As my options are either crutching or sitting on the couch, I've been reading a lot lately and have some reviews to share. Only the good ones; I won't mention the books that haven't worked for me...

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Today is release day for my buddy Ingrid Law's Scumble, which I adored. My review:

Ingrid Law's marvelous Newbery-honor-winning first book, Savvy, was about just-turned-13-years-old Mibs and her journey to help her injured father. It's also about Mibs discovering her "savvy," sort of like her secret power, and discovering herself.

I liked Savvy a lot, but Scumble won my heart. It's not a sequel to the first book, but a "companion novel" about one of Mibs' cousins, a boy named Ledge who, like Mibs, has just discovered his savvy. As it is for Mibs, the savvy is not a simple magical power, it's more complicated than that, and presents Ledge with huge challenges. In order to "scumble," or learn to control, his savvy, Ledge is sent off to stay with a bunch of his crazy relatives at their remote ranch. From there the adventures begin as Ledge tangles with an unscrupulous (or, maybe grieving) land developer, a tenacious girl reporter, and some of his very own cousins and their sometimes dangerous savvies.

Ledge is a compelling character who tries to do the right thing despite his own wish to run away from everything and his...let's call them "self destructive" tendencies. At times Ledge's predicament made my heart hurt. Yet he never asks the reader to feel sorry for him, even at his worst moments, like when dealing with his mother, whose savvy is that she must be obeyed when she gives an order (can you imagine!!?).

One of the great delights of the book is all the secondary characters and the genuine relationships between them. It's a huge cast, but every single character is remarkably distinctive. I fell in love with Grandpa Bomba, with Rocket, and most of all with Mibs' youngest brother, Samson. I'd love to see another "Savvy" book about Samson; there's a big story behind this character, I'm sure.

In some ways this is a sprawling book, with lots of secondary characters and plotlines running all over the place, but the author ties everything up wonderfully at the end. It's a satisfying, wondrous read.

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And some mini-reviews:

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork. Very good book. While Marcelo's verbal tic of referring to himself in the third person and hardly ever using the "you" pronoun bugged me after a while, the story carried me past that. Marcelo articulates lots of coming-of-age issues (good versus evil, finding a place in the world, falling in love) in ways that will be fresh and interesting to lots of readers. The secondary characters were real and distinctive; I particularly enjoyed Marcelo's conversations with the rabbi. I read Stork's next book, The Last Summer of the Death Warriors, and while it didn't work quite as well, I admire the way Stork's work is completely distinctive in a field where there are so many books that are trying to be like everything else out there.

The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea Campbell. I liked this one a lot. The plot goes off the rails in a couple of places, but gets back on track by the end. This one is worth reading for the smart, snarky narrator and for the ironic gap between who he thinks he is, and who the reader can see he truly is. Plus the relationships are complex and genuine. The ending felt satisfying and right.

Magic Below Stairs by Caroline Stevermer. I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this and blurbed it. A servant boy named Frederick gets involved with the characters from the Sorcery and Cecelia books. Well-written adventure, magic, and one of my favorite MG tropes, a kid finding his place in the world.

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So, for those of us stuck on the couch, got any reading recommendations? I'm heading to the bookstore and libra