New Books: Book Scavenger
If you know me, you know that I am a sucker for books about readers. (See also: Possession, Inkheart, the Thursday Next chronicles.) So when I read the concept for this book — a girl who’s obsessed with a global book-hunting online game and who may have discovered the first clue in its founder's new, hotly anticipated literary game — I was sold. Book Scavenger, you had me at ‘hello.’”
Happily, the book is pretty charming even if you aren’t obsessed with books set in the world of reading. Twelve-year-old Emily has just moved to San Francisco, her family’s ninth move and part of her parents’ blog-chronicled plan to live in all 50 states. Emily, unlike her freewheeling older brother Matthew, yearns to stay in one place long enough to get bored and make real friends — but every time a place starts to feel like home, her parents start loading up the minivan for their next adventure. Fortunately Emily has Book Scavenger wherever she goes, an online game where participants hide books, leaving clues for other Scavengers to find them — the more complicated the clue, the better. In Emily’s mind, the one good thing about moving to San Francisco is that it’s the home of Book Scavenger creator Garrison Griswold, who’s getting ready to announce his next big game. Maybe being in Griswold’s city will give her an edge.
To her surprise, Emily discovers that San Francisco isn’t such a bad place to live. She even makes a friend, her upstairs neighbor James who turns out to be a puzzle-solving pro. After Griswold is attacked at a BART station and hospitalized, Emily finds a curious book near the site of the attack that she thinks might be the first clue in Griswold’s now-delayed new game. With James’s and Matthew’s help, Emily starts to follow to clues, leading her through San Francisco’s literary history. Along the way, she runs into more than one roadblock, including two shady characters determined to get their hands on the Griswold book and the challenges of learning how to be a real friend when she's used to going it alone.
Book Scavenger is a fun read with nicely developed characters and lots of literary inside jokes. (Em’s parents, for instance, named their minivan Sal after a Kerouac character.) It’s targeted at middle grades readers, who will probably appreciate it, but I think younger and older kids who enjoy books like The Mysterious Benedict Society or The Puzzling World of Winston Breen will enjoy it, too.
Looking for a middle grades fantasy for your next homeschool readaloud? We review three of our newer faves: The Time of Green Magic, Amari and the Night Brothers, and The Language of Ghosts.
Three action-packed YA novels that might just scratch your homeschool reading sweet spot.
In this funny, old-fashioned story, two Dalmatian parents set off to rescue their kidnapped puppies. It's so much more fun than the movie!
A wintry middle grades mystery that may remind you a little of The Westing Game.
In this sweet winter story, a friendly troll reminds a farm full of creatures that spring is coming.
Thanksgiving gets weird when a butcher mishap leads a kid to a 266-pound chicken.
A book with a homeschooling scientist as the main character and lots of cool geology facts? We love to see it.
Libraries! Puzzles to solve! Witty book references! While you shouldn’t look for nuanced character development, you’ll be so busy running around the library with Kyle and his allies to crack codes and unpuzzle puzzles, you will hardly miss it.
Hudson’s got a troll curse to break, and if he wants to get back to normal, he’s going to have to team up with hist not-normal-at-all neighbor Charlotte. Charlotte, though, is on a mission of her own: to restore the vanished Princess to the throne and get rid of the evil usurper Prince Varygran once and for all. Along the way, they’ll run into punctuation markets, marauding encyclopedias, unicorns, mermaids, magic, and more.
I don’t know how we get from where we are to where we want to be, but art and asking hard questions is not a bad start.
The Accidental Apprentice is a real middle grades charmer, and I’m delighted it’s the first in a series. Kids who love Pokemon, How to Train Your Dragon, Fablehaven will appreciate the secret magical world inhabited by Lore Keepers, who bond with and train the world’s magical creatures. It’s a great magical world with thoughtful organization, peopled with interesting characters and creatures.
Karma Moon, Ghost Hunter is a middle grades Ghost Hunters, and I’m here for it.
Life at the orphanage is pretty horrible for 12-year-old Mary, so she’s thrilled when a super-nice lady appears, insisting that Mary is the only girl for her. Mary’s even more thrilled when it seems that the super-nice lady only wants to feed her delicious food, buy her pretty clothes, and give her plenty of time to read and play. It seems almost too good to be true. And, of course, it is. Or, at least, it might be. The Door by the Staircase is an engaging middle grades fantasy book that deeply explores what makes a family.
What if the lost civilization of Atlantis was really the ancient Minoan civilization on Crete? That’s the jumping off point for this book, in which an inventor’s daughter gets caught up in a recognizable-but-distinctly-different take on the story of the Minotaur and Daedalus.
Surely I am not the only person who has imagined what it would be like to randomly inherit a castle in Scotland? With bonus birding adventures.
I read this book at a time when I really needed to believe that one person, or a few people, could make a real difference — could make the world a better place. I would have loved this series for giving me that feeling alone, but it was also a deliciously tangled mystery, full of complicated people and challenging puzzles and the possibility of building community in unexpected ways.
This is a tender, nuanced portrait of finding that balance between hope and clear-eyedness that we need in all of our close relationships. Recommended.
Here’s the thing: We have put a lot of pressure on this next generation. We have made a mess, and they are going to have to clean it up. That’s a heavy burden to carry before you even have your driver’s license, and I think it’s one that Riley Redgate handles really well in Alone Out Here.
I am clearly the target audience for a middle grades boarding school novel about taking down the patriarchy through education and fabric crafting, so I am happy to say I really enjoyed this lovely little fantasy. I recommend it.
Omakayas’s adventures continue as she and her family search for a new home.
Amy Sharony is the founder and editor-in-chief of home | school | life magazine. She's a pretty nice person until someone starts pluralizing things with apostrophes, but then all bets are off.
AMY SHARONY is the founder and editor-in-chief of home | school | life magazine. She's a pretty nice person until someone starts pluralizing things with apostrophes, but then all bets are off.