Dragonfly Song by Wendy Orr.
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend.
Thisby Thestoop and the the Black Mountain by Zac Gorman.
The Turnaway Girls by Haley Chewin.

In Dragonfly Song, Aissa is “the cursed child who called the Bull King’s ship to the island.” Her fellow servants and townspeople say of her, “Spit the bad luck away when you see her; pinch or slap her to make her understand.” She’s called No Name because she’s mute, and no one even cares to know her real name.

In Nevermoor, Morrigan Crow is a cursed child, born on Eventide, blamed for all of the misfortunes and tragedies that occur anywhere in her neighborhood, and doomed to die on her eleventh birthday. She’s sure that she has no gift, no talent to set her apart, and no place or reason to hope for anything, especially not a place in the magical Wundrous Society.

Thisby Thestoop’s parents “traded her (at birth) for a bag of mostly unspoiled turnips”, and the wandering salesman to whom she was traded “dumped the baby at the foot of the Black Mountain.” She has no real name; the name Thisby Thestoop comes from the text of a note written by a minotaur with sloppy penmanship. “She wasn’t born particularly clever or brave. She couldn’t move like a shadow or shoot an arrow through the eye of a needle. And she most definitely wasn’t predestined to greatness through some divine prophecy or ‘Chosen One” hooey. No, Thisby Thestoop was astoundingly average.” Thisby is a friendless outcast and the lowliest of servants, a gamekeeper for monsters beneath the Black Mountain.

Delphernia in The Turnaway Girls is different, perhaps special in that she has a voice to sing, but also a friendless outcast, unable to make the golden shimmer that the othergirls can make. And she must hide her voice because turnaway girls are not allowed to make music. She says of herself, “I’m not a maker of anything. I am a worthless creature. A turnaway girl who cannot make shimmer. Mudworms do not envy me. I have riots in my heart each morning.”

I’m sensing a pattern here. All of these middle grade fantasies feature protagonists who are outcasts, cursed, the lowliest of the low. And all of the novels’ heroes are girls. These are almost Cinderella stories in which the lowly servant girl, mocked and cursed, turns out to be a brave and beautiful princess; except the girls in these stories never do completely come to self-actualization or a sense of belonging, not wholly. Perhaps Thisby comes the closest; by the end of the novel she knows her place and her work and is beginning to see her own strength and believe in her own future. She still doesn’t have parents or a real name, but she has made her own name, Thisby, known and admired by the end of the book.

Morrigan Crow learns that she is not a curse, but rather a blessing and gift by the end of the first volume in her story. Still, she isn’t sure that her gift itself isn’t a curse that will harm more than it will help. The resolution of that story is left for the sequel to The Trials of Morrigan Crow.

Aissa claims her own name, finds her voice, becomes a bull jumper, snake singer, and savior of her island. But by the end of her book, she’s still filled with anger for the mother who rejected her and jealousy for the sister who took her place, and fear of becoming once again the no-name girl, enslaved and cursed. She “now is ready to face her life”, but there’s enough doubt in the final poem at the end of the story to make the reader wonder if Aissa can keep all that she has gained.

Delphernia also finds her voice and her mother and freedom. She does become a sort of a princess by the end of the story, but her transformation, too, is not without its doubtfulness and difficult memories. Delphernia carries scars and in her head the voices of those who told her that she was worthless and doomed and outside the pale.

And so it goes. All of these cursed girls become Real Girls by the power of their own voices, developing their own identities and their own names. And if those identities, names and voices are a bit shaky and untested by the end of the book, maybe there’s another volume yet to come in which these formerly voiceless and nameless heroines can become even more self-assured and fearless. And that’s the message of these and other similar stories: you, too, reader, may feel outcast and alone and powerless, but you can be more. You can, even without having any special giftedness or any unique place or name or birthright, make yourself and create your own identity.

These books indicate that this self-actualization happens partly as a result of one or more other people believing in the seemingly powerless and cursed girl. I do think that’s a partial answer to the Cinderella problem. How does the outcast rise from the ashes? The Velveteen Rabbit became real because he was loved. But is the love of another imperfect human being enough to transform a cursed girl into a strong, courageous princess, or does the growth and change require some other kind of magic? Is my identity and my strength, my “girl power” there, simply waiting to be discovered, or does it derive from a source outside myself?

