Review of The Princess in Black and the Bathtime Battle

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Princess in Black and the Bathtime Battle

by Shannon Hale & Dean Hale

illustrated by LeUyen Pham

Candlewick Press, 2019. 90 pages.
Starred Review
Review written December 9, 2019, from a library book

I love the Princess in Black! These are simple chapter books with lots of pictures. They include fun stories about princesses who disguise themselves as heroes who fight monsters – and one goat boy who disguises himself as the Goat Avenger. They are rewarding for beginning readers and a whole lot of fun.

In this latest installment, the foe is a horrible stinky smell. How do you fight a smell?

As the Princess in Black and the Goat Avenger manage to blow the stink away, it goes into other kingdoms, so other heroes come and investigate. But that’s a good thing. When they discover that the source of all the trouble is a super-stinky monster, the stink is so bad, it takes all the heroes working together to clean up the stink.

I like the way Shannon Hale and Dean Hale use some of the same elements in each book – but add something new every time. In this book, the battle is about bathtime. And I love that all the heroes get to take part.

This book encourages the reader to think what kind of hero they can be.

candlewick.com

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Review of Spark, by Sarah Beth Durst

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Spark

by Sarah Beth Durst

Clarion Books, 2019. 311 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a fun fantasy about a quiet girl who tends to get overlooked. She’s one of the lucky few children who gets an egg of a storm beast to bond with and she expects to hatch a rain beast or sun beast like her father or older brother.

Everyone is surprised when her egg hatches the flashiest beast of all – a lightning beast!

Her family is convinced some sort of mistake happened. Mina knows that bonding with Pixit is not a mistake, but she still doesn’t feel adequate as the guardian of a lightning beast.

This book, like so many others, is about a 12-year-old going to school to learn magic, but this setting with dragon-like storm beasts is innovative and interesting. And there’s more. The storm beasts control the weather in their country of Alorria. But when Mina has an accident and lands outside the border, she learns that their control of the weather may have repercussions. But what can a 12-year-old girl do about that? Especially one who isn’t even sure she’s cut out to be the guardian of a lightning beast.

This is not a story about a quiet girl learning to be loud. It is the story of a quiet girl learning that being herself has power.

sarahbethdurst.com

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Review of A Comb of Wishes, by Lisa Stringfellow

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

A Comb of Wishes

by Lisa Stringfellow
read by Bahni Turpin

Quill Tree Books, February 2022. 5 hours, 32 minutes.
Review written July 23, 2022, based on a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Oh, this story was wonderful, and the audiobook version adds the perfect touch of atmosphere to pull me into its spell.

Set on the Caribbean island of St. Rita, Bahni Turpin used appropriate accents for the characters, but my favorite was hearing her say “Crick! Crack!” at the start and end of the chapters about the Sea Woman, as a storyteller on the island would do.

In the chapters set in our world, we see a girl named Kela whose mother died three months earlier in a car accident, whom Kela is still deeply grieving.

So when a magical comb seems to call to her in a sea cave, and Kela learns she can use it to get a wish, it’s no surprise what she would wish for. Of course there are consequences. Especially when adults get wind of the comb, and she can’t give it back to the sea as she had promised.

I loved the way this story is woven. Normally, I’d see all the drawbacks of magic messing with something so major — but the story itself brought those to the front, and I could believe the way it played out. The depiction of the island and the sea people added to the beauty of the story.

I loved the way Kela made jewelry with sea glass — something humans had thrown into the sea so she was allowed to remove — and the common name for them of mermaid’s tears.

This tale features a Black girl in the starring role, and people of all backgrounds will be enchanted.

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Review of The Chupacabras of the Río Grande

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

The Unicorn Rescue Society

The Chupacabras of the Río Grande

by Adam Gidwitz and David Bowles
illustrated by Hatem Aly

Dutton Children’s Books, 2019. 202 pages.
Review written November 13, 2019, from a library book

This is the fourth book in The Unicorn Rescue Society series about some kids and a very eccentric professor helping out mythical creatures. I have read the first book, but not any others before this one, and I don’t think that hurt my understanding of this one any, so it is the sort of series that you can jump in where you are.

In this case, there’s a chupacabras on the loose – a mythical creature that sucks blood from goats. Usually, they don’t kill their victims, simply taking a drink while the victim sleeps, but a small calf has been killed, with all its blood drained, and Professor Fauna wants to take a look, bringing Uchenna and Elliot along, of course.

The adventure is light-hearted and has some silly jokes, with the inevitable bad guy trying to beat them to the magical creature adding some tension. It’s not designed to be a child’s first chapter book, but neither is it far advanced, and has short chapters and plenty of pictures.

