Sarah Jamila Stevenson's Blog: Blog - Sarah Jamila Stevenson, page 48

Thursday Review: CONSTABLE & TOOP by Gareth P. Jones

This was one of those total surprises for me. I found the book in my library's ebook selection and thought: ghosts? Victorian London? a murder mystery? Sign me up. And then, all through the book as I kept getting more and more absorbed, I kept thinking, where the heck has this Gareth P. Jones been all this time? I love this!

Turns out where he's been, is writing middle grade and kids' books. And I've mostly been on the YA tip with just the occasional MG foray, so yeah, I suppose that's why I hadn't run into his books before. Constable & Toop, though—I'd say this not only crosses the line between MG and YA (and actually is scary enough, with enough adult main characters, to be more YA), but also would make a good crossover that adult readers would enjoy. I'd compare it firstly to The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, but it also had more than a dash (in my mind) of Beetlejuice, with its post-death bureaucracy (remember the Handbook for the Recently Deceased?) and its maze of rules and regulations.

As you might guess, this means the book has its share of humor as well as spookiness. But it's also got likeable, endearing main characters who you simply MUST root for because they're on the side of all that is good and non-bureaucratic in the world, living or dead. One of those characters is the rather unfortunate Mr. Lapsewood, who is himself a ghost, working behind a desk for the Ghost Bureau. Being sent to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a fellow ghost employee out in the streets of London feels like the chance of a, er, lifetime, and a chance to prove himself as being capable of more than his current life as a desk jockey. But then he discovers something truly awful: the Black Rot. It's an affliction developed by haunted houses that are deprived of their resident ghosts—say, via a rogue exorcism. Who's responsible? And can Lapsewood solve the problem?

Meanwhile, our other major character is Sam Toop. He's the son of an undertaker, his father being the Toop in the Constable & Toop funeral and mortuary business. He's about twelve or so, and he's a pretty normal kid for someone who's lived in a funeral home all his life. Oh, except for that one thing: he can see ghosts. Generally, though, things are going along pretty well for Sam until his lowlife Uncle Jack shows up one day and…uh…sorry, can't resist…threatens to make life a living hell if Sam and his dad don't help him out just a little. And then Jack "helps" Sam out, too, but maybe he doesn't want that kind of help…since it seems to coincide with some awfully nefarious doings out in the alleyways of London.

The stories of the living and the dead entwine and, in the end, come together in a most satisfying way. As you might guess, Lapsewood and Sam (and a few other fun minor characters) have to help each other in order to rid London of the Black Rot. The story's filled with atmospheric detail and subtle, witty humor along the lines of a Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. I absolutely adored it.

You can find Constable & Toop by Gareth Jones online, or at an independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Visions of the Future: A Post-Apocalyptic Blog Tour, featuring Caragh O'Brien

First of all, huge thanks to Gina Gagliano at First Second/Macmillan, who set us up with Caragh O'Brien on this blog tour--Tanita and I are both fascinated by the topic and love a good post-apocalyptic vision of the earth. (Um, in fiction only, please.) What is "Visions of the Future" all about? Macmillan Teen's website says this: "Five writers talk about what they think of the future—and why they wrote it the way they did." Five authors of recent novels that spin a rather grim view of what might happen to us in the not-so-distant future--and we are thrilled to host an essay by Caragh O'Brien, author of Birthmarked (which Tanita reviewed here).

Tanita describes the novel much more aptly and eloquently than I can do at the moment (you can blame the brain freeze on my day job), so go read the full review, in which she notes, "The post-apocalypse survival narrative is excellent, and as she gets deeper into trouble, Gaia has to make agonizing, hair-trigger decisions based on only what she feels is right." She also says, "This book is -- intense. There just aren't a lot of YA novels about midwifery, inbreeding, and hemophilia," and if that doesn't make you curious, then nothing will. So, without further delay, here is Caragh's post.

To talk about the fictional world in my Birthmarked trilogy, I must begin with a true story. A few years back, I took a road trip across the country with my family, and somewhere in Arkansas, we drove over a bridge where the river beneath was a dry gully. The next bridge spanned another dry river, and then we passed a lake that was as dry as a baseball diamond. Mile after mile the drought extended, and whenever we passed what was supposed to be water, it was another dusty, sloping void.

Until that drive, I had thought climate change was a doom that would happen in the distant future, to other generations, but it was suddenly right in my face. It freaked me out.

