Elk Lake Publishing will be publishing a book of mine in about a year, I’m happy to announce. The book, a middle-grade novel, features time travel. I’m not going to tell you anything more about it right now. Sign up for my occasional newsletter if you want to be kept up to date on this!
Iggy and Oz: the Plastic Dinos of Doom by J.J. Johnson, a review
April 1, 2020 by
Middle-grade voice involves a (usually) sassy or joking twelve-year-old who’s finding himself or herself in a pickle and agonizing about it in a very funny way. It’s unique to middle grade books, as far as I can tell. I’ve talked about it before, and even have a category on this blog, “middle-grade voice example.” In […]
Hunger Winter: A World War II Novel by Rob Currie, a review
March 12, 2020 by
Rob Currie’s debut middle grade novel, Hunger Winter, tells a suspenseful tale of brave kids in World-War-II Holland.
The Warden and the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson, a review
January 21, 2020 by
Andrew Peterson’s middle-grade Wingfeather series that started out as an amusing tale full of rollicking names moves to epic scope along the way. In this fourth book, The Warden and the Wolf King (2014), it builds to a mighty conclusion full of heroic deeds. Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga is the story of the widow and […]
The Monster in the Hollows by Andrew Peterson, a review
January 16, 2020 by
We learned in the second book that the fangs, which look like beast-humans, are actually recycled humans. In fact, the bad guys nearly succeeding in turning young Kalmar Wingfeather, the 11-year-old next king of Anniera, into a wolfish fang.
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, a Review
January 12, 2020 by
I’m reviewing On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, by Andrew Peterson, Book One of the Wingfeather Saga (2008) . In this middle-grade book, the three children of the Igiby family are being raised by their mother and their grandfather. They live just outside Glipwood, a rustic village on the edge of the sea, in the house built by their grandfather many, many years before.
Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner, a review
December 16, 2019 by
In Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner (2010), Book 1 of a trilogy, Goldie is a protected child. She’s so protected that she has never been in any kind of danger, never petted a dog, never seen a snake, and … never been off a leash.
Dreamtreaders by Wayne Thomas Batson, a review
December 1, 2019 by
In Dreamtreaders, a middle-grade story by Wayne Thomas Batson, Archer Keaton, age 14, serves humanity as a Dreamtreader. In his dreams, what he imagines becomes “real.”
Merlin’s Shadow by Robert Treskillard, a review
November 19, 2019 by
Multiple times, it looks like all is lost. How can they survive being stranded on a peninsula, with armed enemies cornering them? How can they survive being surrounded by Vortigern’s murderous men, and then by Pictish barbarians who are only too happy to murder them?
The Rock of Ivanore by Laurisa White Reyes, a review
November 15, 2019 by
In The Rock of Ivanore by Laurisa White Reyes (2012), Marcus Frye has learned a bit of magic that sometimes works. He’s the 14-year-old orphan apprentice to the magician Master Zyll.
