Review of The Whispering Skull, by Jonathan Stroud

Adventure, Alternate History, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Mystery, Paranormal, Starred Review, Suspense 0

whispering_skull_largeThe Whispering Skull

Lockwood & Co., Book 2

by Jonathan Stroud

Disney Hyperion, Los Angeles, 2014. 435 pages.
Starred Review

I was so looking forward to this sequel to The Screaming Staircase, I preordered the book as soon as I heard its publication date. And I was not disappointed.

Jonathan Stroud is a genius for plotting. This book again intertwines many plot threads. We’re back with the 3-person (3-child) agency Lockwood & Co., in an alternate reality England where ghosts plague the populace. Lucy continues to narrate, and in this book she continues to hear from the skull-in-a-jar that George stole when he was working for the Fittes agency.

It is highly unusual for someone to be able to talk with a ghost. This is a Type Three ghost, and only one other Sensitive was ever able to do it. So this could bring Lucy and their agency fame and fortune. But is it worth it? The skull gives them information that almost gets them killed, and it sows doubts in Lucy’s mind about Lockwood and that door he asked them never to open.

Then there are, of course, the cases. The ones in this book are even more gruesome and frightening than the ones in the earlier book. Kids with an especially vivid imagination might want to stay away. Kids who like scary books, however, will be delighted. Mention that a ghost starts falling apart and forming ghost-rats that attack them. If they think they like the sound of reading about that, this is the book for them!

There’s also a rivalry with another agency – and a bet as to which one can solve the case first. There’s the usual fun banter between Lockwood and Lucy and George. (And George shines in this volume, I must say.)

But the meat of the book is the mystery. Who stole the Bone Glass, and what does it do? And can they get it back, yet stay alive?

This is yet another example of Jonathan Stroud’s superb writing. Even though I had my own copy, I checked out the library’s copy so I could read it on my lunch breaks. This is absorbing, clever, innovative, and completely delightful reading.

To give you the flavor, here’s a bit from a scene right at the start, where Lockwood & Co. get in a little over their heads:

“It’s getting close to the barrier,” I said.

“So’s mine.”

“It’s really horrible.”

“Well, mine’s lost both hands. Beat that.”

Lockwood sounded relaxed, but that was nothing new. Lockwood always sounds relaxed. Or almost always: that time we opened Mrs. Barrett’s tomb – he was definitely flustered then, though that was mainly due to the claw marks on his nice new coat. I stole a quick sidelong glance at him now. He was standing with his sword held ready: tall, slim, as nonchalant as ever, watching the slow approach of the second Visitor. The lantern light played on his thin, pale face, catching the elegant outline of his nose, and his flop of ruffled hair. He wore that slight half-smile he reserved for dangerous situations: the kind of smile that suggests complete command. His coat flapped slightly in the night breeze. As usual, just looking at him gave me confidence. I gripped my sword tightly and turned back to watch my ghost.

And found it right there beside the chains. Soundless, swift as thinking, it had darted in as soon as I’d looked away.

I swung the rapier up.

The mouth gaped, the sockets flared with greenish fire. With terrible speed, it flung itself forward. I screamed, jumped back. The ghost collided with the barrier a few inches from my face. A bang, a splash of ectoplasm. Burning flecks rained down on the muddy grass outside the circle. Now the pale figure was ten feet farther off, quivering and steaming.

There you have it: Plenty of adventure, danger from entities living and dead, swordplay, ghosts, mysteries and murders. This will appeal to many for its clever plotting, but is not for the faint of heart.

LockwoodandCo.com
jonathanstroud.com
DisneyBooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/whispering_skull.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 my own copy, preordered from Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 The Adventures of Superhero Girl, by Faith Erin Hicks

Adventure, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction, Teen Fiction Review 0

superhero_girl_largeThe Adventures of Superhero Girl

by Faith Erin Hicks
colors by Cris Peter
introduction by Kurt Busiek

Dark Horse Books, 2013. 106 pages.
2014 Eisner Award Winner

I didn’t expect to enjoy this graphic novel as thoroughly as I did. It’s made up of strips from a webcomic about a girl who’s a superhero. She can lift heavy objects and leap over tall buildings, but she can’t fly.

