The YA Agenda: October 2018

[helloladies]

Jenny is the splendid and prodigious co-host of the Reading the End bookcast. She blogs about books and other sundries at the funny and entertaining Reading the End, where you can go for even more book recs in genres other than YA. She is also a champion library patron and is kind to all librarians.

We have reached the spookiest of months, and I have brought you an old/new pairing of the fluffiest Halloweeny books imaginable. If we’re being honest, I must admit that these are middle grade, but it’s been a rough month, and next month’s going to be rough too. If ever there were a time for this column to skew younger, now is that time.

I read Ursula Vernon’s Castle Hangnail this year and immediately raved about it on my own blog. Not satisfied with a single medium for my enthusiasm about Castle Hangnail, I have elected to share it in this column too, as a pairing for my favorite Eva Ibbotson book, Which Witch? (1979)



Published in 2015 and therefore criminally underappreciated for three years now, Castle Hangnail is the story of Molly, an aspiring wicked witch who is doing her best to meet the Board of Magic requirements and become the official witch of Castle Hangnail. The minions in the castle—including two Minotaurs and a not-exactly-voodoo-doll—are used to older, meaner wicked witches, but they do their best to support Molly anyway. There has never been a more charming Halloweeny book, and I say that as someone who was raised on The Witch Family.

(No, I still love The Witch Family better, I think. It’s been with me longer.)

As well as hitting every plot beat you could hope for, Ursula Vernon gets some very good stuff in this book about bad friends and the way they make you feel. Molly has a school friend—“friend”—called Eudaimonia whose brand of nastiness she doesn’t quite understand. It’s a lovely insight for a kid’s book, both the way Eudaimonia behaves with Molly and the realization Molly comes to that Eudaimonia doesn’t want her as a friend so much as something closer to a servant.

Which Witch?, by Eva Ibbotson, hits many of the same notes, with a cast of characters who ostensibly serve Evil yet are delightful and strange and kind. The wizard Arriman has no prospects of finding another dark wizard to replace him, and so he resolves to make one: He establishes a contest to find a dark witch for a wife, with the intention of having a baby with her who can become the next great sorcerer of evil. Belladonna desperately loves him—but unfortunately, she is the whitest of witches and can’t blight anything. She mostly makes flowers and takes care of animals.



Written in the 1970s, Which Witch? doesn’t always stand up to the test of time in terms of stereotypes and language hygiene. Arriman consults a fortune-teller whom the book calls a slur for Romani people, one of the judges of the witches is an Indian genie in a bottle, etc. If that’s not a dealbreaker for you, the story is quite a sweet one. The wicked witches are all very dear—Belladonna loves them, even though they aren’t nice to her—and there’s a kind little boy named Terence whose worm turns out to be important to Belladonna’s ability to (potentially) win the contest and find love with Arriman. Plus, there’s necromancy!

I am in the mood for adorability this Halloween season, so please hit me up in the comments with your recommendations of other books like these.

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Anticipated October Releases

I was lucky to get the opportunity to read an ARC of The Spy with the Red Balloon, by Katherine Locke (2 October, Albert Whitman), which means I know exactly how excellent it is. It’s not a sequel to The Girl with the Red Balloon, but a companion novel that overlaps with the original book a very small amount. Siblings Ilse and Wolf have magic talents—and Ilse’s a genius—which they are determined to use to fight Hitler any way they can. The Spy with the Red Balloon is just as twisty-turny and suspenseful as its predecessor.

I will admit here and now that I almost cried when I saw that Anna-Marie McLemore had a new book coming out. She unvaryingly writes beautiful, moving, queer stories, of which I must assume Blanca & Roja (9 October, Feiwel and Friends) will be another. Blanca and Roja know that their destiny is for one of them to stay a girl and the other transform into a swan. Even though I don’t tend to like stories where one girl is Good and one girl is Bad, I trust Anna-Marie McLemore to carry me through it. Never don’t read a new book by Anna-Marie McLemore, is the motto of this YA column.

Destiny Soria’s Beneath the Citadel (9 October, Amulet) tells the story of a rebel girl in a world ruled by infallible prophecies. Soria’s debut novel, Iron Cast, blew me away with its worldbuilding and its absolute tiptop prioritizing of friendship. From what I can tell, Beneath the Citadel will share in these traits: Our protagonist, Cassa, has a crew of friends who sound like entire ballers: One has a dark past! One is fat and anxious and a genius! One purchased his magic power At a Cost! Add in the comparisons I keep seeing to Six of Crows, and you’ve got one verrrrry excited book blogger.

The Light between Worlds, by Laura E. Weymouth (23 October, HarperTeen), explores the aftermath of getting to go to Narnia. (Sort of.) It’s been five years since sisters Philippa and Evelyn were transported to a magical world called the Woodlands, in the midst of the bombing of London. Now that they’re back in their home world, Philippa has moved on. Evelyn hasn’t. When Evelyn goes missing, Philippa is sure that she’s fled back to the Woodlands, and I….will be very sad and upset if that is not what has happened to Evelyn. But even if it is, I am too much of a sucker for portal fantasy, aftermaths, and sisterhood not to read The Light between Worlds.

If you know my romance reading at all, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of second-chance romances, which is the very thing that has drawn me to Kheryn Callender’s This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story (30 October, Balzer + Bray). Nathan Bird has been struggling since his mom died, but his childhood best friend, Oliver, has just come back into town. Romance ensues. I’m particularly excited for This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story because Oliver is hard of hearing. It sounds like a diverse, fluffy dear of a romance.

Get at me in the comments for the YA books you’re anticipating this month!

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