(3) YA When her father is imprisoned, fourteen-year-old Lizbet does what any good medieval Christian daughter would do: vows to free him. But in her travels with brown-skinned Strix, a witch who makes things out of broken bits, Lizbet finds herself taking and embodying more liberties than she ever thought possible. Set in an alternate Holy Roman Empire, this is a bewitching old-world fairy tale comprised of picaresque episodic encounters.

Reviewer: Jeannie Coutant

(3) YA English human boy Elliot uses his intelligence, staunch pacifism, and proclivity for subversive behavior to his advantage while attending school in the magical Borderlands. Readers follow Elliot from ages thirteen to seventeen--and through various sexual encounters--in this heartfelt coming-of-age story. At times hilarious, Brennan's latest fantasy abounds with delightful sarcasm, inverted tropes, hard truths, LGBTQ representation, and challenges to gender politics.

Reviewer: Jeannie Coutant

(2) YA Dickinson completes the series of "elemental" tales he began with his wife Robin McKinley (Water; Fire). Though links to the theme can be tenuous, these six new stories are provocative in both variety and ideas. Suspenseful, frequently violent, sometimes comic, and with Dickinson's usual command of imaginative imagery and beautifully tooled language, this is a fitting capstone to the series.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2012

(3) 4-6 After receiving a frightened message from her brother, Cara and her two best friends sneak out to his camp for genius children. There they discover more secrets about Cara's missing mother and the magical environmental war that is brewing. While there is danger and magic, the real appeal is Cara's realistic voice as she fights to protect her loved ones.

Reviewer: Lauren Chambers

(2) 4-6 It’s 1960, and thirteen-year-old Sophie is spending the summer at her grandmother’s Louisiana bayou home. After meeting a mysterious creature, she’s transported back in time one hundred years and (with her summer tan) mistaken for a slave. Sophie’s coming of age resonates with moral outrage and righteous indignation. Sherman pays homage to classic fantasy tropes while vividly evoking two historical settings.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2012

(2) YA Illustrated by Theo Black. With its wide range of subject matter and style, this collection of supernatural stories shows off Black's fertile imagination. Palpable details and shifts in tone carry readers between times and places while the diverse protagonists create some unexpected perspectives. Two stories here are new, but most appeared in previous collections, which may account for the entertainingly eclectic mix.

Reviewer: Lauren Adams | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2010

(3) 4-6 The Armitage family has the best of all worlds. Life is generally predictable six days a week, but strange things are prone to happen on Mondays: unicorns arrive, witches threaten, and Furies appear, just to name a few. These twenty-four linked tales featuring Harriet, Mark, their delightfully broad-minded parents, and assorted quirky relatives is a trove of succinct and distinctly British adventures.

Reviewer: Megan Lynn Isaac