In her ordinary life? She’s pretty ordinary. She’s a young adult in a small town that doesn’t have much crime. She’s got a roommate, and she has trouble paying the rent, because she really needs a day job. She has no tragic catalyst in her life that made her a superhero, and she’s always been in the shadow of her superhero brother, Kevin, who is everybody’s favorite and can fly and has corporate sponsorship and looks like a proper superhero.

Superhero girl has some issues. She forgets to take off her mask sometimes when she’s trying to be an ordinary citizen. She goes to a party with her roommate, trying to set her work aside, and gets caught in the thrall of a supervillain who has the power to make everyone think he’s awesome. Then there’s the skeptic, who’s convinced she can’t be a superhero without a tragic back story or a fancier costume. And don’t get started on the time she washes her cape in the Laundromat and it shrinks.

I like what Kurt Busiek says in the Introduction:

Superhero Girl is about life. It’s about being a younger sister, about being a broke roommate, about needing a job, being underappreciated, getting sick, feeling out of place at parties, being annoyed by people carping when you’re doing your best – all wrapped up in the package of being a young superhero in a small-market city where you’re pursuing your dreams but don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

That’s not parody. There may be elements of parody on the surface, but really, that’s rich, human storytelling. It’s telling the truth through humor, and using the trappings of the superhero genre to universalize it, to turn it into something symbolic, so we can all identify with it, maybe more than we could if SG was a paralegal or a barista or a surgical intern. The superhero stuff is the context, the package, and the humanity and emotion and the humor found in it are the content. The story.

This is a story about a young adult starting out in life, pursuing her dream, and struggling to do so. It’s reading that will make you smile.

superherogirladventures.blogspot.com
darkhorse.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/superhero_girl.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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Dare the Wind, by Tracey Fern

Adventure, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

dare_the_wind_largeDare the Wind

The Record-Breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the Flying Cloud

by Tracey Fern
pictures by Emily Arnold McCully

Margaret Ferguson Books, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2014. 36 pages.
Starred Review

How wonderful! A nineteenth century young woman navigated clipper ships for her sea captain husband and actually broke speed records because of her daring and mathematical prowess! Who knew? Now this is a true story I’m eager for little girls to know about!

The book starts with Ellen Prentiss as a child, loving the sea. Her father teaches her how to navigate. The illustration shows her using a sextant outside their house, by the sea, under her father’s observation. “Ellen worked for hours by the kitchen fire, learning the complicated calculations needed to navigate a ship.”

Ellen eventually marries a sea captain, Perkins Creesy. He becomes captain of a new clipper ship, built for speed.

If Ellen and Perkins could make the trip faster than any ship ever had, they would receive a bonus – and bragging rights as the best sailors in the world. It was the adventure Ellen had always dreamed of catching!

The author goes on to dramatize Ellen and Perkins’ record-breaking journey, using information from the log. There was plenty of adventure on the voyage, including a broken mast, and time spent in the Doldrums, with Ellen taking a daring new route to escape them.

In the end, on August 31, 1851, they reached their destination and brought passengers and cargo to the California Gold Rush faster than any other ship ever had.

An Author’s Note at the back gives more details of the journey, along with sources of more information for the curious reader.

This is a wonderful picture book about a woman who used her brains to become the best in the world!

traceyfern.com
emilyarnoldmccully.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/dare_the_wind.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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, by Robert Arthur

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Mystery, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

stuttering_parrot_largeAlfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in

The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot

by Robert Arthur

Random House, New York, 1964. 179 pages.
Starred Review

This is the second book in The Three Investigators series, but the fourth I’ve read in my current rereading spree. I remembered this as being my favorite, and on rereading it, I have to say that’s still true. The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, more than most of the others, is a puzzle-mystery. There are seven cryptic clues leading step-by-step to treasure. The scenario may not be completely realistic, but it is definitely a lot of fun.

They’re also working out some of the themes of The Three Investigators. This is the book that introduces the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup. They also discover a down side to traveling in a gold-plated Rolls Royce. It’s highly noticeable and easy to follow.

As in the other books, there’s physical danger to the boys. It seems there’s always at least one person who carries an ethnic stereotype. Maybe they were trying to include a wide variety of cultures in the books? The bully Skinny Norris makes a mercifully brief appearance.

