THE IMPOSSIBLE GIRL: A Middle-Grade Fantasy reviewed by Guest Blogger, Georgie Bartlett and 2 Giveaways!

The Impossible Girl (Monarch Books, 2022) by Ashley White is a beautifully written middle-grade novel. Fans of Harry Potter and Narnia will adore this magical story about a young girl who accidentally finds her way into the whimsical world of Xarcadia.

REVIEW

Ava Marie Jones is what the citizens of Xarcadia call a Lost One, meaning her parents sent her out at birth into the mortal realm, where she was adopted by an uncharitable family. One stormy night, Ava decides she must get away, and flees to the comfort of her familiar haven: the Cathedral Tree. Ava climbs into the tree, when, unexpectedly, the old, tangled roots beneath her give way and she plummets down into darkness. She soon finds out that she has just landed in Xarcadia, a society filled with supernatural beings. There is so much mystery surrounding Ava’s birth and powers, that the entirety of Xarcadia is in an uproar over her sudden arrival.  

On top of the exhausting, constant speculation of the public and struggling to comprehend the inexplicable occurrences of the day, Ava finds out that her new school, Linhollow Academy, will be hosting an annual event called the Lost One’s Ball. Here she will have the opportunity to meet her birth parents for the first time in thirteen years. But, on the night of the ball, when a tragedy occurs, Ava must decide if she should investigate, or focus on her studies and her school’s upcoming annual Assembly Games.  

The friend group in this book was made up of extraordinary characters who were fun to read about. Characters are such an important part of a novel, and I can honestly say that everyone in this fantasy is wonderfully portrayed. Ava is so considerate; it is refreshing to see. Not since I read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, have I found a middle-grade fantasy novel with such a lovable cast of characters.  

Ava makes a good role model for young readers ages ten and older and a relatable one for teens. I believe this will be a book that will spark a love for reading, as well as a fun adventure for anyone who loves middle-grade books.

 

Ashley White made Xarcadia feel real. This clean middle-grade book with friendship, and magic, has unique takes on the classic fantasy elements we know and love. For example, I loved reading and learning about the beautiful mythological creatures—especially the Kelpies. “For within the lake were large,  bronze boats attached to the backs of horse-like creatures. The creatures had the appearance of Clydesdales—if Clydesdales were fifty feet tall and had silver, scale-like skin that shimmered like diamonds in the sunlight.” These creatures were incredibly interesting and mystical, and the world-building was spectacular.  

 

The book starts out with a prologue that grabs your attention from the very start and keeps it until the epic climax. In the end, there were twists and turns, which made it an exciting conclusion to an excellent story. It would be a wonderful choice for a book club, and so fun for a discussion. I kept wanting to find out what was going to happen to Ava, and I highly recommend this book for all middle-grade fans. Going on this thrilling adventure with Ava was such a pleasure, and I hope others will enjoy reading it as much as I did.  

Click here to read a sample.

For another excellent review by teen reader, Georgie Bartlett, click here.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

 

Georgie Bartlett is a teen living in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina with her family and two mischievous rescue dogs. She enjoys writing, crocheting, journaling, gardening, playing the drums, and above all, reading. 

GIVEAWAY 

Monarch Educational Services is giving away a paperback copy and an E-book of The Impossible Girl to two readers. That means even if you don't live in the U.S., you can still win a book. Please leave a comment by September 20 along with your email address if you are new to my blog. Share this on social media and I'll put your name in twice--just let me know where you shared it.

CONGRATULATIONS

Esther Bandy won When Mama Grows With Me from last week's blog.

 

Make sure you check out other great middle-grade books on Greg Pattridge's Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday blog.

                                

When Mama Grows With Me: A Picturebook Review and Giveaway

 Some of you may remember me reviewing Rebecca Wheeler's first picture book When Daddy Shows Me the Sky. Fast forward two years and the companion book, When Mama Grows With Me, is about to be launched into the world. I'm also proud to announce that Rebecca is my new co-publisher of Talking Story! (Hint: If you don't win her book from this blog, if you are a newsletter subscriber you'll have another chance in our October issue.) 

When Mama Grows With Me is once again illustrated by the lovely Katherine Jordan. Now that I've gotten to know Rebecca better, I understand how this picture book is a beautiful marriage of Rebecca's love for gardening and yoga.

REVIEW

The book begins with a child getting ready to plant a garden with his mother. The theme is introduced in the second paragraph: "Sometimes it's hard to wait, but waiting teaches me to be patient and helps my mind grow. Our plants do so much work before flowers appear. If the plants are patient, I can be too!"

The boy plants the seeds in little pots. He imagines the seeds waking up when he sprinkles them with water. "I pretend to be a seed and stretch my arms like roots in the earth."

