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Book Review: Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting (Serwa Boateng #1) by Roseanne A. Brown

Cover art for Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting by Roseanne A. Brown

Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting (Serwa Boatang #1) by Roseanne A. Brown

Rick Riordan Presents, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1368066365

Buy: Bookshop.orgAmazon.com

 

 

This is a wild ride of a book. Serwa Boateng is a Ghanaian-American (born in Ghana) 12 year old, the daughter of Slayers of vampires called adze, who look like fireflies and can possess people, and obaifyo, witches who use black magic. She has always been homeschooled, but after a supernatural attack on her home, her parents are sent on a mission she can’t be a part of and she is sent to live with her Aunt Latricia and cousin Roxy in Rocky Gorge, Maryland, a supernatural dead zone, where she will have to attend middle school and deal with microaggressions, hostility, racism, and an adze who has crossed into the dead zone, without help from her parents or the council that directs their missions.

 

When Serwa accidentally starts a food fight in home ec, she and four other students end up with detention, picking up trash in and around the school. While picking trash in the woods, they are attacked by an adze, and when Serwa explains what’s happening, they want to help. Eujun used to be friends with Roxy but when forced to pick between friends picked popular mean girl Ashley. Gavin is Black and a jokester. Mateo is Guatemalan and a model student, who stutters. Roxy’s father has been deported to Ghana. Their teacher, Mrs. Dean, has it out for Serwa, who she calls Sarah Boating, and Serwa thinks she is the adze.

 

The kids are terrible fighters and have no magic. Serwa calls on the earth goddess with a request to bless them with divine wisdom. They are sent to the underworld to retrieve her sword, which never stops fighting. Their mission is successful, and also incredibly funny. The goddess gives the kids divine wisdom and an elemental blessing that will let them draw on the power of their element.

 

The art teacher, Mr. Riley. reveals that the origin of the dead zone is unique because his ancestor, who had divine wisdom, and Roxy’s, who had black magic, combined them to protect enslaved people during a rebellion.

 

Ghanaian mythology is not something I was familiar with, so this was a fresh approach to the “chosen one” storyline. Serwa has a distinct voice and point of view that make her stand out from the current crop. While the story is sometimes predictable, I was wowed by the energy and rage at the end. Never underestimate a teenager in an emotional storm. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Book Review: Dear Mothman by Robin Gow

It’s the first day of the #TransRightsReadathon, so to start it out right here’s a review of a recent favorite middle-grade novel I really enjoyed. You can’t go wrong with cryptids!

 

cover art for Dear Mothman by Robin Gow

Dear Mothman by Robin Gow.

Harry N. Abrams, 2023

ISBN: 9781419764400

Available: Hardcover

Buy:  Bookshop.org

 

 

This middle grade verse novel dealing with grief, identity, and monstrosity is lyrical and vivid. Sixth graders Lewis and Noah (closeted trans boys) have been best friends for years. Lewis has a great imagination and Noah is pulled along in his wake in exploring all kinds of strange things. In the time just before Lewis was killed in a car crash, he had been obsessed with cryptids, especially Mothman. Noah deals with the loss by writing journal entries to Mothman in a journal he leaves in the woods each night. He wants to believe that Mothman is real even if he can’t see him, and decides to do his science fair project on whether Mothman exists.

 

Noah also begins to make friends with Molly, Hanna, and Alice, and develop feelings for Hanna, while slowly coming out and deciding how much of himself, and Mothman, he wants to share.

 

Although he is outed to his classmates before he’s ready, the people around him accept the news pretty quickly, even if they don’t entirely understand. Unfortunately, they are not as accepting of the existence of Mothman, which leads him to run away to do a solitary search in the woods that changes him, helps him deal with his grief over Lewis, and move forward.

 

Noah is autistic and that comes through clearly and is written with respect and sensitivity, as is the bisexuality of two of the characters.

 

Noah’s grappling with monstrosity, magic, and the unknown isn’t subtle, but Gow gets the kinds of thoughts on paper that you would expect a journal of private thoughts (or written to a cryptid of dubious existence) to contain. In the acknowledgements. Gow credits a childhood fascination with monsters with his ability to understand his own identity. Recommended for grades 5-8.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

 

 

Book Review: Grimmworld: The Witch in the Woods by Michaelbrent Collings

cover art for Grimmworld  The Witch in the Woods by Michaelbrent Collings

Grimmworld: The Witch in the Woods, by Michaelbrent Collings

Shadow Mountain Publishing, March 2024 (not yet released)

ISBN: 9781639932320

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com

 

Michaelbrent Collings writes good thrillers, and writes them fast: his pace has always been Dean Koontz-like. Grimmworld is his first attempt at a middle grade fantasy novel, and not surprisingly, it’s very good.  Collings has no trouble shifting his high-octane writing to fantasy, Kids and adults both will love this.

 

The book is a nifty new way to use Grimm’s Fairy Tales for backdrop.  The first 90 pages are a bit slow, but it’s just the setup for the real story.  Twins Jake and Willow Grimm are living in a new town, where their parents are involved in top secret research.  Through a collision of multiverses, the twins wind up in Grimmworld, where all the old fairy tales actually happen, for real.  However, the endings are very different in Grimmworld, and not happy ones, either– the original Brothers Grimm changed the endings when they wrote them.  Once the story shifts to Grimmworld, it takes off, and kicks into high gear. Jake and Willow do get some scientific explanation for the different worlds from a friend and wizard, Old Eli.  Collings does a nice job balancing a plausible scientific theory and making it understandable to young readers..  The ‘bubble’ analogy the author used really helps tie this section together.  The lovable, enigmatic mole-rat, Chet, also helps the twins, although his Cheshire-cat style of talking does drive them somewhat nuts.

 

The last half of the book is fantastic, with Jake and Willow attempting to save Hansel and Gretel from the witch’s oven.  There are a lot of outstanding riddles and puzzles in this section: riddling hasn’t been this much fun since Bilbo went toe to toe with Gollum all those years ago.  The ‘slow camel’ race and magic tree demonstrate real planning on the author’s part, and they are simple enough for readers to follow.  It’s the perfect wrap-up to a very good story.  Thankfully, this isn’t the end: Collings has already promised another if he gets a good response from readers.  Based on this, he won’t have any trouble getting it.

 

Bottom line is, this does what a good middle grade fantasy should do: thrill younger and older readers alike.  Schools should have this, to help kids see that reading has a LOT more to offer than staring at cell phones.  As for the author, who knows what else he has in his bag of tricks? Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson