Review of The Search for WondLa, by Tony DiTerlizzi

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

The Search for WondLa

by Tony DiTerlizzi
with illustrations by the author

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2010. 477 pages.
Starred Review

The Search for WondLa is an illustrated adventure tale written in the style of The Wizard of Oz. I had the wonderful opportunity to have dinner with the author at ALA Midwinter Meeting, and he said he wrote The Search for WondLa for his ten-year-old self. He succeeded beautifully.

The story, like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is about the search for Home. Also, like Oz, our heroine meets fantastical beings, both friends and fearsome enemies, along the way. She must journey across a strange and foreign landscape in quest of Home and someone like herself.

Eva Nine has been raised in an underground Sanctuary under the supervision of a kind robot called Muthr (Multi-Utility Task Help Robot). But Eva feels constrained, always protected. She has explored parts of the Sanctuary that she wasn’t supposed to know about. She found something that gives her hope:

When she’d discovered this item more than a year before, Eva had tried to identify it with her Omnipod, but the device had concluded that, “There is insufficient data. Not enough information to make an identification.” Eva had determined that it was likely a small piece of tile or even paneling, possibly a sign of sorts, as it was square shaped. On it was an image (a broken one, since it no longer moved) of a little girl holding hands with a robot and an adult.

The only item in Eva’s secret collection not given to her by Muthr.

The only item in her secret collection not identifiable by her Omnipod.

An item another human had left for her, here, by this sealed door.

Proof.

She couldn’t make out who exactly the adult in the image was. The scorched damage obscured the face in soot. However, she could see two letters on this worn piece of paneling: L and a. There was a second, smaller piece to this puzzle, which she had discovered as well. Eva had glued this missing fragment to the top of the panel. It, too, had fancy letters printed on it: “Wond.”

“WondLa,” Eva had dubbed it. She studied the picture in her hands. The girl was smiling. The robot was smiling. Eva was certain the adult was likely smiling too as they all walked together in unison through a field of flowers. Moving as one. As friends. Exploring the forests above.

But Eva’s robot would not allow her to explore. She wouldn’t even let her leave the Sanctuary.

When Eva’s Sanctuary is breached by a monstrous creature looking for new species, Eva is suddenly thrust out into the outside world. But nothing is as Eva expected it to be. The Omnipod can’t identify anything. And among all the creatures out there, there is none other like her.

As Eva tries to escape the horrible huntsman, she makes friends with other creatures in his clutches. But none of them are like her.

So Eva travels through a strange and wondrous world, looking for a place of safety, looking for Home.

The many detailed pictures make this an enthralling adventure tale all the more ready to lure in readers. And it’s only the first volume, so although this book stands alone well, readers can find out what happens to Eva Nine next.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/search_for_wondla.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Blood Spirits, by Sherwood Smith

Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Paranormal, Starred Review 0

Blood Spirits

by Sherwood Smith

DAW Books, 2011. 488 pages.
Starred Review

It’s hard to talk about this book without saying too much about its predecessor. Yes, you definitely should read Coronets and Steel before you read Blood Spirits. When we left Kim, she had found out a world of information about her grandmother’s secret life. She’d been kidnapped more than once, she’d met long-lost family, and she’d gotten involved in political intrigue and fallen in love. She’d also discovered that she has the Sight, and she saw some truly strange things in the kingdom of Dobrenica.

But in the end, she decided not to get between the man she loves and his duty to his nation. She fled, expecting him to get married, and wondering if the traditional magic would happen and Dobrenica would disappear from the outside world.

Well, Dobrenica didn’t disappear. But Kim decided to get a teaching job and to try not to think about Dobrenica. But it doesn’t work, and then Kim has a strange vision of Ruli, her look-alike cousin, the woman who married the man she loves. Ruli is begging Kim for help. Kim decides to go to Dobrenica.

Her timing is bad. Ruli has just been found dead, and even Alec considers himself responsible for her death. Kim’s showing up then makes the case against him all the worse.

This story includes political intrigue, a murder mystery, and, yes, blood spirits threatening the kingdom. There’s more sword fighting (Kim is a skilled fencer.) and shifting alliances and even Kim’s grandmother faces her old love.

