mglit | Daddy Mojo

The Sherlock Society Art Attack balances intrigue, family, action and humor

The Sherlock Society: Art Attack, AKA, The Sherlock Society 3 knows its family, and its role. It’s very important to know your role. The Sherlock Society is the literary sibling to City Spies, which is the literary best friend to Spy School. Note that the first two series are related and the third one is RIYL. The Sherlock Society is mid-elementary through middle school as middle school metaphorical manna. Art Attack is a fun, confidence-building romp that’s got travel, age-appropriate relationships, a surprisingly twisty plot and characters audiences will grow along with.

The Sherlock Society 3, or The Sherlock Society: Art Attack, is the answer for upper-elementary, mglit people who want a semi-grounded, great book.

Neatly fits in the upper-elementary through mid-middle school puzzle

Little Monsters, a fun twist on Little Women that engages girls aged 8-12

I never read Little Women. I saw the shout-out that the classic book received in Ride or Die, felt momentarily guilty for it, but it’s not enough to make me read it. Little Monsters alludes to that classic title by having “Little” in the same regal font as “Women”, but having the latter word physically scratched out via a series of horizontal claw marks. Underneath that is “Monsters”, hastily scrawled as if someone’s leaving the scene of a cattle mutilation. You don’t need to have read the timeless book it references to be attracted to Little Monsters. This is a retelling of that story, and updated in ways that will engage young readers.

Little Monsters twists the time and setting of Little Women, and adds some monster paranoia, that will entertain girls in upper-elementary through middle.

Girls, gossip, monster, paranoia the destroyer

Blood in the Water is younger-skewing mglit that speaks to grades 4-7

Blood in the Water has a nice, bubbling sense of tension. Creating a book for mid-elementary school through mid-middle school can’t be easy. That age is learning to read chapter books, reluctant to read anything, or too ensconced in fart-borne books to care about anything else. Young readers in that eight through 14 demographic want to read something with bite and suspense. Throw in the caveat that said book needs to be age-appropriate, and you’ve got a bit of a challenge on your hands.

Blood in the Water is realistic fiction, albeit on the dramatic end, that will speak to kids in upper elementary through lower middle school.

For a season, this book will scratch the itch

A Tale of Plagues and Perfumes, fast-paced, original mglit that pays off

As kids get halfway through middle school they could lose their ability to use adjectives. I’m normally a glass-half-full kind of a guy. However, the essays that I see in 9^th grade have a majority of students who need a map, compass and guide dog in order to find adjectives. They’d be overly excited if they came up with two ways to describe the weather in July and then ask for a waiver on future assignments. A Tale of Plagues and Perfumes is one of the more original middle-grade releases you’ll read this year. It does that by delving into a world that mglit readers know as familiar, but not too familiar, and exploring a realm that other books haven’t had the scents to do.

A Tale of Plagues and Perfumes is fast-paced mglit that cuts its own path in a very original and entertaining story.

smells like teen reading

The Traitor Moth, adventure fantasy that hides in plain sight for 8 and up

It could’ve begun as a side comment, or maybe even a dare. Write a book that has an action backbone, with the heart and emotive lessons that are age-appropriate, and entertaining, for upper-elementary and mglit audiences, with a moth as the main character. A moth. That flighty, lightweight, seemingly pointless creature who is hopelessly attracted to light and the punchline to a classic Norm Macdonald joke and its nemesis, Gregory Illininivich. Author Katherine Orton heard this sidebar, slipped into her moth exoskeleton, said hold this light and created The Traitor Moth. This is the first in the Moon Realm fantasy book series that lives in the world of eight through twelve-year-old, reading-because-it’s-awesome space.

The Traitor Moth places an adventure, action, fantasy world within the confounds of a potentially lame insect.

Adventure fantasy at a jumping off point

Relic of Thieves pivots the focus, but stays true to its world

Remember in college when you heard that song from Gypsy Kings? Maybe it was later in life when you discovered that 99 Luftballons was just the tip of Nena’s catchy rock/pop German catalogue. Your kids are into KPOP or J-rock and you probably don’t understand any of those lyrics. The comprehension is low to none, but you can enjoy it just the same. The Underwild: Relic of Thieves has something in common with all of that music for the uninitiated reader.

Relic of Thieves is a very enjoyable book by itself, but is even more so because it builds an established world set against Greeks Gods.

Great for new readers, perfect for existing fans

The Spider Strikes will make young readers become book lovers

There’s an almost impossible point of believability to accomplish between Scooby-Doo, The Hardy Boys, the authentic enthusiasm of teens and realistic fiction. But wait, you want to successfully thread that needle through an opening further complicated by setting the book in 1930’s Germany? Somehow, The Spider Strikes, the third book in The Web of the Spider book series, navigates that 1%. It deftly tells an age-appropriate story about teenagers in 1931 Germany. I was skeptical too. However, during the book I was enthralled at the way it balanced everything. I was also bummed that the first two books in the series had slipped past my radar.

The Spider Strikes is realistic fiction with adventure that makes the story plausible and enjoyable, without being too real.

Young readers unite in their love of this book series

Burn the Water, mglit/YA that sets a higher water mark for the genre

Oh dystopian mglit and YA, you vex me so. Burn the Water is by Billy Ray. He’s the Oscar-nominated writer of the screenplay for Captain Phillips. Ray has also had his screenwriter or writing fingerprints all over The Hunger Games, Richard Jewell, and The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Text is not a stranger to him. Ironically, Burn the Water is his first novel, but he’s obviously cut his teeth on tense projects that have a taut narrative. Even if you didn’t know his pedigree, you’d suspect that something was higher than usual within the first couple of pages of Burn the Water.

Burn the Water is YA/mglit that blazes a unique path through a world that you think you know, but will certainly want to read more about.

YA/mglit/book people, c’mon in, the water’s fine