I did like the way this light-hearted fantasy adventure ended up overlapping with a serious political issue. The creation of a border wall and border fences disrupt territories for wildlife – and that turns out to be a problem for mythical wildlife, too.

I also like that the publisher took the issue seriously and treated the people of the region so respectfully that they put David Bowles on the authorial team. I loved what David Bowles said at the back of the book about that, so I’m going to include it here:

Writing about the border brings me a lot of joy, but also some worry. This is my community, full of my people – relatives and friends on both sides of the river. Our lives overflow with two cultures, two languages, two national identities. Trust me. You’d love it here.

But it’s easy for people to misunderstand what they’re not familiar with, so this book had to be not just about an amazing adventure in South Texas, but also about how easy it is for outsiders to get the wrong impression of my community. Heck, even those of us living down here don’t always agree about how this side of the border and that one fit together.

We couldn’t just pretend that some people aren’t nervous about the border. We also couldn’t ignore the fact that many border folks don’t like the choices the government is making.

So Adam and I decided to include that disagreement in the book. We know people who feel both ways about the barrier that’s been going up along the border in bits and pieces for years now. It was important to get a good look at those two sides without assuming that either group wants to hurt anyone.

As a Mexican American, I also wanted to make sure that the bilingual and bicultural nature of my people came through loud and clear. I am proud of my heritage, my roots along either bank of the Río Grande. And that also meant taking the chupacabras — pretty recent cryptids in the long history of creepy creatures in South Texas – and finding where they fit into the larger indigenous mythology of our ancestors.

I can only hope that the low whistling I hear drifting over the water as I write these words is a sign of their approval.

I, for one, approve of the care taken in a light-hearted fantasy chapter book. All the more reason for me to recommend this series.

UnicornRescueSociety.com
penguinrandomhouse.com

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Review of Here We Come! by Janna Matthies and Christine Davenier

Fantasy, Good for the Very Young, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Here We Come!

written by Janna Matthies
illustrated by Christine Davenier

Beach Lane Books (Simon & Schuster), 2022. 40 pages.
Review written May 26, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Okay, I just recently got news that I landed my dream job of Youth Materials Selector for my library system — and this is the first picture book I’ve read since that news that makes me sad I’ll no longer be doing storytimes. (I anticipate lots of picture books like that in the future.) However, the good news is that I have one last storytime next week, and this book is going to be featured. *Update* – the day I’m posting this is the same day I did my last storytime ever – and used this book.

Here We Come! has the kind of rhythm and rhymes that beg to be read aloud. The illustrations portray a joyful fantasy parade at night.

It starts with a boy heading out the door on a moonlit night playing a musical pipe with his teddy bear marching behind him.

The only line on that first spread is:

Here we come with a rum-pum-pum

When we turn the page, we see a dog peeking out of its doghouse with the teddy bear beckoning. The caption is:

Wanna come?

From there, we’ve got a parade and a cumulative rhyme going. Next is “a pick and a strum.” Then “Little Lu on her thumb with a swish-swish bum.” And so on. After each new line is added, we see another creature ready to join and the question, “Wanna come?”

The action is reminiscent of the classic We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, because we do have something that prompts the group to run back home — in this case, it’s rain and thunder. But instead of going right to bed, there’s a nice meditative bit at the end that continues to rhyme and finishes up with “Here we come!”

This book is almost impossible to read silently as the rollicking rhymes bring out the joyful exuberance of the illustrations. Although I’m going to use it in Baby Storytime, I think the ideal audience would be toddlers, who would surely start marching around the room. Check it out and read it with a child.

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Review of The Ogress and the Orphans, by Kelly Barnhill

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Ogress and the Orphans

by Kelly Barnhill

Algonquin Young Readers, 2022. 392 pages.
Review written May 3, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is by the Newbery-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon. I think I actually liked The Ogress and the Orphans even better.

This is an old-fashioned fantasy tale, with just a touch of magic here and there and fantasy characters like an ogress and a dragon. We learn about the village of Stone-in-the-Glen, which used to be a lovely place. But since the library burned down, things haven’t been the same. After that the school burned down, and a sinkhole opened up at the park, and people started to keep to themselves. An ogress lives on the edge of town, an ogress who likes to make delicious treats for the townsfolk to leave on their doorsteps at night. There’s also an Orphan House in the village, where fifteen orphans live. The town used to provide money for the Orphan House, but it’s been a while since anything has come in. Another important person in the story is the mayor.