Here’s Kim talking to a Dobrenican girl and discovering she’s not the only one who sees strange things:

Tania refused to sit down, so I collapsed on the bed, as she said without preamble, “When I was little I talked to ghosts. Many ghosts. I see them all around, though most are silent and like fog. But my family, they thought I lied, to gain attention.”

I sat up again. “You talked to them?”

She brought her chin down in a single nod.

“But no one believed you?” I began to pull off my boots.

“No one but my sisters. Theresa because she loves the stories about ghosts. Anna because she knew I never lied.”…

“First, how do you talk to them, and second, what made you decide to tell me these things?”

“I do not know how I speak to them,” she said, her slender hands open as I reached for the wardrobe door. “It happened more when I was small. Rarely since. No one else could hear them. It was not always about things that made sense to me. As for why I’m telling you this, it is partly because of what you said when you came to the lens maker’s, but also because of this man.” She pointed at the wardrobe.

“What?” I jumped back as if I’d been electrocuted, leaving the wardrobe door ajar. “What man?”

She pointed. “He stands there, with a cigarette.”

Sherwood Smith is a master of the fantasy genre, and this book isn’t quite like any other. More swashbuckling romance. With vampires. And these ones definitely don’t sparkle.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/blood_spirits.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Froi of the Exiles, by Melina Marchetta

Adventure, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Froi of the Exiles

by Melina Marchetta

Candlewick Press, 2012. 593 pages. First published in Australia in 2011.
Starred Review

Wow. This is an epic, detailed, and complicated world, and Melina Marchetta takes you on a journey through it.

Finnikin of the Rock does stand alone nicely. It didn’t necessarily need a sequel. But you really should read it before reading Froi of the Exiles, and there had better be another book coming, because the story is decidedly not finished in this book.

We met Froi as a scruffy thief in Finnikin of the Rock. In the three years since then, he’s been trained by the elite of Lumatere in many things, including the special skills of an assassin. Now they’re sending him into neighboring Charyn to get revenge on the invasion of Lumatere by killing the king of Charyn. He’s supposed to kill the king and get out. But things do not turn out to be so easy. And it’s not because of the difficulty of the task, but because of the people Froi meets along the way.

This book is richly detailed and finely textured. I’ve noticed that Melina Marchetta rarely introduces you to characters as someone likable. I’d almost go so far as to say that the more unflattering the description, the more important that character is going to be. The amazing part is that she pulls it off. You end up truly caring for these people, despite their apparent flaws. Here’s where Froi meets Quintana:

Beside their own balconette was another that belonged to the room next door. After a moment, the girl with the mass of awful hair stepped out onto it. She peered at Froi, almost within touching distance. Up close she was even stranger looking, and it was with an unabashed manner that she studied him now, and with great curiosity, her brow furrowed. A cleft on her chin was so pronounced, it was as if someone had spent their life pointing out her strangeness. Her hair was a filthy mess almost reaching her waist. It was strawlike in texture, and Froi imagined that if it were washed, it might be described as a darker shade of fair. But for now, it looked dirty, its color almost indescribable.

She squinted at his appraisal. Froi squinted back.

Gargarin appeared beside him and the girl disappeared.

“I’m presuming that was the princess,” Froi said. “She’s plain enough. What is it with all the twitching? Is she possessed by demons?”

It turns out that all of Charyn is cursed with the inability to bear or father Charyn, but Quintana is the key to breaking the curse. This is not a comfortable role.

Meanwhile, back in Lumatere, they are dealing with a band of Charynite refugees who are staying in a valley next to Lumatere. And the new rulers are still trying to rebuild the country. When Froi doesn’t come back, they have to make some choices. Meanwhile, Froi finds out surprising things about himself and his quest gets far more complicated.

Another hallmark of this series is that a lot of people lie. Even good people. Slowly, along with Froi, we get to figure out what is true and what is false and who Froi really is and whether Quintana can truly break the curse and what will they do next?

I love what Melina Marchetta says about the book on the back flap: “It explores nature versus nurture and blood bonds versus friendships, but ultimately it’s a love story between a whole lot of people who should have given up on each other long ago — yet still find it in themselves to hope again.”

