Gabriel Finley and the Raven's Riddle: A perfect adventure for middle-grade readers

Gabriel Finley and the Raven's Riddle
by George Hagen; illustrated by Scott Bakal
Random House Children's / Schwartz & Wade
October 2014

I loved this book:  Quick to engage the reader, a plausible and compelling adventure, and a somehow comforting and safe environment in which young Gabriel can encounter all sorts of bad guys and dangerous situations and still come out the victor.

What's different about this book
It's wholesome. Elegantly so. I find it hard to describe, but this is the most secure background I've read for a story that included bad magic and life-threatening adversaries.  Somehow the warm family settings confirm what the reader quickly realizes: the author has Gabriel's best at heart.  (Even the one not-good home setting of the story is resolved in a positive and healing way.)  I mean, how often do you read stories where twelve-year-old kids walk the streets of Brooklyn at night, and the only sense of peril is from the magical challenge they are heading to?  I loved it -- and I loved the absence of real-life social ills and threats that are too often present in similar "adventures."

What I'll do now that I've read the book
My libraries will be buying this book, and I'll have so much fun book-talking this to readers who should be quickly won over to a book that is adventurous and challenging -- and full of riddles middle-graders can understand and enjoy! Well done, Mr. Hagen.  Reading this was a pleasure.

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The Vault of Dreamers -- an engaging near-future science fiction for young adults

The Vault of Dreamers
by Caragh M. O'Brien
Macmillan Children's Publishing Group
September 2014

This young adult near-future science fiction novel has a great plot:  Some of the best art students from around the nation come to study at the prestigious school, The Forge.  And they are living that dream, while living in a reality show.  To survive and keep their prestigious enrollment, the students have to keep their viewer ratings high in order to stay at the school. Of course, the protagonist Rosie is a non-conformist and can't follow the rules -- which leads to an interesting plot line.

What's different about this book
Although set some thirty or forty years in the future, the world Rosie lives in could be our near future -- except for some technologies and scientific/medical capabilities that don't yet exist.  The reader who doesn't usually like science fiction will be able to feel comfortable in this milieu. The themes are enduring, of course, but with a nice contemporary (and beyond) twist. The relationships develop realistically among the characters, but the pressure and suspense just keep on growing -- and the author doesn't provide any easy solutions.  Which causes the main objection I have for this book: a strongly unsatisfying denouement and an ending not warranted by the author's construction of the story.  The narrative didn't prepare me for what felt like an "oh, well" conclusion.

What I'll do now that I've read the book
The book is an engaging and enjoyable enough read that I will promote this for my high school libraries.  I think it will catch some reluctant readers, as well as more mature consumers of science fiction.  But I won't have my heart in the recommendations when I book talk to students -- somehow the crafting of the book just didn't come to a natural full circle for me.

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