Greenglass House by Kate Milford, illustrated by Jaime Zollars.
Clarion, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 2014.
MG mystery/fantasy, 392 pages (including sneak peek at the next book).
Lexile: 800L .
AR Level: 5.4 (worth 15.0 points) .
NOTE: This is the first book in the Greenglass House series.
Milo’s parents run, and live in, a smuggler’s inn – running prohibited goods is popular because Nagspeake is practically run by the Deacon and Morvengarde catalog company, and their place used to be the home of notorious smuggler Doc Holystone. But even a smuggler’s inn is usually quiet during Christmas vacation in heavy snowfall. So Milo’s understandably perturbed when a surprise guest turns up, and then another, and then another…
I nearly passed over this book when compiling my diverse fantasy list. First because before reading, I couldn’t easily tell if it even was diverse. The cover features the eponymous house, and while the blurb describes Milo as adopted, it doesn’t say anything about his race, so I was doubting if it would be a good candidate for this blog. But lately I’ve been including some books about adoption, fostering, and kinship care, even if they aren’t necessarily otherwise diverse. Then I got the book and started reading.
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