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I absolutely love the concept for Julius Zebra: Rumble with the Romans! by the genius Gary Northfield! If I had to nutshell it, I'd say, think Terry Deary's Horrible Histories meets 13 Story Tree House. Julius is a hilarious character living in a time period that makes for some crazy adventures. Northfield layers in the history, from using Roman numerals for the page numbers to giving characters Roman names, as well as the names of famous Romans, and using Latin and the historically accurate names for the fights, fighters, arenas and more that appear in this book. There is even a tutorial on how to read Roman numerals and a glossary at the back of the book!
Julius Zebra: Rumble with the Romans! begins in African plains at a watering hole, called the Lake of Doom by Julius, that he does not want to be at. Actually, the book begins with Julius schooling readers about what zebras are really like, burps and all. It stinks (an illustration shows a yak pooping in the lake) is "sooo boring!" and presents the constant danger of being eaten. Wandering off from the Lake of Doom and trying to outrun a lion, Julius and helpful but annoying warthog named Cornelius and . . . a lion.
Never fear, it's not as bad as it seems! The naive Julius hears talk of a circus and caravans, of juggling monkeys and bears dancing with ostriches and he gets pretty excited. Unfortunately, the circus he is going to is the Circus Maximus (well, actually the Colosseum) and he is going to be performing in it, not watching it. This is such a fantastic conceit and I really hope that kids take to this kind of mash-up of history and humor so that Julius Zebra spawns imitators the way Diary of a Wimpy Kid has.
Instead of losing his life to gladiators in the ring, in an effort to keep himself from becoming "someone's fancy carpet," Julius grabs a sword and saves his tail, winning over the crowd and the Emperor, Hadrian. Julius earns himself a spot in the gladiatorial championship in 30 days that will celebrate Hadrian's birthday. As the new "People's Champion," he will get to fight for his freedom, and fame and wealth. Julius, Cornelius and a gang of animals, including Lucia, a vegetarian crocodile, Pliny the mouse, Milus the lion, Rufus a giraffe and Felix, a gazelle, begin training for the battle and also for escape. I don't want to give away the ending, but there is a second book in this series...
Source: Review Copy
This summer, I discovered that Alexis Deacon, picture book illustrator, author and frequent collaborator with another favorite of mine, Viviane Schwarz, had created Geis, a graphic novel that was already on sale in the UK. I waited patiently for it to go on sale here and, when I finally got to read Geis, I was surprised, enthralled and left breathless by the beauty of the illustrations, the rich world building and the fast pace of the story. I was so sad to read the end of Geis, but, I realized half way into it that it is a trilogy, so there is more to come!
Geis begins with a definition of the word "geis," pronounced "gesh," which is a Gaelic word for a taboo or curse, "like a spell that cannot be broken and certain rules must be obeyed." In an unnamed world that is reminiscent of a Bruegel painting, the Great Chief Matarka is dying without leaving an heir. Fifty people, including the Grand Wizard, the High Priest, the Chief Judge and the Lord Chamberlain have been called to her death bed. Among them is Io, the young daughter of the Kite Lord. Matarka has devised a contest that will determine who will take her place, but Niope, an evil sorceress, using Death Magic, has taken control of the event and tricked the fifty attendees into signing their names to a cursed parchment.
The fifty attendees are hurtled to various corners of the realm by the sorceress and must return to the death chamber to prove their worthiness. Io is the first to return where she learns the horrible truth of the geis from the sorceress. Nemas is next and together, the two know the truth of the challenge the fifty souls face but are not allowed to speak of it. When they do, the curse renders them speechless. They learn that they have until the next sunrise to leave the castle and return for a challenge that will leave all but one of them dead. As Io and Nemas prepare for this battle, we see others facing their fates, some of which are horrific, with bravery and cowardice, together and alone.
Geis is over almost as soon as it starts, yet you reach the final page of this graphic novel feeling like you have been gone for much longer. This is in large part due to Deacon's amazing illustrations and masterful world building. I was reminded immediately of the work of Maurice Sendak, some of which I have shared below. Io proves to be a young but brave and moral hero, struggling to survive in a world that no longer makes sense. I can't wait to see how she faces her next challenge!
Source: Purchased
In 2010, A Tale Dark and Grimm the debut novel by Adam Gidwitz, captured my attention and that of many other readers, young and old. Gidwitz is a master story teller and his reworking of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, many of them less than well known, is marvelous. I was thrilled when my son shared my enthusiasm for this book and even more excited when I discovered that reading it out loud was a great way to entice my students, many of whom are reluctant and/or struggling readers, to persevere with a longer book. True to his story telling nature, Gidwitz is back with The Inquisitor's Tale, a manuscript illuminated by Hatem Aly and like no other children's book I have read before.
Set in 1242 and echoing the structure of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, The Inquisitor's Tale finds an (initially) unnamed narrator at the Holy Cross-Roads Inn, a day's walk north of Paris. It is the perfect night for a story as a group gathers around the rough wooden table, sticky with ale. The king will be marching past the inn on his way to war with three children and their dog. A brewster, a librarian, a nun, a butcher, a jongleur, a chronicler, a troubadour and the innkeeper take turns telling stories of these three children and their dog, each one adding to the tapestry of their story. Subtly but surely, Gidwizt presents characters who are discriminated against or (much) worse, for gender, religion, and class.
Jeanne is a peasant girl who is seized with visions of the future. As an infant, her parents killed her babysitter/protector, Gwenforte, a white greyhound with a copper blaze on her snout, thinking that the dog had attacked Jeanne. Far from the truth, the loyal Gwenforte had saved the baby from an adder that made its way into the house. Realizing their mistake, they gave the dog a proper burial in a grove that quickly became a holy place and the dog thought of as a saint. Years later, after seeing a beloved neighbor, thought to be a heretic, hauled off by a huge, fat, red headed monk from Bologna, Jeanne knows she must keep her fits and the visions that follow a secret. She must also keep Gwenforte, who has come back to life, a secret.
The second child is William, an oblate. The son of a great lord fighting in Spain against the Muslim kings and a Saracen from Northern Africa, he was left at a monastery as a baby. More than his dark color, the size of William is a constant source of amazement and occasional frustration - or worse - to the monks. William's great size, strength and appetite, both for food and knowledge, make him a threat to some of the monks and he is sent away with a donkey, saddlebags full of books to be delivered to another monastery by way of a forest inhabited by fiends.
Finally, there is Jacob, a Jew who survives the burning of his village by Christian boys and has the ability to miraculously heal the sick and injured. Jacob only wants to be reunited with his parents, but his ability to read and his love of his religion shape his path. As The Inquisitor's Tale unfolds, it becomes clear that, not only is this a story about stories and storytelling, it is a story about books. There are many strange twists and turns in The Inquisitor's Tale, including a hilarious incident with a dragon who, by way of a lactose intolerance issue, comes to pass gas that sets knights on fire. This leads to a fantastic scene with a cure from Jacob that involves vomiting up a tremendous amount of French cheese, Époisses, which Jeanne describes as tasting like life, "Rotten and strange and rich and way, way too strong." As the tales are told, we come to learn that King Louis is planning a book burning that the children will inevitably be part of. In fact, he has had his monks gather up all the texts written in Hebrew and created an enormous bonfire in the heart of Paris. Being an oblate, William has a deep reverence for books, knowing the time and effort that goes into copying out a text. Being Jewish and able to read, Jacob also has a great reverence for books and the word of the Talmud. It is this reverence for books that leads the three children and Gwenforte to an amazing standoff with the king and his terrible mother at Mont Saint-Michel, the incredible island commune in Normandy.