After two weeks, sprouts appear. As he waits, the little boy shapes his body into a blossom.

The mother and son do an airplane pose as they pretend to be birds looking for something to eat. He has to wait patiently while the plants grow, so he watches frogs jump out of the water pitcher, and of course, imitates them. 

In late spring the seedlings are finally ready to be transplanted into the garden. He and his mother shape themselves into trees to provide shade in the afternoon for the new plants. 

In the summer, after the flowers blossom, the little boy and his mother wait for the pollinators. "Parents can learn a lot from pollinators," Mama says. "The insects focus on one flower at a time, rather than trying to do lots of things at once."

"I sit in the grass and imagine that my legs are wings. First, I point my knees up to the sky like butterfly wings and then I stretch them open like a sleepy moth."

In the fall, "we hide bulbs in the earth for next spring's flowers..."

"Just because we can't see them, doesn't mean the plants aren't growing on the inside," Mama says. 

"Just like people," I say. "When we wait, we grow on the inside."

"That's right," Mama whispers. "Waiting is growing."

I smile because I know in all seasons, Mama grows with me.

                                                    ****

This child's voice in this informative and lyrical picture book makes it kid-friendly for early elementary students. I picture a classroom of kindergarteners learning about pollination and doing the butterfly pose on the floor of their classroom! In the back of the book, Rebecca's daughter demonstrates the yoga poses.

REMEMBER!

Pre-orders help authors. Rebecca's book debuts on September 19 so if you're interested in this title (think: Christmas is coming soon! Get a copy for your child's teacher or for your yoga instructor!). So go ahead and order it now. She'll appreciate that! 

VIDEO and PODCAST

Did I say that Rebecca loves flowers and yoga? Check out this video on how to save zinnia seeds!

Here's a recent interview that Rebecca did on Thriving Authors Podcast.

GIVEAWAY

To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment (with your email address if you are new to my blog) by September 14. If you prefer, you can email me to enter. U.S. postal addresses only. If you are an educator or librarian, you get two chances--just let me know in the comments.

Congratulations to Georgie Bartlett who won an Ebook of Elanor and the Song of the Bard and to Valinora Troy and Nathan Keys who won Ebook copies of The Conjurer's Curse from last week's blog. 

Write2Ignite's Master Class on Chapter Books

Write2Ignite provides education, inspiration, and encouragement to Christians who write for children and young adults. We do this by offering services and resources, and by creating a positive network consisting of both new and seasoned professionals.

As many of you know, I'm part of the Write2Ignite team. One of the main ways that our organization helps writers is by providing biannual virtual Master Classes.  Our fall class on September 23 features the talented and accomplished author of many Imagination Station books, Marianne Hering who will teach about writing chapter books.

Look at the Master Class schedule and you'll see that each of Marianne's three classes will be followed up by breakout sessions with a W2I team member. Since I'm one of the breakout leaders I had a peek at the worksheets that Kathy O'Neill created--and they're going to lead to lively brainstorming, discussion, and writing!

The class is $69.00 and you register here. Remember, middle or high school students attend at the discounted rate of $49.00.

I'm looking forward to hearing our guest editors' presentations. We'll hear from Laura Derico, Acquisitions Editor at David C. Cook, and Jennifer Lowry, Publisher and Editor at Monarch Books. Both editors said they would be open to W2I submissions after the class. 

In addition to a packed day, we have FOURTEEN books to give away as door prizes!!  Look at this amazing list:

                     By Marianne Hering:

In Fear of the Spear

Trouble on the Orphan Train

Inferno in Tokyo

Madman in Manhattan

Escape to the Hiding Place

Light in the Lions' Den

 

 

By Tim Shoemaker: 

Escape From the Everglades

The Deep End

Every Hidden Thing 

Easy Target  

 

Books published by David C. Cook:

 

The Action Bible Easter: 25 Stories About Jesus' Resurrection

 

Clever Cub Forgives a Friend – by Bob Hartman & Steve Brown 

 

Clever Cub Invites Someone New by Bob Hartman & Steve Brown

 

The Heart Who Wanted To Be Whole by Beth Guckenberger & Irina Mileo

Want to catch a glimpse of Marianne's magnetic personality? Read her post on the W2I blog, "So Why Isn't War and Peace a Chapter Book?"

Come ready to learn, grow, and be challenged. Who knows, there might be a chapter book series at the tip of your fingers! I hope to see you there!

The Ink Mages on Producing a Podcast and 2 Giveaways!

 A few weeks ago I attended a Monarch Publishing event and was fortunate to meet two fantasy authors, Stephanie Cotta and Angela Hughes. They recently started a podcast, The Ink Mages, and agreed to answer questions about the process. Take it away, Stephanie and Angela!

INTERVIEW

Carol: What does your name mean?  

