Jinx
Sage Blackwood. Harper, $16.99 ISBN
978-0-06-212990-1
In a story with strong middle-grade appeal, Jinx has grown up in the Urwald, an
enormous, sentient forest where humans
exist on sufferance, safe only in their own
clearings and the paths between them.
Trolls and werewolves prowl the Urwald,
as do dangerous witches and wizards.
After Jinx’s brutal stepfather decides to
abandon him in the forest, the boy is
saved by a crusty, morally ambiguous
wizard named Simon, who takes him in as
a servant, eventually teaching him some
magic. Years later, a 12-year-old Jinx and
two new friends set off to find another
wizard, the monstrous Bonemaster, in
hopes he can help them overcome their
respective magical troubles. Blackwood, a
pseudonym for writer Karen Schwabach
(The Storm Before Atlanta), fills her tale
with drama and delightfully funny dialogue (“You could have told us you had a
curse on you that made you have to tell
the truth,” Jinx complains at one point).
Jinx is an engaging and memorable hero,
and adult characters like Simon, the Bonemaster, and the witch Dame Glammer
(who rides a butter churn) are entertainingly eccentric. Ages 8–12.
Listening for Lucca
Suzanne LaFleur. Random/Lamb,
$16.99 ISBN 978-0-385-74299-3
At night,
13-year-old Siena
has dreams about a
house overlooking
the ocean, as well as
wartime imagery
including plane
crashes and sinking
ships; scarier still,
visions of the past
are bleeding into Siena’s waking life. As a
result, Siena has alienated her friends and
taken to collecting abandoned objects.
Meanwhile, Siena’s three-year-old brother,
Lucca, hasn’t spoken in a year and a half,
and her parents move the family from
Brooklyn to Maine (into a house that re-
sembles the one from Siena’s dreams) in
hopes that both children’s behavior will
return to normal. But the grand old house
on Ocean Drive feels haunted, and al-
though Siena makes new friends, her at-
tention is drawn back to her worries and
the discovery that her visions and dreams
are tied to Sarah, a girl who lived in the
house during WWII. Questions of how
Sarah is connected to Siena and whether
Lucca will speak again swirl throughout
this insightful, delicate tale. LaFleur
(Eight Keys) offers an enticing blend of
history, mystery, and family, perfect for
fans of Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach
Me. Ages 8–12.
Pi in the Sky
Wendy Mass. Little, Brown, $17 ISBN
978-0-316-08916-6
“Life in The Realms has fallen into a
sort of ‘been there, done that’ kind of routine” for Joss, the seventh and least skilled
son of the Supreme Overlord of the Universe. The Realms occupy the dark matter
of the universe and keep the whole thing
running; Joss’s job is to deliver pies for
the Powers That Be (PTB), pies that hold
“the very fabric of the universe together.”
When 12-year-old Earth resident Annika
accidentally spots a pie baker in the
Realms, the PTB rip Earth and its solar
system out of the space-time continuum,
effectively revoking its existence (“This
way it’s nice and neat, and we don’t have
that nagging guilt at killing off a five-billion-year-old planet,” says Joss’s father
proudly). Annika herself somehow appears in the Realms, and she and Joss
must recreate the entire solar system
from the ground up. Full of fascinating
science and clever humor, Mass’s (The
Candy-makers) story shines as bright as
the stars of Joss’s universe. A high-stakes
extraterrestrial adventure that’s as exciting as it is fun. Ages 8–12.
The Reluctant Assassin
Eoin Colfer. Hyperion, $17.99 ISBN
978-1-4231-6162-2
Readers mourning the end of the Arte-
mis Fowl series can take heart: this first
book in the time-bending W.A.R.P. se-
ries is an all-out blast. And its stars—17-
year-old Chevie Savano, a quasi-disgraced
FBI agent (of sorts), and Riley, the reluc-
tant young assassin of the title—are every
bit as dynamic as Artemis and Holly. Af-
ter a bungled mis-
sion, Chevie has
been sent to Lon-
don where she is
“babysitting a met-
al capsule,” which
she learns is one
end of a wormhole
to the year 1898,
when Riley (and a
corpse) materialize, direct from the Vic-
torian era. Riley has been raised by Al-
bert Garrick, a magician turned killer-
for-hire; as Garrick follows Riley to the
present day, intent on changing the
course of history, Riley and Chevie must
use every bit of their expertise to take
him down. Colfer blends grisly moments
of horror, sharply funny dialogue, science
fiction spectacle, and characters with
depth to create a story that strikes the
ideal balance between escapist fun and
thoughtful commentary on the ways his-
tory, both personal and global, can shape
a person. Ages 10–up.
Song of the Quarkbeast
Jasper Fforde. Harcourt, $16.99 ISBN
978-0-547-73848-2
“Big Magic,” which had been in serious decline in the Ununited Kingdom,
returned at the end of The Last Dragonslayer, the first installment in Fforde’s
Chronicles of Kazam. Now that magical
power is on the rise again, the despotic
King Snodd IV hopes to cash in, specifically by putting the wizards who work at
Kazam Mystical Arts Management under
his control by proposing they merge with
iMagic, the rival house led by the Amazing Blix, a questionable character with a
new royal appointment: Court Mystician.
“Over our dead bodies,” pretty much
sums up the Kazam staff’s reaction, and
no one is more resolute than 16-year-old
Jennifer Strange, the foundling who has
been running Kazam since the Great
Zambini’s disappearance. Challenged to a
magic duel that will decide their fate,
Jennifer and her (mostly) lovable cast of
misfits must rely more on wits than on
wands to preserve their independence.
It’s not essential to have read the first
book to enjoy this one, but those who enjoyed the witty wordplay and whacked-