While The Inquisitor's Tale has a deep vein of Christian thought and history running through it, Gidwitz makes his story richer and more engaging by also highlighting those who suffered in the face of Christianity. He begins the book, which he researched for six years and includes an extensive and interesting author's note as well as an annotated bibliography, with a quote from poet W. H. Auden that calls for loving "your crooked neighbor / With your crooked heart." It is this thought, one that Jacob reads in the Talmud and Jeanne notes that Jesus said, but in reverse, that drives the story and the children. As their adventures escalate and they meet many broken, crooked, questionable adults (they are the only children in the story) and they forgive and love their neighbors over and over. When they find themselves discussing Cain, Abel and the use of the word "bloods" (and not "blood," which William attributes to drunk scribes) they compare the loss of one life, which is really the loss of many - the descendants that person may never have - to the loss of books and the knowledge they contain and can eventually touch many lives with, Willam saying,
A scribe might copy out a single book for years. An illuminator would then take it and work on it for longer still. Not to mention the tanner who made the parchment, and the bookbinder who stitched the book together, and the librarian who worked to get the book for the library and keep it safe from mold and thieves and clumsy monks with ink pots and dirty hands. And some books have authors, too, like Saint Augustine or Rabbi Yehuda. When you think about it, each book it a lot of lives. Dozens and dozens of them.
To this, Jeanne adds, "Dozens and dozens of lives, and each life a whole world." Having worked in almost all aspects of the world of kid's books at this point in my working life, I feel compelled to add to this idea. It is truly amazing, even in this day when books are printed by machines and illustrations can be created on computers, to realize how many hands touch a written work before it becomes a book on a shelf, from the literary agent (and the agent's assistant) to the editor at the publishing house to the booksellers, reviewers and librarians who embrace the story and pass it on, retelling it to invite new readers. And that's not even mentioning the writer's critique groups and family and friends who read manuscripts in the early (and late) stages. Storytelling touches us all, whether we write the words or not, and I am grateful to Adam Gidwitz for reminding us of this - especially with such a highly entertainingly readable book like The Inquisitor's Tale!
source: review copy
Five years ago I reviewed my first book by Ben Hatke and I was immediately hooked. You can read my reviews of all of his books here. After a couple of picture books and a mostly wordless graphic novel, I am very excited to be reviewing the first in a new trilogy, Mighty Jack, a play on the old fairy tale with a garden full of enormous plants and some serious sword play. And, as always, you can expect strong girl characters who share equal page time with the titular Jack.
Hatke is a gifted visual story teller and Mighty Jack is driven by the illustrations with spare but meaningful dialogue, including lots of great onomatopoetic expressions. He begins the his story with Jack being awakened from a dream. His mother is out the door, on the way to the flea market. Past due bills can be seen on the counter as Jack grabs breakfast to go. In the car, she explains that she is going to work two jobs this summer and will need Jack to help more with Maddy, his younger sister who is on the spectrum. At the flea market (where fans of Hatke's will spot characters from past graphic novels), Jack's mother gives him money to buy food and the keys to the car in case Maddy needs to get away from the crowds. But when the non-verbal Maddy speaks, emphatically telling Jack that he has to make a deal with the suspiciously friendly man sitting behind a table with a sign that says, "Just Stuff," Jack makes a deal - his mom's car for an ornate wooden box filled with packets of seeds.
Maddy is up and early the next day, planting a garden. Jack helps, happy to see her busily at work, but also apprehensive. What grows from the seeds is both amazing and frightening and Jack is not sure how to handle it, especially since Maddy is so attached to the garden. Happily, a homeschooled neighbor who is also a fencer, stops by. Lilly is soon helping Jack and Maddy while also pocketing seeds and cuttings as she goes. Hatke's marvelous imagination blooms in Maddy's garden, from adorable little onion-headed babies to menacing melons with vine-y legs. The presence of Wormweed, eradicated from earth for thousands of years, even calls forth a dragon from another realm. Jack, Maddy and Lilly even begin to sample the fruits of the garden, reveling in the magical powers each plant gives them. Eventually, though, Maddy is injured and Jack discovers a plant that drives him to destroy the garden.
Thinking that the adventure is over, Jack discovers that both Maddy and Lilly have been keeping secrets and a new adventure begins. This time, though, Jack is well equipped with fencing gear and an equally brave and strong partner at his side.
Ben Hatke, fencing!
Source: Review Copy
The cover of The Curse of the Boggin, a brand new series from D. J. MacHale titled The Library, hooked me right away because it looks so similar to a series that I adore and am SO thrilled that my son has started reading so that we can talk about it, Lockwood & Co. by http://jonathanstroud.com/"target="_blank">Jonathan Stroud. While the actual similarities between the two series are slim at best, (Stroud's books feature teenaged characters and the world he creates is much more complex and creepy, the stories more intricate and the relationships between the main characters are layered and evolving) The Curse of the Boggin was an exciting read and the premise of The Library is a fascinating one!
After a prologue that sets up the adventure to follow in The Curse of the Boggin, we meet middle schooler Marcus O'Mara as he is standing up to a bully. Unfortunately, this bully just happens to be a teacher and Marcus is sent to detention where he has an incredible experience involving a mad, charging bull, a ghostly man in a bathrobe holding a key on a string and a shattered trophy case with the words, "Surrender the key," carefully arranged in broken glass. Once he realizes that he is not crazy, Marcus begins collecting clues that help him unravel the mystery of the key. This key leads to a very special library filled with the unfinished stories of the dead that need finishing. The holder of the key is tasked with the job of helping to finish these stories, allowing spirits to find peace and books to be shelved.
In this first book in the series, Marcus, who is adopted, learns about his parents, their mysterious deaths and the secret life his father led. He also learns that the Boggin, an ancient boogeyman summoned by the Druids to keep children in line, has gone rogue. In his quest to capture the Boggin and finish the story of the ghostly man in the bathrobe, Marcus is not alone. He has the help of his appropriately diverse friends. In fact, Marcus even comments that, with Lu, a red lipstick and plaid wearing Asian roller derby girl, and Theo, a buttoned up, bow-tie wearing academic black guy, Marcus says that the three of them look like a "kids' show trying to cover all its ethnic bases." Or, the look like characters in a middle grade novel where the author is trying to cover the ethnic bases while still keeping the main character a caucasian boy. I am growing increasingly weary of authors adding ethnically diverse minor characters to books instead of making the main character something other than white in the same way that I am profoundly frustrated with the proliferation of boys as main characters in middle grade fantasy. The formula has shifted from one or all boys as the main characters to a boy with a sister, cousin or friend who is a girl as a secondary character, often with another boy forming a trio. Now, with all the talk about diversity, we are getting ethnic secondary characters, which I guess is progress, even if it is moving slowly.
Marcus finds a way to capture the Boggin and save the day, along the way uncovering snippets of stories that are sure to be featured in the next book in this series. The action in The Curse of the Boggin is fast paced and explosive, although ultimately an illusion conjured by the Boggin itself. Comparing MacHale and Stroud's books, I would say that MacHale has written a book that is perfect for readers who like a touch of the supernatural and a lot of action with an underdog hero who, with a little bit of smarts, finds a way to save the day. Stroud's series is perfect for (slightly older) readers who want a more literary experience, delving deeper into both the world of the supernatural and the characters who inhabit it.
Source: Review Copy
Dr Fell and the Playground of Doom, the debut novel by David Neilsen and it is a marvelous mix of silly and supernatural inspired by an illustration of a nursery rhyme created by a legendary children's book illustrator. For more about how Trina Schart Hyman's illustration for the curious nursery rhyme Dr. Fell led Neilsen to write a middle grade novel, be sure to read his guest post, where you can also see the original artwork!
As I read Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom, I was reminded of more than a few fantastic kid's books. Neilsen's creative naming of his characters and the streets and schools in the the town that Dr. Fell comes to took me back to a longtime favorite, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald. The heroes of the story are ten-year-olds Nancy Pinkblossom and Gail Bloom, and Gail's eight-year-old brother and mortal enemy of Nancy, Jerry Bloom. They live on Hardscrabble Street (near Vexington Avenue and Von Burden Lane) and attend McKinley Grant Fillmore Elementary School, where the heads of the PTA are Candice Gloomfellow and Martha Doomburg. Classmates include Sharon Rottingsly, Jud Fetidsky, Abner Fallowmold, Horace Macabrador, Ethel Pusster and Lars Ouzewuld. All these kids and many more are the gleeful guests of the most amazing playground EVER built by the curious new neighbor who has moved into to the dilapidated house at the end of Hardscrabble Street. The more kids play on the Dr. Fell's playground, the more they want to play on it. Soon they are skipping school, strangely, with the support of their parents and educators.
