with illustrations by Johnalynn Holland and an afterword by Tiffany Momon.
As Black History Month draws to a close, I decided to leapfrog past the other books in my schedule to make sure that I could provide coverage for this important title while the month is still ongoing. And this is a very important title, preserving and illuminating American history and the contributions of Black American artisans to the crafting traditions of this country, while presenting all its information in a highly accessible and engaging manner.
Robell Awake carefully chooses ten iconic items and succinctly discusses the artisans and traditions behind them. Whether discussing something as well-known and inarguably attributed to the Black community as the Gee’s Bend Quilts, to the equally famous wedding dress of Jacqueline Kennedy and its less publicized couturier Anne Lowe, to the very design of American porches, Mr Awake goes over the myriad ways in which enslaved people and their descendants made an outsized impact on American craftsmanship. Lamentably, too many of these contributions were either minimized or whitewashed, with white slave owners often taking credit for the work of those they exploited, as in the case of the furniture-maker who went by the single name Boston. Both he and the ceramicist known as Dave the Potter risked harsh punishment for even signing their works, in a time when it was illegal for Black people to be literate. As Mr Awake describes the items and the circumstances under which they were produced, he also paints a vivid picture of what it was like to be Black in America, and how that legacy is felt in and continues to the present day.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/26/a-short-history-of-black-craft-in-ten-objects-by-robell-awake/
If you like murder mysteries and speculative fiction, this Spring has a bunch of books that will appeal! Murders in fantasy empires, generation ships, fantasy empires, and … other fantasy empires. There may be a theme here?
The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison is a satisfying conclusion to the Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy that began with The Witness for the Dead and continued in The Grief of Stones. It comes out March 11th from Tor.
I remember when The Witness for the Dead was coming out, I had a lot of conversations with other fans of Katherine Addison’s book The Goblin Emperor about it. Of course we were all excited to return to the world of The Goblin Emperor, but many of us were also a little puzzled that Thara Celehar, Sad Man with a Tragic Job who is only on the page briefly, was going to be the hero of a new series. Now that we are concluding Thara’s trilogy, I feel like his appeal has grown on me for all three books!
In The Tomb of Dragons, not all of the interpersonal stuff in the trilogy is wrapped up exactly how I’d like it to be? But it is indeed all wrapped up. Thara Celehar is dealing with the fallout from The Grief of Stones, and trying to do several jobs all at once, ethically, and kindly. I think many of us can sympathize with that. The murder mystery aspect is not really at the forefront of this one. As usual, Celehar is surrounded by more people who care about him and respect him than he believes, and that’s always a cozy time, even though the actual events that befall him are often harrowing. As my smart friend Levi commented about Thara Celehar, ““truly here is a man who has not fucked around all that much and is incessantly finding out regardless.” By the end of the book I felt both that this trilogy had concluded in a satisfying way, and that the characters are embarking on greater adventures to come. I look forward to seeing what Katherine Addison will introduce us to next in this world!
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/25/speculative-mysteries-coming-soon/
subtitled Solve Your Way Through 40 Puzzle Mysteries!
I’m about to admit something deeply embarrassing for a puzzle aficionado: I think regular Murdle is too hard. Perhaps that is not even the best way to describe my reservations regarding the online game. I just think that certain information is implied in a way that requires a leap of deduction far too great for any puzzle that purportedly relies on logic. For an example from a recent mini-Murdle, we’re told that the murder occurred in a historic building. Of the three possible locations, one is the history building with “so much history that you spend most of the history classes studying it” (so an obvious candidate) while another is The Old Main, which is described as “The first building on campus, the most important, and the least maintained.” That sounds like a very historic building to me but was not, apparently, a plausible answer according to the site. Perhaps I am being overly pedantic, but that’s the kind of thing that bugs me enough to make me decline to add Murdle to the list of quick brainteaser games I play on the daily.
Luckily, Murdle Jr. does not seem to have this problem, at least not in this first volume of the series geared towards Junior Detectives. In a book of 40 puzzles, there was only one that I thought relied on an assumption that was not necessarily founded in the text. Otherwise I had no quibble with the logic of it all. Perhaps more importantly, having all the puzzles tied together with an overarching story very much enhances the charm of the book, as we get to know our four budding sleuths and follow along as they solve dastardly crimes, both individually and together.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/24/murdle-jr-vol-1-curious-crimes-for-curious-minds-by-g-t-karber/
Since Rivers of London was first published in 2011, the series has grown to nine novels, five novellas, and 12 graphic novels. Along the way, Aaronovitch wrote a fair number of shorter stories that were set in the world of the series; sometimes he was asked to write them, as when Waterstone’s published special editions of some of the novels, and sometimes he wrote smaller bits that were complete on their own and did not need to go into a larger work. Tales From the Folly collects a baker’s dozen of these. Six are Peter Grant stories, seven feature other characters in the leading role. They are all quite short — the longest is just over 30 pages — and three are what he calls “moments,” something “more of a mood than a story, something that will last a page or two and conjure an atmosphere.” Aaronovitch closes the collection with those three, and they make a good coda. He says he included them for completeness, but I think that they do more than that. They demonstrate one of the strengths of the series: that all of the characters are more than what gets shown on the page, that things keep happening to them when they are not the focus of the Aaronovitch’s narratives.