I began writing the Birthmarked trilogy because, in essence, I was afraid. I wanted to predict who could adapt and how they might do it. I wondered how much cutthroat self-preservation would be justified, and most of all, I wanted to believe that some of us would survive. Writing the novel let me delve in to my fear and search for something that could give me hope.

The story of Birthmarked takes place 400 years in the future on the north shore of Unlake Superior, after climate change. I take Minnesota, the state I grew up in, Land of 10,000 Lakes, and imagine all the water gone. I envision it as a wasteland that’s both beautiful and severe. I figure that certain smart, wealthy people prepare for the change by building the Enclave, a walled city with solar power, geothermal power, and deeply drilled wells. Inside the walls, they have education, technology, culture, and enough food, but they’ve miscalculated on one thing: how many people they need for diversity in their gene pool. Due to inbreeding, they’re having trouble with infertility and hemophilia. What they need is a most basic resource: more human genes.

Here’s where our heroine comes in. Gaia Stone, a young midwife, lives outside the wall in Wharfton, an impoverished community that exists in essentially medieval conditions, with no electricity or services. In exchange for rations of water and mycoprotein from the Enclave, Wharfton must surrender a quota of babies every month to the authorities inside the wall. Gaia accepts this system until the first time she helps a mother deliver a baby solo, and the mother objects to forfeiting her child. That same night, Gaia’s parents are arrested, and Gaia determines to rescue them from the Enclave.

As happens with world building, I found that the physical setting of the novel wove into the plot, and the shortage of resources underscored every choice that the characters made, individually and at a societal level. On one hand, the Enclave was lovely and thriving, but it hid the heartache of dying hemophiliacs and its citizens could stand by while a pregnant woman was hanged. I respected that people like Gaia would do almost anything to survive, and I could also grasp that the evil leader meant well when he justified his ruthless decisions. My story grounded in climate change was really about need, family, power, and fairness.

Of course, I’m still troubled by what’s happening with climate change, especially when I see that the populations that suffer the most are our poorest. Yet I also believe that we’re ingenuitive and compassionate, and our most important resource, as in my novel, is our humans. We are already the survivors.

Thank you so much, Caragh and Gina! Here's the full schedule for the Visions of the Future blog tour:

Monday, September 8
Andrew Smith
Cuddlebuggery

Tuesday, September 9
Caragh O’Brien
Finding Wonderland

Wednesday, September 10
Farel Dalrymple
The Book Wars

Thursday, September 11
Emmy Laybourne
Green Bean Teen Queen

Friday, September 12
Carrie Ryan
Forever YA

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Thursday Review: THE WRENCHIES by Farel Dalrymple

Click to embiggen. Totally worth it.Two things to get out there right away: 1. I received a review copy of this book from First Second, and 2. I'd definitely recommend this one for an older YA/crossover audience, due to some fright/violence/swearing moments.

I'll also come right out and say THIS: this one is WEIRD. It is surreal, and it is bizarre, and yes, it all holds together in an utterly take-it-as-it-comes, magic-realism sort of way. It is layered, stories within stories, meta upon meta. Sometimes it's confusing. Is it the story of Sherwood, a kid who walked into a cave with his brother, ended up killing a scary, zombie-esque Shadowsman and finding an amulet and never being the same again? Or is it the story of Hollis, kid-in-a-superhero-costume, decades later, next-door-neighbor to grown-up, alcoholic, troubled Sherwood? Or is it the story of the Wrenchies of the title, a gang of kids in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, fighting zombies until they reach their inevitable adulthood and become zombies themselves? (Hmm, symbolic, that…) Are the Wrenchies simply a comic book created by Sherwood, or are they real? YOU DECIDE. (No, really. And then come tell me, because I haven't decided what's real and what isn't, in this story…or maybe the point is NOT to know.)

Oh, and the artwork. The artwork! This one has some of the most memorable, amazing, jaw-dropping artwork I've seen in a comic in a while. Scratchy and dirty and grim, yet fully-realized and beautiful; horrifying and gorgeous by turns (and sometimes at the same time). There were so many individual panels, small and large, that I felt were just little stand-alone masterpieces on their own. I can't even imagine how long this one took to draw. Or how the writing proceeded, for that matter—in a way it's almost free-form, stream-of-consciousness, but it's got so many layers, and things do sort of come together in the end. Kind of.