Nancy, Gail and Jerry are having none of this. Having met Dr. Fell, who has an antiquated way of speaking that he always feels compelled to translate, his first day on Hardscrabble Street, they formed their opinions of him quickly and refuse to set foot on even a climbing rope on his playground. The trio, uneasy in their union, watch as more and more children are injured on the playground, returning minutes after a consultation with Dr. Fell in his conveniently nearby home office, completely healed. When an enthusiastic Leonid Hazzardfall takes a tumble from the top of the crow's nest on the play pirate ship in the middle of an impassioned speech urging his fellow playmates to skip school to stay and play and is clearly dead, only to return later, alive and well, the trio really begins to worry.
Dr. Fell's playground calls to mind the Land of Toys from Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, renamed Pleasure Island in the Disney movie. Soon, the trio notices that those boys most frequently injured are starting to need to shave several years ahead of puberty, cementing their conviction that Dr. Fell and his playground need to come to an end. With the help of a crusty old neighbor, Nancy, Gail and Jerry find themselves at the heart of Dr. Fell's mysterious mission, fighting for their lives, or, more specifically, their childhoods...
I don't want to give away too much, but Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom and the purpose of Dr. Fell also calls to mind Cornelia Funke's marvelous novel, The Thief Lord, and Ray Bradbury's phenomenal Something Wicked This Way Comes. And, while I have (sadly) never read any, Neilsen, a professional actor, story teller and voice actor (you can hear him read the audio of his book HERE) is also well versed in the work of H.P. Lovecraft and is the creator of a one-man show based on his short stories, so I am sure there are influences from his work I am missing. While I can't go so far as to give this book the label Good Fantasy - Harmless Bad Guys, Neilsen weaves a good dose of levity throughout the book, but Dr. Fell and his mission are pretty dark. That said, Neilsen could have taken this plot point and gone in an entirely different, much darker direction and I applaud and thank him for writing a scary-but-not-too-scary book that is also long-but-not-too-long, making it accessible for younger readers.
Source: Review Copy
Today, something special is happening here. I am participating in a blog tour, but not just any blog tour. Sometimes you read a book and really love it, then you get to the author's notes or the acknowledgements and find something that makes you love it even more. That's exactly what happened to me when I read Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom by David Neilsen. Neilsen's debut is a marvelous mix of silly, spooky and creepy with a haunting plot point worthy of an episode of The Twilight Zone. Finishing the book, I learned that Neilsen, a professional actor, story teller and voice actor, was inspired by a pen and ink drawing by Trina Schart Hyman, a legendary illustrator who brought many fairy tales to life, winning a Caldecott in 1985 for Saint George and the Dragon, retold by Margaret Hodges. The illustrations of Trina Scahrt Hyman, longtime art director for Cricket magazine, take me back instantly to my childhood. I am thrilled and honored to have the author of a novel inspired by Hyman's work share here, in his own words, how his curiosity was piqued and how his creativity was sparked by this one work of art.
I hope you’re enjoying the blog tour for David Neilsen’s Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom! In case you missed yesterday’s post, head over to The Book's the Thing to check it out. The tour continues tomorrow on The Book Monsters. For my review of Neilsen's book, check back here tomorrow!
A Picture is Worth 46,000 Words
Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom started life as a reaction to an illustration. The picture, done by Children’s Illustrator Trina Schart Hyman, had been hanging on the wall of my in-laws’ home for as long as I’d known them. It was part of a 10-piece collection of drawings done years ago by some of the top children’s illustrators of the time. They were each asked to create a single image based on their favorite fairy tale or fable. Most of the pieces in the collection were based on stories I knew such as Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater or St. George and the Dragon. The one that caught my eye was labeled simply, “Dr. Fell.” I’d never heard of Dr. Fell, had no idea who he was or what he was about, but the more I looked at the picture, the more intrigued I became.
The image shows a little girl looking up warily at an old man in a suit and top hat. He is smiling down at her in a very creepy way, and on his back, unseen by the girl, is a basket filled with the arms, legs, and heads of little children. This was awesome! How had I never heard of this story before?
I asked my mother-in-law if she knew who Dr. Fell was. She was as stumped as I. So we turned to Google, and discovered Tom Brown’s four-line poem from 1680.
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why -- I cannot tell,
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.
My first reaction after reading the poem?
I read the four lines again and again, finding them lovingly creepy but a far cry from arms and legs sticking out a wicker basket.
But then I read a bit more about the history of Doctor Fell. It turns out that those four lines had inspired a number of literary references throughout the ages. Robert Louis Stevenson mentions him in The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Author Thomas Harris had his most famous creation, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, use Dr. Fell as a pseudonym in the book, Hannibal. The original nursery rhyme has been quoted in multiple episodes of the cult-TV show Dark Shadows.
Something about these four lines has sparked a foreboding sense of unease for three and a half centuries. They’d sparked Ms. Hyman to draw a truly-creepy picture. Now they were sparking something in me.
Questions ran through my mind. Who was this guy? What did he want? What was he doing? How was he doing it? Doesn’t anyone notice? As each question popped up, the story began to take shape. What happens when Dr. Fell comes to town? I knew right away that this was a children’s story, so he couldn’t be chopping off the arms and legs of children. There had to be something else he was taking from them, something else he needed them for. When that plot point clicked into place, it was obvious. The playground came next, as the natural vehicle for his monstrosity.
In the drawing, Ms. Hyman has added a few other details; a raven atop a withered tree, the girl having stepped off the path to get out of Dr. Fell’s way, flies buzzing around the basket on his back. All of it combines to give the picture a very lively, magical feel. I took that quality and tried to get it into the story by using heightened language a touch above the normal and expected.
The hardest part for me was creating the heros. There had to be a little girl, because of that image, but one little girl didn’t feel right. One little girl, on her own, was simply not going to be able to defeat the Dr. Fell I was creating. I played with different combinations of boys and girls of different ages for a while, trying to fall upon the right combination. For a while I had only two heros, a brother and sister, but after a couple of false starts, I knew I needed a third, and the trio from the book was finally formed.
All of this came from that single picture. Looking at it now--my mother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas and it hangs on my wall--I still feel that slightly-queasy feeling it gave me when I first noticed it. I owe it, and the late Ms. Hyman, a great debt. Her single image planted a seed in my head that grew to become Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom.
Faith Erin Hicks is the author and co-author of two of my favorite YA graphic novels, Friends with Boys and Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong and now the superb first book in a trilogy, The Nameless City. The Nameless City has the feel of the animated series The Legend of Korra, the spinoff of Avatar: The Last Airbender, both of which I love, and both of which are and will soon be graphic novel series.
The world of The Nameless City is an ancient one with a vaguely Asian/Egyptian feel to it and her geography is brilliant. The Nameless City sits at the mouth of a great mountain pass where a massive arch has been carved out of the stone, allowing the the River of Lives to reach the sea. On one side of the pass are the Liao and Yisun nations, on the other, the Diao. Because of its location, the Nameless City is forever being invaded by one nation after another, who then changws the name. Eventually it comes to be called the Nameless City by everyone - except the natives, who are referred to as the Named.
Kaidu is from the Dao nation, one of many Dao children sent to the Nameless City to train to be part of military behind the safety of the palace walls. Once there, Kai meets his father, General Andren, for the first time. Andren takes Kai on a walk through the Nameless City, outside the safety of the palace walls, and Kai is clearly shaken by the poverty and homelessness he sees. But, it's also where he first sees Rat, a Named girl who has the remarkable skill of being able to fly across the tops of the tiled roofs of the city and perform a sort of ancient parkour.
