensity. It takes a few drafts before I can delve into the emotional maelstrom deeply enough to let them speak for themselves … which often gives me a very different story from the one I originally envisioned.

I’ve also been deepening my knowledge of the St. Anselm’s Training School for Orphans. Place is such an important part of the story for me, so much so that I think of it almost as a character. I’ve been reading a lot of books recently where the sense of place is either muted or missing. I don’t find this satisfactory at all as a reader. In one of the book clubs I belong to, we wrestled with this while discussing Only This Beautiful Moment, by Abdi Nazemian. It’s not a book I would have gravitated towards, and a big reason is its lack of a fleshed-out sense of place. In a way, this makes sense as Nazemian’s got a screenwriting background. Except that in a film, cinematography takes on the role of establishing place and time. In a novel, the writer needs to take on this job in some way for me to feel immersed in the book.

Description serves to orient me-as-reader, especially in unfamiliar surroundings. Parts of Nazemian’s novel are situated in Iran, a country I know nothing about. Without some sort of description to set the scene, I felt lost. To be clear, I wasn’t pining for page-long, dense descriptive paragraphs. In-action descriptions would have worked just fine, especially since one of the characters is seeing Iran for the first time, too.

Place also provides me-as-reader with a different perspective outside the POV of the main character. This is especially important in a first-person narrative, which can easily become self-referential and claustrophobic. Other characters can help provide different perspectives, and Nazemian uses his to pierce through misconceptions and misunderstandings. Still, it was not enough to immerse me in the world of the book, because a huge part of that world was missing. (I’m still glad I read the book. Nazemian has a way of bringing his characters together in ways that are both unexpected and delightful.)

This month’s pick is (thankfully) deeply rooted in place. And because it’s October, you know the book’s got to be a scary one.

So without further ado, let’s delve into the creepiness—or should I say creepening—of Dogwood House.

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

Roddie remembers sitting at his mother’s feet while she braided his hair. It was their time to talk and connect. Those memories and a few recipes are all he has left of his mother after she dies in a car accident. That’s before Aunt Angie returns to South Carolina to whisk him away to his family’s ancestral home, Dogwood House, a rundown wreck of a mansion in the middle of nowhere. Blackish-green mold covers the peeling steps and porch, and moss hangs down from the overgrown bushes like hair. Aunt Angie and her husband, Erik, are busy renovating the inside rooms, restoring the mansion to its former glory. They soon recruit Roddie as an assistant. Roddie doesn’t mind the work, but the horrible, rotten odor that seeps into every room of the house is something else. He can’t believe his mother never mentioned Dogwood House, or his family’s Hoodoo practices, or the uncanny incidents that seem to be tangled up in the very roots of this place. How will he ever feel at home in a place that smells so bad, or hides so many secrets? When the terrible mystery at the heart of the house awakens and threatens to engulf his new home, it’s up to Roddie to finish the work his mother started—even if he’s never felt so lost in his life.

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First of all, thank goodness for a book with plenty of description! Through a combination of spare, carefully chosen language, readers get a full sensory experience of the world of Dogwood House without getting bogged down by details. The characters’ interactions with one another deepen the scope and warmth of the world. Because Roddie’s just lost his mother and home, a major theme is rebuilding. Aunt Angie’s remodeling of Dogwood House (her childhood home and Roddie’s new one) dovetails with Roddie trying to find ways to remember his mother while he remakes his life without her. His aunt is on a parallel journey. Rather than relegating Aunt Angie to the background, Royce makes her an important secondary character. As Roddie’s understanding of his aunt’s grief grows, so does his connection to her and the house. This motivates him to undertake an unfinished job of his mother’s, when he attempts to rescue Dogwood House from the clutches of an ancient evil, to reclaim it for himself and his entire family, past and present.

