I've been on a bit of a diverse middle grade kick lately as some sort of reparation for not reading middle grade when I was actually that age. I was more than happy to join the tour for The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel, which is a fun middle grade book centered around a podcast. If you're interested in my thoughts, click through! Note: this review is spoiler-free. I received a digital Advanced Reader's Copy (eARC) from the publisher, Walker Books, and Lonely Pages Book Tours as part of my participation in this tour. Thank you for this opportunity! Book information: Synopsis: Based on the Peabody Award–winning podcast, this tech-filled adventure series pits intrepid Mars Patel and his outcast friends against a brilliant, enigmatic billionaire as they race to figure out why kids are disappearing from their school. Mars Patel’s friend Aurora has disappeared! His teachers are clueless. His mom is stressed out about her jobs. But Mars refuses to give up—after all, his own dad disappeared when Mars was a toddler, before he and Ma moved to Puget Sound from India. Luckily, Mars has a group of loyal friends eager to help—smart Toothpick, strong and stylish JP, and maybe-telepathic Caddie. The clues seem to point toward eccentric tech genius (and Mars’s hero) Oliver Pruitt, whose popular podcast now seems to be commenting on their quest! But when the friends investigate Pruitt’s mysterious, elite school, nothing is as it seems—and anyone could be deceiving them. Slick science, corporate conspiracies, and an endearingly nerdy protagonist make this a fresh, exciting sci-fi adventure. Praise: Interweaving podcast transcripts, instant message threads, emails and newspaper stories, Chari deftly constructs a mystery that is strong in both plot and character. Mars’s friend group is as diverse as their unique abilities, and their teamwork and loyalty are unshakable. Based on the Peabody Award–winning podcast, fans of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner and Stranger Things will clamor for more of Mars Patel. —School Library Journal (starred review) Purchase via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop. This book is based on a podcast! About the Show The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel is a scripted podcast for middle-grade kids performed by middle-grade kids. It is a fun, high-quality serial mystery that can be described as Goonies meets Spy Kids meets Stranger Things for eight- to twelve-year-olds. It was selected as one of the top fifty podcasts of 2016 by the Guardian, was honored with a Peabody Award, and was nominated for two Webby Awards (Best Audio Drama and Best Sound Design/Original Music Score). The show is enjoyed around the world by kids and adults alike. Check out more about the podcast on www.marspatel.com. Review: Writing middle grade As I mentioned earlier, I've been trying to read more middle grade because there's a lot that middle grade can offer that YA, adult, etc. just can't. There's also the very interesting fact that middle grade must be written differently. As middle grade author Gail D. Villanueva said during an interview, middle grade authors must be very strategic with how they write. The age range they write for now has the attention span to read a chaptered book, but attention must still be captured and recaptured often for a successful middle grade book — otherwise, the kid's just going to get lost or bored. Waxing poetic with exposition and in-depth characterizations are difficult fields to navigate in middle grade because of this reason. The diverse found family that we all wanted as kids Given the genre, however, one of the things I found that The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel does well is characterization. This book relies on the found family trope, which involves a cast of characters coming together to form a family-like crew in their adventure. We meet Mars and the other outcasts at his school who are banished to and meet in detention for, well, frankly ridiculous reasons. And it really does feel like a family; Mars gets to know and really care about the suite of characters introduced. It actually really warmed my heart that he was so concerned about a "missing" friend while the adults in his life seemed ignorant to the situation. This family features a diverse cast of characters, including a non-binary character. I can't stress the importance of having #ownvoices and diverse characters in middle grade books; a lot of us as kids simply do not see ourselves in the media we consume. So in fact it does mean a lot when I see a brown kid on the cover of a book and kicking ass in its contents, and I'm positive it would have the same effect on a kid who has never seen themselves represented before. I can envision a target audience for this book, but unfortunately I'm not in it Middle grade is a huge mixed bag of interests, reading levels, and attention spans. This means that a lot of different writing styles and storytelling devices can and can't work within the same genre and I love that. You can have something as beautiful and atmospheric as Lalani of the Distant Sea by Erin Entrada Kelly, or something action-packed and adventurous as The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. I found that Mars Patel was in a completely different realm to the middle grade that I've read before in that it felt like a mystery adventure I could've gone on with my own goofy cast of friends in middle school (well, if we were a little more heroic than we actually were). While that made it a fun and quick read that made me interested in how it was all going to turn out, I had really wished there to be a little more exposition and set-up than the first few chapters to set the stage for the rest of the book. I also had minor issues with some of the writing style and pacing, but these issues are extremely minor seeing as I'm a grown adult reading a middle grade book and am still adjusting to the huge difference in narrative styles. Bottom line — a fun and quick read with representation and a great found family aspect You need not look further for a diverse #ownvoices read to put in between your heavy YA fantasies and adult contemporaries. A good book for readers of all ages, The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel will lead you on an adventure with a new cast of friends and an interesting mixed media approach for those of you who are fans of podcasts. About the author:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
hi, i'm mari, and i'm a STEM grad student, i watch baseball, and i read... a lot of books. i hope you learn some-thing new while you're here!
|