New Books Roundup

If you follow us on Instagram, you know that we try to review a new (or newish!) book every week, but since not everyone is on Instagram, we try to do an occasional roundup of those reviews here, too. Here’s what we’ve been reading as spring rolls into summer:

The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆

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We love Jacklyn Moriarty around here, and The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone is no exception. Ten-year-old Bronte’s parents abandoned her when she was a baby to go off on adventures, so when she receives news of their death by pirates, it barely disrupts her afternoon tea. Their last wishes shake things up, though: Bronte has a very specific list of instructions (including where to stop and what to eat), directing her to deliver ten gifts to her ten aunts in all corners of their magical kingdom. And not all Bronte’s aunts are of the afternoon tea-taking variety: one is veterinarian for dragons, one is a former rock-n-roller who now rules a kingdom, two of them captain a wild cruise ship, and all of them seem to share a little of Bronte’s parents’ adventure seeking spirit. Bronte must travel alone and she must accomplish the mission — because if she doesn’t, the fairy magic woven into her parents’ will will destroy her hometown. As Bronte travels across the magical realms, she makes peace with the fact that her parents abandoned her, learns to speak dragon, rescues an aunt imprisoned for pepper pot theft, makes friends with water sprites, and discovers that there’s a whole wide world out there waiting to be explored. The wistful, fairy tale tone and magical setting make this book feel both old-fashioned and contemporary at the same time. #hslreads #hslmag #librarychicken #minibookreview

A post shared by home/school/life Magazine (@hsl_mag) on May 18, 2020 at 7:47am PDT

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We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices edited by Wade Hudson ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

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One thing I struggle with these days is how to help my children make sense of a world that feels increasingly divided. Apparently, I’m not the only one, because fifty different children’s authors and illustrators contributed to this anthology that is equal parts emotional sustenance and call to action. These are challenging times to live through and even more challenging times to parent through, and this collection feels like a welcome resource. “What shall we tell you when our world sometimes seems dark and uninviting? / What shall we tell you when hateful words that wound and bully are thrown like bricks against a wall, shattering into debris?” asks Wade Hudson in the opening poem of We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices. It's a good question, and I think this collection proposes some good starting points for finding answers. #minibookreview #hslreads #hslmag

A post shared by home/school/life Magazine (@hsl_mag) on May 22, 2020 at 6:08am PDT

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Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆

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I've had Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow on my TBR for ages now, but one of my friends ( @hippiechickhomeschool ) mentioned it again recently, and I decided to bump it to the top of the list. I'm glad I did! I definitely see why so many people dig this series: Nevermoor is the first book, and in it, cursed child Morrigan Crow is nominated for membership in an exclusive magical society. Being a cursed child is terrible: Morrigan gets blamed for every rained-out picnic, stomachache, and burned pudding in her part of the world, her family shuns her, and she knows she's doomed to die on the first day of the new year. Instead, she's scooped up by adventurer-about-town Jupiter North, who smuggles her into Nevermoor as his prospective member of the Wunder Society. Morrigan is just an ordinary girl — she doesn't have any of the special skills the other competitors have — but Jupiter assures her it's no problem. If she can get through the welcome garden party, the book trial, the chase trial, and the fright trial, he'll help her through the last trial — the one that requires her to have that "knack" — no problem. Morrigan does her best — and her best turns out to carry her surprisingly far — but she wonders if she wouldn't have been better off taking the offer from the mysterious Wunder manufacturer Ezra Squall, whose assistant Mr. Jones keeps popping up to remind Morrigan that option is still open. Even so, Morrigan starts to feel at home at the curious Hotel Deucalion, where her room changes every night with her mood, and she's discovering that people actually like her for the first time — well, people like Jupiter, Martha the hotel maid, the famous singer Dame Chanda Kali, and her fellow competitor Hawthorne, but also mysterious creatures like the Magnificat Fenestra and Frank the vampire dwarf. Morrigan would like to stay — but she has no knack to show off, and as the final competition draws closer, she grows more and more worried that she'll have to return to the real world — and her doom. (Continued in the comments!)