If you like stories you can easily follow and know what's happening, The Wrenchies might not be for you. But if you don't mind taking a ride through a strange world, with a lonely young boy named Hollis as your sometime adventuring companion, there is some fascinating stuff here. It's just…super difficult to talk about.

You can find THE WRENCHIES by Farel Dalrymple online, or at an independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Get Your Bookish Opinions Heard!

That wig is BIG.Let's face it--we're all in this because we love children's and YA books. We read them. We write them. We want to talk about them until we drive everyone nuts within a 10-foot radius. But sometimes it seems like the people who really get to have their opinions heard are the ones we might call Bigwigs, the review outlets and official book awards (although whether they actually wear wigs of an outlandish size is unknown at this time). 

This is why YOU should be involved in the Cybils Awards. Yes, YOU! It's THE blogger-driven grassroots book award for children's and young adult books, and book apps, and right now their application for judges is open and just waiting for you to fill it out. It is so much fun, you get to read a ton of the year's best books, and it's US BLOGGERS--whether we're parents, teachers, writers, librarians, booksellers, whatever--who get to decide on the best of the year in a wide range of genres. We hash it out. The gloves are off. (Also the wigs.) So if you haven't applied to be a judge yet, go!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Toon Thursday: Exciting and New! (Like the Love Boat!)

Difficult as it may be to believe, somehow I managed to come up with a NEW CARTOON today. It's been a while, and for that I apologize. Plus it's one of the sort-of weak ones where I recycle the part I already drew, and just add new text. (Do other cartoonists do that? Or am I just SUPER lazy?)

Anyway, one other thing, in case you didn't know: the Cybils Awards call for judges is open, and if you're a blogger in the area of children's or YA lit, you should check it out! It is a really fun experience, and provides a lot of insight into what it's like to judge one of those fancy-schmancy book awards.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Blast from the Past: Last Year's KidLitCon

That's right--it's time for our weekly plug for this year's KidLitCon! (Are you going? Are you going? Are you going??? We are!!) This time, though, I thought I'd entice you by re-posting my recap of last year's conference in Austin, which was, as always, an amazing event. Here are a few photos and impressions, plus lots and lots about why this is one of my favorite kidlit events EVAR.

...I did want to post some pictures from KidLitCon Austin this weekend while I'm still riding high on the fabulousness of having gotten together with my blogging kindred spirits to compare notes on two of our favorite things: kidlit, and sharing kidlit.

Jen and Pam at the registration tableYou are all the most lovely people. We have such an amazing community, I can't believe it sometimes, but Kidlitcon always reminds me how incredible it is.

"Kindred spirits" is the two-word phrase Leila used when I asked my roundtable panel to describe what they felt was the greatest thing about the kidlitosphere. And I couldn't agree more. It's one of my favorite parts of the Kidlitcon experience. This year was no exception: sharing SFF opinions (and cringeworthy first lines) with roomie Charlotte, getting caught up with Lee Wind on his many wonderful projects (and his gorgeous family), meeting Paula of Pink Me's book-toting sons, renewing good friendships with regulars like Pam and Jen and Maureen and Melissa and Sheila and Kelly and Camille and Katy, finally meeting old blogging friends Chris Barton and Leila Roy and finding out that kindred spirits are everywhere. Oh, there's more, much more. Great conversations abounded. I met Jennifer Donovan of 5 Minutes for Books, Kelly's blog partner Kimberly Francisco over at Stacked, Sherry Early of Semicolon, Rosemond Cates of Big Hair and Books, authors Margo Rabb and PJ Hoover, serious blogging bigwig and all-around amazing person Jen Bigheart, Guys Lit Wire frequent commenter Liviania--aka Allie--of In Bed With Books.

Cynthia enlightens us on writing and blogging--a perfect start to the dayReally, that isn't even all of it. Did you know many a kidlit blogger is addicted to Candy Crush Saga? I seriously cannot start on that. I had a major Tetris addiction growing up, and have loved games like Mean Bean Machine and Jewelbox and Columns and whatnot. I'd lose weeks of my life.