Mostly, this is a chance for Jupiter Jones to display his powers of deduction as the reader puzzles along with the group all that follows when the boys try to find a missing parrot – that stutters.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/stuttering_parrot.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 interlibrary loan borrowed via Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 The Mystery of the Green Ghost, by Robert Arthur

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Old Favorites 0

green_ghost_largeAlfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in

The Mystery of the Green Ghost

by Robert Arthur

Random House, New York, 1965. 181 pages.

My co-worker and I got to talking about The Three Investigators series, which we both enjoyed as kids, and he ordered the first three via Interlibrary Loan. After he let me read the first one, I went ahead and ordered number four, The Mystery of the Green Ghost. However, it came in before numbers two and three, so I had to read them out of order.

But that really doesn’t matter. I think reading the first one first is good, but each adventure is basically self-contained.

And, no, it doesn’t hold up perfectly over the years. But they’re still full of adventure and highlight kids outsmarting adults. Now, this one is terribly politically incorrect, with lots of Chinese people who are treated quite stereotypically. We’ve got a kid who’s one quarter Chinese whose nickname is Chang, and who talks about his “honorable aunt.” There are still no girls in the book whatsoever.

But the adventure is good. And Jupiter’s deductions are quite plausible, but still very clever.

It begins when Bob and Pete hear piercing scream coming from a supposedly haunted house that’s about to be torn down. Then a group of men happen to be wandering by, and when they go inside, all of them see a green ghost, dressed in long flowing green robes. They’re sure he’s the ghost of Mathias Green, who died in the house long ago.

And the ghost is seen around town, even at the graveside of Mathias Green by the chief of police. And when they explore the house further, a skeleton of Mathias Green’s missing wife is discovered, wearing a string of valuable “ghost pearls.”

And then the trail leads up north to a vineyard in Verdant Valley. Pete and Bob are invited to the home of the woman who inherited the house, who has a nephew, Chang, the boys’ age. They’re ready for action when the pearls are stolen. Meanwhile, back in Rocky Beach, Jupiter is making deductions — which are crucial when Bob and Pete and Chang disappear.

It’s all fast-moving and action-packed. All three investigators contribute to solving the mystery. In this one, there’s not as much focus on their cool headquarters with its secret entrances, and they never even ride in their gold-plated Rolls-Royce. But what they do is solve a mystery with brains and action and working together (and okay, some luck of being in the right place at the right time) — a mystery that stumps adults.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/green_ghost.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 interlibrary loan borrowed via Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 The Secret of Terror Castle, by Robert Arthur

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Old Favorites 0

Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in

The Secret of Terror Castle

by Robert Arthur

Random House, New York, 1964. 179 pages.

This isn’t going to be a review so much as an appreciation.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a co-worker about series mysteries. We both had read the Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew, but I never read the Hardy Boys. I said that the really good series was The Three Investigators, and he said he agreed — he hadn’t brought them up because most people haven’t heard of them. So then we got to talking about Jupiter Jones and all the cool things about the Three Investigators. I said that my brother had all of them, but he didn’t let anyone else read them, so I had to borrow them from my friend Georgette.

Well, the library has recently gotten a new system for ordering Interlibrary Loans, and administration had asked staff to try it out by making some requests. So my co-worker decided to request the first three Three Investigators mysteries. Naturally, I asked if I could read them after him. When he said there might not be enough time in the loan, I said it would be funny if he behaved exactly like my brother. Anyway, when the first book did come in, he finished it well ahead of the due date, and I got to read it, too.

We’re both trying to figure out what it is about The Three Investigators that made them so completely cool. The writing is not stellar, though there is a nice habit of closing chapters on a cliff-hanger (or rock slide). But you’ve got to love a group of kids independently traveling around in a gold-plated Rolls-Royce (which Jupiter won the use of) with an English chauffeur. Jupiter is super smart and outsmarts adults routinely. Their headquarters is fantastic — an old mobile home hidden in a junkyard, completely surrounded by trash. The entrances are all secret, and involve things like crawling through a tunnel.

Yes, the books are dated. I laughed when the boys discovered the “mobile telephone” in the Rolls-Royce. “One pushes the button and gives the desired number to the operator.” They also make their own business cards by fixing an old printing press that came into the junk yard. And the book isn’t at all politically correct. Various ethnic groups are represented stereotypically. And there are no girls in the book whatsoever. (But it’s true, I loved the books anyway.)