The worst part of this book? It ends without finishing the story. I will very eagerly be waiting for the next installment.

candlewick.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/froi_of_the_exiles.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Some Assembly Required, by Anne Lamott, with Sam Lamott

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Parenting, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Some Assembly Required

A Journal of My Son’s First Son

by Anne Lamott
with Sam Lamott

Riverhead Books, New York, 2012. 272 pages.
Starred Review

I so love Anne Lamott’s writing! She is honest and writes with humor about the failings and foibles we all have. Along the way, a deep faith shines through and a desire to be compassionate to everyone — though she is not afraid to tell us where she is not compassionate at all.

In many ways, Anne Lamott paves the way for me. She’s a little older than me, and her first son was born a year after mine. However, she has become a grandmother before me. In this book, she looks at the beautiful experience of being a grandmother and all the difficulties of letting her son be a father without undue interference from her.

There are some beautiful passages about Jax, the miraculous and wonderful grandbaby:

After I was sure he was sleeping soundly, I touched the flush of his cheeks in that light brown skin and traced those bold eyebrows. Of course, like all babies, he wakes up with a startle, slightly groping and low-level graspy, but with no sense of a time bomb about to go off. The beauty of the curve of his head — how it rests in the crook of his elbow — almost makes me want to flog myself, out of a desperate, unbearable love. All grandparents I’ve mentioned this to have felt this. He’s a Fibonacci spiral, like a nautilus shell — one of those patterns in mathematical expression with a twisting eternal perfection.

Or when she tells Jax the Secret of Life:

Dear Jax: Yesterday was your first Thanksgiving, and it is time for me to impart to you the secret of life. You will go through your life thinking there was a day in second grade that you must have missed, when the grown-ups came in and explained everything important to the other kids. They said: “Look, you’re human, you’re going to feel isolated and afraid a lot of the time, and have bad self-esteem, and feel uniquely ruined, but here is the magic phrase that will take this feeling away. It will be like a feather that will lift you out of that fear and self-consciousness every single time, all through your life.” And then they told the children who were there that day the magic phrase that everyone else in the world knows about and uses when feeling blue, which only you don’t know, because you were home sick the day the grown-ups told the children the way the whole world works.

But there was not such a day in school. No one got the instructions. That is the secret of life. Everyone is flailing around, winging it most of the time, trying to find the way out, or through, or up, without a map. This lack of instruction manual is how most people develop compassion, and how they figure out to show up, care, help and serve, as the only way of filling up and being free. Otherwise, you grow up to be someone who needs to dominate and shame others, so no one will know that you weren’t there the day the instructions were passed out.

I know exactly one other thing that I hope will be useful: that when electrical things stop working properly, ninety percent of the time you can fix them by unplugging the cord for two or three minutes. I’m sure there is a useful metaphor here.

I love the way Sam talks about his son:

It used to be kind of an accident that he could get his feet to his mouth, but now it’s a tool in his movements. He grabs his feet to shift his weight forward, and to sit or roll. Now it’s a lever, to use. He’ll use his feet as a lever, as handles. He’s discovered, “Wow, they’re attached to me. They have weight to them.” It’s evolutionary, and it caught me by surprise because the foot phone seemed like a phase, but it was evolution — him starting the movement process, of rolling over, and rocking forward inch by inch, like someone with no arms. Now you can’t take your eyes off him for a second. He’ll go from being on his back to being on his stomach, with an arm trapped beneath him, and hurt himself. Now if you look away, he can get hurt.

But my favorite is where Anne Lamott reflects about Jesus:

I would say that my deepest spiritual understanding is that God also sees and forgives my smallest detail, even my flickery, prickly, damaged, jealous, vain self, and sees how I get self-righteous and feel either like trash, often, or superior, and like such a scaredy-cat, and God still understands exactly what that feels like. Because God had the experience of being people, through Jesus.

Jesus had his good days and bad days and stomach viruses. Not to mention that on top of it all, he had a mom who had bad days and good days of her own. She’s like me and Amy, like all of us; she would have been as hormonal, too. And she must have been jealous sometimes of the people Jesus chose to spend time with instead of her. Jealousy is such a toxic virus. “Who are these people? And what do they have that I don’t have?” It’s pretty easy to be deeply selfish when it comes to sharing your child. Even Mary must have been like: “Back off! He’s mine.“

Anne Lamott makes the particular experience of being a grandmother a universal experience that we can all share with her.

riverheadbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/some_assembly_required.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Starry River of the Sky, by Grace Lin

Children's Fiction Review, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Starry River of the Sky

by Grace Lin

Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2012. 288 pages.
Starred Review

Grace Lin has surpassed herself! Her companion novel, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, also wove Chinese fairy tales into the larger narrative, and it deservedly won a Newbery Honor. I think Starry River of the Sky is even better. You do not at all need to have read the earlier book to appreciate this one. A few characters appear in both, but each story is completely self-contained.