Interesting questions. One last thought: how many other books of middle grade fantasy that I read this year will feature this same theme of an outcast rising up and finding her voice?

More outcast, cursed, and bullied female protagonists:
A Problematic Paradox by Eliot Sappingfield. Sardonic misfit genius Nikola Kross is bullied in regular middle school and has trouble acclimating in a school for brilliant scientists like herself. Can Nikola actually make friends and at the same time find out who she truly is?

Peasprout Chen, Future Legend of Skate and Sword by Henry Lien. Peasprout Chen comes to the Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword from the foreign and hated land of Shin. She is looked down upon, disrespected, and friendless as she competes to become the top-ranking wu liu champion. Can Peasproout find her place at the Academy and in the land of Pearl?

Shadow Weaver by Marcy Kate Connolly. Emmeline, born with the magic of shadow weaving, is suspected, feared, and even hated by her family and by their servants. She has only one friend, her shadow Dar, who is herself a lost soul and a dark trickster shadow. Emmeline’s shadow weaving magic is her identity, but is it also her curse?

The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic by Cressida Cowell. Princess Wish is a poor Warrior girl, a bad speller, and she has magic, a capital offense among the Warriors. She’s banished to a cupboard by her scary mother, and her only friends are her cautious bodyguard and a spoon she accidentally brought to life. Cursed or gifted with iron magic, Wish is definitely one of the misfit girls of 2018. (Her fellow protagonist, Xar, is also a misfit among the Wizards. He has no magic, unlike all the other Wizards, but he does have friends.)

The Marvelous Adventures of Gwendolyn Gray by B.A. Williamson. Gwendolyn Gray is a dreamer with wild red hair in a city full of conformists and identical grey buildings and clouds. She’s cursed with an imagination, and again no friends, in a world of people who want her to be gray and dull and obedient.

R Is for Rebel by J. Anderson Coats. Mallianne Pirine Vinnio Aurelia Hesperus is a member of an outcast group of people, the Mileans, but even among her own people, imprisoned, Malley is different because of her rebellious, untamed spirit. She will not be reformed or reeducated or domesticated, and even the girls who are her fellow prisoners fear the trouble that Malley brings in her rebellious wake.

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These books may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

To pass safely through a jungle, one must walk either with stealth or with confidence. ~A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge.

Change is necessary and, deny it as we may, in the end change is always inevitable. ~A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge.

Wants and wishes cannot erase choices. Sometimes a road forks, and both paths lead to pain. The Song of Glory and Ghost by N.D. Wilson.

A leader doesn’t lead by proving how great he is—he leads by making the people around him great. ~Mysteries of Cove: Embers of Destruction by J. Scott Savage.

The real purpose of life [is] to live—to find out about the world and have adventures. ~The Matchstick Castle by Keir Graff.

Making others feel safe is a fine way to spend your days. ~Wishtree by Katherine Applegate.

Knowledge is a vessel deeper than the sea. A fool splashes in a pond and thinks he has the answers, but a wise man knows the only way to reach its depths is to ask questions. ~Race to the Bottom of the Sea by Lindsay Eager.

Once you’re up on a pedestal, you can’t take a step in any direction without falling. ~Miss Ellicott’s School for the Magically Minded by Sage Blackwood.

Surely it is counterproductive to expect sense from someone you are beating senseless. ~Thick as Thieves by Meg Whalen Turner.

Sometimes the way you get out of trouble is the same way you got in. ~The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library by Linda Bailey.

Everyone deserves dessert. ~Zinnia and the Bees by Danielle Davis.

Doubtful friends are worse than enemies, and fire ants are the worst of all. ~The Danger Gang and the Pirates of Borneo by Stephen Bramucci.

The more people you care about, the more there is to scare you in the world. And yet, if you didn’t care about people, there would be nothing worth protecting. ~The Danger Gang and the Pirates of Borneo by Stephen Bramucci.

He who endures will conquer. So will he who never gets stung by a blister beetle. ~The Danger Gang and the Pirates of Borneo by Stephen Bramucci.

