The thing I love about reading books by Kurtis Scaletta (who you should know is a friend of mine), is that they zap me back in time to when it seemed my only responsibility and the only thing I wanted to do was read the book in my hand. His books make me read while eating, read while “watching” TV, and read way late into the night so I can find out what happens.

Today his latest The Winter of the Robots is to blame for my advanced tiredness. I even knew what was going to happen and there I was at midnight vowing just one more page, one more page, one more page until I was done. It was worth it.

In this one we have Jim, who is tired, sore, and newly crushing on Rocky, the girl next door. He’s tired of doing the arts & crafts portions of the yearly science fair projects he teams up with his best friend, robot-obsessed Oliver, to build. He’s sore because it’s winter in Minnesota and the snow, it never ends — same with the shoveling. And Rocky? Rocky has suggested he team up with her for this year’s science fair. She’s got her eye on some otters near the old junkyard not far from where they live and thinks studying them would be fun.

Jim agrees and ditches Oliver for Rocky, which pisses off his old friend. However, the otter project is cut short and we find Jim ditching the girl for Oliver and the robots. Rocky teams up with Dimitri, a mysterious Russian immigrant with a family filled with intriguing characters. They’re going to build their own robot to take down whatever Jim and Oliver create.

There’s a lot of middle-grade drama, both romantic and robot related, and I haven’t even gotten to Jim’s blackmailing, super-smart kid sister Penny, or his always angry Dad or shady Sergei or kind of shady Peter or the robot battle at the Mall of America or, or, or the mystery living in the junkyard.

Oh. . . the mystery living in the junkyard is the best part! See the junkyard is on the grounds of Nomicon, a mysterious robotics business that went kablooey some years back, taking lives. But it seems maybe something survived the horrific accident. This is what made me stay up way too late last night. If you want to find out what’s going on there, you’ll have to read the book. And you should read the book. It’s so fun and funny. Jim’s a pretty witty kid and a few of his one-liners had me cackling with glee — especially a joke about Edina.

The Winter of the Robots, go for the robots (because: ROBOTS!) and stay for kids figuring out how to maneuver relationships (romantic, parental, and otherwise), discovering their passions, and unearthing the mysteries of what’s going on in that creepy junkyard (and there are otters! Otters & robots, what more do you want in a book?).

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Hey, locals with kids (or fans of middle-grade books), Kurtis is going to be reading at the Wild Rumpus tomorrow at 1 p.m. You should go!

What I like so much about reading Kurtis Scaletta’s novels for middle-grade readers is that he manages to make me feel both young and old at the same time, and not old in the woe-is-me way but in the wow I’m a responsible grown up way.

In The Tanglewood Terror strange, glowing mushrooms have started to grow in the woods behind Eric Parrish’s house. At first Eric kind of brushes off the phenomenon. He’s got other things on his mind, the big championship football game; his distracted, on the brink of divorce parents; a little brother he doesn’t quite get; and Cassie, the neighbor pig he’s responsible for taking care of.

But the mushrooms refused to be ignored. They’re aggressive, quick-growing, and hard to kill. Plus, THEY GLOW! Yes, that deserves to be in all caps. Glowing mushrooms. How creepy is that? And make no mistake, the mushrooms are creepy. They creep out of the woods and under the floors and start growing from the walls and cupboards in Eric’s house. They take over the football field and threaten the entire town. For fungiphobics like me, it sounds like a nightmare.

As much as Eric would like to spend all his time figuring out what the deal is with the glowing, humungous fungus, he’s got to deal with his life too. His little brother’s pissed because Eric often pushes him around. Eric’s a big kid and a good football player and sometimes he doesn’t know his own strength both physically and emotionally.

This really comes into play when he gets into a fight with two of his football buddies who are bullying Cassie, the pig. It’s really very sweet when Eric rushes to Cassie’s defense, even though the repercussions of what happen are quite big.

But even with everything going on in his life, the mushrooms eventually command all Eric’s attention. Especially after he befriends Mandy, a runaway from the local girl’s school where his mom works. Mandy’s busted out of the joint to investigate the glowing mushrooms.

Once Eric and Mandy team up the action really gets kicking and the rest of the book rushes by at a breathless pace that’s a lot of fun to read. I don’t read a lot of mysteries, so I forget how engrossing they can be. The Tanglewood Terror is that kind of mystery. What’s the deal with the mushrooms? What’s the deal with Keatston, the town that was destroyed nearly 200 years ago? And can they save Tanglewood from being swallowed up by the glowing fungus?