I hadn’t remembered that Bob Andrews — at 13 or 14 years old — worked in a library. This paragraph on the very first page made me laugh aloud:

“How was the library?” [his mother] asked.

“It was okay,” Bob told her. After all, there was never any excitement at the library.

Later on, “Bob had been swamped with work at the library, re-cataloguing all the books. One other helper was out sick, so Bob had been working days and evenings too.” My goodness, such responsibility to give a kid!

I like some of the exclamations Pete comes up with: Gleeps! Whiskers! Golly!

I’m not crazy about Skinny Norris, the obligatory bully of the books. Solving mysteries wasn’t enough — there has to be a rival gang, taunting them.

But overall, this book holds up. You’ve got a spooky setting and clever kids, acting on their own, who get into danger and solve the mystery. Rereading it made me feel like I was twelve years old again.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/terror_castle.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 borrowed via Interlibrary Loan.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review 0

Lockwood & Co.

Book One

The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2013. 390 pages.
Starred Review

What a marvelous adventure this book provides! I’m not surprised — Jonathan Stroud is the author of the Bartimaeus books, so I knew he’s a brilliant writer. This new series is wholly different, but as clever and as much fun. The Screaming Staircase is the first of a new series, but the story is entirely complete. Instead of tantalizing the reader with unfinished plot threads, “Book One” is a happy promise that we will see more of Lucy and Lockwood and George.

For decades, Britain has been plagued by the Problem.

If you look in old newspapers, like George does all the time, you can find mentions of scattered ghostly sightings cropping up in Kent and Sussex around the middle of the last century. But it was a decade or so later that a bloody series of cases, such as the Highgate Terror and the Mud Lane Phantom, attracted serious attention. In each instance, a sudden outbreak of supernatural phenomena was followed by a number of gruesome deaths. Conventional investigations came to nothing, and one or two policemen also died. At last two young researchers, Tom Rotwell and Marissa Fittes, managed to trace each haunting to its respective Source (in the case of the Terror, a bricked-up skull; in that of the Phantom, a highwayman’s body staked out at a crossroads). Their success drew great acclaim; and for the first time, the existence of Visitors was firmly imprinted on the public mind.

In the years that followed, many other hauntings started to come to light, first in London and the south, then slowly spreading across the country. An atmosphere of widespread panic developed. There were riots and demonstrations; churches and mosques did excellent business as people sought to save their souls. Soon both Fittes and Rotwell launched psychic agencies to cope with the demand, leading the way for a host of lesser rivals. Finally the government itself took action, issuing curfews at nightfall, and rolling out production of ghost-lamps in major cities.

None of this actually solved the Problem, of course. The best that could be said was that, as time passed, the country got used to living with the new reality. Adult citizens kept their head down, made sure their houses were well stocked with iron, and left it to the agencies to contain the supernatural threat. The agencies, in turn, sought the best operatives. And, because extreme psychic sensitivity is almost exclusively found in the very young, this meant that whole generations of children, like me, found themselves becoming part of the front line.

Lucy Carlyle has recently joined the smallest such agency in London, Lockwood & Co., run by Anthony Lockwood, with help from George Cubbins. They operate without adult supervision, and they all have psychic abilities. The book opens with a case that goes rather wrong — in finding the Source of a manifestation, Lucy inadvertently burns down the client’s house, though they do find a body bricked up in the wall, which explains the haunting.

Besides a rollicking adventure tale, as the three fight to contain Visitors, there is also a mystery (Who killed the Visitor?) and of course a deadline, as they must pay for the client’s house before their agency is disbanded. The first haunting is just a taste for their later adventure in one of the most haunted houses in England.

There’s real danger facing the agency. No one who has faced the Screaming Staircase at night has ever lived to tell about it. The ghosts haunting England, are, for the most part, distinctly unfriendly.

And of course we have the fantasy of kids running their own agency. After all, adults lose any psychic sensitivity. The interaction between the three is half the fun of the book, as they work together to get the job done.

