Book Review: Moth Dark by Kika Hatzopoulou

My thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Young Readers Group/G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers and Kika Hatzopoulou for the eARC in exchange for a review. 

When I started reading this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. The book starts some time after a big world event and the lead came off a little weird to me. But I kept reading and slowly I was sucked in, caring about Sascia, Mooch and her darkmoths, her cousin Danny, her cohort from school, and Nugau. I loved this so much, I want to buy copies for all the readers in my family. For now, I'll settle for reading the rest of Kika Hatzopoulou's books.

Moth Dark follows Sascia Petrou, a young student who is in love with the Darkness that appeared in the world 6 years ago. Now 18, Sascia was supposed to be working with other students to study the dark but has taken a little more of a different route to her studies. That different route means Sascia is constantly exploring the Dark and one day Sascia sees a humanoid shape climb out of it. That turns out to be Nugau, and their mission is to kill Sascia. When Sascia finds Nugau again, Nugau doesn't know who Sascia is and things continue from there. Sascia realizes that the world inside the dark, Itkalin, is always at a different point in time from their world, and somehow Sascia is at the center of a war between humans and elves. As the two of them work to try to find a way to have their worlds be at peace together, Sascia and Nugau are drawn together again and again, caring for each other, willing to anything and everything to keep the other safe and with their worlds determined to fight, that connection might not be enough to keep them together.

So yes, when I started the book I thought Sascia was a little weird. She had a side hustle taking people "fishing" so they could capture dark insects to keep as pets. She'd had the opportunity to study at an Ivy League school but messed up with focusing enough time to study and was now taking remedial courses and retaking exams so she can get into Columbia. And she's seemingly obsessed with the Dark, apparently to the point that her expeditions leading people to fish for dark insects allow her to experience their wonder/awe/terror again and again when they first encounter Dark creatures. That's all in the opening chapter and I just thought come on kid, you know you're playing with fire. So when Nugau comes out of the manhole Sascia is working at and starts to chase her, I felt vindicated. And then thought okay, so that's how the story is going to work. Sascia is a kid who makes foolish decisions but then has to work to show why she's important, how she makes a difference, why we should root for her. To the point that not only had I started to root for her and but I wanted to shake everyone who told her that her differences were bad and that she needed to make other choices.

Nugau was a pleasant surprise and a truly wonderful character. Nugau is a genderfluid elf princet. The elves on the other side of the dark can change their gender, which is then depicted by the color of the Darkprints on their face. Nugau shows up time and time again as either gender or even intersex and it was great to see a society where this is considered the norm. It didn't matter to the character what gender they were because the essence of Nugau never changed and I loved their depiction. The strength they had as they tried to lead, as they tried to teach Sascia about the Dark, and the compassion they had in trying to save their world, it was all heartwrenching and I wanted Nugau to just be happy. I had violent feelings for their mother, and I adored their friends, Thalla and Orran.

All the characters are given their due thanks to the way the book is written. Danny, Sascia's cousin and best friend, is given the chance to shine in chapters showing their past. We get to see how they were as kids together, how they encouraged each other and partnered to explore the Dark and made discoveries that would help the world. They were exactly what they were shown to be, family, and I loved Danny's own love story with a fellow classmate. Tae, Andres, Shivani and Crow round out the rest of the cohort that are some of the best minds in the world working in a lab with Danny and Sascia to study and understand the Dark. They're each important, have unique talents and play important roles in the course of the book.

The way that the book is structured helped with highlighting the way the timeline works between Itkalin and our world. There are various chapters interspersed through the narrative, showing different past points in Sascia's life. Each highlights an important moment that has shaped Sascia into the person she is in the current timeline. I enjoyed each tidbit given and every question answered with this structure. 

The magic of this world, which I think it should be called because of the wonder it invokes, and because it's the word Sascia uses, is so interesting. I loved the idea of the Dark creatures that have entered our world and how Sascia and Danny have managed to work out how to help them flourish here and help people. I loved Mooch, a Darkmoth that has chosen Sascia as their person to help through thick and thin. I loved how Sascia's choice to protect the moths helped to prove how important she was in working to resolve the conflict between the two worlds. It's all so richly detailed and a wonder to behold, just like Sascia knew it was from the start.

