May 26 2022
Oh my heart. This was one of the sweetest, most tender, yet still emotionally honest and unflinching middle grade novels I’ve yet had the privilege of reading. Little wonder that Varian Johnson has won so many awards with prose and plotting like this! Our hero is ten year-old Anthony “Ant” Joplin, who plans to team …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/26/playing-the-cards-youre-dealt-by-varian-johnson/
May 12 2022
Oh gosh, I didn’t expect this to end on such a cliffhanger! I also didn’t expect this kind of visual design from a book aimed squarely at middle school kids. It’s seriously delightful, a clever mix of mid-century modern with the more expected kids’ doodles on graph paper. The illustrations throughout are entirely suited to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/12/f-a-r-t-top-secret-no-kids-allowed-by-peter-bakalian/
Nov 16 2021
Meet Daisy Sparrow, a young peasant witch living in Elizabethan England. Together with her beloved Mum, she brews and sells potions and other assorted concoctions at market fairs. But she wants more from life than just helping people who probably didn’t need that much help to begin with, even if she’s painfully shy when it …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/16/the-queens-favorite-witch-book-1-the-wheel-of-fortune-by-benjamin-dickson-rachael-smith/
Oct 29 2021
My ten year-old brought this home from his school library and recommended I read it, too! Fortunately, he warned me that he hadn’t actually finished it when I handed it back to him, else I would have likely dropped some major spoilers, but I could tell him that it was a fun read with at …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/29/space-case-moon-base-alpha-1-by-stuart-gibbs/
Oct 20 2021
This stunningly original graphic novel tells a tale of life in Oklahoma after the Great War, when a young soldier returning from Europe triggers a curse, leaving his younger sister to find a way to save their family farm. Vonceil Taggart is the youngest of five children growing up on a farming homestead ten miles …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/20/salt-magic-by-hope-larson-rebecca-mock/
Oct 19 2021
Meranda is an 11 year-old girl whose parents moved away from their Nova Scotia home and close-knit family to live in Calgary when she was only 3. While she has regular video visits with her dearly loved relatives back in Cape Breton, her helicopter parents have always been cagey about returning, until the death of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/19/meranda-and-the-legend-of-the-lake-by-meagan-mahoney/
Sep 29 2021
Ever since her father left and her mom moved her and her younger brother Matt away from the larger Hmong American community to live in small town Wisconsin, Pahua Moua has felt like the weirdo outsider. It isn’t just that she’s the only Asian person in her class. Her single mom has to work long …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/09/29/pahua-and-the-soul-stealer-by-lori-m-lee/
Sep 03 2021
Who’s ready for a brand new story arc in the Enola Holmes universe? As we swiftly discover in the opening pages of this latest installment of the series, Enola has reconciled with her brothers and is living as an independent Consulting Perditologist in London. However, she’s dismayed that her brothers, famous old Sherlock and Mycroft, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/09/03/enola-holmes-and-the-black-barouche-enola-holmes-7-by-nancy-springer/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire