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Stolen Magic (Atheneum, April 2, 2013, middle grade) by Stephanie Burgis, is the third book in a series about an incorrigible Regency girl, Kat, who just so happens to be a powerful magic user. Unfortunately for Kat, any magic other than that of the Guardians (snooty upper class types) is tremendously looked down on. Although Kat has inherited a place among the Guardians from, she's also inherited more than a little of her mother's distasteful, distrusted, witchcraft....as have her sisters.
In this third book, one of her sisters, Angelina, is about to marry a very high-breed young man, whose mother is a snobby harridan of the worst kind. Kat, Angelina, their father and stepmother arrive at the finance's grand estate....and immediately mayhem ensues.
There are ordinary questions:
Will the schemes of the nasty mother keep Angelina from finding happiness?
Will Kat disgrace her family more than she usually does with her lack of regard for decorum?
There are magical questions:
Will Kat ever get another portal that will allow her to be a true member of the Guardians? She sacrificed hers in the previous book, and unfortunately all the spare portals have been stolen.
Will she and the woman tasked with working with her on finding them (a nasty piece of work from the previous books) come to blows?
Just what sort of spell does Angelina think she is doing?
And there are mysteries:
Who is stalking Kat with Malevolent Intent?
Who is the mysterious marquise who seems to know so much about Kat's family?
And then there is the Really Big Mystery:
Who is trying to kill Angelina?
And then there's a bonus kicker-- a plot by the scheming French that needs foiling (this being the Regency, and things not being too friendly between the French and the English).
So a very busy, entertainingly swirling plot that ends with the introduction of such a delightful appealing new twist that I hope rather a lot that there are more books to come!!!
I couldn't help but wish, as I read this one, that Kat would grow up just a bit more....she seems to have regressed somewhat in impetuosity and lack of empathy. Although that being said, there were times when I would not have blamed her for utterly loosing her temper, and she managed not to! But of course, the fact that I was caring about this as I read shows that Kat was very real to me.
The second book, Renegade Magic, is still my favorite (it has a more mythologically rooted plot, and more sympathy for Kate's poor, put-upon, unappreciated stepmama), but this was a fun, rollicking read, and I highly recommend offering this series to any ten or eleven year olds you happen to have on hand.
Here's another review at
The Book SmugglersDisclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.
Well, you know, you win some, you loose some...and
Dragon Magic, by Andre Norton (1972), sadly fell into the later category for me.
The premise was interesting enough--four middle school boys of desperate backgrounds and interests all living in the same neighborhood in the early 1970s, but not interested in being friends. Then one of them discovers the magic of the beautiful dragon puzzle he finds in an old abandoned house--a puzzle with four dragons. Each boy in turn puts together a dragon, which whisks him on a journey back in time, and they become friends in the present when they share their experiences.
The boys whose interactions in the present make a framing device for the stories of the past are:
Sig--ordinary guy of Germanic heritage, who finds himself helping Sigurd take on Fafnir.
Ras, aka George--a black kid, whose big brother has embraced the Black Power movement, who finds himself a Nubian prince enslaved in Babylon along with Daniel. He gets to watch Daniel overcome an African swamp dragonish creature.
Artie--would be cool boy, who goes back in time to King Arthur and learns a valuable lesson about meaningful relationships.
Kim--adopted from Hong Kong, he goes back to ancient China where there is a very confusing war going on, and comes back knowing he should try harder to make friends.
So a diverse cast of kids who don't get all that much page time, but who actually manage to be somewhat more than stereotypes, which is good, and four stories that varied a lot in interesting-ness, which wasn't so good. The first two (Sigurd and Daniel) were very interesting, the last two I found tedious.
Which could have been just me. But the particulars of the stories aside, the whole ensemble never felt enough like a cohesive story to rise above the fractures of its form and make me really care. In large part this is because the time travel magic put the boys into characters in the past--they weren't themselves, so there was no ongoing metacommentary. The stories were told straight up,with no ties back to the present, in much the same way as you might find stories anthologized in a book of "Dragon Stories of Many Lands." And on top of that, the boys had almost no agency within their stories, which made them even less interesting.
So that's generally why I didn't care for it. Here's a particular thing that vexed me--in Ras's story, Norton keeps referring to him as "the Nubian" and not by his name. All the other boys were referred to by name, and it bothered me that he was depersonalized this way.
But the dragon puzzle was beautifully described...best dragon puzzle ever.
In
The Golden Door (
my review), Emily Rodda introduced the walled city of Weld, beset every night by horrible, man-eating skimmers who fly over the wall from the lands beyond. Three magical doors lead out of Weld, and in the first book, a boy named Rye and his chance companion, Sonia, head out through the Golden Door in search of Rye's oldest brother. In the sequel,
The Silver Door (Scholastic, 2013), Rye and Sonia, along with the rescued older brother, Dirk, journey through the Silver Door--searching not just for Rye's other brother, but for the answers to the mystery of the skimmers. Where do they come from, and why?
In the blasted land behind the Silver Door, Rye finds answers...and terrible dangers. It is a darkish book, dystopian in feel, as the characters move from one awful situation to another. And Rodda does a great job making these perils vivid; there isn't gratuitously graphic violence, exactly, but there is death, slavery, and some really scary flesh eating snails (and though bad snails might sound silly, when you are in a hideous blasted landscape about to be consumed by them, they are not nice...). But much worse than the snails is the dark entity behind the evilness of the skimmers.
Fortunately Rye has the magic talismans he was given in book one, and fortunately he has companions who are brave and smart. Most fortunately of all, though, he finds his missing brother in just the right place to overcome the immediate threats, and make it home....where the third door awaits.
So for those who like a darkish middle grade fantasy adventure, with some interesting magic and world-building, it's good stuff. Rye and Sonia are characters kids can relate too. It was a bit too dark a journey from one danger to the next for my own taste, but that being said, although I have a lamentable tendency to skim the "exciting showdown" bits in general, I was utterly sucked in by the excitement at the end of this one!
And I really enjoyed Rye's science-loving middle brother's role in it all. Yay for characters keenly interested in science, even when in mortal peril!
disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
Poseidon: Earth Shaker (First Second, March, 2013) is the fifth of the Greek gods to get his own graphic novel, in the stellar series written and illustrated by George O'Connor.
The series as a whole is an extraordinarily kid-friendly introduction to the Greek pantheon, and although I wouldn't recommend starting with Poseidon, this latest volume is a fine addition to the series.
It's somewhat episodic, beginning with the division of the cosmos between the three main gods (Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon), with Poseidon revelling in his new dominion over the sea. The stories of Odysseus and how he outwitted the Cyclopedian (Cyclopsian?) son of Poseidon, and Theseus, another son, come next, followed by the story of the contest between Poseidon and Athena over Athens. The story concludes with a flashback back to the early struggles between the gods and the Titans, emphasizing the overall theme of the book--Poseidon's conflict between the joy he takes in his dominion of the sea, and his sense that somehow he has been wronged.
Though this is a kid-friendly series, it's not something I'd give to a kid younger than ten or so--there are "adult themes" as is so often the case when one deals with the Greek gods...But for the older, perhaps reluctant reader, this series is a spot-on introduction to the stories--the pictures are powerful and utterly memorable (true for all the books, but I think in this book they are particularly compelling, what with all the ocean action opportunities provided by the subject matter), swinging the events along very nicely indeed. Adding value for teachers, and written in a manner engaging enough for the curious young reader, there's interesting back-matter included as well.
(review copy received from the publisher)
Bot Wars, by J.V. Kade (Dial, March 21, 2013, middle grade), looked to me from its cover and its title to be a story of a boy fighting in a war against robots. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than that, in a good way, and is, in fact, an excellent example of a somewhat rare type of book--a sci-fi dystopian adventure for the middle grader reader.
In a future America, robots were once everywhere, both in the factories, and in the home. Twelve-year-old Trout St. Kroix had been one of many American kids raised by a robot nanny. But then came the Bot War--the robots had become too human, and xenophobia had reared its ugly head, with much bloodshed resulting. Now Trout's America is a land without any robots at all, his father is missing in action, and his older brother is home from the war, minus a leg. But some of the southern states didn't join in the uprising against the robots, and there, behind a wall, is a territory where the robots still thrive.
And there, it turns out, Trout's father is still alive--and an enemy of the northern totalitarian government. With the result that Trout and his brother are suspect, and as well as being potentially valuable hostages.
Just as the government moves to arrest Trout and his brother, Trout escapes--thanks to a robot sent from behind the wall to help him reach his father. But his brother remains behind...captured, tortured, and in danger of death.
Trout has barely time to take in a world in which robots are not beings to be feared, but sentient members of society, before he decides to risk his own life to save his brother. So with the help of (the somewhat stereotypical stock figure) the plucky girl sidekick, he sets off on an impossible rescue mission....
I enjoyed it quite a lot. I thought the whole set-up of dystopian, anti-robot North pitted against enlightened South was a most interesting one, I sympathized with Trout, and found the question of robotic sentience nicely addressed. And, on top of that, I found the pacing brisk without being frenetic. A bit slow to get going, perhaps, but a page-turner once it does.
(Yay! I also just found my bus pass, tucked inside the book).
I just went and read
the Kirkus review; whoever wrote it did not share my positive opinion. I can't help but think that I approached it with a mind-set more akin to that of an eleven-year old, in that I didn't question the science (I generally try to avoid questioning the science, unless it really forces me too), and I did not find it in the least "naïve and condescending." In my case, it was the Kirkus review I found condescending. For the young reader who hasn't read much dystopian sci-fi, I think it will be a very satisfying read, and the robots in particular, scientifically improbable though they might be, may well be utterly enchanting to such readers.
Note on age: There are serious issues of a grim sort addressed, but it is not a dark and gritty book, and so perfectly suitable for fifth grade readers on up. It is undeniable that older readers may well find the made-up slang and the future youth culture in general a bit tough to swallow...and Trout's rather easy conversion from a boy who is terrified by robots to their friend is not exactly nuanced. And, like the Kirkus review points out, the science might not satisfy a sci-fi veteran. But I enjoyed it, and it made my bus ride pass very quickly indeed.
Short answer: there really isn't much sci-fi action/adventure for middle grade kids, and I think this is an entertaining addition to the field that will be welcomed by its target audience.
disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
Dragonborn, by Toby Forward (April 2012, Bloomsbury, middle grade), goes to show (and very nicely too) that it's possible to take elements that might seem to have been done to death in middle grade fantasy and make them into a book that appeals even to even the jaded adult reader (ie, me). In short, I enjoyed it; not with wild extravagant enjoyment, but it held my interest just fine. I have underlined the common elements in my summary, in a helpful spirit, just for my own amusement and not because they made me think less of the book.
Sam is an
orphaned boy
learning magic from a kindly
old wizard in a cottage of sylvan simplicity (I liked that he was named Sam, which I thought made a nice change in its matter-of-factness), who has a
dragon friend (but not the sort one rides on). The old wizard dies before Sam has finished his apprenticeship, and all his old pupils show up at the sylvan retreat. And none of them believes that Sam was a true apprentice, with magic and all. So Sam, and his dragon friend,
strike out on their own, leaving the other wizards faced with a magically locked door that convinces them pretty quickly that Sam has magic after all, and needs to be found.
Sam's journey takes him to a school of magic, but it is no Hogwarts. Instead it is a degenerate place where the library has been neglected, and a sort of capitalist spirit of magic for profit rules supreme. There at the magic school is
a brave and clever girl, and
a mean boy who plots against our hero.
And then everything becomes a lot more complicated and difficult to explain, with a struggle against malevolent evil in the form of a sorceress who's a really nasty piece of venom, and magic playing out in interesting ways, and the grown-up wizards turn up and are interesting and it was really quite engrossing.
( I liked the simpler first part best).
Things got more tricky to follow, and the climactic scene toward the end (involving the whole "dragonborn" thing) didn't make sense to me (to put it more bluntly, I have No Clue At All what happened in the relationship of the boy and the dragon and how it helped thwart the antagonist) but that could be just my own dimness. And then the book ends, clearly in need of a sequel (which I will read), but not distressingly so.
So I think that this is one with appeal to adults who enjoy middle grade fantasy; I was very happy to keep reading it, and there parts that I enjoyed very much. And I think older, middle-grade readers with many fantasy books under their belts will also appreciate it. The UK cover at right is much more age appropriate than the US cover, which makes it look like a friendly magical book for eight or nine year-olds. It's most definitely not that age, for two reasons:
1. It's disturbing. The good wizard is dead right from the start, and Sam is alone and friendless. The adults who are supposed to be his friends fail him. Sam almost dies at one point, and takes a long time to recover. The magic school is rotten. The (tremendously appealing) dragon friend is separated from Sam for most of the book.
And on top of all that, the bad character is scary and disgusting (I really could have done without so much detail about her beetle eating habits; one beetle, two beetles, I could have taken, but there were lots more), and she tortures people, and we never (in this book at least) find out who or what she really is, so she remains an undefeated figure of nightmare. Voldemort is scary too, but we kind of work our way up to him. This bad beetle-eater is there from the beginning, casting a creepy pall of darkness from her dismal tower.
2. The story is confusing. Not in a muddled writing sort of way, but because confusing things happen without much explication. There is some backstory given for the world in general, through pages from Sam's notebook, but the history of the adult characters (and clearly they have lots of history) is (for the most part) not told to the reader. One has many questions along the way--why were the older wizards so dim about Sam? Is such and such character to be trusted? Who the heck is the bad beetle-eater, and was she always so bad? Why is the dragon doing that? There is no spoon-feeding (and as I said, I failed to understand what happened at the end).
So I'm not going to offer this one to my own nine-year old (devourer of fantasy though he is), but I am going to be on the look-out for the sequel myself....and now I see that the sequel,
Fireborn, has already been out for a while in the UK, but is coming in December over here in the US...
Way back in May of 2009, I began to conciously seek out multicultural children's books, primarily in
an effort to add color to my sons' bookshelves. One of the books that I ended up buying in that initial burst of enthusiasm was
The Little Yokozuna, by Wayne Shorey (Tuttle Publishing, 2003, middle grade). And I have only just now finished it, partly because of tbr pile inertia, and partly, and sadly, because when I started it back then I realized it wasn't very good.
I still think it isn't very good. But as well as being multicultural, it is a time travel book, and so in a vague desire for completeness (someday I will have reviewed every children's time travel book ever written in English, Magic Treehouse books and other series-es for the younger reader excepted) I'm going ahead and posting about it.
Basic plot--Japanese demons have kidnapped an American girl, called Little Harriet. She disappeared in a museum garden, and her six older brother and sisters have found that the garden serves as a portal, that has whisked them, in pairs, into a whole series of other gardens, mostly Japanese. One pair of siblings ends up in Japan in the 1960s, where they meet a Japanese boy, Kiyoshi-chan. He and his family are kind and helpful. Another pair ends up becoming friends with a haiku-writing monkey named Basho. The third pair ends up in an underground pit of demons. They are reunited. They meet an enigmatic old man who is enigmatic. Demons are glimpsed; one is beheaded. More gardens are visited, too quickly to explore in detail.
Finally the six American kids and one Japanese kid end up at a Japanese demon/god sumo wrestling match. The Japanese kid enters the ring to fight for their lives (and Little Harriet).
The enigmatic old man enigmatically leads them to Little Harriet. The American kids go back to modern Boston.
Here is what I liked: Some of the garden descriptions are appealing. I like learning about new things--I now know more about sumo wrestling.
Here are the reasons why I didn't like it:
1. The character names. "Little Harriet." Her brother, "Owen Greatheart." (He wasn't even all that greathearted). Another brother, "Knuckleball." The fact that when we meet the oldest sister, Annie, her brother is calling her "Granny." This confused me. I thought she was a grandmother. The fact that Kiyoshi-chan is never just Kiyoshi (although maybe that's a nod to the reality of 1960s Japan???).
2. The multiple jumps in perspective. I coped reasonably well with all the different narrative strands, but I object to shifts in narrative perspective from one paragraph to the next.
3. The resulting fact that I never felt I knew any of the characters well enough to care about them as individuals. In particular, what with a considerable portion of the book's beginning told from the perspective of Kiyoshi-chan, I felt invested in him, and so was somewhat put out to find him becoming a minor side-kick (even when he took center stage as a sumo wrestler, and thus became the title character, "yokozuna" being the highest rank in professional sumo, he stayed minor). I think, also, that if an author tells me some of the kids are blond, but then goes out of his way to say that one has skin "the beautiful dark color of smooth chocolate," he should maybe tell me more about the familial circumstances of the kids (and make a vow never to use chocolate as a skin color descriptor ever again. I got stuck for a while at this point, thinking deep thoughts like "milk chocolate is smooth but not dark" etc.).
3. The fact that the plot made little sense, with motivations and meanings that never felt properly developed. WHY, for instance, did the kids travel through time? There is no reason, plot-wise, for this, and it didn't add to the sense that I was reading a coherent story. And what was with the talking monkey? I am fundamentally against talking monkeys whose only purpose is to introduce Basho's poetry, in a somewhat twisted fashion, to the young.
