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Circuses Redux (plus giveaway!)

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Around this time last year, I posted about a mini-trend of circuses in YA and middle grade. This trend appears to be going strong. There were at least two circus books nominated for the Cybils last year, and one of the most hyped middle grade titles I’ve seen recently, Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley, also revolves around a circus. Most of the circuses featured in the novels are magical in some way, or surrounded by magical people. I wasn’t ever much of a circus kid (I’m not an animal person and clowns are creepy), but I expect that circuses are magical for a lot of children, so it makes sense that they would hold real magic on the page.

Penguin was kind enough to invite me to meet Cassie Beasley, debut author of Circus Mirandus, at a dinner several weeks ago. She has a charming Southern accent and talked about her writing and path to publication with a group of librarians and booksellers. Her book is a middle grade story about a boy, Micah, whose grandfather is dying. He had always told Micah fantastic stories about a magical circus he had visited as a boy, and now Micah intends to find that circus and claim the miracle that his grandfather said was owed to him by a man called the Lightbender. Beasley incorporates not only Micah’s quest (as he teams up with a girl his age, Jenny, who very firmly does not believe in magic), but also flashbacks to his grandfather’s visit to the circus and the people he met there. It makes the story seem bigger, and kids should enjoy putting the pieces together and seeing how Micah’s grandfather’s adventures mirror his own.

Circus Mirandus is perfectly suited for a middle grade audience, encouraging kids to believe in magic while also not shying away from the hard realities of life (adult readers will know that no matter what Micah does, he will not be able to stop his grandfather from dying). There’s great friendship between Micah and Jenny, who each have their own strengths. A few of the ancillary characters are underdeveloped or flat, particularly the more villainous ones. I wanted to know more about the bird woman, Victoria, who caused such destruction; Beasley did hint at the dinner that there might be more on her in a future book.

I’m giving away a signed review copy of Circus Mirandus, which will be published on June 2. I think it will be a real winner with middle grade readers who dig light fantasy. Enter to win in the form at the end of the post; I’ll choose a winner May 20. I’ve also rounded up a few other circus books that have been published since I last wrote about them. I don’t think this is a trend that’s going away (a lot of them feature high-wire walkers, which I think is interesting). Descriptions are from Worldcat unless otherwise indicated.

Girl on a Wire by Gwenda Bond
Sixteen-year-old Jules Maroni’s dream is to follow in her father’s
footsteps as a high-wire walker. When her family is offered a
prestigious role in the new Cirque American, it seems that Jules and the
Amazing Maronis will finally get the spotlight they deserve. But the
presence of the Flying Garcias may derail her plans. For decades, the
two rival families have avoided each other as sworn enemies.

Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling
By day Rémy Brunel is a daring circus acrobat, by night she is an
equally talented jewel thief currently assigned to steal a famous
diamond in Victorian London–but when the theft goes wrong she finds
herself allied with a young policeman as they try to find the elusive
gem.

Shadowplay by Laura Lam
The circus lies behind Micah Grey in dust and ashes. He and the white
clown, Drystan, take refuge with the once-great magician, Jasper Maske.
When Maske agrees to teach them his trade, his embittered rival
challenges them to a duel which could decide all of their fates. People
also hunt both Micah and the person he was before the circus the runaway
daughter of a noble family. And Micah discovers there is magic and
power in the world, far beyond the card tricks and illusions he is
perfecting. A tale of phantom wings, a clockwork hand, and the delicate
unfurling of new love, Shadowplay continues Micah Grey’s extraordinary
journey.

Carnival of Secrets by Melissa Marr
A centuries-long war between daimons and witches sets the stage for
three teens caught up in a deadly struggle for power and autonomy in the
exotic and otherworldly Carnival of Souls, the mercantile center of the
daimon dimension.

Weight of Feathers by Anna–Marie McLemore (forthcoming September 15)
For twenty years, the
Palomas and the Corbeaus have been rivals and enemies, locked in an
escalating feud for over a generation. Both families make their living
as traveling performers in competing shows—the Palomas swimming in
mermaid exhibitions, the Corbeaus, former tightrope walkers, performing
in the tallest trees they can find. Lace Paloma may be new to
her family’s show, but she knows as well as anyone that the Corbeaus are
pure magia negra, black magic from the devil himself. Simply touching
one could mean death, and she’s been taught from birth to keep away. But
when disaster strikes the small town where both families are
performing, it’s a Corbeau boy, Cluck, who saves Lace’s life. And his
touch immerses her in the world of the Corbeaus, where falling for him
could turn his own family against him, and one misstep can be just as
dangerous on the ground as it is in the trees. [description from Goodreads]

The Mermaid’s Sister by Carrie Anne Noble
Clara discovers that her sister is becoming a mermaid, and realizes that
no mermaid can survive on land. Desperate to save her, she and her
friend load the girl in a gypsy wagon and begin a journey to the sea.
But no road is straight, and the trio encounters trouble around every
bend. And always, Clara wonders if she herself will become a mermaid.

All The Rage by Courtney Summers: Blog Tour and Giveaway

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I’ve talked a bit about All The Rage by Courtney Summers here prior to its release. Now that it’s out, we’re taking part in the blog tour for the book — because Courtney is a friend, I won’t review the book, but I wanted to talk about why it’s one you need to read and talk a bit about the quote above.

One of the big images throughout the book is that of red lipstick and red nail polish. They’re the main character Romy’s armor; they’re a way of her having a ritual and control in a world where

There’s a moment when the pair of school mannequins, which are there for school spirit, become a means for Romy’s peers to bully her. In one scene, the Jane mannequin has her lips colored in red, so there’s no doubt she’s being used as a means to mocking Romy. When Romy sees this — and she anticipates a certain level of being made fun of and ridiculed because she’s the girl who dared speak up about the school’s golden boy who raped her — she tries to scrape off the color.

Romy’s former best friend Penny watches this happen, and it’s when Romy catches her watching on, she feels not only betrayed, but she feels a thousand knives of betrayal. She decides then and there she can’t handle being at school any longer, so she leaves and goes home.

The quote above, “It all feels too close,” is when she gets home and she can’t make up her mind about what to do. Everything claws at her at once: wanting to hide away in her room — one that doesn’t feel like hers yet, since she and her mother have just moved into a place with Todd, her mother’s romantic other — and wanting to flee and put space between her and the world she inhabits. Here’s the entire passage:

I stand in the sun porch and the quiet pulls at me, and different parts of me want different things. There’s the part
of me that wants to go inside and sleep. There’s the part of
me that wants space, distance, because it all feels too close.

The part of me that wants to go is louder. 


This may feel small, but it’s a huge piece throughout the book and ultimately, swings back to the conclusion of the book, too. What Romy feels is this constant push and pull, but it’s the desire to go — to step outside her own situation and her own skin and her own place of hiding — that seems to be louder.

***

The biggest theme running through Summers’s book is the importance of believing girls. By believing them, we let them speak their truths. We hear their stories, however raw and painful they may be. And the more we hear them, the more we let their voices stand. The more we then, in turn, believe their voices even more.

To celebrate the release of All The Rage, Courtney created a hashtag campaign aimed at offering insight, advice, and voice to girls everywhere in #ToTheGirls. For those who may have missed it as it trended worldwide, there have been nice write ups in the New York Times, BlogHer, the Huffington Post, MTV, and a shout out on The Today Show. This is well-worth sharing with teenagers, as the advice shared here is powerful, moving, and could be life-changing. I ended up dropping off the spare ARC I had of the book into the local Little Free Library, which is located between the middle school and high school, with a note about the hash tag, hoping a girl sees it, reads it, and is moved by it.

This month, I had the honor and privilege of having Courtney Summers in conversation with the legendary Laurie Halse Anderson on the topics of feminism, sexual violence, and the importance of girls’ stories. Please read this — both women are phenomenally passionate, well-spoken, and what they have to say can, and will, change lives.

***
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press, I’ve got a copy of All The Rage to give away to one lucky winner in the US or Canada. Here’s the official description:

The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything-friends, family, and her community. Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous. But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out, Romy must decide whether she wants to fight or carry the burden of knowing more girls could get hurt if she doesn’t speak up. Nobody believed her the first time-and they certainly won’t now-but the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear.

With a shocking conclusion and writing that will absolutely knock you out, All the Rage examines the shame and silence inflicted upon young women in a culture that refuses to protect them.

I’ll select a winner on or around May 5.

Six Years of STACKED

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Believe it or not, today is STACKED’s 6th anniversary. It all began with an email to Kimberly asking if she’d want to write for a blog and post a couple times a week about books and reading. The rest is history.

We’re honored by all of our readers taking the time to read, talk, and share with us each and every day. It’s such a blast to be able to write about anything that strikes our fancy and know that someone out there is reading it and thinking about it. It’s thanks to this blog that I have the job I have, and I’m sure Kimberly can say that it’s thanks to this blog she gets to do some of the cool things she does at work, too.