Aaronovitch is right that Tales From the Folly is not a good place to start reading the series. The stories are too short to give much context about the interconnected characters of his magical London, although the four that were introductions to the special Waterstone’s editions are good about whetting the appetite for a longer story. “That’s great! More, please” was my reaction to each of them. If, for some reason, you are reading this review and considering diving in but aren’t sure where to start, begin at the hilarious and enthralling beginning and enjoy the whole ride.
One of the hallmarks of the series that’s present from the start and continues all the way through to this collection is Arronovitch’s deep and specific love for London. It is a patchwork, contradictory and many-layered place. Aaronovitch can’t get enough of it, warts and all, and happily he shares that enthusiasm with his readers, as in this bit from the collection’s first story “The Home Crowd Advantage.”
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/22/tales-from-the-folly-by-ben-aaronovitch/
You can say a lot of things about movie adaptations, but you can’t deny how great they are for bringing books back into public attention.
The Wild Robot totally passed me by when it was first published almost a decade ago, so getting the movie tie-in from a publicist’s box was a nice little surprise. Peter Brown’s first children’s novel is a charming tale that deftly presents an entirely plausible future where humanity’s reliance on technology (and, more subtly, disregard for climate change) has created a strange but not unfamiliar world.
Rozz is a robot whose crate gets washed up on a remote island during transit. A playful troupe of otters accidentally awakens her by pressing down on the button in the back of her head. Rozz is initially confused, but her survival programming leads her to swiftly set herself to the task of learning about her surroundings.
The temperate island is bucolic and pristine, as the only inhabitants are wild animals. All of these animals treat Rozz with suspicion, despite her best efforts to learn about and communicate with them. When Rozz accidentally gets caught in a rockslide that destroys a pair of geese and their nest, she finds herself in custody of the sole surviving egg. Her attempts to raise the little hatchling eventually encourage the animals of the island to assimilate her into their ecosystem.
But danger lurks, as a possessive corporation becomes aware of her survival. Will Rozz and her new friends be able to secure her freedom?
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/21/the-wild-robot-by-peter-brown/
I deeply appreciate what Michael Toledo is trying to do with this collection of short stories, interspersed with several illuminating autobiographical entries. The parts that were written with young readers in mind are trying hard to reach them at their level, especially the at-risk kids like Cielo in Grandfather To Granddaughter and Gracie in Heart. You can tell that Mr Toledo feels really passionately about his time in social work, and how he’s been called to help young people not only survive but thrive.
I do think that this collection would have gained so much through the services of both an editor and a beta reader tho. Aside from the basic grammatical corrections, an editor likely would have recommended that the entirety of Part 2 be saved for another book. While the idea of a middle-aged couple seeking to outdo each other in a contest of who can be more loving to one another is outstanding, the actual depiction feels discomfitingly out of place in a book that had previously been aimed at younger readers. The tone shift is just too jarring, even coming on the heels of the first autobiographical essay that closes out Part 1.
That essay (titled either The Dream And The Dreamer or The Dreamer And The Dream, depending on whether you’re looking at the Table Of Contents or the chapter heading itself) starts out appropriately enough in its description of the author’s childhood. Unfortunately, it devolves into what I fear are borderline libelous accusations about people whom he clearly still holds a grudge against. All the stuff about mentally ill ex-wives and cheating bosses could have been excised and saved for another, more adult book: including them here only dilutes the effect of trying to give hope to troubled kids.
Fortunately, Part 3 is a return to the YA tone, with Mi Familia/My Family especially being a great story for teen readers. Even the closing story, Father To Son, feels like it fits thematically. While both of the characters here are older, they’re neither of them terribly mature, so the struggle between them feels quite relatable to a teen audience.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/20/be-limitless-be-love-by-michael-toledo/
In my quest to read all of Diana Wynne Jones’s books in one year, this month I read Castle in the Air, Aunt Maria, A Sudden Wild Magic and Hexwood!
Honestly, it was a big month. Those are some hefty ones, and I think Hexwood is among her very best. It’s a high bar!