In the end, I loved this book. I thought it was a beautiful story about how making a better choice is possible. I'll be reading more books from Hatzopoulou as soon as possible.

Rating on my scale: 10 Stars. Really, I have no complaints about this one. Read this book if you think Pacific Rim and The Time-Traveler's Wife put together sounds like a great idea. That's the best I could come up with to compare this book to and I loved both those things. I'm sure there are other things to compare this book to but I came up with those two when I was sleep deprived and now they're the only two I can come up with. Just read this book and have beautiful day. 

Book Review: Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate

My thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and Katherine Applegate for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review. 

This is my first time trying a book by Katherine Applegate but it won't be the last. I'll be buying a copy of this book and reading it to my kids. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect when I decided to try this book. Truth be told, I saw the artwork for the cover, read that the synopsis had a cat as a character and made my decision then and there to try reading this. At the time, my own cat was having health problems and I thought reading a sweet book about a cat would help. It gave me great comfort to read this and I hope my kids love it one day soon.

Pocket Bear is about a a small stuffed toy bear, named you guessed it, Pocket Bear, who has an interesting history. Pocket Bear was hand-made during World War I, designed in a way so that he could fit in a soldier's pocket and seem like he was gazing up into his soldier's face. These bears were meant to provide luck and love for their owners. Nowadays, Pocket Bear runs a home for giving other lost and thrown away stuffed animals a second chance at finding a new child to love them. He runs the place with his cat best friend, Zephyrina, who goes out at night to scavenge for food and lost toys to take home. When Zephyrina finds a teddy bear in a restaurant trash can and decides to bring it back home, it sets in motion a story about finding comfort, love and family where you least expect it.

This was a sweet story, told from Zephyrina's point of view, and I have to say Applegate nails the cat attitude perfectly. I loved the sass, the reasonings behind what Zephyrina chose to do or the moves to make. I could see the calculations that went into showing how a cat really fits into a family and how Zephyrina's choices proved that cats are intelligent and loving creatures. I believed the friendship between Zephyrina and Pocket from page 1 and I loved every moment of their sweet story together.

I thought Pocket was tragic but I understood the hope he stood for, the love that went into the making of him. I'm not a fan of stuffed bears but I recently made an amigurumi stuffed bear for a family member for their new baby. I worked hard on putting everything together into a whole toy that I hope will bring comfort to the baby when they are old enough to keep it with them when they sleep. With that in my head, each interaction with Pocket and Dasha, the child who runs the Second Chance home for toys with her mother, Elizaveta, tugged at the heartstrings just a little bit more. I also learned a lot about the history of stuffed bears that I had never heard of before. That history lends this book a feeling of maturity that I can respect as this allows for the reader to learn and grow and think with every new situation that comes up in this adventure. I love when a book treats its reader like they are smart without talking down to them. This is the kind of book I want my kids to read and enjoy but will also allow them to ask me questions about the wars mentioned and the effects they have on families. It's a great book with ideas that can make kids think and consider things in different ways than they had before and that makes it a very respectable read.

I should also add that I too have several shelves where my childhood stuffed toys are kept safe so that also endeared me to this story. And my cat that I mentioned earlier had his own tiny stuffed toy, a snowman, that he loved to bits and took with him everywhere until it was misplaced. All this to say that if you had anything like a stuffed toy when you were a kid, this story will make you remember them again and think about who they might have been once upon a time. It also makes me think about the stuffed friends I'm giving to my kids and how I hope they feel love and comfort and magic when they have their toys with them. My kid calls all of his stuffed animals his friends and after reading this book, I can believe in that just a little bit more. It's a magical tale filled with hope, which makes it the best kind of kids book, in my opinion.

Rating on my scale: I'm giving this 10 stars and pulling out my stuffed puppy I've had for almost 30 years and giving him a hug. My puppy has been sitting on my baby recliner for the last 3 years but after reading this book, it's high time he takes his place by my pillow again. You're never too old to appreciate the effects of a well-loved stuffed animal, after all.