As if that weren’t enough, there’s a kind of creepy old lady who lives in the woods, a mysterious science fiction writer, and a music festival that goes horribly awry.

The book is so much fun. It gave me the same kind of multiple personality disorder I got when reading Mamba Point. At one point in The Tanglewood Terror Eric and his little brother sneak out of the house and as I was reading I audibly gasped and said out loud, “You naughty kids.” The grown up in me was aghast that they’d do something like that, but the reader in me was glad they did because kids that stay in the house aren’t that fun to read about.

Finally, my favorite part of the book was one single sentence. Which is probably weird to say, but I’ll explain it a bit. It was just four simple words but those words were so unexpected and did so much to up the tension and danger in the book that I couldn’t help but cheer that sentence. I won’t tell you what that sentence was because I don’t want to ruin it for someone else who might have the same reaction.

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Back in the olden days of the early 1980s, “The Wizard of Oz” was event TV. My sisters and I would flop belly-down in front of the TV, chins propped on our hands and watch with rapt attention as Dorothy wound her way through the wonderful land of Oz.

Every year, without fail, I would bawl my head off at the end when Dorothy had to say goodbye to the Scarecrow. Even when I got older and understood that Scarecrow was the guy back in Kansas, I still cried. I can’t name the emotion that scene stirred up in me. Sadness at Dorothy having to leave her friend? Happiness that she was able to go home? Regret that she couldn’t have it both ways? I’m not sure. What I do know is that I felt the exact same way finishing Kelly Barnhill’s The Mostly True Story of Jack as I did upon watching the end of “The Wizard of Oz,” tears and all.

There’s something sort of Ozesque about Jack and his banishment to Iowa upon the separation of his parents. While Jack is upset about having to live with his old Aunt Mabel and Uncle Clive, he takes it in stride. Jack’s used to being forgotten, invisible, and lonely (and when he talks about it, it’s really heartbreaking). Plus, there’s something a little mystical and magical about Hazelwood, IA. Though Jack doesn’t believe in fairy tales or magic, he’s still a little intrigued by what’s going on.

And there’s a lot going on. We find out pretty early on that something is up with the magic in Hazelwood. Something’s not right and it has to do with Jack and the sinister Mr. Avery, the richest man in town, whose family wealth has been ill-gotten for generations. To say too much more might give away one of the many suspenseful twists and turns that happen in this wonderfully suspenseful mystery.

It really is the kind of book you don’t want to put down, and I’m not just saying that because Kelly’s in my writing group.

The book is filled with great characters including Jacks’s trio of friends (the first he ever makes): Wendy who is ‘prickly,” her damaged twin brother Frankie, who disappeared for years when he was eight and returned under mysterious circumstances; and their friend Anders who become Jack’s very first friends. Plus, there’s the feline duo of Gog and Magog, who are totally awesome.

I have to take a moment to mention how much I loved Wendy. She’s a take charge, take no shit girl who upon finding herself in a situation that would require her to be rescued, immediately sets to rescuing herself. She rules, hard, and I kind of want to start a campaign for a sequel called “The Mostly True Story of Wendy.”

But this is so much more than a book about mystery and suspense. It’s packed full of goodness about the magic and power of nature, about choosing what’s right over what’s easy, about honoring the people you love in your memory, and the importance of family.

It’s a fabulous book that will keep you intrigued until the very end when suddenly, if you’re at all like me, you’ll find yourself dissolving into tears when you least expect it. The Mostly True Story of Jack is tender and sweet and fun and sad all at the same time, which is what makes it so great.

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When you’re an adult a weird and mild form of multiple personality disorder overcomes you when you read Middle Grade Fiction. When you’re reading a really good book, in this case Mamba Point by Kurtis Scaletta, part of your personality is overtaken by the twelve-year-old you once were. You revel in the danger and intrigue of the story. At other points the grown-up part of your personality takes over. You gasp and think “stupid kid, what are you doing?”

I did both while reading about Linus Tuttle, a twelve-year-old boy who moves from Ohio to Monrovia in Liberia, Africa. Linus and his family move to the new country because his dad gets a job at the American Embassy there. On the plane ride to their new home Linus’ older brother, who had been Larry in Ohio, decides he’s going to reinvent himself and asks his family to call him Law.