Castle in the Air (1990)
Castle in the Air takes place in the same world as Howl’s Moving Castle, and some of our beloved characters from Howl make cameo appearances. The main character and setting, however, are quite different. In Howl, Diana Wynne Jones comments on European fairytale tropes, with protagonist Sophie making assumptions about what life might be available to her based on who gets to have adventures in stories. In Castle in the Air, Diana Wynne Jones is similarly commenting on story assumptions, but this time she is working with the British consumption of “Eastern” stories, especially from the Thousand and One Nights. Her protagonist Abdullah is a rug merchant who falls in love with a beautiful maiden, secluded in a garden by her wealthy father, and hijinks ensue. There’s a roadtrip, and a chaos-loving genie.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/19/a-year-of-diana-wynne-jones-the-early-1990s/
Matty is a grade-schooler who loves making homemade slime with his parents. When he gets permission to demonstrate how to make slime in art class at school, he’s super excited! He packs enough ingredients so that all his classmates can get some slime to take home with them, and repeats to himself the simple recipe his parents taught him: glue, baking soda, saline — and pizzazz!
His art teacher is at first a little perturbed by the sheer amount of slime Matty is planning on making. But Matty assures her that he knows what he’s doing… until he doesn’t. Examining the waves of sticky goop he’s unleashed in class, he realizes that he’s forgotten the saline! His classmates try to come up with creative ideas to sop up the mess that’s threatening to drown poor Matty, but their attempts to help only make the waves of slime get bigger. Will anybody be able to figure out how to fix things before it becomes an uncontrollable disaster?
This was an absolutely adorable picture book about making that toy? material? that so many kids (and their parents!) adore. Personally, I like slime for how it helps clean irregularly shaped items, but that’s neither here nor there. The enthusiasm of Matty and his parents is infectious, and even tho the demonstration goes a lot more haywire than planned, all’s well that ends well. Matty and his art teacher might be a little traumatized by the experience, but it’s clear that all the other kids had a blast as they tried to help solve the problem. Plus, the coda reinforces the fact that while not all experiments (or demonstrations) are successful, making notes of both what worked and what went wrong are valuable, scientific learning experiences.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/18/so-much-slime-by-jason-lefebvre-zac-retz/
Happy Valentine’s Day, readers! Love the day or loathe the day, we have a terrific slate of new book recommendations to complement your feelings toward the season.
First off, we have a new genre-bending standalone novel from TJ Klune, The Bones Beneath My Skin. With an enemies-to-lovers queer romance, speculative twists, road trip comedy and high-octane thrills, this is the perfect book for anyone who doesn’t want to stick with just one mood.
It’s the spring of 1995 and Nate Cartwright has lost everything: his parents are dead, his only brother wants nothing to do with him, and he’s been fired from his job as a journalist in Washington, DC. With nothing left to lose, he returns to his family’s summer cabin outside the small mountain town of Roseland, Oregon, to try and find some sense of direction.
The cabin should be empty, but it’s not.
Inside is a man named Alex. And with him is an extraordinary ten-year-old girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader, who isn’t exactly as she appears. Soon it becomes clear that Nate must make a choice: let himself drown in the memories of his past, or fight for a future he never thought possible. Because Artemis is special, and forces are descending upon them who want nothing more than to control her, no matter what she wants herself.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/14/tantalizing-tales-february-2025-part-one/
So excited I get to review this in the overlap between the Lunar New Year and Valentine’s Day seasons!
Gemma Sun is the perfect straight-A student. Hard-working and straitlaced to a fault, she’s always wanted to cause minimal trouble for her own mother Jean, who had her young and without family support. For as long as Gemma can remember, it’s always been her and her mom against the world. If she ever wishes that she had a bigger family to rely on and stronger ties to her Taiwanese roots, she rarely brings these issues up to her mother, if at all. The most important thing is getting good grades so that she can make a better life for the both of them.
So it’s with chagrin that Gemma has to share her high school valedictorian spot with Xander Pan, the boy who broke her heart in 9th grade. He changed his name from Alex to something cooler, and made it his life’s mission to be goofy and popular. Gemma misses the sweet boy she would share puzzles with, but after he wrecked an important assignment for them in his pursuit of fun, she knew it was over. Ever since, he’s been her sworn enemy: not that it ever seems like he notices.
When Gemma gets word immediately after graduation that her grandfather died and potentially left her an inheritance, she’s intrigued. Her mom doesn’t talk about her grandfather, saying only that he was cold, distant and never supported them. With college bills weighing on her, Gemma meets with the lawyer and discovers that her grandfather left her a puzzle to solve, one that will hopefully have a lucrative treasure at the end.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/02/13/ex-marks-the-spot-by-gloria-chao/
with illustrations by Johnalynn Holland and an afterword by Tiffany Momon.
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire