Tag: Middle Grade

My favorite books from my childhood

As a kid I spent a lot of time reading to escape how boring reality was. For me, every book was a new adventure and as a kid living in a small town that was all I needed.

The very first chapter book that I read was “Because of Winn-Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo. I actually found this book while I was camping with my family at Moonshine park here on the Oregon coast. The book was down by the river, I picked it up and read the back. I was intrigued but afraid to take it because I didn’t want to steal it. So I left it there and when we went back the next day I picked it up and read a little bit. I repeated that process every day until we left. I then decided that the owner probably wasn’t coming back for it, so, I brought it home with me and finished it. To this day I am extremely fond of that book. I’ve always loved dogs and something about Winn-Dixie and his little smile won me over.

As a kid I also loved “The Hobbit” by the great J.R.R. Tolkien. I didn’t so much read this book but had it read to me. My grandmother read this book to my dad, then he read it to my brother and I, and I have every intention of reading it to Finn. It’s a family tradition at this point and it’s such a magical book, I feel like it really opened my mind to the fantasy genre. “The Hobbit” is like a really long and intense fairy-tale that embodies friendship, family, and adventure. I think it is an excellent novel to read to a child or read to yourself. I reread this book about once a year.

This next one is a little bit different, but I absolutely adored the “Young James Bond” series by Charlie Higson. I have always loved James Bond, my dad and I go see all of the Bond movies together. Higson wrote young Bond in a way that doesn’t come off as a cheesy, but very believable for the beloved spy. I honestly read those books so frequently that my copy of Silverfin, book one in the series, is absolutely wrecked. I actually got my copy of Silverfin on a whim while visiting the spy museum in Washington D.C., best souvenir I ever bought.

I couldn’t possibly leave out the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. I actually struggled with these books growing up. I had a hard time finishing The Order of The Phoenix because it was so long, it took three tries before I finished it. I read the last two books later in life mostly because I was tired of the bullying I received for reading Harry Potter at school. Luckily, times are a bit different and kids can like stuff like Harry Potter, Pokémon, and Star Wars without being bullied. Harry Potter will forever be my favorite kids series.

These are my all-time faves without a doubt in my mind. What did you read as a kid? Do you reread them often like I do? Let me know in the comments!

Grimworld By Avery Moray

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where ghosts and ghouls were the norm? Where you could run into a ghast walking home from school? If you are like me and have often wondered what a world filled with creatures of the night might be like then Grimworld is definitely for you!

This book is about a boy named Henry who becomes the victim of a Vytiper, a dark being that steals years off of your life for their own gain through the use of a cursed pocket watch. Henry ends up meeting Lang another victim just like him, with only weeks left to live, and together they must face ghouls and villains that they never dreamed of.

This book handles stress and the “race against time” plot device well. You can feel the dread of the boys’ impending doom on each page. Time is of the essence as Lang’s time dwindles before their eyes. With each tick of the pocket watch, his life approaches its end. You can feel it from the very beginning when Lang tells Henry:

“By the way,” he leaned forward and grabbed Henry’s watch, inspecting it, “looks like you’ll die in 10 years.”

This stress pushes further when you discover how close Lang is to the end and is pushed even further when you are informed that Lang already knows someone who has perished to the Vytiper.

Moray releases info on the Vytiper in small morsels that are easy to chew but keeps you guessing until the end. The boys must pick up all of the information on the Vytiper on their own because it is a recent entity in their world and no one has had the time to further research the beings. Most people don’t even know of the Vytiper’s existence. With that said the boys’ mission doesn’t feel hopeless, they are capable protagonists who take every logical step to save themselves. Not once does it feel like they are making unrealistic decisions for their age, I hate when characters are made over or under mature for their age group. One thing I really need to enjoy a book is likable and believable characters, Grimworld offers just that. While each character has their quirks they also have strengths that make them interesting and lovable, from the very beginning I was rooting for Henry and Lang.

I might add one more piece to my review, and that is the realistic and unrealistic balance of the antagonist. The predicament they are in is reasonable. Being faced with death is a scary idea and I am willing to bet that there is a frightening amount of people in this world who would be willing to sacrifice years of another person’s life for their own gain. So while the antagonist is an unrealistic entity that could only surface in our nightmares, it has a human quality that makes it even scarier. We are faced with not only the fear of the unknown but the known.

Grimworld is a one-sitting book that really captured my attention and has jump-started my excitement for Halloween. If you are looking for a spooky middle-grade novel then I suggest you check out Grimworld you will be impressed. I give this book a whopping 5/5 stars! As always thank you to NetGalley and I’d like to extend a huge thank you to John Hunt Publishing Ltd. for giving me access to this wonderful book.

The Ghost Collector by Allison Mills

The Ghost Collector is less about the collecting of ghosts and more about the grief process. It will make you cry in the best way.

The Ghost Collector is about a girl named Shelly who lives with her mother and her grandmother. Shelly’s family has the unique ability to catch ghosts in their hair. Shelly’s mother tries to protect her from that life while her grandmother nurtures Shelly’s fascination with ghosts. Shelly loves her family very much and they are very tight knit, ghost preferences aside, until one evening Shelly’s mom doesn’t make it home and they learn she has died in a car accident. Shelly has a hard time coping with the fact that her mother is gone and hasn’t reappeared as a ghost, so she takes to collecting ghosts in her room until it is full to the brim.

