Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
Celesta Rimington‘s novel, The Elephant’s Girl (Crown Books for Young Readers, 2020), is such an amazing book. I love the first line: “The wind and I have a complicated relationship.” But it’s not only the wind that talks to Lex.
Twelve-year-old Lexington literally lives at the zoo. She was brought there by a tornado; sheltered by an elephant, Nyah; found by a ghost, and taken in and named by the zoo’s train engineer, Roger Marsh. She doesn’t know her actual birthday, who her parents were, or where she came from. And now after seven years, Lex is finally old enough to help with the elephant training sessions. What she doesn’t expect is that Nyah will communicate with her through images. How is she supposed to figure out what they mean?
Celesta has another novel out called Tips for Magicians. I’ll have to check it out. If you want to know more about the author, go to her website where you can read some fun facts.
The Thief of Mirrors (Capstone Young Readers, 2016) by P.D. Baccalario was a fun read set in Applecross, Scotland, well, mostly set in Applecross. There’s a trip on the Incognito Bus, a visit to the Sunken Castle, plus a puppet who talks in rhyme, and of course a villain.
The Cabinet of Earths (Harper 2012) by Anne Nesbet is a creepily good book. Here’s the first line: “It was his own grandmother who fed Henri-Pierre to the Cabinet of Earths, long ago when he was only four.” See what I mean about creepy? If you like fantasy, or spooky books, I think you’ll like this one.
A Box of Gargoyles is a sequel to The Cabinet of Earths. Yea, more Maya!