In a nutshell: It was like a confused fever dream, and I'm not adding it to my son's bookshelf.
And so that concludes this week's edition of Time Slip Tuesday. Tune in next week for a book I like more than this one.
Timecatcher, by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick (Orion Childrens, May 2010, UK), is a time slip book like no other I have ever reviewed, in that it involves ghosts time travelling back into the past through a magical portal! I do not know of any other books with actively time-travelling ghosts.
G. is a ghost boy, haunting the old Dublin Button Factory where he died in a freak accident several years ago-- lonely, bored, and at loose ends in death. Jessie is a girl new to the city, whose attention he attracts, leading her into the old factory, which has now been refurbished as miscellaneous business spaces/artists studios. There Jessie meets two private detectives who have a secret--the stairs in their office that lead nowhere actually lead to a time portal that opens every seven years. And there in the old factory is the ghost of the man, Master Greenwood, who inadvertently opened this Timecatcher back in the thirteenth century, and who has been guarding it ever since, hoping to find some way to close it. No living person has ever used it, but ghosts can come and go...
Then there's a third ghost, a bad one, who wants to use the magic of the time portal for the most selfish of ends. He has powers the good guys don't know about....and he's on his way to the Button Factory. The Timecatcher is about to open again...
(and the bad guy has told every ghost in Dublin about this opportunity to be ghostly travellers in time, so that they will mob the Button Factory and distract the good guys--this ghostly tourist episode, though just a side note, was lots of fun!)
As well as the central story plot--the bad ghost trying to take over the Timecatcher and team of ghosts and living people trying to find the secret of how to close it--there's a substantial character-driven plot. G. the ghost boy only the wispiest memory of his life before he became a ghost, and has spent his death years aimlessly working small mischiefs, and watching the artists at work in their studios. G. is not particularly fond of Master Greenwood (who indeed is much too preoccupied with his weighty concerns to be a good friend to a kid), and Master Greenwood does not regard G. in a particularly favorable light. And so G. is faced with a character-growing situation--does he work to become trustworthy, and a good friend to Jessie and the rest, sharing his own particular ghost skill (a useful one) with the team? Or will he let his resentment and care-less attitude to life and death win? And will the others trust him, or not? I liked this aspect of the book.
Jessie is there primarily to be the reader's entree into the story, and for her it is more an adventure than a character-changing experience. But still, she is a likable girl, with a bit of backstory (the missing father, lonely mother, new girl in strange place, etc.) and enough initiative to be a valuable member of the team. Master Greenwood's backstory, on the other hand, though perhaps a bit contrived, is extraordinary.....
There is also a very nice ghost cat who's travelled through time. Jessie's terrier also gets lots of page time, and those who like small dogs will appreciate him.
Short answer: A ghost-filled time-slip story with a nice dash of character development that entertained me lots.
The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, written by Charles de Lint, and illustrated by Charles Vess (Little Brown, March, 2013), was not quite what I expected. I knew that it told the story of a girl who was bitten by a snake out in the woods, and saved from death when a community of cats turned her into a kitten. And so I thought that she would be a kitten for most of the book, learning kitten-ways and such, until she was transformed back at the end (like
Jennie, by Paul Gallico, only in the woods).
Nope.
Turns out the girl, Lillian, has a much more tangled path to follow--a fairy-tale journey, full of talking animal people, obstacles, forks in the road, and more than a bit of the "be careful what you wish for" motif. And for most of the story, she journeys in human form.
Lillian lives with her aunt on the edge of Tanglewood forest, a place she knows is full of magic, though she's never seen any in all of her exploring. One day her path takes her to the very heart of the old woods, and there, sleeping in the shade of an ancient tree, she is fatally poisoned by a snake bite. But the wild cats of the forest save her, transforming her from dying girl to living kitten; the spell, though, is something they can't undo. Though Lillian is not unappreciative, she wants to be a girl again, and so, guided by first a crow and then a fox, she makes her way to the home of Old Mother Possum, a bottle-witch who's part human, part possum. And Old Mother Possum's magic lets her follow a different path, one in which the snake doesn't bite her.
Much to Lillian's horror, when she goes back home in girl form, she finds that in this reality, it is her aunt who has been killed by a snake. Now she has another tangle to undo, one that will take her to the wise-woman of the Creek Indians who live near by, and then on to the incredible, and dark, world of the bear people, and on...
From one magical encounter to the next, Lillian travels in search of an answer, and at last she returns to the heart of Tanglewood Forest, where all is resolved.
It's very folk-lore-ish fantasy, with bits of magic and story taken from the desperate cultures (African, Native American, and European) that have converged in this forest. The story is given some coherence by Lillian's determined quest, but is primarily episodic, in good fairy-tale like fashion. The illustrations add to the dream-like feel of events, conveying the magic of the forest and its peoples rather nicely.
In short, I think this is a fine book to share as a read aloud with a child--some bits are scary, and darkly magical, so the younger reader might welcome the comforting presence of a grown-up. American fantasy, exploring the convergence of different, is thin on the ground, so this is a welcome book in that regard.
Though I found it memorable, and interesting, and powerful in places, it wasn't quite one that worked for me. I tend not to like episodic stories, and though it is good to have a variety of cultures represented, the jumps from bottle magic and mojo to stories of the Creek Indians were a tad abrupt, and I never felt quite grounded in the story. This feeling was compounded by the fact that the story isn't set firmly in time (a feeling that came more from the illustrations than the story).
Lillian's dress, sleeveless and short (shown on the cover), looks modern (except that if it were really modern, wouldn't she be exploring the woods in jeans, and there's a reference to the Creek Indian "rez," which makes me think its contemporary. The two Creek boys who help Lilian on her way could be contemporary kids, shown wearing denim overalls, but other members of the tribe are shown wearing traditional regalia. There's one illustration that I found particularly jarring, in which members of the Creek community are shown looking like they're back in the 18th-century (reminding me unpleasantly of stereotypes of the timeless, romanticized Indian). And yes, it is a fairy-tale sort of story, so firm time and place aren't necessary, but I would have preferred not having to be bothered wondering about it.....
That being said, most readers seem to have loved this one considerably more than I did--it got a starred review from Publishers Weekly, for instance.
One last postscript about expectations--I kept waiting for the cats to get more page time than they did (which wasn't all that much), so be a tad wary of buying this for a kid simply because they love cats. It's not at all like the Warriors books, for instance. However, if you buy books simply because they have excellent fantasy foxes, this is one for you!
disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
Freaks, by Kieran Larwood (Scholastic, middle grade, March 2012)
Kept in cage in a dingy sea-side town, and exhibited to the gawking, jeering, 19th-century English public, Sheba knows there's no place for her in the real world. She is a "wolf-girl"--more than just being covered with fur, strong emotion causes wolfish changes to her body.
When she is nine or so, her world expands. She is bought by a travelling freak-show proprietor, a bloated, unpleasant tyrant, as a nice addition to his collection of human oddities. Although her new life is still that of a freak, dependent on a harsh master, at least she is not so alone. Plumpscuttle's Peculiars--the rat tamer (Mama Rat), the exotic young Japanese woman fighter (Sister Moon), the giant, the monkey boy may all be strange (and, in the case of Monkey boy, rather revolting, viz personal hygiene and disgusting pastimes involving poo and snot), but they are her first friends.
And when the freak show arrives in London, Till, a poor urchin girl, sneaks in to see the show. She and Sheba form an instant bond. When Till never returns from a stint of trash picking in the tidal cess-swamps of the Thames, the Peculiars take on the case.
Turns out a steam-punk robotic octopus is rising from the mud to grab hapless children....and the master-mind behind its operations wants the children for Darkly Sinister Purposes (!). Gradually the Peculiars piece together the clues that lead them to Prince Albert's Crystal Palace at midnight to confront the villain head on--but can they foil the evil plot in time to save the children?
I found it a lot more engaging than I thought I might--I don't like 19th-century London, freak shows, or stereotypes of the Exotic (the broken of English of the lovely but deadly Sister Moon got on my nerves tremendously). And in this particular case, the plot seemed somewhat flimsy--the bad guys didn't seem competent or sensible enough to be worthy antagonists. However, I did like the story arc of the lonely girl finding an unexpected type of family, the steam-punk octopus grabbing children scenes were creepy, and the trained rats of Mama Rat were most excellent.
I also appreciated the way in which Sheba grows to realize that the other Peculiars are actual people too, with names, and histories, and possible futures, and that she herself had a mother who loved her. Though the story ends with the crew preparing to put on another show, I couldn't help but feel hopeful that life might have more in store for them.
Just as an aside--it's rather interesting to read a speculative fiction book in which the central child character is not actually the person who saves the day. Sheba, though appropriately plucky, actually does little that is useful--the adult Peculiars are the ones who come up with plans, take down bad guys, track people down, etc. This is another thing I appreciated!
But what will kids think? I really don't know. I have a vague sense that 19th-century is a hard sell to ten- and eleven-year olds, but the cool cover, promising action and adventure, and the appeal of the bizarre, might draw in kids both genders....and then, having met Sheba, they might well be happy to see how her adventures play out. The first chapter can be read at
the author's website, if you want to try it out....
Final thought: I really could have done without Monkey Boy being so constantly gross.
Final-er thought: trying to label this, I can't decide on sci fi (the mechanical octopus and the reliance of the nefarious plot on Faraday's electrical fun) or fantasy (Sheba is a wolf girl in more than fur, and rats are preternaturally talented). So I will put both.
Freaks won
The Times/Chicken House Publishing Children’s Fiction Competition 2010, and was published in the UK in 2011. Here's the UK cover, which, as Tanita points out in her discussion of this one at
Finding Wonderland, is more than a bit misleading:
Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.
Unlocking the Spell, by E.D. Baker (Bloomsbury, October 2012, ages 8-11), is the sequel to The Wide-Awake Princess, in which the titular princess, Annie, is the only one who doesn't fall asleep when her big sister falls under the magic curse ala Sleeping Beauty. It's up to Annie, the only person in all the kingdoms who magic has no effect on, to find a prince to come kiss her sister...which she does, with all sorts of fairy-tale mash-up adventures along the way.
However, the prince that Annie comes up with has one little issue--he's a bear. A prince enchanted into bear form, true, but still a bear.
So Annie, her sister, the bear, and Liam (Annie's friend from her first adventure) set out to find the dwarf who worked this malicious magic. And what follows is a pretty entertaining, though somewhat dizzying, whirl of a journey through fairy tale snippet after snippet--from Puss in Boots to the Three Little Pigs, to the Bremen Town musicians to Snow White and many, many, more....and in all these encounters, Annie's gift (?) of magic-suppression plays a part.
So basically it's a show-case of fractured-fairy tale set pieces, amusingly woven into a pretty coherent whole, but it's somewhat light on the character development (although Annie does wonder about the relationship between Liam and herself....). Annie's spoiled and ultra-beautiful sister, for instance, never becomes much more interesting or agreeable than she was at the beginning, despite all the shared adventures and dangers. So for younger readers who want fairy tale fun, it's great; for older readers, it might not have quite enough depth.
disclaimer: this one was received from the publisher ages ago, and has been languishing in my home far too long...
Read the rest of this post
Dragon Run, by Patrick Matthews (Scholastic, March 1, 2013, but on shelves now, middle grade) is a just fine fantasy adventure for the 9-11 year-old set. It's an "if they like the cover they'll like the book" book -- boy, sword, dragon, with a title that promises action.
In an alternate, quasi-medieval world, all twelve year-olds are tested to determine their rank in life. Al dreams of getting the highest rank mark--a seven--tattooed on his neck...but instead, he is found wanting. All his ambitions go up in smoke when he is pronounced a zero, something virtually unheard of. Ones are beyond the pale, but absolutely no-one wants anything to do with a zero...except the Cullers, who want to kill them for eugenics purposes.
Fortunately Al gets some help escaping from the castle keep where he's been tested...but how will he survive, despised and alone, pursued by the ruthless killers who want to cull him?
But there is more to his story than that. For Al's world is one ruled by dragons, though they pay little attention to the humans crawling beneath them. As Al flees from the Cullers, he begins to learn that his world is a much more complex and scary place than he had imagined. The dragons are much more than they seem...and Al is forced to confront their power, head on, to save not only himself, but his people...
It's a great story, with a great premise--I give it very high marks for Plot. Seeing how the whole eugenics bit played out was particularly interesting. Though Al and his two good friends (boy and girl) don't rise to memorable heights of characterization, they're just fine, and it's nice to read about a hero who's special because he has nothing going for him but his own pluck and stubborn-ness. Interest is added by several not-quite-human races that co-exist with regular people. The writing isn't exceptional, being your standard, occasionally stilted, quasi-medieval fantasy writing, but I'm so used to that that it didn't bother me.
However, world-builidng-wise this fell short for me. It's not till around page 194 that the reader learns what the whole point of the cast system is, how magic is important to this world, and why the dragons care, and it's not till page 223 that I realized that "Lord Archovar," who had been mentioned several times, was in fact a dragon. It seems to me that if you are going to have overlord dragons and a world with magic, you should make it patently obvious from the beginning.
Just to show that it wasn't (at least, not entirely, my dimness as a reader), here's where we hear of Lord Archovar for the first time:
"A tall man stood in the opening. His black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and his tabard bore the purple and yellow flower of Lord Archovar. He raised a long brass horn to his lips and blew three short bursts. A hush rippled through the crowed, and the man dropped gracefully to one knee, bowing his head. On either side of him, the men at the gates echoed his gesture, as did the guards on the wall above.
The people in the field dropped to their knees as fast as they could, bowing their heads and closing their eyes. Al went to one knee, but kept his eyes open, staring at the dead leaves on the ground.
Glancing sideways , he noticed that Wisp also had his eyes open. The boys shared a look, then watched the dragon's shadow soar across the field and disappear behind the castle." (page 5)
It totally went over my head that Lord Archovar and the dragon were one and the same; when I got to page 233, and his dragon-ness was made clear, I flipped back through to see if I had missed anything, and didn't find any statements of obvious dragon-ness I had overlooked. (However, on page 9 it's clear that another lord is a dragon, so perhaps I should have made the connection....).
And I think that if you have a variety of not quite human races, you shouldn't keep introducing them abruptly, but mention early on that they might be expected. It's less jarring that way, when suddenly you meet people with webbed hands, or white fur.
So though I did appreciate the story, the book as a whole didn't quite work for me because the world wasn't solidly built enough for me, and the characterization and writing weren't quite enough to compensate. It's not one I'd urge grown-up readers to seek out, but kids in the market for a rather exciting "boy becomes hero" story, for whom plot is most important, may well enjoy it lots.
Here's
the Kirkus review, which provides details I didn't. I do not agree the ending was predictable, as the Kirkus reviewer opined--I liked the ending, and found it very interesting and surprising (maybe because the Kirkus reader figured out long, long before me who was a dragon, and what the dragons were up to....). I do agree, however, that it "went down pretty easy."
(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)
Oh yay, it's a middle grade science fiction book, oh yay....sorry. It's just that there are so very few solidly middle grade sci fi books, and every time I do a Sunday round-up of "middle grade sci fi/fantasy" I want to apologize for not actually having any sci fi in it, so there you go.
So in any event,
The Fellowship For Alien Detection, by Kevin Emerson (Walden Pond Press, Feb 26, 2013) is true blue sci fi, one to which I can comfortably apply the shopworn, but sincere, adjectives "exciting" and "fun." Albeit with a slight reservation.
Haley thinks aliens have been kidnapping people. Dodger hears a radio station in his head, broadcasting from a town that doesn't exist. When Haley and Dodger both get summer grants from the mysterious Fellowship for Alien Detection, they're off on two separate road trips to find out the truth. Haley and her dad head south and west from Connecticut, and Dodger and his go east and south from Washington. And when their paths converge, they find that the truth is even stranger, and much scarier, than they had ever dreamed....
Each kid's journey to that convergence point is told as a distinct story. I was not expecting this--there I was, happily following Haley (smart girl, would-be reporter) on the track of her interesting mystery (involving missing time and missing persons), and things were getting excitingly tense....then suddenly Haley is left on a metaphorical cliff and the story jumps to Dodger's journey. Haley's story and Dodger's are rather different in mood (Dodger's being darker), and this added to my uncertainty about narrative coherence. And then there were small extracts from the very mysterious life of a third character, another kid....I enjoyed them, and they added suspense, but I was confused...
However, everything does fit together, and very nicely too. All three narrative strands conjoin, and everything becomes very exciting indeed.
My only reservation is that the author spends considerable time making sure that the reader really Knows the characters, which is fine, except that it throws the balance off a tad--there's a lot of character development before Haley's true adventure starts, and then we go back and have lots of character development before Dodger's gets going. I found this made the book less of an all-absorbing read than it might otherwise have been (perhaps because it also made the book longer). And so I'd recommend it to kids who already are strong readers, rather than annoyingly picky ones like some children I live with.
My only other slight reservation about the book is that the cover makes it look a tad younger than is accurate--I think it's one for eleven-year olds, rather than nine-year olds.
That being said, it was great fun to see all the different little mysteries and clues that had filled the first three hundred pages converging into a whole, and I think this one has as much appeal to the mystery loving kid as it does to the reader of speculative fiction. Although if you have a kid on hand who is fascinated by Rosewell, you should definitely offer them this book.
Here are two other review (both glowing) from
Maria's Melange and
This Kid Reviews Booksdisclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
Spirit's Princess, by Esther Friesner (Random House, April, 2012, middle grade/YA) tells of the childhood of Himiko, daughter of the chieftain of the small Matsu clan. By around 238 AD, Himiko was a queen, but before she reaches that point (which will presumably happen in the sequel to this book), she has lots of growing up to do....and so this is a book for the reader who has patience, one who is interested in the small things of life, and who doesn't demand happenings (in this, the cover is misleading--Himiko looks like an Action-Oriented princess, but that part of her life is yet to come). It's also a good one for the reader who likes historical fiction that explores the lives of little known women--the author's note at the end explains that Himiko's story is based on fact, which pleased me very much.
Himiko is the only daughter of her father, and so is the "princess" of her village. It is a narrow life, as her father distrusts all outsiders, and Himiko is not permitted to follow her dream of become a great hunter like her older brother (and even if she had been encouraged to follow this path, a fall in childhood leaves with a permanently lame leg). Slowly she realizes that her path lies elsewhere, as a shaman for her people. And so, interspersed with various family dynamics, we are told of her apprenticeship to the village shaman, which is kept secret from her dictatorial, xenophobic father, who simply wants to see her nicely married off.
There are shadows of a danger to come, which finally does arrive right at the end of the book. But until then, there's lots of family dynamics, with nicely drawn secondary characters, some interesting descriptions of Himiko's rather restricted life, some magical encounters with spirit world (although not quite enough for my taste), and hints of more story to come.
I myself rather enjoyed it, though at first I was doubtful--- I felt that it wasn't quite necessary to spend so much time with five-year old Himiko (adolescent Himiko becomes more interesting). But even though I did read it avidly, appreciating the different culture, appreciating Himiko's various dilemmas and her growing familiarity with the spirit world, and hoping that it would all work out, I couldn't help but feel that this story is simply the prologue to a more exciting one to come.
And indeed, this is a good time to have read the book, because I am very much looking forward to its sequel,
Spirit's Chosen, which comes out this April, and will not have as long to wait!
note on age: I'd be most likely to give this one to a ten or eleven year old girl, although it is described as being for ages 12 and up. There is nothing in the book that would give your typical middle grade pause, and I think older readers are more likely to be put off by the fact that Himiko is a little kid!
I have raved many times before about the Dragonbreath books by Ursula Vernon. They are my default recommendation for books to give the child who is betwixt and between easy readers and longer books--generous font size, heavy on graphic panels that advance the story (although less so as the series progresses), both girl and boy friendly, and funny as heck. And they are also perfect for giving to your picky 12 year old reader, because they aren't at all patronizing/condescending, so older readers can enjoy them too, and it is so nice to see said picky reader reading a book cover to cover grinning his head off.
So book 8,
Nightmare of the Iguana, is out now, and we get to meet Suki, the smart and sarcastic ex-Ninja gecko, again! Yay! It is especially nice for Wendell, the geeky young iguana, because they kind of fancy each other. Except that Wendell is being plagued by horrible nightmares, with potentially disastrous consequences...and to save him, Danny Dragonbreath and Suki must venture into his unconscious mind...a strange and terrible place....
I probably grinned as much reading it as my twelve year old. I think
Curse of the Were-Wiener is still my favorite, but this one was lots of fun.
And the next book is on its way, in which Danny, Wendell, and their friend-who-is-a girl [sic] must hunt down mutant thieves, in The Case of the Toxic Mutants, coming Sept. 1..... I hope we get to meet the potato salad again (it's my favorite living potato salad of all time).
I have April of
Good Books and Good Wine to thank for adding Dark Lord: the Early Years, by Jamie Thomson (Walker, Oct. 2, 2012, middle grade) to my reading queue, and it turned out to be a fine choice for reading while snowed in--there wasn't anything about snow in it, but it was nicely diverting.
The titular dark lord has fallen on hard times, and a hard pavement, as the book begins. Thrust by the magic of a good wizard from the fantasy realm where he exerts evil power over thousands of minions, he finds himself inhabiting the body of a 12 year old boy, prone and disoriented on a shopping-center parking lot. None of his evil magic works, and worse than that, no one takes the fact that he is a Dark Lord seriously, and without any power to curse them/blast them to smithereens/etc., there's nothing he can do about it.
Now he is simply a foster kid known as Dirk Lloyd, thrust into a perfectly ordinary middle school.
But Dirk is undaunted, not so much clinging to his Dark Lord identity, but utterly owning it. No measly principal will get the better of him! And with his finely honed Dark Lord military mind, the dynamics of middle school are an easy challenge to master. It helps, of course, that his foster brother and his Goth girl class mate find him diverting as all get out, and, though it strains credulity, his unshakable belief in his true identity does make for interesting conversations....
But, trapped in human form, with real friends and affectionate parents for the first time, and with a large dollop of his wickedness left in the parking lot (in oil smear form), Dirk finds himself changing....how long can he really believe that he is a Dark Lord, when it's not at all clear if he'll ever get home to his orc-breeding pits again (if they even really existed....).
There is tons of kid appeal to this one. Dirk's twisted dark lord memories, though gruesome, are so over the top cliched and exuberantly written that they are entertaining rather than disturbing, and the juxtaposition of his Dark Lord persona with middle school is one that many readers will find amusing. Up to a point, perhaps, for the adult reader, who might find it a bit of a one-note joke, even a tiresome one, but I think the intended audience will be more completely absorbed by it.
And Dirk himself actually works his way from being Bad Guy to being a sympathetic character. It's kind of tricky to truly sympathize with him, of course, because he really did do bad things. But the device of him having had a large part of his wickedness left on the parking lot allows readers to give him the chance to become a decent person, or at least, a decent friend (small steps....). And perhaps at some point he will start admitting that Dark Lordness isn't all that nice for those who suffer under its bloody tyranny...
And yes, there is a sequel! Good thing too, because this one ends on a cliffhanger. This is a UK series, where it was published as Dark Lord: the Teenage Years, and the sequel, Fiend in Need, came out last March, and which I really would like to read this week because the story of Dirk and his friends looks like it is about to really truly get going....
Recommended in particular to fans of fantasy war games, those who prefer black to pink, and those seeking tips on minion management. It's also a natural one to give kids who enjoyed
Vordak last year, but are ready to move on to meatier fare.
Here's Cory Doctorow's take on it at
Boing Boing (enthusiastic),
April's review, in case you missed the link above (which isn't enthusiastic, but which still made me seek out the book), and Pam's review at
Bookalicious (she liked it).
Freakling, by Lana Krumwiede (Candlewick, middle grade, October 2012)
Psi powers are something that twelve-year old Taemon takes for granted--everyone in his city can move and manipulate the physical world with their minds--until the day he looses his powers. His parents hope this affliction is only temporary, and do their best to help him pretend to be normal in a world where no one does anything with their hands that they can do with their minds....because if his secret were discovered, it would mean exile.
Though the charade is successful for a while, at last Taemon's secret comes out, and he must leave his family for the uncertain fate of the powerless colony outside the city. And it's actually not so bad. The powerless are kind and welcoming, and the community is less caught up in rigid protocol and heirophantic social strictures than the city (which has a belief system that Taemon's older brother, the power-hungry bad guy of the story, is determined to take advantage of). But before Taemon can become truly part of the normal colony, he finds that it has secrets of its own...valuable knowledge that must be kept from the psi users, or else their rather morally suspect society would become dangerously powerful.
When Taemon is unwittingly responsible for leaking one of these secrets, he must return to his city to try to repair the damage...but the city he's going back to is a much scarier, more dystopian place, than the one he left...
Plot-wise, this is fine reading--the story moves briskly, the conflict is very real, and younger readers may well empathize with the young protagonist's conflicts between family, society, and being true to himself. Those readers will probably find the whole concept of lives dependent on mental powers fascinating, and, in as much as Taemon enjoys the mechanics of things, it has appeal for kids who like tinkering with devices themselves. On the abstract side of things, Krumwiede raises interesting philosophical points concerning such things as the responsibilities of power, and on the quotidian side, she makes sure that her portrayal of both ways of life, psi and normal, are detailed and thorough.
Perhaps too much so for older readers (at least for me)--though I was very intrigued by the premise, I felt that the world- and plot-building elements of the book were underlined a tad too much, and there was something of a flatness to the narration. I never was able to feel any particular emotional connection to Taemon. So it wasn't a book that I personally embraced, but I think that it has much more appeal for its target audience!
Freakling works just fine as a stand-alone, but its sequel,
Archon, comes out in October.
Other reviews at
Semicolon,
The Diary of a Bookworm,
January Magazine, and
My Precious.Viz labeling: mental powers sometimes feel like fantasy to me, sometimes like sci-fi--I'm going with sci-fi on this one, because it seems real world possible (if you allow for the possibility of psi!)
Viz the cover--isn't it utterly gorgeous? I think it's my favorite mg sff cover of the year.
Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher for Cybils review purposes.
Anyone looking for a dated time-travel story that emphatically underlines the message that humans need to save Nature or else need look no further than
The Girl Who Slipped Through Time, by Paula Hendrich (Weekly Reader Books, 1978, 128 pages). It tells of a young girl, Paramicia, from the far future (2040), who has lived all her life isolated from what little of the natural world has survived man-made catastrophes (including droves of mutated jackrabbits). Her parents are determined to do what they can to bring the dying earth back to life...and so, as the story begins, young Para is being reluctantly dragged across a scorched wasteland of former prairie in an Air Cushion Vehicle.
And when the Air Cushion Vehicle malfunctions, our angry heroine sets out for a walk on her own...and miraculously enters a world where nature is still alive, and well...at least for the moment. She is taken in by sympathetic locals--an old woman and the boy she's been looking after. They are friendly, curious, but not too suspicious, and they can teach her valuable lessons about loving animals!
But she discovers that she is not in some bastion of miraculously intact bastion of nature with no indoor plumbing---she has travelled back in time to the 1930s just as the Dust Bowl is getting going. And there are people back then who want to eradicate all varmints! She learns this is bad, and begins to appreciate her parents' mission--but will she ever make it home to tell them?
Yes! The mysterious old woman who helps her is a space alien! Which actually isn't how she gets home again, and I'm just mentioning it because it is odd. But Paramecia does bring home two baby coyotes, as well as learning a lesson, so it was all worth while (?).
Maybe to the young reader who's never read a time travel book, never encountered a book that describes a possible future, and never read a didactic book about appreciating the environment will love this one. The characters and story are fine, I guess, though odd (the whole alien granny twist, for instance, really threw me).
But I myself found Paramicia's futuristically stiff diction off-putting, and I couldn't believe in the dramatic changes that are supposed to have occurred in technology and society. 2040 is just not far enough away, even from the point of view of 1978, when the book was written. I myself, born in the late 1960s, still plan on being around with all my quaint archaic words, like "year", in 2040, come eco-catastrophe or not. (However, judging from the cover, hairstyles stayed stuck in the late 1970s).
However, anyone looking for time travel books that teach Valuable Lessons to the Reader (as opposed to the particular character), and there aren't actually that many of them, should seek this one out.
(I am now thinking Deep Thoughts about what makes a book one with a Message, as opposed to one that just makes a reader more thoughtful and informed. I suppose, as in so many other things, it is a blurry line...)
The Vengekeep Prophecies, by Brian Farrey (HarperCollins, Oct. 23, 2012).
In a world where magic, and magical beings (goblins, bird-people, etc.) are real, there is a town named Vengekeep. Centuries ago, powerful seers wove tapestries predicting the future, and every year's tapestry is unveiled in an annual ceremony. In this town there is also a world-famous family of thieves...whose youngest scion, Jaxter Grimjinx, is a clutz. So much so that he accidentally sets fire to the mansion he's burgling on the day of that year's tapestry reveal.
But this year's tapestry just happens to show the Grimjinx family saving Vengekeep from 29 different disasters, ranging from mundane floods to attacks from skeletal flying monsters. And so Jaxter's little slip-up is pardoned...after all, the savious of Vengekeep can't do their saving from prison.
But there are a just a few little problems with the Grimjinx family as saviours. To wit:
Number 1: The tapestry of disaster was woven as part of a con by Jaxter's mother, who had a lot of fun making up fictional catastrophes. Unbeknownst to her, however, she used a magical type of fate thread--anything woven with it actually happens. The lava creatures that emerge from the earthquake-craked center of Vengkeep are just the first of the disasters to come.
Number 2: The mundane problems, like flooding, can be dealt with, but no-one in the the Grimjinx family has a clue how to foil things like skeletal deathbringing monsters of the sky.
Number 3: So the only thing to do is to destroy the tapestry itself, to keep what it shows from happening, but that requires someone to go fetch some extraordinarily scarce magical ingredients. And Vengekeep has been interdicted by the central government, so that whatever curse its under can't infect the kingdom. No one can get out.
Fortunately, though Jaxter is not a good thief, he has made friends with a well-born girl, Callie, who knows a secret way out of Vengekeep. And though Jaxter might fumble at lock-picking, he just happens to have the talents necessary to save his city. And they are not magical talents of specialness. No, Jaxter is that wonderful sort of hero, who loves learning! He loves taking what he's read and applying it in practical situations, and so Jaxter (along with Callie) sets off equipped with pouches of non-magical ingredients that can be combined in over four thousand ways with great effect.
And a journey ensues, in which the two kids meet friends, and enemies, and magical creatures, and have all sorts of adventures of a magical adventurous sort! My favorite part was the least "adventurous" of these--a stay with a wealthy and eccentric woman desperately looking for an apprentice with whom to share all the learning she's amassed, and to help her discover more. Obviously, Jaxter is the one she's been looking for....but his obligations and loyalties lie elsewhere. A nice little interlude of geeky fantasy goodness!
I am pretty certain that any young fan of fantasy adventures will enjoy The Vengekeep Prophecies tremendously. It is fast and fun (even funny in parts!) and imaginative. It's also a pleasingly stand-alone story, though there's lots of room for more adventures.
I was hoping to love it a tad more myself then I actually did--I am not sure why, but I never felt much emotional attachment to Jaxter. I think this is because I can't help but read as an adult and a mother, and so many boy heroes of the fantasy books I love have lost their mothers, and/or are all prickly and defensive but sweet underneath (Gen (The Thief), Conn (The Magic Thief), Sage (The False Prince) spring to mind, though doubtless I could think of more). Jaxter actually has two parents who love him and are proud of him (supportive parents are on the rise, I think, in mg fantasy). Though he himself was worried about disappointing them, it's clear that his talents will be recognized and valued, and that all will be well for him. I never was in a position of feeling sharp heart-tearings of concern for him....Callie, although in on all the action, never quite manages to transcend basic plucky girl as sidekick characterization, so I didn't feel any great concern about her either.
And so though I enjoyed The Vengekeep Prophecies just fine, and am happy to recommend it enthusiastically, I didn't
love it. But that's just me.
Curse of the Thirteenth Fey: the True Tale of Sleeping Beauty, by Jane Yolen (Philomel, middle grade, Nov. 2012), has a somewhat misleading title. It is actually the tale of the family of fairies who came to the christining, and how the princess ended up falling into her enchanted sleep. And more particularly, it's the tale of the youngest daughter of this family, young Gorse.
Gorse was left home sick when the rest of her family--aunts, siblings, and parents (no uncles--they were humans and didn't stick around long, but Gorse's father is an elf, and stayed), troop off to the castle to fulfil their part in a bargain made with the human king long ago. The fairies swore an oath to do the bidding of the royal family, and bestowing Christening magic on the baby princess is part of the bargain.
But Gorse--thoughtful, brave, impetuous, and somewhat sickly--is horrified when she realizes she's been left home alone. Will she (and perhaps all her family) explode into light if the family oath isn't fulfilled because she isn't there? So off she goes by herself to the castle....only to fall into an underground maze. There a prince of the Unseely fairy court (Orybon), along with his sworn companion (Grey), and a clan of cave trolls (called "the McGargles" by the two fairy dudes) are were trapped underground by an imprisoning spell cast long ago (the trolls were innocent, unlucky, bystanders). Orybon could be free any time--all he has to do is truly repent the wickedness that he's being punished for, and then Grey and the McGargles would be free too. But repentance isn't actually on Orybon's agenda--he'd rather coerce Gorse into using her family's gift of magical shouting to batter a way through the locked gate to the upper world....
Not surprisingly, Gorse manages to save those who deserve saving, and makes it to the Christening, in time to see her mother cunningly work magic that will free her own family from their bondage to the human royals.