The first paragraph sets the stage, with the Moon missing, and Rendi stowing away in a cart.

Rendi was not sure how long the moon had been missing. He knew only that for weeks, the wind seemed to be whimpering as if the sky were suffering. At first, he had thought the moans were his own because his whole body ached from hiding in the merchant’s moving cart. However, it was when the cart had stopped for the evening, when the bumping and knocking had ended, that the groans began.

Rendi is caught stowing away, but the innkeeper at the Inn of Clear Sky lets him stay on as an errand boy. He doesn’t feel grateful, but he sees no way to move on. Then a beautiful woman comes to the inn. She talks to old, slow-witted Mr. Shan and she begins to tell stories to Rendi and Peiyi, the innkeeper’s daughter. But she won’t continue to share stories unless Rendi will tell a story himself.

Through the stories, and through events, we see Rendi begin to change. And problems are solved. But what is a boy to such overwhelming problems as a missing moon, parched and drying land, Peiyi’s missing brother, and Rendi’s own identity. Many people in this book are angry, and Grace Lin weaves a tale where we want them to find peace, and we come to believe they can do what it takes to put their anger aside.

Grace Lin is also an artist, so each chapter has a drawing at the start of each chapter, and there are gorgeous full color pictures every few chapters. The stories told within the chapters get their own font as well as small colored pictures on each side of the story’s name. The book is a delight to hold and look at.

Although this isn’t exactly a beginning chapter book, the language is simple and the concepts are all well within the grasp of an elementary age child. This would be a wonderful choice for reading to a classroom or reading to children at bedtime.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/starry_river_of_the_sky.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book I purchased at KidLitCon and had signed by the author.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Vessel, by Sarah Beth Durst

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Vessel

by Sarah Beth Durst

Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster), 2012. 424 pages.
Starred Review

This book has a striking beginning:

On the day she was to die, Liyana walked out of her family’s tent to see the dawn.

Liyana’s dreamwalk has shown that she is to be a vessel, a vessel for the goddess Bayla to come among her people, the Goat Clan, and restore their oases and keep them alive.

Liyana has kept her body ready for Bayla, and she’s ready to dance and let the goddess take her body and send her own soul to the Dreaming. She thinks she does everything right. She dances all night. But Bayla does not come.

The tribal elders decide Liyana must be unworthy. They must travel on and leave her behind. If somehow they are wrong, Bayla will find her body and join them.

So Liyana stays in the desert and tries to survive a sandstorm on her own. Then a young man walks to her through the sand. He claims to be Korbyn, the trickster god. He was summoned five nights ago, and has come to find her.

“Me? But . . .” All calmness fled, and her voice squeaked. “Your clan! Your clan needs you!”

“All the clans need me,” he said. “And I need you.”

She understood the words he was saying, but the order of them made no sense. “You left your clan to find me?”

“Deities are missing. Five in total. They were summoned from the Dreaming, but their souls never filled their clans’ vessels.”

Liyana felt as if she had been dropped back inside the sandstorm. “Bayla . . .”

“I believe their souls were stolen. And I intend for us to steal them back.”

So begins a quest, a quest to find all the other vessels and then find who stole the gods.

I confess, I read this book in one stretch on a Sunday afternoon. I think I might enjoyed it more if I had spread it out and treasured the details more. We’ve got many clans of desert people living beside a great empire. The desert has many fantastical dangers, such as sand wolves and sandworms. And every hundred years or so, the gods choose vessels and come from the Dreaming to visit their people.

I don’t think I was completely happy with the ending, but I’m not sure I could have figured out any other satisfying way to end it. The world is wonderfully built, and I think I should have lingered longer.

sarahbethdurst.com
TEEN.SimonandSchuster.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/vessel.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Penny and Her Doll, by Kevin Henkes

Animal Characters, Beginning Chapter Books, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Penny and Her Doll

by Kevin Henkes

Greenwillow Books, 2012. 32 pages.
Starred Review

I love that Kevin Henkes is writing beginning readers, and I love that he’s brought out another book about Penny. The only thing I don’t like? Now that two are both published in 2012, they can’t both win the Geisel Award.

