Uploaded June 2018 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I've got a trio of FANTASTIC (and fantastical) middle grade titles for you today -- I love them ALL.
Reviews for each are linked within the video!
Would you like to see backlist love titles on a specific genre or theme? Let me know in the comments!
THE BOOKS:
Savvy by Ingrid Law: amzn.to/2M2lWYJ
A vibrant new voice . . . a modern classic.
For generations, the Beaumont family has harbored a magical secret. They each possess a “savvy”—a special supernatural power that strikes when they turn thirteen. Grandpa Bomba moves mountains, her older brothers create hurricanes and spark electricity . . . and now it’s the eve of Mibs’s big day.
As if waiting weren’t hard enough, the family gets scary news two days before Mibs’s birthday: Poppa has been in a terrible accident. Mibs develops the singular mission to get to the hospital and prove that her new power can save her dad. So she sneaks onto a salesman’s bus . . . only to find the bus heading in the opposite direction. Suddenly Mibs finds herself on an unforgettable odyssey that will force her to make sense of growing up—and of other people, who might also have a few secrets hidden just beneath the skin.
__________________________________________
THE PRINCESS CURSE by Merrie Haskell: amzn.to/2HscZUO
Merrie Haskell’s middle-grade fantasy novel Princess Curse is an imaginative retelling of the fairy tales The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Beauty and the Beast.
In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Sylvania, the prince offers a fabulous reward to anyone who cures the curse that forces the princesses to spend each night dancing to the point of exhaustion. Everyone who tries disappears or falls into an enchanted sleep.
Thirteen-year-old Reveka, a smart, courageous herbalist’s apprentice, decides to attempt to break the curse despite the danger. Unravelling the mystery behind the curse leads Reveka to the Underworld, and to save the princesses, Reveka will have to risk her soul.
Princess Curse combines magic, suspense, humor, and adventure into a story perfect for fans of Gail Carson Levine.
______________________________________
THE REAL BOY by Anne Ursu: amzn.to/2HoXxch
National Book Award Longlist * Bank Street Children's Book Committee Best Book of the Year
The Real Boy, Anne Ursu's follow-up to her widely acclaimed and beloved middle grade fantasy Breadcrumbs, is a spellbinding tale of the power we all wield, great and small.
On an island on the edge of an immense sea there is a city, a forest, and a boy named Oscar. Oscar is a shop boy for the most powerful magician in the village, and spends his days in a small room in the dark cellar of his master's shop grinding herbs and dreaming of the wizards who once lived on the island generations ago. Oscar's world is small, but he likes it that way. The real world is vast, strange, and unpredictable. And Oscar does not quite fit in it.
But now that world is changing. Children in the city are falling ill, and something sinister lurks in the forest. Oscar has long been content to stay in his small room in the cellar, comforted in the knowledge that the magic that flows from the forest will keep his island safe. Now even magic may not be enough to save it.
____________________________
Find me in your internets:
Blog: thebookrat.com
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/TheBookRat
Instagram: instagram.com/bookishmisty
Goodreads: goodreads.com/user/show/1124284-misty
Facebook: facebook.com/BookRatBlog
Tumblr: thebookrat.tumblr.com
Disclosure: This is NOT a sponsored video, though one of these books (The Real Boy) was sent to me for review consideration purposes waaaay back when it was published. The other 2 I bought. All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.
Affiliate links used where possible.
I've got a trio of FANTASTIC (and fantastical) middle grade titles for you today -- I love them ALL.
Reviews for each are linked within the video!
Would you like to see backlist love titles on a specific genre or theme? Let me know in the comments!
THE BOOKS:
Savvy by Ingrid Law: amzn.to/2M2lWYJ
A vibrant new voice . . . a modern classic.
For generations, the Beaumont family has harbored a magical secret. They each possess a “savvy”—a special supernatural power that strikes when they turn thirteen. Grandpa Bomba moves mountains, her older brothers create hurricanes and spark electricity . . . and now it’s the eve of Mibs’s big day.
As if waiting weren’t hard enough, the family gets scary news two days before Mibs’s birthday: Poppa has been in a terrible accident. Mibs develops the singular mission to get to the hospital and prove that her new power can save her dad. So she sneaks onto a salesman’s bus . . . only to find the bus heading in the opposite direction. Suddenly Mibs finds herself on an unforgettable odyssey that will force her to make sense of growing up—and of other people, who might also have a few secrets hidden just beneath the skin.
__________________________________________
THE PRINCESS CURSE by Merrie Haskell: amzn.to/2HscZUO
Merrie Haskell’s middle-grade fantasy novel Princess Curse is an imaginative retelling of the fairy tales The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Beauty and the Beast.
In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Sylvania, the prince offers a fabulous reward to anyone who cures the curse that forces the princesses to spend each night dancing to the point of exhaustion. Everyone who tries disappears or falls into an enchanted sleep.
Thirteen-year-old Reveka, a smart, courageous herbalist’s apprentice, decides to attempt to break the curse despite the danger. Unravelling the mystery behind the curse leads Reveka to the Underworld, and to save the princesses, Reveka will have to risk her soul.
Princess Curse combines magic, suspense, humor, and adventure into a story perfect for fans of Gail Carson Levine.
______________________________________
THE REAL BOY by Anne Ursu: amzn.to/2HoXxch
National Book Award Longlist * Bank Street Children's Book Committee Best Book of the Year
The Real Boy, Anne Ursu's follow-up to her widely acclaimed and beloved middle grade fantasy Breadcrumbs, is a spellbinding tale of the power we all wield, great and small.
On an island on the edge of an immense sea there is a city, a forest, and a boy named Oscar. Oscar is a shop boy for the most powerful magician in the village, and spends his days in a small room in the dark cellar of his master's shop grinding herbs and dreaming of the wizards who once lived on the island generations ago. Oscar's world is small, but he likes it that way. The real world is vast, strange, and unpredictable. And Oscar does not quite fit in it.
But now that world is changing. Children in the city are falling ill, and something sinister lurks in the forest. Oscar has long been content to stay in his small room in the cellar, comforted in the knowledge that the magic that flows from the forest will keep his island safe. Now even magic may not be enough to save it.
____________________________
Find me in your internets:
Blog: thebookrat.com
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/TheBookRat
Instagram: instagram.com/bookishmisty
Goodreads: goodreads.com/user/show/1124284-misty
Facebook: facebook.com/BookRatBlog
Tumblr: thebookrat.tumblr.com
Disclosure: This is NOT a sponsored video, though one of these books (The Real Boy) was sent to me for review consideration purposes waaaay back when it was published. The other 2 I bought. All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.
Affiliate links used where possible.