Surprisingly, Grey, once restored to the upper world, reverts to the age he was when he was first imprisoned--now he's a boy again, just a bit older than Gorse. And so, with this rather squicky implication that love will blossom despite the age weirdness, we leave them to their magic...
A few quick pluses--An imaginative look at a part of the Sleeping Beauty story that I've never seen looked at before. Plucky, intelligent, well-read heroine. Really cool magical book delivery system in which Gorse's father can reach into a magical book delivery slot and pull out random books, allowing Gorse to quote Through the Looking Glass.
My less plus-like thoughts: I just never do truly fall for Jane Yolen's books--they just never seem to me to fully deliver numinous enchantment, characters I can take to my heart, and truly gripping stories (and I do recognize that this is my issue--plenty of readers seem to love her just fine). In this case I was put off by how long it took for the story to actually start--there are seventy six pages of backstory in which Gorse is born, grows older, hears family stories, and tells things to the reader. Then she falls into the pit, and the pace picks up, albeit in a somewhat choppy fashion.
However, though the story now becomes genuinely interesting reading, the pit has its own problems. Although the relationship between Orybon and Grey was fraught with all sorts of dynamics (which is the sort of thing I appreciate), I can't really call it a masterpiece of subtle character building. And I know that I might be over-reacting, but I really didn't care for the patronizing, almost neo-Imperialist way the cave trolls are presented, both with the ridiculous name and the whole sense that I got of them as an exploited indigenous people, in an --isn't it nice that they can care about their families even though they are less than human-- way.
And finally, I was squicked out by Grey suddenly getting younger and loosing memories of what happened underground (which basically erases all of the character development that had happened in his life) and becoming a potential love interest for a girl who started things young enough to be his daughter.
I didn't mind reading it once, but I won't be reading it again.
Other reviews:
The Book BrownieKirkusand the Upper Hudson Library system has gathered the School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and Booklist reviews
here
When You Wish Upon a Rat, by Maureen McCarthy (Amulet Books, Sept. 2012 in the US, middle grade) is the first book I can remember reading in which a sentient stuffed animal magically transports the main character back in time....
Months have gone by since eleven-year-old Ruth's older brother threw her stuffed rat into the river (a special, antique sort of stuffed rat, not taxidermy, that was a gift from her favorite aunt). Months in which Ruth's aunt died, and Ruth grieved...months spent despising life in a family consisting of absentminded, overly relaxed parents and distasteful brothers. Indeed Ruth has it rather hard--as the only one who cares about organization, and clean dishes, and Standards, she does more than her share of the housework. Her parents really do pay more attention to her brothers than they do to her, and on top of that, the cool girls who were her friends are now hostile.
The rat episode was pretty much the last straw that cemented Ruth's dislike of her family, and she's been furious with her brother ever since. But when she strikes up the beginnings of a friendship with Howard, a boy who's even more an outsider than she is, things change. Howard suggests that she might go back, long trip via public transportation though it is, to the spot where she last saw her rat....
And she finds it again. And it is alive, in a magical, still a stuffed rat kind of a way. Not only that, but it can grant wishes--wishes that can change her life.
So, in classic be careful what you wish for style, Ruth experiments with three different lives. One makes her an only child, the center of attention of dotting, well-off parents, who smother her. One wish, for an "ordered, quiet life. No family," fulfils her request nicely--the catch with that is that she's an orphan in a strict convent boarding school. And the final wish has Ruth about to win a kids television quiz show--but there's a nasty twist to that too.
You can probably guess the end, but I couldn't help but continue to feel sorry for Ruth and to wish her parents tried harder with the dishes and with her birthday presents. They really are somewhat neglectful, and the fact that I thought Ruth's original life was pretty awful made me a little disappointed that, after all was said and done, her house was still a mess.
So the story as a whole is fairly predictable in the general way things play out, but the ways in which Ruth's various lives play out makes for interesting reading. The time travel sub-story, which did come as a surprise, was especially nice for me, fan of orphan and school stories that I am.
Ruth's reactions to the strictures of Catholic school life, which comes complete with despotic nuns, are spot on, and the friendship she makes with another student is a genuinely real relationship with reverberations into the present that cause Ruth to change for the better. Those who are left hand might find this section of the book particularly interesting--her new friend is left-handed, and is being pretty much tortured into using her right hand.
In short, a fun contemporary addition to the "kid who tries on other lives through magic" sub-genre.
This was originally published in Australia in 2010, as Careful What You Wish For; here's that cover. I much prefer the US version--the Australian cover looks like the girl wished for a boyfriend and it ended badly.
Other blog reviews:
Tsana's Reads and Reviews,
Sharon the Librarian, and
Teen Book ReviewsDisclaimer: review copy received from the publisher for Cybils consideration.
Infinity Ring: Divide and Conquer, by Carrie Ryan (Scholastic, November 2012)
In an alternate reality, history played out very differently. Deliberate interventions were made with the course of events by an evil (in a power-mad, ruthless sort of way) organization that dominates the present of three kids--Dak, Sera, and Riq. But the Hystorians are fighting back, and their hopes rest on these kids, who are able to travel back in time to fix the mistakes with the help of the powerful Infinity Ring. (This is all explained in Book 1-- A Mutiny in Time, and if you really want to understand what's happening, you have to read that first).
But how to fix mistakes when you don't know what really should have happened? In Paris of 885, are the kids supposed to be keeping the Viking raiders from sacking Paris? That's the puzzle that Dak, Sera, and Riq have to solve in this episode of their ongoing saga, all the while somehow managing to stay alive as Beserkers attack. The whole survival thing becomes particularly challenging for history obsessed Dak--he just can't resist going out to get a closer look at a real Viking longship. Unfortunately, he gets a closer look at the Vikings than he bargained for....
So, there's lots of historical mayhem, puzzles to solve, Vikings to outwit, etc., with a dash of the three kids growing up a tad for good measure. Raq is still somewhat unlikable (though he's improving), Dak too impetuous, and Sera, always the most sympathetic of the bunch, is falling in love---with a dude from the 9th century (no future in that).
It's a fun, fast, read--time travel made relatively easy with the help of technology, with an emphasis on excitement rather than deep thoughts. A fine addition to a series that many older elementary/younger middle school kids should enjoy, and dog fans in particular should appreciate this instalment--there's a great Viking dog.
My only complaint is that few concessions are made for the reader who doesn't know her history all that well. In book one, any school kid would know that it was Columbus who was supposed to have discovered America. But who knows all that much about the Viking invasion of France? I now know a lot more than I did, for which I am grateful. But though a little historical background, detailing what actually happened, would have given things away if put at the beginning, would have driven the history lesson home if placed at the end....
added bonus: the adventures of the three kids play out on-line, with the code given in this book opening the way to a new episode....
added bonus 2: the kids are multicultural, as shown on the back cover.
Antonia Michaelis is the author of three YA books translated from the original German into English--T
iger Moon,
Dragons of Darkness, and 2012's
The Storyteller.
The Secret Room (Sky Pony Press, October, 2012) is, as far as I know, her first middle grade book to be translated.
Achim has lived all his life in an orphanage, and he's pretty sure that, because of his asthma, he'll never be adopted. But then Paul and Inez come, and want him to be their son. Their own little boy died years ago. If he had lived, he would be the same age as Achim.
In the house of Paul and Inze there is a secret room, where no room could really exist, a prison tower with strange paintings on the walls. And in that secret room, Achim meets Arnim, his lost brother.
Arnim is trapped, unable to move beyond the tower room to fly free into what lies beyond. To free him, Achim must become a bird, and fly to the palace of the dark and terrible Nameless One, built of stones of longing and sadness, stolen by Nameless One, and it is surrounded by trees full of caged birds, who had themselves tried and failed to free their own loved ones.
To succeed where they failed, Achim must solve a series of riddles and conquer his fears, while navigating the dangers of the Nameless One. Day after day, he slips through the paintings in the secret room, journeying ever closer to the answer he needs.
But it is in the real world where Achim will find what he needs to free his brother, because what is really imprisoning Arnim is grief and loss, both that of Paul and Ines, and Achim's own, barely recognized sadness that he himself lost his own parents. As Achim, Paul, and Inez become a new family, ready to love each other, the chances that Achim can free his ghost brother grow....
So in part this book is a fantasy quest, a hero's journey through a magical realm, where he is armed only with bravery, compassion, and his wits, and the help of magical birds. In the larger story arc, though, the fantasy elements are an extended metaphor, highlighting and complementing the truly moving poignancy of Achim's journey into a new family.
This real world side of things was tremendously worthwhile reading--my heart ached for Achim, breaking a plate and hiding it under his mattress in stress and shame, and trying to keep his asthma a secret, in case Paul and Inez didn't want a child they had to worry about. And my heart ached for the grown-ups, too, as they carefully try not to think too hard about the son they lost, and try to make a family with their new son.