When I heard Kevin Henkes speak at ALA Midwinter Meeting, he said that the Penny books were designed to be a progression, and indeed Penny and Her Doll has three chapters, where Penny and Her Song had only two. It’s a slightly — very slightly — more complicated story and one that comes around back to the beginning.

Penny is out in the garden with her mother as the book opens. Her mother is weeding, and Penny is smelling flowers.

“The roses are my favorites,” said Penny.
“I do not have a favorite weed,” said Mama.

While they are in the garden, the mailman comes with a package for Penny from Gram. It is a doll, and Penny loves the doll as soon as she sees it.

But the doll needs a name. Everyone in their family has a name, and the doll needs one. So Penny spends the rest of the book looking for a name for her new doll. Adults will not be the least surprised at the name Penny chooses, but children will be delighted to guess before Penny comes up with it.

It was the first book that made me completely fall in love with Penny, since I definitely have a soft spot for a little girl who sings around her house. But this one keeps that love going. And I love Penny’s parents, so understanding and helpful and supportive. They suggest, but they don’t solve Penny’s problems for her.

And I love the way Kevin Henkes supports beginning readers with his repetitive structure, which seems entirely natural and adds to the story. For example:

“What if I can’t think of a name?”
said Penny.

“You will,”
said Mama.

“You will,”
said Papa.

Penny tried and tried
to think of a name for her doll.

And I should add that the first time Mama and Papa each say “You will,” there’s a small picture of them next to their words. Simply every detail in this book builds toward a child’s success in reading.

I’m definitely looking forward to the third planned book about Penny, Penny and Her Marble.

KevinHenkes.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/penny_and_her_doll.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Lions of Little Rock, by Kristin Levine

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Lions of Little Rock

by Kristin Levine

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2012. 298 pages.
Starred Review

This book is set in Little Rock in 1958. The schools have been ordered to integrate, and a few bold teens forced the issue. So now the mayor responds by closing the high school.

Marlee’s sister Judy is going into eleventh grade, so she’s going to have to go away to be able to go to school, leaving Marlee on her own. Marlee has a lot of fears. She doesn’t like to talk. Not to other people, anyway. But then a new girl comes to her middle school, and Marlee makes a wonderful new friend, a friend who helps her speak up and face the things she’s afraid of.

Marlee caught my sympathy early, because she uses numbers to steady herself. I also enjoyed her way of looking at the people in her life:

You see, to me, people are like things you drink. Some are like a pot of black coffee, no cream, no sugar. They make me so nervous I start to tremble. Others calm me down enough that I can sort through the words in my head and find something to say.

My brother, David, is a glass of sweet iced tea on a hot summer day, when you’ve put your feet up in a hammock and haven’t got a care in the world. Judy is an ice-cold Coca-Cola from the fridge. Sally is cough syrup; she tastes bad, but my mother insists she’s good for me. Daddy’s a glass of milk, usually cold and delicious, but every once in a while, he goes sour. If I have to ask one of my parents a question, I’ll pick him, because Mother is hot black tea, so strong, she’s almost coffee.

When Marlee’s new friend Liz turns out to be black, trying to pass for white, Marlee’s life turns upside-down. She has to examine things like true friendship, what’s right and what’s wrong, as well as facing her fears.

This novel about civil rights isn’t quite like any other I’ve read. It works just as well as a novel about a girl learning to face her fears and examine her friendships as much as it works to cast light on a particular time in history.

kristinlevine.com
penguin.com/youngreaders

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/lions_of_little_rock.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers

Fantasy, Historical, Paranormal, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 2

Grave Mercy

His Fair Assassin, Book I

by Robin LaFevers

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2012. 509 pages.
Starred Review

Wow. This book reminded me of The Canterbury Papers, full of medieval palace intrigue, but this had supernatural powers thrown in.

The book is set in Brittany, beginning in 1485. Ismae has been told from birth that the scar she was born with, from the midwife’s poison failing, marks her as the daughter of Death himself, an ancient Breton god now called St. Mortain. When the man her father sold her to sees the scar, he is going to have her burned, but she is rescued by strangers and sent to the convent of St. Mortain.