Enemies at first, Kai and Rat forge a wary friendship that I think will lead to great changes for all over the course of the trilogy. There are themes of conquest and colonialism that make Rat and Kai's friendship all the more fascinating. The Nameless City, while a long and rich graphic novel, also leaves you feeling like you are just getting to know this ancient place. I can't wait for the second book in the series, The Stone Heart, which, in an interview with the L. A. Times, Hicks promises will be bonkers!
Also by Faith Erin Hicks!
Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong Source: Review Copy
The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle by Janet Fox has a fantastic set up for either a work of historical fiction or a fantasy novel. Intriguingly, it is both! Katherine, Robbie and Amelie Bateson live in London with their parents and their Great-Aunt Margaret. As the bombing of the city increases, the Batesons take the first good opportunity to get their children to safety. In this case, it is Rookskill Castle in remote Scotland. The owner of the castle is Aunt Margaret's cousin, Gregor, the eleventh Earl of Craig. Recently married, the Earl is in need of money and also has recently taken ill. His new wife has converted the castle into a boarding school for a small number of evacuees. But, from the moment they arrive, Kat knows that there is something very wrong at Rookskill Castle.
While there are murmurs of a German spy hiding somewhere in the castle early on in the novel, another, more compelling story unfolds, starting in 1746. Lenore is the lady of Rookskill Castle but, unable to produce an heir for the lord, she fears for her life. On the edge of the forest in a crumbling hut, a magister offers Lenore hope - a charm for her chatelaine that will produce an heir. Over almost three hundred years, the Lady and her charmed children have existed on the outskirts of the castle grounds, the magister taking a part of the Lady with every new charm and replacing it with a clockwork mechanism that can only be seen in the moonlight. With the twelfth charmed child, the Lady, now called Eleanor, will have a power and security that she has longed for since her grim, painful childhood centuries ago.
Kat, eager to learn her father's trade - clock repair (not spying, as he now works for M16) is a practical child and skeptical of the dubious magic dotty Aunt Margaret promises when she gives Kat her own chatelaine before the children leave for Scotland. But, as Kat and her siblings, along with Peter Williams, an American transplant, suffer confusion, crankiness, and punishments as they get in the way of Lady Eleanor's plans, she begins to believe in the magic her aunt spoke of. With the instructors and staff at the castle under a spell, it is up to Kat to battle the Lady and rescue the souls of her friends and siblings.
I enjoyed this book, but I wished it had been a little bit more, despite being 400 pages long. Reading the blurb for The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle, I was very excited. Yet, it didn't come together quite the way I had hoped it would. Perhaps because I had recently read and been very impressed and moved by The War that Saved My Life (and watched a few too many BBC shows set during the war, like The Bletchly Circle and Land Girls) I expected more from the possible German spy plot, however, from the start, Fox makes it clear that Lady Lenore is looking to fill out her chatelaine and collect enough souls to continue living forever, making the spy subplot less than relevant. In fact, it is almost an aside when, near the end of the story, one of the instructors is revealed to be a German spy. Fox introduces a wireless, a father who is a spy and even an Enigma Machine, but they really don't contribute much to the plot. Neither do the two instructors who, 200 pages into the novel reveal that they are spies working for a special forces unit researching magical artifacts, the occult and paranormal experiences, especially anything that the Nazis might use to gain power. This plot thread takes a (far) back seat to the story of Lady Lenore, but I think it could have added so much more tension and excitement to the plot. I also think that developing and deepening twelve-year-old Kat's character could have added so much to the story. She is so cookie-cutter, stereotypical at the start - dutiful big sister, dutiful daughter, a little bit of a crush on Peter and she doesn't really change much over the course of the novel, even if she does come to believe in Aunt Margaret's magic. Like the special forces spies who show up half way through the novel, Kat's genius math skills show up and allow her, through the tireless working of algorithms, to break the German code. The elements of The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle are all wonderfully fascinating and together they make for a great story. For me, though, the story telling doesn't live up to the story elements.
Source: Review Copy
Two years ago I enthusiastically, excitedly reviewed The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson, saying that it was the best fantasy novel I had read in quite a while. I also speculated about a sequel, hoping to learn more about the curious artifacts that arrive in the world of Solace by way of dangerous meteor storms. With The Secrets of Solace, Johnson delivers a novel that, while not a sequel to The Mark of the Dragonfly, is set in the same world and, if possible, even better than the first. And, best of all, The Secrets of Solace is takes place in the Archivists' Strongholds, where the artifacts are taken to be studied and experimented with. In the eight years since I began my blog, and in the fifteen years before that while working as a children's bookseller, I read a lot of middle grade fantasy novels, especially when the genre exploded after the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 1997. However, I hit a saturation point where, while the books were good and satisfied my love of traveling to other, magical worlds, they did not necessarily stand out or leave a mark on my memory. Johnson's novels stand out and are very memorable. She is a masterful world builder and her stories are seamless. Her characters are compelling, and her main characters are strong, curious, intelligent girls who are good with machines. If you are feeling a little burned out on middle grade fantasy novels, Johnson's books are the perfect palette cleansers.
The main character in The Secrets of Solace is Lina Winterbock, an orphan living in Ortana. Ortana is one of the three archivists' strongholds that abut the Hiterian Mountains, beyond which are uncharted lands. Lina is a junior apprentice to Zara, a teacher and member of the archivists' ruling council. The ruling council has been especially busy lately with the flood of refugees escaping the escalating war between the Merrow Kingdom and the Dragonfly Territories, giving Lina lots of time on her own. Lina thinks of herself as a new breed of archivist, an "explorer archivist." She has spent so much time crawling through the air ducts and tunnels that thread throughout the mountain that she has been able to map them all as well as discover long lost workshops, overhear secrets and more. As Lina says of herself, she has been "hiding and listening for a long time."
In fact, Lina has discovered a long lost workroom that was partially obscured by one of the frequent cave ins that happen on the mountain. Inside is an aircraft, something that the king of the Dragonfly Territories has been working on creating, something that would allow the inhabitants of Solace to explore uncharted lands. After twisting through the museum-like rooms and moss covered corridors of Ortana, Johnson's story takes off like a rocket when Lina encounters young Prince Ozben, the "spare heir" to the throne of the Merrow Kingdom. Ozben has been secreted away to Ortana and is in hiding from assassins. Together the two work to stay a step ahead of the assassins and the archivists who are growing weary of Lina's mishaps and suspicious of her behavior. Johnson includes an especially magical twist in the form of the aircraft, while also ramping up the dangers and complexities of impending war.
The Secrets of Solace was hard for me to put down, something that happens less frequently than I would like these days. Johnson does something that I especially appreciated in this novel, something that almost never happens in a middle grade fantasy: the hero of the story confesses to an adult who can help. I realize that it makes for good tension, but I often find myself feeling frustrated with characters in fantasy and adventure books who find themselves in deep and, for whatever fabricated (or real-ish) situation, do not turn to an adult for help. I think it is the mark of a truly good writer to be able to craft a plot that allows the main character to turn to an adult for help and continue on with a suspenseful climax to the story, which is exactly what Johnson does in The Secrets of Solace.
Source: Review Copy
Although his is a prolific and much loved author, I had not read any of Dan Gutman's books until my son and I started reading The Genius Files together in 2014. We were both immediately hooked by Gutman's sense of humor and I was especially impressed with the amount of fascinating factual information he packed into his books. Taking a cross country trip from California to Washington D.C. in a motorhome with their parents, twins Coke and Pepsi (of course there is a funny, interesting story behind their names) see some of the stranger (real) sites in the U.S., like the Pez Museum, the world's largest ball of twin and the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. With his new series, Flashback Four, Gutman brings the same sense of humor and way with the fact to this story of four twelve-year-olds from Boston who get the chance to travel through time, with great cover art by Scott Brundage. For years I have wondered why no one has taken the formula of the Magic Tree House books and applied it to middle grade novels, which is what I think Gutman is brilliantly doing here.
