September SFFKit: Back to School

September is the traditional start of the academic year, at least in much of the Northern Hemisphere. So in the spirit of the season, your challenge is to read a book set in an academic setting.

You have many options to choose from, from kids in magic schools:





To kids working magic or fighting paranormal forces in regular schools:




Dark academia is its own subset of the magic in a school or college genre:





While academia SFF tends more toward the fantasy than the science fiction side of the aisle, there are definitely science fictional options:




Whatever you choose, you can add it to the wiki here: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2025_SF%26FKIT#September:_-_susanna.fras...

I didn't look carefully enough at the CAT, and the title I was planning to read does not fit into it since it is fiction but not science fiction or fantasy.

Sorry.

I won a copy of High Fae Academy a while back and have been meaning to read it, so that's my plan for this month.

If I get it from the library in time, I might read The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association for september.

>4 amberwitch: Taking a book bullet for that one!

>5 susanna.fraser: oh no, is it that bad?
I’ll have to come up with something else then:)

Planning to read The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake.

>6 amberwitch: No, that's a good thing! It means it looks interesting and I've added it to my TBR list.

I think I will re-read Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor about historians and time travel

>8 susanna.fraser: thanks for explaining!
I just picked it up from the library, and will report back on whether it is a hit or a dodge;)

COMPLETED City of Names by Kevin Brockmeier - a boy ordering books through school receives a guide to his town containing the true names of locations which can be used for instant transportation by knocking on a portal and saying the true name of the desired destination aloud.

I finished The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton, which is the first in a middle-grade series about a girl who is the first student from the New Orleans Conjuror tradition allowed to attend a rather snooty magic school.

I read The Betrayals by Bridget Collins, set at a remote academy which teaches a mysterious art/game called the grand jeu.

Finished The Grimoire Grammar School parent teacher association, which was fine. As a non-American and non-parent I am probably not the core audience for this book, as it did seem a little reliant on some tropes I am not personal invested in.
Vivian and her husband has moved to a pretty insular small town, and are trying to fit in with varying success. The reason they have moved is their 5 year old daughter, who has been infected with lycanthropy, thus introducing the family into a secret society of magic, living in parallel with the mundane.
It was pretty entertaining and snappy, but not really laugh out loud funny as we follow Vivians attempts to fit into a very insular society, and the anxieties she experience.
To me, it felt like a hodge-podge of parental articles from The Cut, with a bit of fantasy as icing on the top.

The October SFFKIt is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/373842

I read Babel by R.F. Kuang, which is predominantly set at Oxford.

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older is a SF mystery set at a university on Jupiter.

I read Evergreen Academy by Heather Schneider, set at a secret botanical-magic school in California.