At the convent, Ismae learns the special powers she has as the daughter of St. Mortain. She can see a mark on a person who is going to die. Poison does not harm her. She can see a person’s soul when it leaves his body. Also at the convent, they train her to be an assassin.

“If you choose to stay, you will be trained in His arts. You will learn more ways to kill a man than you imagined possible. We will train you in stealth and cunning and all manner of skills that will ensure no man is ever again a threat to you.”

Three years later, Ismae is ready for her first assignments. But now there is political trouble, and Brittany is in danger of being swallowed up by France. Ismae is sent to the court of the duchess herself, ordered to pose as the mistress of Duval, the duchess’s half-brother.

But at court, things don’t turn out as Ismae has been led to believe they will. Those she was told to be suspicious of seem kind and seem to have the Duchess’s best interests at heart. Those she is supposed to trust seem suspicious. What is right?

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of action and adventure. There are surprise attacks and deaths that Ismae had nothing to do with. And the duchess must marry soon, preferably to someone who can bring an army to her cause. Along the way, slowly and exquisitely, we see Ismae’s heart being won by a good man.

Here’s the situation as it’s laid out before Ismae leaves the convent:

Crunard spreads his hands. “Then you know it is true. The circling vultures grow bold. The regent of France has forbidden that Anne be crowned duchess. It is our enemies’ wish to make her France’s ward so that they may claim Brittany for their own. They also claim the right to determine who she will marry.”

Duval begins pacing. “Spies are everywhere. We can scarce keep track of them all. The French have set up a permanent entourage within our court, which has made some of the border nations uneasy.”

Crunard adds, “Not to mention that their presence makes it impossible to see Anne anointed as our duchess without their knowledge. But until we place that coronet upon her head before her people and the Church, we are vulnerable.”

I cannot help but feel sympathy for our poor duchess. “Surely there is some way out of this mess?”

I have addressed my question to the abbess, but it is Duval who answers. “I will forge one with my bare hands, if need be,” he says. “I vow that I will see her duchess, and I will see her safely wed. But I need information against our enemies if I am to accomplish this.”

The room falls so silent that I fear they will hear the pounding of my heart. Duval’s vow has moved me, and that he has made it on sacred ground proves he is either very brave or very foolish.

This is one book I was very happy to see called Book One. The story in this book does come to a satisfying conclusion, but I want to come back to this world. This book would be excellent if it only had the medieval intrigue and romance, but with the paranormal elements added in, there’s extra satisfaction seeing Ismae’s power far beyond what you’d normally expect of a woman in the fifteenth century.

robinlafevers.com
hmhbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/grave_mercy.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at an ALA conference and checked against a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Z is for Moose, by Kelly Bingham

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Z Is For Moose

by Kelly Bingham
pictures by Paul O. Zelinsky

Greenwillow Books, 2012. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Alphabet Books are necessary preparation for a child learning to read, but they definitely have the potential to be snoozers. Here’s the most innovative alphabet book since Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Just before the title page we get a glimpse of all the animals and objects lined up in order, ready to go, with Zebra in charge. But Moose is excited and exuberant, and not really paying attention to Zebra’s directions. He’s the one lifting the curtain that gives us our first glimpse of the performers. After the title page, with the characters still in line, he’s poking the Lollipop with the Needle.

Things start innocently and calmly, looking like a perfectly ordinary alphabet book. Then we see “D is for Moose,” with Moose standing proudly, and a frantic Duck behind, obviously kicked off the page. Zebra tells Moose, “Moose does not start with D. You are on the wrong page.”

Moose pops in on H is for Hat, getting right in front of the camera, asking “Is it my turn yet?” The H is blocked, but the savvy child will cleverly figure out exactly what it said.

Moose continues to lurk behind or in the pictures, getting more and more excited as M draws near. Then…

“M is for Mouse”

This definitely gets a reaction. Moose throws a fit; he tries to get in the remaining pictures, and Zebra has to block him. Finally, he’s in despair — until Zebra comes up with a lovely solution. On the back endpapers, Moose asks Zebra, “Can we do that again?”

“Yes, Moose. We can do that again.”

I have no doubt at all that most preschoolers will take that as permission to start the book over again immediately.

The book has many, many details that will reward further reading. Spotting the alphabetical objects in order even when Moose gets in the way will keep children busy through many readings.

Delightful fun.

kellybinghamonline.com
paulozelinsky.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/z_is_for_moose.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.