Gutman begins Flashback Four: The Lincoln Project with and introduction that gives readers a peek at the climax of the book. It's Thursday, November 19, 1863 and Abraham Lincoln is delivering the Gettysburg Address. In the crowd, a boy holds a small device in his hand, "silvery and metallic, it's small enough to fit in one hand, but powerful enough to change every history book ever written." Chapter one introduces the four main characters, David, Luke, Isabel and Julia, each of whom receive a mysterious yellow envelope that contains an invitation to a meeting with the CEO of the Pasture Company and four crisp five dollar bills. Assembled in the office of Chris Zandergoth, the four are a bit surprised when the CEO turns out to be a woman. Gutman writes, "Although we've come a long way in the last fifty years, here in the twenty-first century, most of us still assume that any rich, powerful person is a man." And the assumption is an accurate one: as of this writing, there are only 23 women who are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, making up a whopping 4.6%. But, that's pretty heavy for a kid's book. And hopefully Gutman and his very cool character Chris Zandergoth, a prodigy who dropped out of Stanford to start Findamate, helping people find their "love match" by hacking into the computers of the NSA, will inspire young readers to break through the glass ceiling.
Julia, Isabel, David and Luke learn all this about Zandergoth when they Google her while she is, strategically, in the bathroom. Returning, she tells the kids, "I figured that letting you kids do a little research would be a lot easier than telling you my own boring life story." She goes on to tell them that she has chosen them very carefully using her powerful software algorithms. This revelation is followed by my favorite scene in the book during which Gutman brilliantly uses his characters to directly address a somewhat cynical observation I had made. David somewhat sneeringly responds, "Two boys. Two girls. I guess you picked me because you needed a black kid?" Isabel chimes in with, "I suppose I'm the token Hispanic?" Luke caps it by saying, "What, no Asian? How do you expect to win Multicultural Humanitarian of the Year?" Miss Z laughs it off, telling the four that she matched them up for their, "compatibility, not your ethnicity." Diversity in kid's books is a front burner issue these days, especially with Matt de la Peña becoming the first Latino to win the Newbery Medal for his picture book Last Stop on Market Street. de la Peña has said that this book is representative of his new approach to featuring diverse characters in his books, where he strives to continue to feature diverse characters but "now I try to place them in stories that have nothing to do with diversity, not overtly anyway." Not only is that what Gutman is doing here, but he is also letting us know that he is doing it in a very funny way that I think is great.
Miss Z., who has a passion for photography, a love of history and a great collection of photos from important moments in time, has enlisted the four kids to travel back in time and take pictures of monumental moments using a very smart smartboard, known as the Board, that she and a team worked years to perfect. The first assignment for the Flasback Four, as they name themselves: travel back to the Gettysburg Address and take a picture of Lincoln as he delivers it. This is not as easy as it sounds since the speech lasted less than three minutes. And, understandably, David has some serious concerns as an African American, despite the fact that he will be traveling to the Free North, saying, "I saw that movie Twelve Years a Slave. That guy was in New York when he got kidnapped. I'm not about to get myself sold into slavery just to take a picture." Miss Z. reassures him and prepares the kids for their trip, giving them a list of expression from the era and, of course, clothes. She also gives them a Text Through Time device that looks a lot like a smartphone and allows the kids to communicate with Miss Z and a snazzy new Nikon camera. Everything should go swimmingly.
But it doesn't. Miss Z. makes a typo and sends the Flashback Four back in time a day early. Instead of spending a couple of hours in 1863 they now have to spend twenty-four. Then there is the problem of Julia, who seems to be a bit of a kleptomaniac who is obsessed with making money, even though her family is wealthy. She manages to sneak into the home of David Wills, the man responsible for creating a cemetery honoring Union soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg, and the place where Lincoln spent the night before the address. Luke, David and Isabel stop her from stealing Lincoln's draft of the speech, but not before they encounter Tad Lincoln and his toy gun.
I learned quite a bit reading Flashback Four: The Lincoln Project, and not just boring stuff like dates and places. At one point, the kids end up in jail next to the town drunk who just happened to be one of the civilians who tried to bury the dead after the battle. He tells the kids of the gruesome facts of the battle, the amputations, and worse. Gutman includes a "Facts & Fictions" at the end of the book where he sheds more light on interesting aspects of the book and fesses up about some liberties he took. Does the Flashback Four get the picture? Do they make it back to Boston safely? And where are they headed next? I can't wait to find out!
Source: Review Copy
Ravenous by MarcyKate Connolly begins shortly after the devastation of her debut novel, Monstrous ends. Published in 2014, I somehow missed reading Monstrous and will be adding it to my TBR pile. However, the only way that not having read Monstrous first affected my understanding and enjoyment of Ravenous was that I wanted to run out and buy it so that I could read the two simultaneously!
What drew me to Ravenous in the first place was the mention of Baba Yaga, the witch from Russian fairy tales who lives in a hut that stands on enormous chicken legs and has an insatiable appetite that includes eating children. For more Baba Yaga books, click here. But Ravenous is about so much more. Greta, a character from Monstrous, becomes the narrator of Ravenous. Greta has returned to her hometown of Bryre from the broken village of Belladoma where a usurping king, driven mad by greed and magic, has finally been dethroned. King Ensel, among his other heinous crimes, stole a magical cornucopia from the Sonzeeki, a sea monster living off the shore of Belladoma. Without this constant source of food, the Sonzeeki is forced to emerge from his cave every full moon to hunt. Without the sacrifices of girls from the neighboring town of Bryre, the Sonzeeki causes mass flooding in Belladoma every month.
With King Ensel gone, Bryre's King Oliver feels an obligation to help feed the people of Belladoma and plans to send an army to help with this. The start of Ravenous finds narrator Greta making an impassioned plea to King Oliver not to aid the place where she was held prisoner with other girls from Bryre, girls she watched fed to the Sonzeeki, one by one. When she fails, she returns home, her parents long disappeared, to her younger brother Hans. But Hans is nowhere to be found. Greta heads off into the woods to find him and quickly finds herself face to face with a hungry Baba Yaga, who makes a deal with her. If Greta can deliver the long hidden, magical cornucopia to her before the next full moon, she will hand over Hans.
Greta heads off again, heartsick to think that she will have to return to Belladoma and the castle of King Ensel. Her search finds her locked up in a hidden village where mermaids, centaurs and other half-human creatures created by the evil wizard, King Ensel's lackey, in Monstrous, are hiding from persecution. Freed in a burst of flames, Greta continues her hunt with Dalen, an exiled centaur, at her side. The two face mercenaries, including their brutal Vincali, who has developed a taste for using magic. Once in Belladoma, Greta and Dalen must stay hidden as they search the ruins of the castle using a maze of tunnels. Secrets are revealed, hidden maps and magics are unearthed and Greta finds she must betray people she once considered friends, including King Oliver, who, she learns has plans to use the cornucopia, if it can be found, to feed the Belladomans. As the two decode the map and search out the possible hiding places of a madman, the full moon grows closer and their inability to stay hidden. And, as Greta uses the magical potions she finds herself wanting to use them more and more and also experiencing the backlash of the magic.
One aspect of Ravenous that I especially liked was knowing that, even after Greta finds the cornucopia, she still has to deal with King Oliver and Vincali, both of whom want it for different reasons. It seems almost insurmountable, but Connolly plots with skill and all the pieces come together for a fantastically explosive climax and a very satisfying ending. Connolly weaves familiar elements from classic fairy tales into her stories but makes them completely her own as well. In one turn that I especially liked, Greta takes a collection of fairy tales with her on her journey to read and, over the course of the story as she shares them with Dalen, she notes that the fairy tales never end well, turning the "happily ever after" we are all so familiar with on its head. Happily, Connolly ends Ravenous, well, happily.
Source: Review Copy
I have been half-writing (mostly in my head) a review of the first book in Philip Pullman's masterful trilogy, (known collectively as His Dark Materials) The Golden Compass, originally published in the UK with the title Northern Lights, since I started this blog in 2008. Like the other books that have meant a tremendous amount to me as an adult and/or as a child (Harry Potter, The Phantom Tollbooth) I have not reviewed them here, either because I wasn't sure I could add anything new to the conversation or because the task was too overwhelming. A review of Pullman's almost 20 year old book falls into both categories. Contemplating writing a review of this philosophically provocative, theologically challenging brilliant work of fantasy (really - dæmons? The best fantastical creation ever!!) feels comparable to starting my thesis senior year of college. What follows is a review of the graphic novel with a brief synopsis of the plot of the graphic novel adaptation (but not the whole book) for readers who have not had the immense pleasure of reading this trilogy yet. For an encompassing review of all three books in one, read Brian Anderson's review of The Amber Spyglass for the New York Times.