The idea of reinvention appeals to Linus and he decides that he too is going to reinvent himself. No longer will he be quiet, anxiety-ridden, scared Linus. In Africa he will be brave and bold.

Linus’ resolution is put to the test the moment the Tuttles step off the plane. As they walk across the tarmac, a man with a machete runs toward the family and before they can even react, he’s chopping a deadly black mamba to pieces. The snake seemed to be gunning for the Tuttles.

Linus, who is kind of afraid of snakes (and really who isn’t? I hate snakes. I might even have ophidiophobia or whatever you’d label the fear of things that slide around on the ground without legs. Worms, snakes, are equally terrifying to me), seems to attract these rare and dangerous black mambas.

As Linus grows more comfortable with his kaseng, an African belief that some people have special ties to certain animals he learns from a man who sells masks near his apartment, he grows ever bolder. He begins to believe he gets his courage from the mamba, which he befriends. And it’s this friendship that had me alternately thinking, “oh, that’s so cute” (like when the mamba would rest its head on Linus’ arm) and “kid, don’t you realize that’s a wild animal that could kill you?”

But the book isn’t all snakes and animals. In fact, it’s more about getting to know a new place, trying to fit in and make friends, and accepting who you are.

Linus is a smart, funny kid and hanging out with him while he maneuvers this new place is fun and, well, educational. I’m nearly forty and I learned a lot from Mamba Point without ever feeling like I was being lectured. That’s really the best kind of learning, isn’t it?

While I enjoyed the air of mysticism surrounding the snake, I really liked how Linus learns about and deals with the privilege he has of being a white, American kid who gets to go to school and always has food at hand.

There’s a scene where Linus is playing with a neighbor kid, a black American boy, and he asks him if he finds it racist how Africans are often portrayed as cannibals. Since the kids can’t come to a conclusion on their own they go out and ask the grown-ups, who happen to be some bigwigs in the Liberian government. The scene is kind of awful and awesome at the same time. You can feel the tension when Linus asks the question, and the incredulousness of the adults who are a little disarmed at his inquiry. It’s a great, great scene.

The whole book is pretty great and I’m not just saying this because Kurtis is a friend of mine and we’re in a writing group together. I was a little unsure about this one. . . snakes? Africa? Those are things that usually fall outside my areas of interest and yet, reading Linus’ story was engaging and funny and I’m glad I read it.

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Long about Halloween my twitter pal @winnerbowzer and I had a twitter discussion about scary books. I told her about how Blackbriar scared the crap out of me. She told me that the scariest book she read as a kid was Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp. Since @winnerbowzer has pretty good taste, I procured a copy post haste.

It’s only now that I’ve finally gotten around to reading it and hoo-boy was it fun! Jane-Emily is billed as a romance and a ghost story. Sweet!

It’s set in 1912, and nineteen-year-old Louisa is sent along with her recently-orphaned niece, nine-year-old Jane, to spend the summer with Jane’s grandmother. Louisa’s not too thrilled with this prospect because she had great plans to spend the summer mooning about with Martin, her poetry-writing beau.

But away they go and end up at Lydia Canfield’s dusty, dank, and dark house. Lydia rattles around the old manor with a gardener and her maid, Katie. The house, like Lydia, is kind of stuck in perpetual mourning — not just the recent death of her son, John (Jane’s father and Lousia’s brother-in-law) — but also her husband and twelve-year-old daughter Emily, who has been dead for nearly twelve years.

Louisa spends a lot of time pining for Martin back home and Jane spends a lot of time communing with the spirit of her dead aunt. Things get really interesting once Dr. Adam, Emily’s childhood playmate, returns to town and sweeps Louisa right off her feet.

Throughout we learn about Emily and what a horrible brat she was. The kind of brat that bordered on pure evil. We also learn what caused her to be so awful and why she’s haunting her family this particular summer. Reading this as an adult some of these explanations were a little eye-roll inducing. However, if I were anywhere from eight to eleven years old I’d have loved the crap out of this.

The romance is chaste enough for young readers to not be ooged out by the kissing and the scary parts are just scary enough to cause goosebumps. It’s a nice balance. The climax of the book, which takes place on a stormy night complete with howling winds and lightning is pretty cliche, but if a young reader is still new to books, specifically scary books, they’ll think it’s the scariest best thing to ever happen to the written word.

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