A post shared by home/school/life Magazine (@hsl_mag) on May 25, 2020 at 7:46am PDT

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Max and the Midknights by Lincoln Peirce ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆

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The creator of Big Nate time travels to the 14th century for Max & the Midknights, a medieval comedy about a girl who wants to be a knight. Peirce’s hybrid style — part comic, part novel — works well for this playful tale, though like the Big Nate series, it’s a little heavy on quippy humor in some places. Max works with her Uncle Budrick as a reluctant apprentice bard, but in her heart, she knows she’s meant to be a knight. So when her uncle is conscripted into King Ghastley’s service as a jester, she launches into action save her uncle and the whole kingdom, too. With the help of a new group of friends, Max sets off on a series of adventures that will pit her against a sorceress, introduce her to a dragon, and ultimately restore the true king to the throne. This is a fun story with a plucky female protagonist, but I have to admit that I was a little put off by the running gag of people thinking Max is a boy — and they way she removes her helmet to show her ponytail and “prove” she’s a girl. I’m not sure why, but this feels weirdly gendered in a way that slightly undermines the “anybody can be a knight” message of the book. It makes a great talking point though if you’re reading with your kids. #hslreads #minibookreview #hslmag

A post shared by home/school/life Magazine (@hsl_mag) on May 31, 2020 at 7:03am PDT

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The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆

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History and its authors are the real protagonists of The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, a novel about two bumbling scholars: uptight elf Brangwain whose historical research is a cover for a spot of elfin espionage and goblin archivist Werfel who is determined not to lose his objectivity. Their alternating narratives are a college of cultural misunderstandings and confusions that push their kingdoms to the brink of war. The delightfully detailed illustrations add to the charm of this novel, which is a mash-up of Tolkien and Edward Gorey with a little Cold War paranoia thrown in for good measure. Brangwain and Werfel are delightful nerdy heroes who can’t help slowly realizing that they like each other, despite every prejudice they’ve grown up with. When I read that Anderson and Yelchin had teamed up, I hoped for the best — and this delivered. #bookreview #hslmag #booknerd #hslreads #bookstagram #theassassinationofbrangwainspurge

A post shared by home/school/life Magazine (@hsl_mag) on Jun 2, 2020 at 6:27am PDT

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The Night Country by Melissa Albert ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

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Alice Three-Times has found her way back to the real world in The Night Country, but she’s constantly reminded that the real world isn’t her world, especially when a murderer starts targeting Hinterland refugees. Meanwhile, Ellery — who stayed behind in the Hinterland — has been traveling from world to world, getting further and further from his real life — and Alice — as he chases the promise of a new world. This is a grim fairytale (get it?) continuation of The Hazel Wood, peopled with the same creepy cast of twisted fairy tale characters and the same storytelling tendency to coil ever inward, winding deeper into itself so that unexpected parts suddenly connect. This is definitely YA — sex, drugs, alcohol, and murders in bathtubs — but if you like lingering, atmospheric horror, this is a good pick. I liked The Hazel Wood better, but I’ve always liked the “once upon a time” part the best. #bookreview #hslmag #booknerd #hslreads #bookstagram #thenightcountry

A post shared by home/school/life Magazine (@hsl_mag) on Jun 5, 2020 at 6:06am PDT

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The Language of Spells by Garret Weyr ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

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I have avoided reviewing The Language of Spells because while I liked it, it’s hard for me to recommend it, especially in the world right now. This book is sad sad SAD (and not to spoil anything, but I feel this is essential info: There is no happy ending to brighten things up). And I mean, okay, this is what you would expect in a book that is really a big metaphor for the Holocaust: A lonely Viennese girl teams up with a dragon to solve the biggest mystery of World War II and figure out what happened to all the dragons. You’re plunged into an alternate magical world, where cats can run government agencies and dragons can spend decades trapped inside a teapot, and it’s a thrilling plunge. It’s alternate history! And magic! And lonely girls finding their people (or, you know, dragons) for the first time. And yet. This is definitely a book that has something to say about the horrors of the Holocaust and the way humans treat each other, but I’m not sure it actually ever manages to say it. (It doesn’t help, I think, that the book doesn’t acknowledge the actual Holocaust in any real way.) It’s a quest story, but the quest is really a thinking kind of quest more than a doing kind of quest, and because of this, the pace of the book is slower than you might expect from the synopsis. And again, it’s sad, really sad, right through to the end. This all sounds like I didn’t like it, but I actually did. I’m just finding it hard to think of a specific person I’d recommend a slow-paced, sad, middle grades book to right now. But if it sounds like your thing, it’s definitely worth putting on the hold list! #bookreview #hslmag #booknerd #hslreads #bookstagram

A post shared by home/school/life Magazine (@hsl_mag) on Jun 8, 2020 at 6:25am PDT

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