I’ve started my Christmas shopping. The young nieces and nephews on both sides of the family who I used to buy books for have gotten older. I miss getting to do that. Only a few are still quite young.
I’m trying to figure out if I can buy Dave Freer’s Changeling’s Island for one or two of them. It was nominated for a Dragon and is one of those wonderful books that is targeted at middle school to young adult to me. I better go find out precisely how old the youngest 
is. He might be the perfect age.
Here’s the book description:
Teenager Tim Ryan comes into his own as he faces danger on a remote Australia island where magic lurks in land and sea.
Dragon Award Nominee for Best Young Adult Novel and for Best Fantasy Novel!
Tim Ryan can’t shake the feeling that he is different from other teens, and not in a good way. For one thing, he seems to have his own personal poltergeist that causes fires and sets him up to be arrested for shoplifting.
As a result Tim has been sent to live on a rundown farm on a remote island off the coast of Australia with his crazy grandmother, a woman who seems to talk to the local spirits, and who refuses to cushion Tim from facing his difficulties. To make matters worse, Tim is expected to milk cows, chase sheep, and hunt fish with a spear.
But he’s been exiled to an island alive with ancient magic—land magic that Tim can feel in his bones, and sea magic that runs in his blood. If Tim can face down the danger from drug-runners, sea storms, and the deadly threat of a seal woman who wishes to steal him away for a lingering death in the land of Faery, he may be able to claim the mysterious changeling heritage that is his birthright, and take hold of a legacy of power beyond any he has ever imagined.
Another lovely gift book is J.M. Ney-Grimm’s Winter Glory. Ney-Grimm tells a story with a strong heart and gorgeous language. In the starkly beautiful Northlands—a place that Ney-Grimm conveys so clearly it’s like 
watching a movie on the inside of your skull—two people who once knew and loved each other meet up again. This is their story, but it’s also a fantasy tale of strange creatures, deadly peril, and finding a partner. I loved how this story portrays love in a nuanced and complicated but positive light. And it has an ice wyrm! From the book’s description:
In the cold, forested North-lands—redolent with the aroma of pine, shrouded in snow, and prowled by ice tigers and trolls—Ivvar seeks only to meet his newborn great granddaughter.
Someone else has the same plan.
Traversing the wilderness toward the infant’s home camp, Ivvar must face the woman he once cherished and an ancient scourge of the chilly woodlands in a complicated dance of love and death.
Ivvar’s second chance at happiness—and his life—hang in the balance.
Good luck with your shopping!
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