Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Adventure Books

Sci-Fi/Fantasy is my favorite genre and the books that I am always reading. However, the last "Choose Your Own Adventure" book I read was in the 5th grade. I became so frustrated by dying in a seemingly random fashion on every page that I ended up reading the book in page order and  never reading one again, until now. These facts made this week a very interesting one in terms of selections.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon

The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a magical, fantasy, coming of age tale with multiple plots and storylines targeting the 9-12 age range. A small, sad town leaves the youngest child born every year in the woods as a sacrifice to the evil witch in order to ostensibly keep the town safe and the witch at bay. However, the witch Xan is compassionate and takes the children, feeding them starlight to strengthen them until she gives them to loving homes in a different town. One Day of Sacrifice, she makes a mistake and feeds the child moonlight, filling her with magic. Xan decides to raise the child as her own. As Luna the child grows, questions of who and how to see evil emerge as themes. Plots twist together, seemingly tangentially related until they all come together to create a rich tapestry.

The plots sections are fast paced, with each chapter focusing on an aspect of the plot, usually only for a few pages, and then moving to the next portion. The characters move in tandem, with accelerated life phases or coming to new realizations and plans separate yet timed together, creating a unified movement. Through this movement and the development of the characters, Barnhill encourages the readers to come along with the especially the child of their own age, as she gains new insight into good and evil, understanding of the world, and her own developing power. Multiple universal truths are themes, allowing for different ones to speak to an individual depending on the need or how the reader can interpret the book.

The towns, castles, and forest place the story in familiar settings, allowing for an easier suspension of belief into the world of magic. The narrative imagery is vivid and descriptive, not only creating pictures and enhancing the story but also helping to explain progressions, such as the effectiveness from a sieve to a fisher net to capture magic.

Overall, this is an engaging fantasy novel with a creative and origin plot that can easily capture the imaginations of tweens, as they themselves begin to learn new truths and come of age.

Barnhill, Kelly. 2016. The Girl Who Drank the Moon. First Edition. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Young Readers. ISBN: 978-1-61620-567-6

Worst-Case Scenario: Mars

In an engaging Choose Your Own Adventure style, this worst-case scenario book guides the 9-12 year old reader through various scenarios on a space adventure to Mars, as part of the youngest set of astronauts ever. With 24 different possible endings and only one where success is achieved, there are a lot of decisions to be made. The action of the book is continuous, and the events are well explained. Within the narrative, there are generally clues as to the right decision, helping the reader along, instead of complete surprises and unexplained results. The rationale following why a decision worked or not is logical and follows a realistic chain of events. 

With illustrations, and at times comic book style pictures, the book breaks up pages of text and maintains visual interest along with the narrative interest. The other characters in the book have their personalities and fit into their roles nicely, though there is little ongoing development of the characters, primarily due to the segmented and short nature of a choose your own adventure style  book. 

Overall, this book is a great one for the genre and this age group in being interesting but also fact-based for decision making, guiding the reader on a space adventure.

Khan, Hena, David Borgenicht, and Robert Zubrin. 2011. The Worst-Case Scenario: Mars. San Francisco, Calif: Chronicle Books. ISBN: 978-0-8118-7124-2