Being numbers nerds, a snapshot of STACKED: last month, March 2015, was the biggest hit month in our history, with nearly 100,000 visits. In 6 years, we’ve published 1,920 posts. That’s a lot of words and a lot of eyes.

So much has changed in our personal lives since beginning this journey, but one thing remains the same: we’re both book lovers and we are passionate about advocating for readers.

To celebrate our anniversary, as well as to thank readers long-time and brand new, we’re giving away a $60 gift certificate to a book retailer of your choice. We’ll let the winner choose where they’d like to get their gift certificate, so long as we can order it online. Winner will be pulled and contacted on or around May 1.

Thanks for being a part of our daily reading and writing lives, and we can’t wait to see what this next year holds at STACKED!

Giveaway: All The Rage by Courtney Summers

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Last fall I talked a little bit about why Courtney Summers’s upcoming All The Rage needs to be on your radar. Now that there’s an outstanding preorder campaign going on, wherein those who preorder the book can also pick up one of her backlist titles for free, I thought there was no better time to remind readers about this book and to offer up a giveaway.
I’ve talked extensively about how much I love Summers’s raw, gripping, gritty fiction before. I’ve also talked about how she writes tremendous, flawed, and sometimes (often?) unlikable female characters. 
The quick pitch for this book is Speak meets Veronica Mars, but it’s more than a quick pitch. This is a book about shame, about rape culture, and about how girls are victims of a world that doesn’t want to believe their stories. It’s feminist, it’s richly written, and it’s just earned its second starred review (one from Kirkus and one from Publishers Weekly). This is a book that will generate discussion and it’s one that should be read by teens and those who work with teens alike. 
I’ll write more about this book when release date — April 14 — is closer, but in the mean time and in honor of the fact that you can get two of Summers books for the price of one, I’m going to give away two preorders. This is open to US and Canadian residents. I’ll draw winners in mid-March and let you know you’ve won, order the book, as well as put in the request for your backlist title. 
If you’re stuck on which preorder title you want, I can assure you there’s not a wrong choice. 

Review & Giveaway: Loop by Karen Akins

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Bree Bennis attends a school for Shifters, those who were born with the ability to travel backwards in time. Her goal at the book’s opening is to travel to the 21st century, complete her midterm, and carry out a little side project that will earn her the money to ensure her sick mother is able to get the care she needs. It should be doable, except that Bree runs into a bratty kid named Finn and accidentally takes him hostage while trying to complete her tasks. Oops.

She eventually escapes the 21st century and goes back to her home time, the 23rd century, knowing she’ll have to return to the 21st to somehow convince Finn not to talk about her little visit. Only when she does return, she lands three years later, and Finn is no longer a bratty kid. He’s her age, he’s pretty hot, and he claims to have been in a relationship with her for some time. It doesn’t take long to figure out he means a future version of Bree. Of course, he can’t tell her about her own future, for fear of disrupting the timeline. (Picture River Song saying “Spoilers” to the Doctor here.) In true Bree fashion, in trying to extricate herself from this situation, she accidentally brings Finn along with her to the 23rd century, something that shouldn’t even be possible. Oops again.

Now Bree must unravel not only how to return Finn to his own time without anyone the wiser, but also how exactly he came to know future Bree so well, and what it all has to do with the strange things going on in her boarding school.

Karen Akins’ debut Loop really embraces how fun time travel can be. This is a time travel book for readers who love time travel. Do you have certain websites bookmarked whose sole purpose is to speculate on the possibility of time travel? This book is for you. This is a true speculative novel, one that continuously asks what if. What if we could time travel? What would the rules be? What would the consequences be? For readers who love those kinds of questions, this is a gem. For readers who get headaches thinking about it, it might be best to pick up a different book.

It’s not just the time travel that makes this book so much fun. Bree and Finn have great snarky chemistry, and there’s a slew of futuristic 23rd century technology that is fascinating to read about. The 23rd century feels real, chock full of fun little details and new slang terms. The plot itself is fast-paced and complicated, but makes sense in the end, as good time travel books should. Often when I read a book with multiple moving plot parts, I’m a little hesitant to reach the end; I’ve been burned with unresolved subplots and details left dangling before (seemingly unintentionally). This is especially true for time travel stories, which can be more complicated than most. Trust in Akins – it all comes together in a satisfying way.

St. Martin’s Press is giving away a finished copy of Loop to one lucky reader (US residents only). Enter using the form below. The giveaway closes November 14.