When your heart is beating too quick with nerves, there’s nothing like the rhythm of a poem to bring it right again. When you fill your mind with words—beautiful words, stirring words—those words drive away your other worries. ~Elizabeth and Zenobia by Jessica Miller.

History doesn’t judge leaders on how many times they fall. It judges them on how many times they get up. ~Mysteries of Cove: Embers of Destruction by J. Scott Savage.

. . . some secrets don’t like to be kept. They grow feet and tiptoe away in the night. ~Skeleton Tree by Kim Ventrella.

I’m working on a list of favorite aphorisms from 2018’s crop of middle grade speculative fiction. Do you have any to add?

Apartment 1986 by Lisa Papademetriou. While skipping school, Cassie meets Cassius, an unschooled and independent spirit who is doing research on art at museums all over NYC. Cassie is dealing with her own family and personal issues, and she and Cassius become friends and allies as they discover that Callie’s family history is both surprising and complicated. The story deals with homosexual behavior, family dynamics and regrets, and forgiveness and restoration, all in a fairly standard, morally tolerant, and one-dimensional manner. The “bad guy” is Callie’s grandfather, a homophobic bigot, who is conveniently dead and gone. The “good guys” are all the ones who realize and understand that “people are born gay.”

Posted by John David Anderson. When cell phones are banned at Branton Middle School, a new communication method becomes a fad: sticky notes. But when the sticky notes begin to turn ugly, Frost and his friends are forced to decide where their loyalties lie. Will they be able to remain friends and even take a new kid into their “tribe”—or will the ugly taunts and bullying notes break up the friendships they have built? The story is told from the point of view of one of the middle school kids, Frost, and I found him to be pretentious and whiny at first, but his voice grew on me. By the end of the book, I was absorbed in the story and fond of most of the characters. Some kids may find the book to be too introspective, but for others it will hit a sweet spot of just right.

Feliz Yz by Lisa Bunker. A gay thirteen year old named Felix lives with his bisexual mother and his gender-switching grandparent (three days a week as Vern and three days a week as Verna; Wednesdays are spent alone and genderless) as Felix deals with he repercussions of a childhood accident that fused his psyche together with that of a fourth-dimensional creature called Zyx. Yeah. If Posted was introspective and angsty, this one is beyond—altogether in another dimension.

Me and Marvin Gardens by A.S. King. Obe Devlin spends his days picking trash out of the creek behind his house and mourning the loss of his family’s land to housing developers. He also spends a lot of time nursing his frequent nosebleeds. Then, one day he finds a new species of animal, and things get interesting. Can Obe save the animal he calls Marvin Gardens from the encroaching housing developments and the curiosity of neighbors? Is Marvin himself a danger to the neighborhood, or is Marvin the solution to the problem of pollution? The story is quite pessimistic and didactic, but if you’re looking for a preachy environmental title, this one will fit the bill.

Gnome-a-geddon by K.A. Holt. Buck Rogers and his best friend, Lizzie, enter the world of their favorite book series, The Triumphant Gnome Syndicate. Immediately, things start to go wrong when Buck realizes that he isn’t necessarily the hero of this adventure, and maybe the gnomes aren’t even the good guys in the story, and trolls, well, trolls are different in the real underground land of the Gnome Syndicate, too. The story alludes to several popular fantasy books, movies, and series, including Harry Potter, Star Wars, LOTR, Princess Bride, Back to the Future, superhero comics, and the Narnia books. Fun for fans.

One for Sorrow by Mary Downing Hahn. I didn’t like any of the people in this ghost story, except for the elderly lady who befriends the narrator at the end of the book. A group of girls bully and torment Elsie, a girl of German heritage, during World War I and the influenza epidemic. Elsie is a liar and a tattletale, and Annie, the new girl in school, must choose whether to befriend Elsie or the mean girls who pick on Elsie. It’s not much of a choice. Unfortunately, there’s no one at school for Annie to be friends with, so Annie becomes one of the bullies. It just gets worse from there with a nasty, mean ghost who harries Annie into a mental asylum.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
Some of these books are also nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.