I read (or at least started reading) approximately 75-100 middle grade speculative fiction books published in 2018. These are, in my opinion of course, the best of all that I read, worthy of your time and your children’ reading time as well.

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier. Mr. Auxier’s books just get better and better. This one, set in a magical Victorian London, highlights the appalling and dangerous working conditions for chimney sweeps at that time, many of whom were small children sold into what can only be called slavery. But the book is not without hope, and the monster is not so much a monster as he is a friend and guardian. And the protagonist, Nan, is a force of nature, a girl to be reckoned with.

The Stone Girl’s Story by Sarah Beth Durst. The Stone Girl’s Story reads like a supposition: “Let us suppose world in which stone creatures can come to life, and someone wants to enslave and control the stone creatures. Then imagine what might happen.” And it’s a very good supposition.

Endling #1: The Last by Katherine Applegate. Byx is the youngest and most vulnerable member of the dairne pack in a world where dairnes are about to become extinct. There aren’t many of these dog-like but intelligent and communicating creatures left in the world, and Byx doesn’t know whether to believe the legends and rumor that other dairne packs exist in the far off north or not. When she is forced by circumstances to leave home, Byx goes on a journey to find out whether she is the last of the dairnes or not.

Thisby Thestoop and the Black Mountain by Zac Gorman. Thisby complains (to herself and to her slime friend who lives in a jar) about all the tasks involved in caring for all the monsters—wyverns and ghouls and were-creatures and more—who live in the dungeons under the Black Mountain, but it’s her job as assistant gamekeeper. And THisby is good at her job. Nevertheless, when Thisby has to take care of a spoiled Princess Iphigenia and her twin brother, and then the brother gets lost, it’s just too much. It’s a good thing Thisby keeps good notes on the care and feeding of all the monsters. She’s going to need them to get herself and the princess out of this mess.

The Lost Books: The Scroll of Kings by Sarah Prineas. Alex knows he’s meant to be a Librarian, even though no one will give him any training or tell him the secrets of librarians. And Queen Kenneret is meant to be, well, queen, even though her advisors don’t take her too seriously either. Together Alex and Kenneret must save the kingdom from whatever it is that is scaring the books and killing librarians—without being killed themselves or losing patience with each other. Alex is hard-headed and insubordinate; Kenneret is determined and authoritative. Will they manage to put up with one another long enough to figure out what is attacking the libraries and how to fix or defeat it?

Grump: The (Fairly) True Tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves by Liesl Shurtliff. This book is the best yet of the fairy tale retakes by Liesl Shurtliff. Grump is a misfit who hates the underground life of his family and fellow dwarves. He actually wants to see what life is like on the surface, even though the surface is a dangerous place for dwarves.

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. 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. Nevertheless, Morrigangets a chance to compete for a spot in the Wundrous Society. Will she be chosen?

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.

The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss. Bicycle, a foundling who has grown up at the Mostly Silent monastery in Washington, D.C., is now twelve years old, a lover of cycling, and in need of a good friend. But she’s not likely to find a friend either at the monastery where the monks are limited to eight sacred words or at the Friendship Factory, a camp where she is guaranteed to make three friends or else. So, Bicycle sets off on her own, with her trusty bicycle, to make her own friends in her own way.

A Dastardly Plot (A Perilous Journey of Danger and Mayhem #1) by Christopher Healy. I like Christopher Healy’s Hero’s Guide trilogy, and I like this new series just a as much. Feminist, alternate history, inventors, skulduggery and mystery—what more could one ask for in a middle grade romp?

Nadya Skylung and the Cloudship Rescue by Jeff Seymour. This novel A is another good beginning to what looks as if it will be an exciting series. Nadya is a “skylung” who can breathe through her lungs and through gills, and she is a very important crew member on the cloudship, Orion. The illustrations in this fantasy/science fiction adventure are by Brett Helquist, one of my favorite illustrators, which makes the book even more delightful.

Inkling by Kenneth Oppel. An ink blot escapes its page and comes alive. While learning and growing, Inkling helps Ethan, who needs to learn to draw, his dad, who needs to get un-stuck from his writer’s/illustrator’s block, and little sister Sarah, who just wants a puppy. Such fun, with a realistic but sympathetic portrayal of both depression (dad) and Down’s syndrome (Sarah).