Stephanie and Angela: We are The Ink Mages! We wanted to come up with a catchy name that had a magical fantasy ring to it (since we’re fantasy nerds) but also had a writing-esque vibe to it as well. So, after bouncing around some terms and names, we landed on the word ‘Mage’ and then we slapped ‘ink’ in front of it, and our name was born. As Ink Mages, we feel the name embodies how we create magic on the page when we write. 

Carol: Why did you decide to create a podcast?

 

Stephanie and Angela: We wanted to grow our audience and platform, and doing a podcast was something we both had been discussing for months. So, naturally doing one together seemed the perfect fit. Second, since we have so much fun discussing our own books, myths, legends, and fantasy books, we wanted to create a space where we could invite readers and writers into our imaginative world and “nerd out” with us.  

Carol: What are your goals for The Ink Mages podcasts?

Stephanie and Angela: Our goal is to interview other authors, grow our audience, share about our books, help encourage aspiring writers, and build a community of nerds who love to talk about fantasy books. Our current goal is to do four episodes a month, shooting for one a week. We’re hoping to do our first interviews next month in September 2023. So be on the lookout!

Carol: What were your fears or concerns in creating a podcast? Did you have any bumps in the road when you got started?

Stephanie and Angela: Our biggest concern was, how do we start? Where do we go to record? Do we need equipment? And how involved will this be? But, after we spoke with Dr. Jen Lowry of Monarch Press, she helped us navigate which platforms to use and where to start. From there, we just hopped on Streamyard a month ago and said, “We’re doing this, let’s record!” And that’s how our first episode happened. We had a blast just nerding out together and knew this was going to be a special endeavor.

Carol: I know your podcast is pretty new, so who do you hope your audience will become? What do you hope to offer that other podcasts don’t?

Stephanie and Angela: We really hope to grow a community of writers, readers, and lovers of fantasy. There are plenty of nerds out there who love talking “all things books,” and we want to stick to what we do best: writing fantasy and being passionate about our favorite sci-fi/fantasy stories. We want to focus on those two elements so our audience knows with every episode what our niche is. We love broadcasting that we are “Super Nerds” when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi—hopefully, that will set us apart as well.   

Carol: How do you plan to grow your audience?

Stephanie and Angela:  Through social media. We have created an account for The Ink Mages on all the major social platforms, and we try to make several posts a week to engage with our audience. We run polls ask questions and encourage people to leave comments on our videos so we can have a fun dialogue. Check out our LinkTree to connect with us!

Carol: What type of equipment do you need? Hardware or software? 

Stephanie and Angela: We started very basic with our equipment. We record on Streamyard using their free service. Angela uses a microphone, but Stephanie does not. There are plenty of free resources out there, including uploading on YouTube and Spotify, so starting a podcast is not an expensive venture. As we grow, we may expand and upgrade the services we use, but for now, the most important thing for us is just to get out there and start.

Carol: How did you decide on Spotify for your platform?

Stephanie and Angela: Spotify Podcasters seemed a natural choice, and it was recommended to us—plus it’s easy to use. You can add interactive questions and polls on this platform, so it gives us feedback on what episodes we should do next. And it has all the links to other podcast platforms, making it easy to upload to all of them with one click.

Carol: What advice would you give to others who want to start a podcast?

Stephanie and Angela: Just start. Figure out what you want to focus on, find your niche, and just start recording. Don’t overthink it. If you’re introverted like us, find a partner to host it with you—that’s what sealed it for us. On our own, it seemed daunting, but having a friend on the show made the conversation more fun and engaging.

Carol: How much time does it take to create a podcast? 

Stephanie and Angela: Getting started took a little legwork of creating our Ink Mages account on all the social platforms. But before we even did that, we had to design a logo—that was the fun part. Having our name figured out really helped the design take form. We chose a feather quill pen to highlight the writing aspect of our podcast, followed by an image of a stack of books, to show our love of reading!

Once we had that, it put a fire in us to really dive into our podcast and make it happen. Next, we created a shared email, so we have access to all the accounts. We used Canva for designing all our YouTube video thumbnails, and initially that took thirty minutes to design. From there, we can reuse the template, just changing out the information for our new episodes. It’s very easy and not time-consuming at all.

When recording, our episodes run a little under an hour, and then we splice them for easier consumption. We do minimal editing, so after a recording, we spend an hour or two getting it ready for uploading. 

GIVEAWAY

Stephanie and Angela are each giving away an Ebook. Stephanie's book is The Conjurer's Curse and Angela's is Elanor and the Song of the Bard. 

Leave me a comment with your preference and I'll enter your name. PLEASE make sure you include your email address if you are new to my blog.  Giveaway ends on September 7 so enter now! If you prefer, feel free to email me instead. 

FIRST PODCAST!