By Jake Halpern, Peter Kujawinski
A fantasy adventure about a girl whose magically powerful nose gets her recruited into a secret school racing to smell out the cure for a deadly plague.
Nia has hidden her whole life what she can do. Her sense of smell is so sharp it's magic, and in her world that's dangerous, because people fear anyone born with powers like hers. When a ghost ship drifts in carrying a new plague, Nia is found out and swept into the Cloister, a secret school where children with heightened senses train to fight sickness. To beat this plague, she and the others have to identify the exact scents behind it and mix a 'curefume' to counter it, all while she learns who at the Cloister she can actually trust.
This is one for a child who reads hungrily and wants a world they can sink all the way into. The magic here runs on the senses, so it feels fresh instead of familiar, and the plot is really a mystery, a puzzle of scents to crack against the clock. It's inventive and genuinely fun, and it doesn't talk down to your child or tidy away the scarier corners of its world. Best for an older middle-grade child who's ready for a story with real stakes and some grit, not a first fantasy for a young or worried one.