Dogwood House has been in Roddie’s family for generations, which is a nice twist on the haunted house narrative where valuable, heritage homes are usually white-owned. Royce doesn’t drive this point home, but presents it in a matter-of-fact way while she gets on with the story. I loved how Royce used hair as a device to (re)build a sense of home, not only in relation to Roddie’s memories of his mother, but in the Hoodoo traditions his family practices. Hair-burning is a protective ritual the inhabitants of Dogwood House have always practiced, but Aunt Angie can’t remember why. Roddie decides not to burn the hair he sheds after combing it out, a decision that emboldens the evil entity trying to take control of the house. Hoodoo is also rooted in communing with ancestors. This allows Roddie, who’s lost his immediate family, to forge new connections with his Aunt Angie and the spirits of his ancestors who still live in the house and offer him help and guidance once he’s ready to receive it. Royce is careful to introduce Hoodoo in ways that are deeply integrated with the rest of the story, so it never comes across as a disembodied lecture.

Some reviewers have said that this book is best suited to an upper middle grade audience. I didn’t find the scare factor all that high and middle grade kids are more than capable of handling the realities of death and grief, especially when they are attached to Roddie’s journey of reconstructing home and fighting for his new family. Like Roddie, kids can learn how to face their fears and tackle big problems, even if they find it hard at first. Roddie’s mother tells him: “Gotta keep pushing through the dark, baby. Keep going no matter what.” And he does. There is no reason to think that real-life kids can’t do the same.

An engaging family story with an added creep factor for readers aged 8+. (#TPL)

In the Garden

I was laid low by a bout of COVID for 12 days in September, which put a big dent in my gardening plans. My poor outdoor seedlings have languished to such an extent that I’m not sure if they’ll survive transplanting. (NOTE TO SELF FOR NEXT YEAR: just direct sow all autumn greens. It’s a lot less work!)

Fortunately, I sowed my indoor garden before illness struck, so I do have some plants coming along … that is, if they can survive my tendency to over-water.

I’m discovering that indoor seedlings—especially herbs—have very different watering requirements than outdoor plants. For one thing, the soil dries out much more slowly under grow-lights than in full sunlight, a fact that this overly-anxious plant companion has yet to adjust to. My beet greens have suffered the most from over-watering (top right frame), but they are slowly recovering. I’m learning to let the soil’s surface dry out before re-watering. I did this with my herbs, and they have fared better.

From L-R, T-B

–Ruby Red chard: my all-time favourite chard. I even found a bolt-resistant red chard to plant outside next year.

–Monstrueux de Viroflay spinach: Although you’d never guess it from the picture, this tiny seedling is supposed to grow up to 2 ft in diameter and with leaves that are 8-10 inches long. So of course, I had to have it! We’ll see how big it grows in a 5 gallon pot.

–Bull’s Blood beet greens with a volunteer mystery brassica: A disgusting name for a tasty plant. I’ll thin the pot down to three plants: 2 beets and 1 brassica (if it’s a small type, like komatsuna), and 3 beet greens if the brassica turns out to be a kale, which needs an entire pot for itself.

–Flat-leaf parsley: nothing can beat the flavour of fresh parsley. I always start a lot of seedlings, as the germination process is quite long. I speed things up by placing my parsley seeds in the freezer before planting. They usually come up within 7-10 days. I’m growing these in a 7-gallon pot, so I’ll probably thin down to three plants, as parsley can grow quite large. (I’ll do the same with my cilantro plants—more pictures to come!)

–Genovese and Spicy Globe basil: my indoor basil completely failed last year, partly because they were planted in a too-small pot. (The over-watering, and cool drafts didn’t help.) This year, I’ll grow one of each type of basil in a 7-gallon pot, which I’ll elevate so the poor things won’t be freaked out by the winter drafts blowing across the floor.

–Mystery mint: my partner rescued this mint plant, which I rooted in water and then transferred to a 7-gallon pot. It was a bedraggled mess when it first arrived at our house, but with a bit of TLC and some judicious pruning, it’s started to bush out.

I’m going to head out this evening to transplant some of my outdoor seedlings. Wish me luck!

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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.

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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!

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