The fantasy side of things is, up till the great confrontation at the end, somewhat dreamlike and unhurried--it might not appeal to every young reader. Indeed, it's the sort of book that will be just right for just the right child--the introspective one, the one who loves metaphorical stories, may well love this book, find it incredibly powerful, and appreciate the rich descriptions immensely.
I don't think its for everyone, though--kids who are avid consumers of modern American fantasy might find it lacking in zippy immediacy and too surreal, and they might find Achim's very mater-of-fact narrative voice distancing. These kids, however, might well find their interest picking up toward the end, when things start to really get going, and a knife turns into a flying horse (!) and the Nameless One attacks...
On the other hand, I'm happy to recommend it to adult readers of fantasy who enjoy Fun with Metaphor. As an adult, it was the real world side that gripped me most, and so I'd primarily recommend it to those who love stories of orphaned children trying to find a loving place in the world....And I'd also suggest keeping this one in mind to give to kids who might themselves have loss and grief in their lives, who might find comfort here. That being said, it's not a book with a message of "helping kids deal with death" front and center, but rather a story in which letting go, with love, those who have died, is the central theme.
I sure hope, though, that
The Secret Room does well enough here in the US that its sequel gets published in English too (so please do go seek it out). This particular fantasy adventure has ended, but I care very much about Achim and Paul and Inez and want more of them.
The German title of the book is
Das Adoptivzimmer, which translates as The Adopted Room, and the German blurb on Goodreads underlines this metaphorical connection that I missed. The secret room is not part of the real house, but is there on sufferance---adopted, like Achim himself.I'm not sure which cover I like better--the American one, which emphasises the emotional weight of the story, but is kind of depressing, or the German one, which I think is has more overt kid-appeal, but which might be misleading....this not being a bubbly fantasy fun type book. Here's another review, at Kid Lit Reviews
(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)
Determined to briskly review books received for Cybils consideration, and move them right along to permanent homes, today I offer
Pip and the Wood Witch Curse, written and illustrated by Chris Mould (Albert Whitman, 2012). It's the start of a new series, one that should find many fans among 8 and 9 year old devotees (or nascent devotees) of fantasy.
Young orphan Pip is about to be sold of into a miserable, and most unwanted, life at sea. But chance smiles (perhaps) on him, and he escapes into the brutal winter night, hiding himself away in the wagon of a company of travelling players.
(At which point I though this would be another circus fantasy, with Pip mastering arcane jugging skills or some such. Boy was I wrong).
The wagon takes him to the town of Hangman's Hollow, a place as dark as its name. It is a town surrounded by a witch-filled wood--and the witches are hungry for children. But in Hangman's Hollow there are no children, save for a few tucked hidden into secret corners by their desperate parents. And Pip finds himself taken in by one such father, whose own son has been kept enclosed all his life.
Outside, sinister forces hunt for fresh victims...and Pip has caught their attention. Will the Wood Witch Curse claim him, or can he outwit it?
So, in other words, a dark and spooky tale. It is not, however, an unfriendly story for the young reader (say, third or fourth grade) who likes things dark and spooky--in fact, it is perfect for such a kid. It is profusely illustrated, with many detailed black and white drawings, that include full page, multi-paneled depictions of the action, offering the more uncertain reader a nice break from words.
And it's a friendly looking book, too, for the kid leaving easier chapter books and moving toward full blown middle grade fantasy. It's short (165 pages), of smaller dimensions than, say, Harry Potter, and nicely solid. Leafing through it, the pictures catch the eye nicely--no page after page of intimidating text.
It's a good story, too, with mystery and creepiness, leavened here and there with humor (though not one I'd go out of my way to recommend to adult readers of fantasy, who aren't, after all, the intended audience). Though Pip's adventures are truly scary, he does have friends on his side, and one is never in any real doubt that he will prevail.
This one is a UK import, published over there in January, 2012. Here's that cover. I'm not entirly sold on either one--the US Pip looks a bit unfriendly (even Golem-esque), and the UK cover looks like a movie poster....
Though my co-panelists for the middle grade sci fi/fantasy Cybils have finished our work, and turned in rather a nice shortlist yesterday, I am not quite done with the Cybils yet--there are a number that I want to review. So today I offer a quick look at a book that made me gently squee with pleasure when it got nominated, one I wanted to read rather badly.
The Cup and the Crown, by Diane Stanley (HarperCollins, October 2012) is the sequel to
The Silver Bowl, in which a young castle kitchen maid named Molly discovered gifts of magic that enabled her to save the royal family. In this second book, Molly, now a lady of the realm, is asked by the young king Alaric to seek out a magical goblet that will ensure he wins the heart of the beautiful princess of the neighboring country (a necessary alliance). These loving cups were made by Molly's own grandfather long ago, and Molly has been seeing one in her dreams...
So off go Molly, her ex-stable boy/now lordly friend Tobias, and three other companions. And soon it seems as though a raven wishes to accompany them...which indeed it does (with great import later in the story).
The journey takes them past the town where Molly's grandfather had had his workshop, and into the hidden mountain kingdom where he had been born. There the companions find a place where magical abilities, such as the grandfather's skill at mixing magic and metal, are common, a place ruled by those with the greatest powers. And there Molly finds that her own gifts are much more powerful than she had realized, and because of that, she is welcomed.
Catch number one--none off them are ever going to be allowed to leave. Catch number two-- the current most powerful of the rulers is a nasty piece of work.
It's the sort of slow but steady fantasy that makes for a good, engrossing comfort read. No slashings and crashings, but rather journeying and discovering, and lots details and magics, and enough character development to content me. It's possible that some might feel that not enough Happens, but there was plenty for my taste, especially once it becomes clear that the hidden kingdom is a dangerous trap and Escape (with magical ravenly help, and practical help from a man who may well be my favorite fictional rat-catcher) must be masterminded. For what it's worth, I read it in a single sitting.
And it's possible that some might feel frustrated with the romantic side of things--in a young adult novel, Molly would be actively caught in a love triangle (King Alaric, who possibly feels something for her, vs old friend Tobias, who is most certainly falling in love with her), and she would be fretting about her own feelings. Here in middle grade, the reader is left to wonder...and must, perforce, let Molly continue to be young and not yet ready for love. (I can't decide who I think she should end up with, and hope that Diane Stanley will write a third book and tell me!).
In short--a really nice fantasy for the nine to ten year old girl.
Though it's a sequel,
The Cup and the Crown can be quite easily read as a stand-alone. The author manages to avoided awkwardly dumping in the story of
The Silver Bowl, instead referencing those events enough so as to provide solid ground for a new reader.
Interesting aside: Of course ravens seem to be popping up everywhere, but I couldn't help but notice that this was one of two recent mg sff books (the other being
The Brixen Witch) in which a rat catcher plays an important role. Is Rat Catching the new big thing???? (probably not).
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I have been wanting to read this series! Thanks for reminding me!
This is such a great series! Thanks for your review.
I enjoyed reading the finale of this series. But agree with you sometimes Kat can be too exasperating. So much so that the subtle hint that there might be something going on with her & a certain boy is ludicrous at the moment. Like you, I'm hoping there are more books to come. I'm also interested to know more about the other members of the family especially Angeline & Charles. Though their future are more or less concluded in this book. Sorry, I hope this doesn't make it too spoilerish.
Eeks! I had Angeline's name wrong...I'm glad you mentioned in in your comment! And yes, Kat is no where near grown up enough yet to start a romantic relationship...although I can readily imagine her with an awkward crush!
(just in case any one cares, I had written it as Angelina.....sigh)
It is, isn't it!
Didn't notice till you mentioned it. Even If I did I would have thought it was because I was reading the UK version - A Reckless Magic. Anyway, I know its only a letter difference but Angeline sounds more "posh & refine" as the character aspires to be but you and I know that's not always the case with her ;)
I thought Kat did so much better in this book at controlling herself and her reactions. I agree that she wasn't very empathetic, but then she was also confused and is still young.
I want there to be more too but Stephanie Burgis has said this is it for now. Her publisher won't commit to more until they have further sales number for the first three. (She wrote a blog post on this about a year ago but I am too lazy to go find it right now.)
It's true--there were times when I would have lost it myself and Kat managed not to! But it bothered me that she kept blurting things out she shouldn't have, and the bit where she damages the beautfiful wallpaper was to close to home for comfort...
Everyone should now go buy these books, then, because it does feel that things are really going to start to get interesting! (Not that they weren't already, but more so...)