What I like about this book is that for the most part the ghosts aren’t frightening and Shelly’s grandma has a very humane way of viewing them. In this book they are treated like any other person or animal. It was a nice change of pace to the typical ghost story. You get to see mischievous ghost people and their bones to pick with death and a graveyards supply of mice that met their fate to some very productive cats. It is slightly comical while holding that melancholy tone.

Focusing on Shelly’s grief was such an unexpected aspect of this story. You can feel Shelly’s pain and frustration at losing and being unable to find her mother, it haunts her every step. She is so young and faced with a tremendous loss, the emotion is very genuine in The Ghost Collector. There is one point in the book where Shelly is confronting a ghost bird and says,

“Why?” Shelly demands, “Why you and not her? If a bird can be a ghost, why not her? Where did she go? Where does anyone go?”

That piece of dialogue hit me hard. She is still a grade schooler and she is faced with such intense life questions. Shelly is one of the only people in the world capable of speaking to and caring for the dead, yet, she can’t find her own dead mother anywhere. Why? Honestly the resolution of this story so heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. I won’t spoil it for you.

The other theme that I really liked and found unexpected was the depth of exploration this small book went into about the affects of a loss on a parent. Shelly’s grandma lost her daughter and is now faced with raising her granddaughter alone. Shelly’s grandma, pre-car accident, hardly charged anything to clear ghosts from peoples’ homes but now she is forced to charge people and be more careless about the dead, and breaks her own set-in-stone rules. This has a major affect on Shelly, she thinks if grandma can break rules she can break rules. The cause and effect in this story is very clear and everything grandma does trickles down to Shelly. That’s how Shelly ends up collecting ghosts, she sees that grandma can break her own rules so why can’t Shelly hoard a few ghosts in her bedroom?

My only complaint about this book is that the perspective is difficult to read at first. it feels like the point of view should be different. It’s written in 3rd person but really feels like it should be written in 1st person. This story is all about Shelley and with the 3rd person perspective it feels like it is being narrated by an outsider. The words felt weird in my head when I began reading, and they threw me out of the story a few times. In comparison to the impact of this story this is a relatively small complaint but it something I had to get off of my chest.

The Ghost Collector has easily earned itself 4/5 stars in my book. This story is tragic yet beautiful, and it will make you shed some tears. Thank you to NetGalley and Annick Press Ltd. for giving me the opportunity to review The Ghost Collector.

The Malamander by Thomas Taylor

The Malamander reminds me of a cross between A Series Of Unfortunate Events and Lovecraftian horror. This book is perfectly strange and creepy while not crossing the boundary into adult horror. The Malamander is a middle grade novel and it does a good job of keeping with that age group.

The Malamander is about Herbert Lemon a kid who washed up in a lemon crate in the town of Eerie-on-sea, he is the Lost-and-founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel. He is very good at his job but life flips upside down when he meets Violet Parma, a girl his age who also has a history at The Grand Nautilus Hotel. Together they embark on an adventure to find Violet’s missing parents that leads them into the den of the Malamander.

The contrast between Herbert and Violet makes the perfect mystery partnership, Violet is fearless and stubborn while Herbert is extremely intelligent but fearful. Together they complete the duo and are a force to be reckoned with. They unravel the mystery of the Malamander and find clues that very well could lead to Violet’s parents. I enjoyed the relationship between the two protagonists, they keep each other going. Violet encourages Herbert to keep going even when he is scared out of his pants, and Herbert uses his knowledge to keep Violet on the right track. The characters flowed together seamlessly and it made the book enjoyable.

Something that I think works well in kids novels is the use of clever character names. In The Malamander we have Mr. Mollusc, Sebastian Eels, Mrs. Fossil, and Mr. Seegol. The names are nautical themed and also reveal something about each character. This is something I have poked fun at in adult books but for work aimed at middle graders I think it was done well. This works because it is fun and makes the characters easier to remember for younger audiences, plus it’s a little funny.

This book is creepy enough for its young audience but not so creepy that a child will be afraid to sleep, and to me that awareness of audience is something to be admired. Here is an example of one of the “scary” scenes:

Where its eyes should be, there are two enormous pale reflectors. They blink, twice. Then it moves off– darting from its crouch and springing along the murky foreshore at great speed, its feet slap, slap, slapping as it vanishes in a swirl of mist.

The description is creepy but not horrifying, I like that and the imagery used by Taylor is so easy to see. With every description you can see the characters and the scenery they live in. I found that Taylor’s writing swallowed me whole and spit me out in the strange town of Eerie-on-sea. Not only is Taylor wonderful at setting scene, but he is accompanied by the illustrator Tom Booth who breathes life into each character. Unfortunately, because this is an ARC, I didn’t get to see all of Booth’s illustrations but from what I did see I was strongly reminded of Tim Burton. The characters are dark and gloomy but there is still something heart-warming about them.

This book is a fairly short read and I could imagine a teacher reading this book to their class for Halloween. It’s quick, entertaining, and I could see myself reading this to my son when he is older. The Malamander really impressed me and in my eyes deserves a 5/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book and also thank you to Candlewick Press for granting me access to The Malamander.