But, as a fan of the graphic novel, I think I just might have something to say about this new adaptation of Pullman's work. First of all, I think that the only logical choice was to have this illustrated adaptation creation taken on by the French. I learned years ago that the French love, love, love and have deep respect for the art of the graphic novel. And, last summer over the course of a few days in Paris, I visited many bookstores and several spent hours in the graphic novel sections regretting the fact that I had forgotten all of my high school French but marveling over all the gorgeous, inventive visual storytelling. Another smart choice was made when this book was divided into three volumes, with books 2 and 3 coming out in September 2016 and 2017.
I also think that I am perfectly poised to review the graphic novel adaptation of The Golden Compass because I first read the trilogy about 16 years ago, just before the third and final book, The Amber Spyglass, was published. Since then, I have listened to the fantastic audio production of the trilogy (including a full cast with Pullman himself narrating) a couple of times. So I remember the book, but not enough to get really picky about the adaptation itself, which would detract from enjoyment of the graphic novel. Of course aspects of the plot have to be simplified and speeded up because this is a graphic novel - and because of the complexity of the themes. Melchior, who also wrote the graphic novel adaptation of The Great Gatsby (Gatsby le Magnifique) does a fine job explaining the fantasy elements of the novel, like dæmons, the alethiometer and panserbjorne, while Oubrerie's illustrations bring the familiar but strange world of an England and Northern Europe to life. For me, Pullman's novels are so richly magical and polished (they are often ranked alongside the works of C.S. Lewis and Tolkein) that I think I might have imagined a more lush illustration style, like that of Kazu Kibuishi. But, Oubrerie's scratchy, kinetic style captures the almost feral nature - and enthusiasm - of Lyra and the archaically civilized world of Jordan College that brushes - sometimes roughly - against the natural world around them and the various tribes that inhabit it.
Of course there are aspects of the novel that I found missing in this graphic adaptation, but this is also a three part adaptation of a single book. I am hopeful that things I noticed missing - like the compelling relationship between dæmons and their humans - will be explored in the next book as we move closer to Svalbard and the Northern Lights. However, as sometimes only a graphic novel can do, there are winks and nods as well. In one scene, Lyra and Pan are in the heart of the city at night and they pass a theater where John Milton's Paradise Lost is being performed, a nod to the title of the trilogy, taken from Book 2 of Milton's epic poem.
The Golden Compass: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1 begins with a zeppelin hovering over Oxford, preparing to dock at Jordan college where Lord Asriel, the great explorer, is due to give a talk about his travels in the North. Hiding in a cupboard with her dæmon Pantalaimon, is Lyra Belacqua. So much happens in this one scene - Lyra saves Lord Asriel, a man she believes is her uncle and benefactor, from being poisoned. She also overhears Asriel's discussion of Dust and the appearance of another world through the glimmering Northern Lights. From that night, the story takes off at a fast pace. The head of Jordan College sends Lyra off to live with Mrs. Coulter, an elegant explorer with connections to people in high places, such as the Magesterium and the General Oblation Board, also known as the Gobblers. Before Lyra leaves Jordan College, the Master gives her the alethiometer, a golden compass that Lord Asriel entrusted to him, telling her to keep it hidden. When Mrs. Coulter's dæmon finds it, Lyra and Pan make a quick escape. A dangerous night leads them to a gyptian boat and safety. Hidden amongst this community that has lost many of its children to the Gobblers, Lyra finds her place and a deeper understanding of the alethiometer as they sail towards the North to make a dangerous rescue.
Book 2 of The Golden Compass Graphic Novel, coming September 2016
(the French cover, which reflects the original British title, The Northern Lights)
Melchior's graphic novel adaptation of
The Great Gatsby
In 2009 Ingrid Law's debut middle grade novel, Savvy, won a Newbery Honor. I absolutely fell in love with the book that introduced the amazing Beaumont family and their special, supernatural abilities that surfaced exactly on one's thirteenth birthday, to the world. You can read my review here. And, as much as I loved Savvy, I am embarrassed to say that I did not read the follow up sort-of-sequel that came out in 2010, Scumble. Scumble featured a cousin of the now grown-up Mibs, who narrated Savvy as an almost thirteen-year-old, and I wanted more of the Beaumonts. Happily, Switch, this new, second sequel to Savvy does feature the Beaumont family again - and some new friends.
At the start of Switch, which begins ten years after Savvy ends, we meet narrator Gypsy Beaumont, a few months after her thirteenth birthday. Ten years on and the Beaumont household is a little different. The three oldest siblings have moved out. Mibs is twenty-three and engaged and Fish is married. Samson, the broody, reclusive six-year-old from Savvy now has his own savvy. Samson can turn invisible and, while he is invisible, he charges up like a battery, "giving him a storehouse of inner strength he could pass to other people with a touch." Then there is Tucker, the almost-eight-year-old baby of the family who wants to be big like everyone else so that he can have a savvy of his own. Even without her new savvy, the ability to see glimpses of people's pasts and futures, Gypsy is having some growing pains. Once a free spirited kid who loved to dance, twirl and put flowers in her hair, Gypsy has begun to question herself after her former best friend censors her.
But, for the Beaumonts, an even bigger censor - or buzzkill - is headed their way. Mrs. Beaumont's father, the beloved Grandpa Bomba, has passed away and his empty room is about to be filled by the narrow minded Grandma Pat, Mr. Beaumont's mother. Mr. Beaumont is the one family member without a savvy and his mother has always disapproved of his wife and their offspring, or the "fiendish horde of rabble-rousers," as she refers to them. Grandma Pat's neighbors, the Drs Kim, have let Mr. Beaumont know that his mother is suffering from Alzheimer's and can no longer live on her own. Grandma Pat is such a mean old sourpuss that breaking the news that she'll be moving in with them seems to throw the family into a swirling savvy-storm after which everyone's savvies switch. The perfect Mrs. Beaumont is now clumsy, instead of becoming invisible, Samson now bursts into flames and instead of seeing the past and the future, Gypsy finds that she can now stop time. Most surprisingly, little Tucker now has the ability to explode in size when he's upset, like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man, only to be shrunk back with candy.
Ingrid Law is one of the few kid's book authors I can think of who writes a great road trip novel, and Switch is definitely another one of them. Mrs. Beaumont, Gypsy and Tucker hit the road, with Samson driving, to pick up Grandma Pat in Evergreen, Colorado, with Mr. Beaumont following a day behind in a moving van. Upon arrival, they discover that Grandma Pat is worse off than they realized and that the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Drs. Kim, Nola, is the only person she is pleasant to. To make things worse, Gypsy had a vision of the future before arriving in Evergreen that showed Grandma Pat in a dusty old ball gown, a tiara and snow boots perched atop the clock tower of a very old building. Gypsy saw her own hands reaching out of the building to save her, but does not know if she succeeded. From the moment they reach Evergreen, Gypsy spends every minute trying to decode the vision and keep Grandma Pat from getting to the top of that tower.
Law throws a whole heap of crazy things between Grandma Pat and that clock tower on a snowy night - like two car crashes, a blizzard, a pimply bully, a fellow named Del who has the same birthday as Gypsy (and Grandma Pat) and is not affected by her time stops (allowing him to say things like, "You and I appear to have an unmoving minute on our hands,"), make-up makeovers, Volcano Laverne's Hawaiian BBQ and Waffle House, a stollen kitten, a long-ago Winter Formal and a lost love. All this plus the switched savvies of the Beaumonts and it is definitely a wild, crazy, wacky ride - and Law's charming colloquialisms, made up words like "Sardoodledom" and everything I loved about Savvy comes rushing back to me.