You’ve got adventure, suspense, mystery, humor, ghosts, and even swordplay. (Silver-tipped rapiers are one of the best ways to protect yourself from ghosts.) I thoroughly enjoyed every moment spent reading this book. I’m going to be watching to see if it comes out on audio, because the only thing that would make it better would be getting to experience it all over again with a British accent reading it to me.

jonathanstroud.com
LockwoodandCo.com
disneyhyperionbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/screaming_staircase.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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Dangerous, by Shannon Hale

Adventure, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dangerous

by Shannon Hale

Bloomsbury, New York, April 2014. 390 pages.
Starred Review

Okay, I can’t wait any longer to post this. The book won’t come out until April 2014, so I hope I’m not being mean by tantalizing other fans. I know I’ll read it again when the published version comes out. But I did exclaim all over Twitter and Facebook about snagging this review copy on the opening night of ALA Annual Conference, so I think I should tell people that I indeed liked the book very much, and they will want to watch for it.

It’s no secret that I’m biased by the love I already have for Shannon Hale’s other books. I knew I’d enjoy Dangerous, and indeed I did.

This is not, however, a fairy tale retelling or a contemporary romance. Dangerous is a science fiction thriller, completely different from anything Shannon Hale has written before.

Shannon Hale fans like me will of course want to read it, so I’ll try to describe it for others who just want to figure out if they want to read this particular science fiction thriller.

I love the heroine, Maisie Danger Brown. She’s not your typical vanilla-flavored main character. Her mother is from Paraguay, so her family is bilingual. And she’s missing her right hand, using a prosthesis, which she calls Ms. Pinch. Maisie fills out an application found in a cereal box and wins a trip to Astronaut Camp. Once there, she meets Jonathan Ingalls Wilder, son of a billionaire, and explains to him her middle name:

“My parents were going to name me after my deceased grandmothers — Maisie Amalia — then in the hospital, it occurred to them that the middle name Danger would be funny.”

“So you can literally say, Danger is my middle –”

“No! I mean, I avoid it. It’s too ridiculous. It’s not like anyone actually calls me Danger. Well, my mom sometimes calls me la Peligrosa, which is Spanish for Danger Girl. But it’s just a joke, or it’s meant to be. My parents have to work really hard to be funny. They’re scientists.”

This description fit with Maisie’s constantly punning father. (Just like mine!)

Space Camp ends up far more than a typical summer camp. The first sentence of the book is “Every superhero has an origin story.” Sure enough, at camp, Maisie gets a chance to go up in the Space Elevator to an orbiting asteroid, and there a piece of alien technology takes over her body, turning her into a super-inventor. Four other teens get embedded with technology, each having varying superpowers, all revolving around Jonathan, the Thinker. Maisie doesn’t know how much her thinking about Jonathan is because she fell for him before the incident, or if it’s because of the embedded alien technology.

And it’s a wild ride from there. I don’t want to say too much, but there are some deaths, and it becomes apparent that the remaining team members can take on the alien token from someone who dies. Maisie doesn’t know who to trust, and she’s afraid her family will be used to get to her. Things come to a showdown. Will Maisie be killed for her token, or will she have to kill her friend?

And that’s not even the end. There’s also the question of why aliens sent these tokens to earth. Yes, it turns out the fate of all humanity is at stake, and it’s not at all certain that the alien superpowers will be enough.

When the Space Camp story began, I thought this was going to be a kid-finds-out-alien-plot story, similar to The Fellowship for Alien Detection. But it quickly got to be a much bigger story. When it became apparent that alien technology was taking over some kids, I expected to roll my eyes at the science descriptions. That didn’t happen either. I’m not saying it was water-tight, but it never seemed blatantly impossible. And, wow, with the team members fighting each other, there were shades of The Hunger Games. We also had plots among different adult groups, trying to control the alien technology, and more of Maisie having to figure out who to trust. All that besides the aliens set to take over earth.

There’s also a delicately-done romance. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have preferred Maisie to end up with the other guy, but I can’t complain that it didn’t seem realistic. I loved Maisie’s thinking when they’re alone, and he’d like her to go farther.

He started to kiss me again, and I relented, kissing back. But his words haunted me — I can’t help myself, as if he were constrained to want me. I wanted him to choose me, not kiss me mindlessly. Even so, a part of me would give up any choice to just let things happen. And that shocked me. I’d decided long ago what I would do and would not do, and here at the first opportunity, I was tossing out reason for instinct. If I couldn’t make a decision using my brain, then was I even Maisie anymore? Better to ache with want than to become an illogical girl I didn’t know, I thought.

