lannamichaels

The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke, illustrated by Victoria Sawdon (2024): A light, forgettable short story previously, per the afterword, broadcast on the radio for a BBC Christmas thing in 2022. It's very Clarke, for better or for worse. The illustrations are good. IDK, this short story basically encapsulates everything about Clarke's magic systems that I don't like. It's a good short story but I would like it to make sense. Whereas Clarke is like "it doesn't have to make sense, it's magic". This worked much better for me in Piranesi.

Will the Pigeon Graduate? by Mo Willems (2025): Good book but at the same time, it's very obviously a cynical ploy to hone in on the market that buys Dr. Seuss's Oh The Places You'll Go for new grads.

Right Back at You by Carolyn Mackler (2025): Midgrade, time traveling letters book. 12 year old Mason lives in New York City in 2023 and is bullied in school. 12 year old Talia lives in an unnamed small town in Western PA in 1987 and is bullied in school. Together, they give each other encouragement and friendship, via letters they leave each other in their closets.

Despite this, neither one of them actually considers in time that the magical time traveling letter wormhole will cease when Mason moves to Atlanta (his dad got a new job on sudden notice and "walked out" (aka did not walk out, but Mason and everyone in school treats it like his dad did, in fact, walk out) and was staying on his brother's couch until he got an apartment and Mason and his mom would move there after school ended in a couple months). This helpfully gives the author a way to wrap up the book at a decent-enough place, while still being within the constraints of a midgrade novel for page count.

Recommended for anyone who thinks that there just aren't enough midgrade books about bullying. I snark, I snark. It's a very quick read, fine and enjoyable, and yes, there are age-appropriate time travel shenangians (Mason tells Talia the baseball game results so she can win bets against her brother; Talia uses Mason mentioning 'google' all the time to buy google stock ASAP for herself and for Mason, and sends him the money.)

Content warning for some really severe antisemitism for a midgrade book that is, to be fair, about bullying. (Talia is Jewish and the only other Jew she knows is her optometrist. Mason isn't Jewish but knows plenty of Jews.)

Buying Google stock in 1987??? How is that even possible?

It's not, she did it when google stock was available for purchase.

Like in The Switching Well, where the past protagonist, after her sojourn in the future, grew up to collect Disney cels - partially because she thought animation was cool, partially because she'd learned that they'd really appreciate in value, iirc. And then she left one or two to her future counterpart in her will, again iirc.

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