MMGM: Greenglass House, by Kate Milford, and Jinx, by Sage Blackwood

In which I confirm that Kate Milford is an author I love, and I discover a new author to devour with eagerness.

I'll be brief about Greenglass House, because several MMGMers have already reviewed it, and it's getting well-deserved attention. I'll just say books like this are why I read middle-grade fiction. Tightly-crafted story with characters as fun and eccentric as real people are, a setting full of the magic of loved objects and spaces, a protagonist who breaks your heart. Just look at that cover! Gorgeous art that perfectly captures the feeling of the book: the wintery atmosphere, the rambling old house with its mysterious nooks and crannies and storied windows—if you look at that house and wish you could visit it, then this is the book for you. It's a smuggler's inn! It's a house with history that fills up with all kinds of crazy guests with histories, and Milo our hero gets to explore the house and investigate the guests and discover the truth at the heart of all the stories.  Hot chocolate and shortbread by the fire with big fluffy snowflakes falling outside; I think I'll re-read Greenglass House every year at Christmas!

I picked up Jinx at my library because a few bloggers I trust were raving about it (Rachel Neumeier even compared it to Diana Wynne Jones, so that caught my eye!) I was not disappointed; this is a book worth raving about. And I'll even grant the DWJ comparison. Blackwood throws fairy tales and myths and superstitions in a jar and shakes them really hard so they get all broken up and mixed together, and then she sprinkles the jar over a big, sentient forest, and hovers over it to find out what happens. A boy named Jinx gets rescued from a stepfather and a few trolls by a wizard who says he doesn't want to eat him, so Jinx goes to live in his stone castle-house full of cats and locked doors. I loved Jinx right from the start: he's no fool, he knows the world is dangerous, he knows how to keep his head down and avoid attracting unwanted attention, but he's no coward. He's determined to get through the locked doors and learn enough magic so he can safely step off the Path. I was completely sold on the story when Sophia showed up (no spoilers as to who she is, but I love her interactions with Simon). There's a lot of humour, both Jinx's dry wit as he deals with a truly inhospitable world, and Blackwood's playfulness with tropes and expectations. It's also a story with heart about an orphan lost in the woods who learns to make his own path; Blackwood takes that age-old story and makes it entirely fresh and surprising. (Warning: this isn't a stand-alone. I'm heading to the library asap to get the sequel!) Something with blackberries in it: tart and sweet and worth all the thorns, just like the Urwald. Blackberry cobbler, I think.

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday is the brilliant idea of Shannon Messenger, who hosts collections of middle-grade reviews on her blog every Monday. (Except this Monday, because she's sick. Get well soon, Shannon!)

MMGM: The Boneshaker, by Kate Milford

Have you heard the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia?" If not, go listen to it here.

Have you read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes? If not, October is the perfect month to rectify that grave omission! It's such a wonderful October book.

Now imagine a cross between that song and that novel.

And then throw out whatever you imagined because Kate Milford did it even better.

The Boneshaker is delicious on so many levels. The ghost town at the crossroads. The dusty little community with secrets. The creaky old carnival rolling into town. Such an evocative setting, and evoked with such loving detail!

Then there are the characters: Old Tom Guyot, who can play his guitar like nothing and nobody and who has a story about that crossroads. Inexplicable Simon Coffrett living alone in his mansion on the hill. Grandiose Dr. Limberleg with his wild red hair and his suspicious glares and his increasing desperation.

And Natalie herself, the odd, determined heroine who senses something not right about Dr. Limberleg's Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show. She pokes her nose in where it isn't wanted until she finds out far more than is safe about what's really going on.

So much to love about this book! Natalie's beautiful bright red Chesterlane Eidolon, fastest bicycle in the world, built just for her by her father, that to her endless shame she hasn't figured out how to ride. The stories Natalie's mother spins for her, the magic of stories that Natalie begins to figure out for herself. Natalie's prickly relationship with her friend Miranda. Terrible moral dilemmas. The hints of a more complex mythology, only just touched upon in this book. (Now I want to read The Broken Lands and the two Arcana books, all set in the same world.)

Oh, and great illustrations.

My daughter just told me she's making a masala-spiced turkey with rice stuffing and butter chicken gravy (butter chicken gravy???). I wish I could go to Ottawa and try some! I imagine that meal would make a good metaphor for The Boneshaker: complex flavours redolent of tradition but with a spicy twist.

I first heard of The Boneshaker from the Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday crew over at Shannon Messenger's blog. You can be sure to find more wonderful recommendations there every Monday.