Now, I must admit that I’m probably never going to enjoy a science fiction thriller as much as a fairy tale retelling. If anything, I think maybe she’s packed a little too much into this book. I feel like I’ll have to read it again to grasp all that happened. I’m not sure if I quite believe all the alien stuff.

But I can safely say that I enjoyed this book more than any science fiction thriller I’ve ever read. The personal touch of knowing Maisie Danger Brown, la Peligrosa, girl who’s grown up with a missing hand – that made me want to travel with her through life-and-death fights, threats by aliens and humans, wild superhero stunts, and the need to save the world.

squeetus.com
Bloomsbury.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/dangerous.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 ALA Annual Conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Dodger, by Terry Pratchett

Adventure, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dodger

by Terry Pratchett
read by Stephen Briggs

Dreamscape Media, 2012. 9 compact discs, 10 hours, 32 minutes.
2013 Printz Honor Book
Starred Review

I had planned for quite some time to read this book, but this is one where the audio should not be missed. Dodger is set in Victorian London, and yes, this is the Dodger from Dickens’ books and “Charlie” Dickens is a prominent character. So all the British accents, from the street people to the “nobs” add so much to the book.

Dodger is a “tosher” — someone who goes through the sewers looking for lost treasures like coins or jewelry. Only recently have nobs started dumping their waste in the sewers — originally they were built by the Romans to manage rainwater. And Dodger is good at his job, a veritable king of the toshers.

But one day during a storm, he comes up out of the sewers to see a young lady being beaten and forced back into a carriage. He rescues her, and both their lives will never be the same. That’s also when Dodger meets Charlie, who with his friend gets the girl to safety.

But it turns out that this girl’s fate is tied to international politics. There are powerful people who want her dead, and when Dodger gets on their wrong side, they’d also like Dodger dead. Along the way, Dodger has other notable adventures, such as encountering a villainous barber (Or is he villainous?) named Sweeney Todd.

This audiobook had me mesmerized from the start. In the first place, Terry Pratchett knows how to turn a phrase. (That’s the one problem with audiobooks. I can’t quote choice bits for you.) But as well as that, we’ve got the exotic but completely historical location — the sewers and streets of Victorian London. We’ve got international intrigue. We’ve got assassins after our hero. And we’ve got clever plots and counterplots. And we’ve got a clever, plucky hero who makes good.

Wonderful storytelling! Gripping adventure! Fascinating history! And my favorite: Great British accents! You can’t go wrong with this book.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/dodger.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 audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Tongues of Serpents, by Naomi Novik

Adventure, Alternate History, Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review 0

Tongues of Serpents

by Naomi Novik
read by Simon Vance

Tantor Audio, 2010. 10 hours on 8 CDs.

The library finally got this book about Temeraire on CD! They had it in e-audiobook form, but I don’t have a way to listen to those in my car. So I listened to one more book about Temeraire, the celestial dragon.

Naomi Novik’s books are like the Master and Commander books, only with dragons. It’s an alternate world where nations use dragons in their Aerial Corps, with a full complement of deckhands and one captain who bonds with the dragon when it hatches. The books take place during the Napoleonic wars. You really should read them in order.

In the latest installment, Temeraire and Laurence are in Australia. (Besides England, they’ve been to China, Central Asia, Africa, and Europe. So why not Australia?) The book starts with some political posturing, but gets more interesting when they take a crew of convicts into the interior, and a dragon egg gets stolen. They encounter all kinds of new dangers in their journey to get the egg back.

The plot isn’t terribly gripping, but I could happily listen to Simon Vance read a phone book, and this is much more interesting than the phone book. His British accent is a delight to listen to, and I can recognize the voices he uses from the previous audiobooks, even though it’s been awhile since I heard the last one. He’s consistent with a different voice for each character, so they are recognizable, even in the next book.

I shouldn’t say too much about this installment, because if you’ve listened to the other books, nothing I can say would keep you from reading on. Yes, read this series. Or much better yet, listen to this series. Napoleonic Wars with dragons! A reader with a fabulous British accent! A great way to while away a commute.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/tongues_of_serpents.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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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!