Cynthia Leitich Smith is a GEM. We all knew that. But her keynote, "Blogging on the Brain," was not just a throwaway inspirational speech but full of heart and full of fantastic tips for all of us bloggers from someone who is an inveterate blogger herself, devoted to sharing information. I especially liked these:
Re: her own writing: "It was time to change perceptions or I couldn't write many of the stories I wanted to write."Re: building a successful blogging platform: "We associate consistency with credibility," and "You can build an audience by playing to your strengths." Re: the potential dangers of engaging with critics online: "Blogs are a battlefield, so pick your battles and pick them wisely."  Kimberly and Kelly of Stacked discuss the importance of critical reviewingJen and I presented on Fighting Blog Burnout, and hopefully sharing our stories and strategies was something others could relate to and benefit from. I moderated a panel on where we've been and where we're going, us folks in the kidlitosphere community. I learned about Soft Sell Marketing from Molly Blaisdell, who knew just how to pique my interest by using Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point as a point of departure. And I broadened my knowledge of Critical Reviewing and Middle Grade Books.

Blogging the Middle Grade Books with Katy, Charlotte, and MelissaAnd, of course, I came out of it feeling energized about blogging again, which is always one of the great benefits of attending. I feel like one of my big goals for after my rewrite is turned in will be to spend time thinking about my own blogging and what I want to do going forward, and to get my blog READING under control, too--getting back into it a little more, even if it's just in small ways.

Lastly, not to get overly sentimental here--because the curmudgeon in me hates that--but I got a little teary last night when I got home, thinking about how I have all these wonderful online friends and yet we live so far away from each other geographically speaking. At the same time, without our blogging we would never have met at all, would never have found this community of kindred spirits.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Drrrummm Rolllll.....

Just you wait until tomorrow.

I could not be more excited that the Cybils Awards are launching a BRAND-NEW-SUPER-DUPER-AWESOME website!

I helped out with the redesign, but most of the credit for the heavy lifting goes to Sheila of Wands and Worlds (who is the Cybils tech guru) and Jen Robinson, who is all-around talented and awesome.

There are so many great new features on the new site, including a mobile-friendly design, Twitter feed in the sidebar, popup finalist lists by year and category, and tons of info for bloggers, authors, and publishers. Oh, and it's on Wordpress now. It's going to be amazing. And there will be growing pains, but hopefully the sheer awesomeness will carry us through.

You'll also be able to buy new 2014 Cybils bling--in plenty of time for KidLitCon, hint hint... (I'm going! Are you going?) Anyway, don't forget to check out the new Cybils website tomorrow and let us know what you think.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Monday Review: THE FALCONER by Elizabeth May

I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I might, given that it has faeries, and I'm sort of burnt out at the moment on the whole faeries thing. But The Falconer by Elizabeth May does something new with the concept.

I'd describe it as…Charles de Lint meets Stoker & Holmes. Steampunk alternate history meets Old-World faery legends tinged with Scottish folklore. Throw in a dash of Highlander and a little Kill Bill, maybe a sprinkling of James Bond.

What you'll get is Aileana, age eighteen, eligible young Victorian lady, secret weapons tinkerer, and vengeful murderess of faeries. A malevolent faery killed her mother, and now Aileana has been training hard for one thing and one thing only: that day when she'll meet that faery and kill her. In the meantime, she's hunting down faeries one at a time in her city of Edinburgh, where new murderous faeries seem to pop up out of nowhere every night. Her secret life—the life of a Falconer—comes with fighting, thrills, a smart-mouthed and honey-addicted pixie, and a sense of power like none other.

But will that power be enough? And what happens when Aileana's proper, widowed, conveniently distant father gets wind of her unorthodox activities? Can she confide in anyone, other than her faery-fighting guru, Kiaran—who also happens to be a faery himself? This is a rather rollicking adventure, with lots of monster-defeating and valiant battles (yay for girls who kick ass!) as well as gadgets worthy of a James-Bond-style spymaster.

The story puts Aileana in the position of facing hard questions about friendship and loyalty—and how much one might have to give up for the sake of a personal vendetta. But there's also a strong running theme throughout concerning power and powerlessness: Aileana's power in her secret nighttime life versus her relative lack of power by day, confined by the mores of Victorian society; Aileana feeling powerful when killing faeries in contrast to her powerlessness in the face of her mother's death. While I didn't love the potential for a human-faery-human love triangle, that aspect of the story didn't necessarily head in the direction I expected, either. Overall, an enjoyable read and a vivid, fast-paced adventure.

Thanks to Chronicle Books for the review copy.