And, as with Savvy, Switch is about family sticking by each other, even when you want to run away from someone like Grandma Patrice. Near then end of the novel Gypsy asks her Momma why she thinks their savvies got switched up. Mrs. Beaumont replies, "Maybe, sweetheart, when faced with a situation we can't change, we find extraordinary ways to change ourselves instead." This could be the tagline for the novel itself. When faced with the challenge of caring for a loved one, especially a less than friendly loved one, the Beaumonts changes themselves to meet the challenge. And that's what family does.
Source: Review Copy
Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City is the second book in Will Mabbitt and by Ross Collins's superb new series and, if possible, it's even better than the first, The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones. In the first book, Mabbitt introduced our hero who is conscripted into the life of a pirate because she was caught doing THE DEED (picking her nose and eating it) and allowed to stay (despite being a girl) because she can read. The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones is a panoramic sweeping story packed with richly detailed and very imaginative characters and places. With Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City, the story becomes more personal and urgent for Mabel.
When we see Mabel again, she is in her room, scratching her armpit and staring at a "funny-looking thing, all fat and helpless. Like a beetle grub. Kind of slimy, but kind of cute, too." It's Mabel's baby sister Maggie, and mere minutes after this sweet scene of sibling love, Maggie is taken out of her room by a nasty tasting, powerful creeping vine. Mabel grabs on to the last bit of the disappearing vine and finds herself in a wardrobe in another time and place - the Noo World, specifically, the City of Dreams, a sort of post-apocalyptic, dangerous civilization built upon the remains of New York City.
Mabel in in America - and once again having an adventure in her pajamas, and this time bunny slippers as well. Once she gets her bearings, she heads off to the dwelling of Mr. Habib, a beak-collecting fortune teller who might be able to tell her where to find Maggie. Mable almost gets her nose snipped off to add to the collection, but she does get a lead and soon she in afloat again. This time, she has secured a position on a little paddle steamer, the Brown Trout, upon which she will be cruising down the Great Murky River to the Forbidden City, rumored to be under the thrall of a wicked sorceress. This expedition is being headed (and funded) by Professor Carruthers Badger-Badger, Phd and Timothy Speke, an otter who enjoys sketching and loves his damson jam. They are journeying to the Forbidden City to find a diamond the size of a gorilla's fist, seen in a faded advertisement from a magazine.
Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City finds the return of old friends, some of whom are now enemies, a flock of zombified egrets under the sway of the Witch Queen, a sunken high school full of skeleton students and the Scuttling Death, rival adventurer Sir Gideon Scapegrace and an epic climactic scene that will have you on the very edge of your seat as Mable prepares to make a huge sacrifice.
Not to fear, there will be another book in the Mabel Jones series! Without giving too much away, Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City ends with her staring out over the vast wasteland that was once New York City, picking her nose and wondering what happened to all the "hoomans."
The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones
A few of the many books by Ross Collins!
Source: Review Copy
I have had The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones by Will Mabbitt with illustrations by Ross Collins on my To Be Read shelf for a year now. The impending publication of the second book in this series, Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City, combined with the possible chance to have author Will Mabbitt visit here lit a fire under me and got me reading. Once I started, I couldn't stop! The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones is every bit as absurd and adventurous as the title, illustrations, blurbs and reviews promise. As one reviewer touted, Mabbitt's book is a bit like Monty Python meets Jack Sparrow. While this is definitely accurate, for me Mabel Jones and her crew call to mind the brilliant, equally creative but darker work of two of my favorites, Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart and their series, The Edge Chronicles. Mabbitt's story and Collins's illustrations are perfectly paired and the design of the book is fantastic. There is a great mix of fonts and font sizes and one fantastic spread where, in the midst of a massive storm at sea, the text slips and slides off the page! Mabel Jones's richly illustrated, patently hilarious adventures are an absolute MUST READ for everyone.
When an omniscient (and very talkative) third person narrator first introduces us to Mabel Jones, she is about to be bagged by the kidnapper Omynus Hussh. Hussh, a slow loris who was kidnapped by Captain Idryss Ebenezer Split at birth, is a "dastardly breed: quiet as a peanut and sneaky as a woodlouse in a jar of raisins." Even if you have no idea what a woodlouse in a jar full of raisins is, it SOUNDS funny! And the names of the all animal crew! Mabbitt is a master of names. Besides Hussh and Split, there is Split's boat, the Feroshus Maggot, a pipe smoking goat pirate named Pelf, a mole who is the "best shortsighted lookout ever to have mistaken a pirate ship for an optician's shop," McMasters, and Mr. Clunes, an orangutan who is the strong and silent type. Finally, there is Old Sawbones, a crocodile who has a certificate in Advanced Nautical Surgery from the Butcher's Guild.
And how does Omynus Hussh know that Mabel is good for bagging? She was observed doing THE DEED - the deed that shows she is a pirate in the making. And what is this deed? Well, Mabel was observed picking her nose and eating her booger. And thus she was bagged. But not without some distress. Mabel got a good chomp on Hussh's paw, causing it to go septic, necessitating an amputation by Old Sawbones. Being fresh out of hooks, Sawbones attaches a doorknob to Hussh's stump in what has to be one of the funniest and saddest moments ever in a kid's book. And boy was Hussh sad - so sad he kept is paw with him, cradling it and talking to it like a friend (and a bit like Gollum with his Precious) while also harboring an increasing grudge against Mabel. 
Of course the crew is outraged by the presence of a girl on board and they promptly prepare for her to walk the "greasy pole of certain death." But, this wouldn't be a story without Mabel and she manages to become part of the crew once they learn that she can read! Mabel becomes the key to helping the crew find a buried treasure by reuniting the pieces of the X that marks the spot which just happen to be in the hands of a handful of pirates who were once marooned with Captain Split's father.
The mystery of the missing X is actually pretty mysterious with an edge of creepy, reminding me of Stewart and Riddell's books all the more. There is a Haunted Sea, a sunken city and an army of the dead to contend with before the very dramatic and a tiny bit sad ending that also includes time travel. Happily, I get to dive right in to the next book in the series . . .
Source: Review Copy
Henry Cole is the author and illustrator of many picture books and the superb, generously illustrated novel A Nest for Celeste that features a young John Audubon as a character. Now, three years later, Cole is back with another illustrated novel, Brambleheart: A Story About Finding Treasure and the Unexpected Magic of Friendship.
The trim size of Brambleheart, small and almost square, is perfectly suited for the story inside, and there is an illustration on almost every page. And it is completely engaging - I read it in one sitting. Brambleheart feels a little familiar at the start, but it takes an unexpected and exciting turn almost a quarter of the way in. Twig lives on the Hill, a jumble of detritus that provides homes for the rodents and small animals who live there as well as parts for their creations. Young Twig attends classes where his skill (or lack thereof) will determine his future career, a career that will be bestowed on him at the Naming Ceremony. Unfortunately, it seems that every class is a challenge for Twig. In the Weaving Burrow, Professor Fern, a beaver, teaches knot tying. The Snape-like Professor Burdock teaches Metal Craft, where his nephew, Basil, is the star pupil, despite Twig's best friend, Lily, who seems to excel at everything she touches. Things take a very big turn for the worse when Twig almost burns down Professor Dunlin's welding class. Just when it looks like he is doomed to the lowliest position of Errand Runner, Twig decides to run away and this is where the story takes off.
************SPOILER ALERT************
Twig heads past the boundaries of the Hill and into the surrounding forest where he finds something that changes his life - an egg. The contents of this egg, seen in the illustration below, created all kinds of problems and opportunities for Twig. He discovers, with the help of the baby dragon, that his is a gifted welder and metal worker. But, it's hard to keep a baby dragon hidden - and fed - for long and soon questions are being asked. And, it seems, that Char, short for Charcoal, a name given to the dragon by Lily, is growing sicker by the day. The two decide that Char needs to return to the place where Twig found the egg and the adventure - and the next book - begin!