This book features the Shelleys, Percy Byshe and Mary Godwin, and Mary’s half-sister Claire, and Lord Byron, and as soon as I realized that little fact, I knew that I would be somewhat ambivalent about the book. The Shelleys and their coterie, especially Percy and Byron, but really all of them, were not very good people. In fact, Percy Shelley was a predator who took advantage of at least two teenage girls and drove one of them to suicide. And Byron was even worse in the womanizing department. The tale of these two poets and their harem/community/obsessive fanbase is a sordid one.

And yet . . . The story, especially the famous story of the Villa Diodati and how the group challenged each other to write a ghost or horror story, and how Mary Godwin Shelley produced the tale of Frankenstein’s monster as a result of that challenge, has a particular and peculiar fascination. Just as the book Frankenstein is repellant and yet strangely fascinating at the same time, its origin story has inspired many an author to embroider and fill in the gaps in the Shelleys’ journey to Romantic fame.

“Yet I’ve also tried to make my story echo Mary Shelley’s in certain ways. Felix, Agatha, Elizabeth (Lizzie), Mr. Walton, and Moritz are all names taken from Frankenstein. Strange Star is about scientific ambition: Miss Stine experiments with electricity regardless of the consequences, just as Victor Frankenstein does in Shelley’s original. There is a blind character in Frankenstein who doesn’t judge people by their appearance. Many of the characters in Strange Star face prejudice because of how they look or who they are.
For me, Frankenstein is a great story, and Mary Shelley an inspirational woman. I really hope reading Strange Star will make you want to discover more about both for yourself.”

Well, not really. I think I know enough already. However, I did find that Strange Star, while rather a strange story itself, neither appeals to prurient interest by emphasizing the nasty details of the Shelleys lives not does it whitewash them and make them into kind, honorable people. The Shelleys, Claire Clairmont, and Lord Byron in this book are portrayed as just the selfish, careless people that they most likely were without the author’s giving too much information for a middle grade or young adult audience.

Strange Star itself is a little dark, but it ends on a good note. As another author with a bad reputation once wrote, “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” I daresay I like my Romantic poets fictionalized to some extent to take away the rough edges.

A Perilous Journey of Danger and Mayhem: A Dastardly Plot by Christopher Healy.

A new series beginner by the author of The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom is something to look forward to with anticipation, and A Dastardly Plot lives up to my expectations. The book is set in 1883, the Age of Invention, and features appearances by great inventors such as Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Nikola Tesla, and George Eastman, to name a few of the many men who made the age of invention, inventive.

But where were all the women? Well, according to this fantastical version of history, the women were shut out of the Inventor’s Guild and out of the World’s Fair, disregarded, patronized, and ignored. It’s definitely a feminist take on madcap inventors who are out to save the world, but it never gets didactic or overbearing. Molly Pepper, daughter of the not-so-famous inventor, Cassandra Pepper, lives with her mother behind their pickle shop and helps with the inventing. However, Molly doesn’t really have the inventing bug, not does she want to be an inventor when she grows up. And right now, at age twelve, Molly is too busy trying to keep her mother alive, solvent, and following her dream of exhibiting her inventions at the World’s Fair, to worry too much about growing up or about what she will do if and when she does. It’s Molly’s new friend Emmett Lee who has the gift for new ideas and inventions, but it’s Molly who must save the day with her practicality and persistence when villains want to destroy the Worlds Fair and take over the government of the entire country.

A Dastardly Plot is a detective adventure fantasy with lots of chases and explosions and hairbreadth escapes and and mysterious disguises and twists and turns as well as a growing friendship between Molly Pepper and Emmett Lee and a mother/daughter relationship that is characterized by dysfunction and growth, too. Readers of all ages can enjoy this story with its humor and heart, and I predict that most of those readers will be looking forward to the next installment in the story of the Peppers and Emmett Lee and the inventors of New York.

By the way, there is an afterword in which Mr. Healy tells his readers “what’s real and what’s not in A Dastardly Plot.” Such information is definitely needed, since most of the book falls in the “not” category. Still it may inspire young readers to research for themselves and find out more about Edison, Bell, Tesla, Eastman, Nellie Bly, Sarah Goode, Hertha Marks, Josephine Cochrane, Margaret Knight, Mary Walton, and other inventors and luminaries of the late nineteenth century. Also featured in the story are the Brooklyn Bridge, President Chester Arthur, Ulysses S. Grant, Menlo Park, and the National Geographic Society. Lots of jumping-off places for more learning and adventure. (I want to read more about all those female inventors for myself.)