You can find The Falconer by Elizabeth May online, or at an independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Thursday Review: I AM THE MISSION by Allen Zadoff

When I reviewed the first book in The Unknown Assassin series, Boy Nobody (click here for full review), I said it was a great addition to the YA thriller genre and a good "boy book" despite having a somewhat unbelievable premise. What makes this series transcend any minor grumbles I might have with the premise is the growth of the character, as well as a very close narrative viewpoint that keeps the reader engaged and riveted throughout the action-packed plot.

The second book in the series is I Am the Mission, and it continues the story of Boy Nobody as he struggles to maintain his faith in the goals of the Program even as they send him on a new mission that's more dangerous than ever. Father and Mother—his shadowy Program mentors—want him to prove his loyalty, but he's caught in one impossible situation after another. His latest mission sends him to a recruitment event for an extremist militia training camp for teenagers, run by the subversive and dangerous Eugene Moore. Moore's the target, and "Daniel" (as he's known for the purposes of this mission) is supposed to take out the target and get out of there.

That goal turns out to be anything but straightforward, and Daniel makes the difficult decision to infiltrate Camp Liberty itself and get close to Moore that way. The only problem is, the Camp is cut off from all outside communication, and Father and Mother aren't answering his hails. What's going on? And how is their radio silence connected to the operative that went missing four months ago—after being assigned the very same mission?

As in the first book, Boy Nobody is faced with the tough reality that these are not just targets he's dealing with, but actual people, with complex problems and reasons for doing things that make them much more than one-sided villains. But the Program wants him to obey without question. Trouble is, Boy Nobody is full of questions…not just about his mission, but about himself, and the things he can't quite remember. This is a good, gripping sequel to the first book—in fact, I think I enjoyed it even more because the nature of the mission, the setting of the militia training camp, felt very topical and frighteningly believable.

You can find I Am the Mission by Allen Zadoff online, or at an independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Monday Review: OBSIDIAN MIRROR and THE SLANTED WORLDS by Catherine Fisher

You wouldn't necessarily think time travel, alternate worlds, mad science, and faeries would go together so well. But when it comes to Catherine Fisher, they really do. I loved her books Incarceron and the sequel Sapphique for their unique combination of both magical fantasy and sci-fi, and her latest project, the Chronoptika books Obsidian Mirror and The Slanted Worlds, has a similar feel in terms of seamlessly bringing together themes and even genres that don't traditionally go together in spec fic. Yet Fisher does it, and does it SO WELL.

Who is Oberon Venn? Explorer, iconoclast, mad scientist, wealthy recluse… Nobody really seems to know, not even Jake, whose father works for the elusive Mr. Venn. When Jake's father disappears while working on a strange set of experiments for Venn, Jake blames Venn and immediately goes AWOL from his Swiss boarding school to return to Venn's estate at Wintercombe Abbey and find out what's really going on. What he finds, though, is the obsidian mirror, which seems to be a portal to other times, other worlds. Is it scientific or is it magical? Again, it's mysterious, and seems to be a bit of both, and it just might be the key to finding Jake's father.

Jake isn't the only one interested in the mirror, though. We are also told part of the story through the viewpoint of Sarah, who has traveled back in time to prevent a disastrous future, and we soon learn that a whole array of parties want to control the mirror for their own ends: its former owner, Maskelyne, who is just as secretive as Venn, and a race of dangerous, fey beings who live on Venn's estate and with whom Venn has a connection he refuses to divulge. Where did the mirror come from, how did it get to where it is now, and what can Jake do to get his father back and keep the fabric of his world—and other worlds—from falling apart?

I can't tell you much without spoilers, but I will tell you that the characters are amazing: each one has a fully developed and intriguing backstory and each is believably flawed. Jake isn't fully likeable at first, and we hardly know Sarah or Venn or Maskelyne or any of the other oddball folks who begin to gather at the estate, and the fey are strange and inscrutable and selfish, but the characters all grow in complexity as the story proceeds through these two books, and as we learn more about each one's vested interest in the mirror and its powers. If you liked Incarceron, or Pete Hautman's Obsidian Blade; if you like Neil Gaiman or Nancy Farmer or Sarah Rees Brennan; if you like books that blend genres and are hard to categorize, I highly recommend this one.

You can find Obsidian Mirror and The Slanted Worlds by Catherine Fisher online, or at an independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.