Source: Review Copy
I had never heard of the British author and poet A. F. Harrold before I encountered The Imaginary at a bookstore just before Christmas but I was definitely familiar with illustrator Emily Gravett, a longtime favorite of mine (read my reviews of her picture books here.) Gravett's playful, detailed style is perfectly paired with Harrold's engrossing, creative, slightly creepy story of a girl, her imaginary friend and the fiend who is trying to eat him, making The Imaginary a truly stand out book.
Amanda Primrose Shuffleup has an incredible imagination. And, when she opens up her wardrobe door one rainy evening to hang up her wet coat and finds a boy named Rudger, her imaginary world gets even bigger. From landing a spaceship of alien planets (the thorn bushes in the backyard) to a hot air balloon that lands them in the "sticky, steamy South American jungle" to a "complex of caves, deep and dark, that stretched out for unknown miles underneath the stairs," Amanda and Rudger go everywhere and do everything together. And Amanda's mother, while she can't see Rudger, is perfectly accommodating, serving him bowls of cereal and making room for him in the backseat of the car. And, while Amanda can be careless with Rudger's feelings from time to time and very self-absorbed, Rudger wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
Rudger - and Amanda's - worlds are turned upside down when Mr. Bunting arrives at the front door, claiming to be conducting a survey about, "Britain today. And children." His strange behavior is disconcerting enough, but what's more disturbing is the fact that he has a miserable looking girl with him who can see Rudger. Mr. Bunting and his gloomy imaginary friend are after something, and they seem to turn up everywhere Amanda and Rudger go until their relentless pursuit puts Amanda in the hospital and Rudger Fading from existence and in a strange kind of imaginary friend limbo.
This limbo, which the imaginaries call the Agency, is housed in a library - the one place with enough imaginings housed inside of it to keep the imaginaries alive until they can find a new human. Rudger makes a few missteps before he figures out how to get to Amanda and save her and himself, but not before a very harrowing, sinister battle in Amanda's hospital room. It turns out that Mr. Bunting can only be fed by the, "slick, slippery slither of fresh imaginary." For Mr. Bunting, just as "imaginaries needed t be believed in to go on, so he needed to eat that belief to keep himself going." Not since I read Neil Gaiman's Coraline and the Other Mother, have I been so creeped out by a character in a book.
The Imaginary is an absolutely fantastic, unforgettable book. Harrold's writing is superb and the rules by which the imaginary friends exist and cease to exist make sense. He creates a world immediately and efficiently - there is no part of The Imaginary that I felt could have been edited down, which is not the case with most books I read. Harrold is also gifted at capturing the way children think and talk. There is an especially fascinating and funny turn in the book where Rudger, in his efforts to get to Amanda, takes on the job of being the imaginary friend to her classmate, Julia Radiche. However, since Julia is doing the imagining, Rudger is now Veronica, who needs to get used to wearing a dress and having long hair. Emily Gravett's illustrations, which are black and white, mostly, with perfect pops of color here and there, bring to life Harrold's writing in a way that makes this book all the more memorable.
And did I mention what a beautiful book The Imaginary is? From the slightly smaller trim size to the fantastic endpapers to the thick pages, this book calls out to be picked up and enjoyed!
Originally published in the UK in 2014, The Imaginary is newly out in paperback there with this intriguing new cover!
Source: Purchased
I can't ever imagine getting tired of Barry Deutsch's self-possessed, stubborn heroine or the slightly As one review succinctly, perfectly signed off, "This consistently clever and thoughtful series has not lost a particle of momentum." One of my favorite little things that comes with each new book is the new tagline! For book three in this brilliant series,
Hereville: How Mirka Caught a Fish, the it reads, "Yet Another 11-Year-Old Time Traveling Orthodox Jewish Babysitter." As always, Deutsch's books are a marvelous mash-up of a fairy-tale-fantasy world and an Orthodox Jewish community. With book three, we get a glimpse into the world of Fruma, Mirka's stepmother.Just before leaving Mirka home alone to babysit her little sister Layele, her stepmother Fruma drops some cryptic comments about happenings in the woods near their home. Tasked with doing the Shabbos shopping at Hershel's Grocery, Mirka drags a frightened Layele into the woods first so that she can get help in finding out what Fruma meant. A very funny scene with the troll Mirka fought in the first book ends with a magic hair tie that affords Mirka and Layele to see Fruma as a teenager. A non-Orthodox teenager!
A magic fish, a wish made by teen-Fruma and a tricky second wish that traps the fish cause trouble for Mirka and Layele, who finds herself the vessel for the fish at one point. The fish is determined to exact revenge on Fruma and Mirka finds that she has to use her brain and her empathy instead of her sword to outwit the vindictive fish. Mirka is a compelling character both because of her flaws and her strengths. She is headstrong and determined and always breaking rules and disregarding her elders, and for this I love her. But what I love even more is watching Mirka think (and fight) her way to redemption and success.
Books 1 & 2 in the Hereville Series:
Source: Review Copy
The Doldrums by Nicholas Gannon is rich with promise. The pages of this beautiful book are thick and creamy. Gannon, a graduate of Parsons School of Design, illustrates The Doldrums with characters and a palette that are ethereal, eccentric and inviting. The hero of The Doldrums, which will be followed by a sequel, is Archer B. Helmsley, one of the thousands of children born every day who
In 2012 I reviewed Neversink, a superb, Watership Down-esque tale of animals living in the Arctic Circle by Barry Wolverton. I've been waiting three years to see what he does next and The Vanishing Island, the first book in the Chronicles of the Black Tulip series is every bit as exciting as Neversink and inventively set in the alternate past of 1599!
The town of Map is the "dirtiest,
I am so excited to read and review The Trap, Steve Arnston's third book! I loved his debut, the creepily marvelous post-apocalyptic tale, The Wikkeling, with amazing illustrations by the superb Daniela J. Terrazzini. His second book, The Wrap-Up List, is a YA novel in which a sixteen-year-old chooses the things she wants to do in the week before her scheduled "departure" from a world
The Abominables is a posthumous publication from Eva Ibbotson with illustrations by the wonderful Fiona Robinson. Ibbotson is best known for the magical creature filled books she herself called "romps." While her works always have a rich vein of loving kindness running throughout, Ibbotson had a gift for creating kooky characters with bad ideas and and bad intentions as well as those with
Art by Diana Sudyka
Circus Mirandus is the debut novel by Cassie Beasley and it comes with a lot of advance excitement, a movie deal and praise, all of which are deserved. When I first read the blurb for Circus Mirandus, I was reminded of a book that made an impression on me when I was in junior high, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. And, while both books are set at a
The Cabinet of Earths, debut novel from Anne Nesbet stands out above recent fantasy novels I have read for the creation of main character, twelve year old Maya. For me, Maya can take a place at the table with strong girl characters in fantasy novels alongside Hazel, hero of Anne Ursu's beautiful Breadcrumbs. At the head of this table is Lyra Belacqua, the fearless, complex, heartbreaking
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Julius Zebra: Rumble with the Romans! begins in African plains at a watering hole, called the Lake of Doom by Julius, that he does not want to be at. Actually, the book begins with Julius schooling readers about what zebras are really like, burps and all. It stinks (an illustration shows a yak pooping in the lake) is "sooo boring!" and presents the constant danger of being eaten. Wandering off from the Lake of Doom and trying to outrun a lion, Julius and helpful but annoying warthog named Cornelius and . . . a lion.
Instead of losing his life to gladiators in the ring, in an effort to keep himself from becoming "someone's fancy carpet," Julius grabs a sword and saves his tail, winning over the crowd and the Emperor, Hadrian. Julius earns himself a spot in the gladiatorial championship in 30 days that will celebrate Hadrian's birthday. As the new "People's Champion," he will get to fight for his freedom, and fame and wealth. Julius, Cornelius and a gang of animals, including Lucia, a vegetarian crocodile, Pliny the mouse, Milus the lion, Rufus a giraffe and Felix, a gazelle, begin training for the battle and also for escape. I don't want to give away the ending, but there is a second book in this series...