The town of Stone-in-the-Glen had a mayor, and everyone loved him very much. How could they not? He cut a fine figure and had a blinding shock of blond hair and a smile so bright they had to shade their eyes. He glittered when he spoke. He was well mannered and seemed so sensible. When people went to him with their problems, well, they came away feeling so fine that they completely forgot what had vexed them in the first place. And isn’t that, really, what a mayor is for?

The fifteen orphans are delightful characters. Their names are alphabetical, with the oldest being Anthea, then Bartleby, then Cass, so you can keep them straight. The Orphan House is run by Matron and her husband Myron, and the children all help look after one another. Some of the books from the old library got transferred to the Reading Room of the Orphan House, and some of the orphans have learned surprising things, such as how to speak Crow.

There’s a lot of setting the stage, but tension builds when the people in town decide the ogress must be at fault for a recent problem. It’s up to the orphans to save the day and set things to rights while they’re at it.

When I finished this book, I had a big smile on my face. My only complaint was that it took a very long time to actually finish it. It seems long for a simple story suitable for young readers.

However, I think this book would be truly perfect for a read-aloud. It would be wonderful for classroom after-lunch reading sessions or nightly bedtime stories. And it would work for a wide range of ages. In that case, the length would be a feature — all the more reading sessions! The chapters are short, so you could decide how many to cover each night with lots of flexibility. The voice of the narrator is a storyteller’s voice, and I find myself wishing I had a child to read it to myself.

kellybarnhill.com
AlgonquinYoungReaders.com

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Review of The Gilded Ones, by Namina Forna

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Gilded Ones

by Namina Forna
read by Shayna Small

Listening Library, 2021. 12 hours, 46 minutes.
Review written January 24, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
2022 Cybils Young Adult Speculative Fiction Finalist

The Gilded Ones is an epic tale set in a fantastical kingdom inhabited by people and strange sentient creatures – and demons who appear as human girls.

At sixteen, Deka is ready to undergo the purification ceremony, but the ceremony is interrupted by an attack from the fearsome Death Shrieks. In the chaos, Deka learns she has surprising powers – but also that she is a demon. A cut reveals that her blood is gold.

There’s a death mandate, so the village elders try to kill Deka. But she’s a demon and stubbornly comes back to life, through decapitation, dismemberment, burning. After a long ordeal, a woman comes to the village with the seal of the emperor and takes Deka away. Now the girls like her are being trained to become a powerful fighting force to wipe out the Death Shrieks, and Deka’s special powers will be helpful.

It’s a fun tale, full of Black Girl Power. (Although it’s a different world, Deka has the dark skin of Southerners.) There’s friendship, teamwork, romance, destroying the patriarchy, and even a cute and loyal pet.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble with suspension of disbelief for this one and details of the fantasy world bothered me. How could blood serve the function of blood bringing oxygen to the body, and yet be gold, turning into a supple metal after it’s shed? How could someone actually come back to life after dismemberment? Sure, they explain body fibers reaching out to find one another, but seems like if someone really wanted to kill them, they could make barriers that couldn’t be overcome? How can a shapeshifter gain and lose matter and change from the size of a small bird to the size of a giant? How could creatures expend lots of energy but not need to eat? And then I had problems with the plot – there were schemes on both the good side and the bad side that lasted decades, even centuries, and I was murky about the motivation.

Okay, but this book is finding readers and I already knew that I’m often way too picky about world-building details. If you want an epic series about a formerly oppressed sisterhood powerfully battling to win freedom for everyone, and an underestimated girl discovering she has power to save the world – this book is only the beginning.

GetUnderlined.com

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Review of This Book Is Not for You! by Shannon Hale, illustrated by Tracy Subisak

Delightfully Silly, Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

This Book Is Not for You!

by Shannon Hale
illustrated by Tracy Subisak

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2022. 40 pages.
Review written May 3, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Oh, this book is wonderful! Don’t tell, but this is a message book — for the adults.

Shannon Hale has written many magnificent books, but several of them have “Princess” in the title, including her Newbery Honor book Princess Academy and her beginning chapter book series The Princess in Black. She’s been frustrated when adults tell little boys that her princess books are not for them, even though the Princess in Black has a secret identity and fights monsters. So this picture book points out how ludicrous that attitude is.

As the book opens, a boy named Stanley is happily biking to the bookmobile.

A book called The Mysterious Sandwich sat up tall on the display shelf. Stanley liked mysteries, and he liked sandwiches. Perfect.

But when he asks the librarian if he can check it out, a very old man is there in her place. (I appreciate this touch that the role of mean gatekeeper is not played by an actual librarian.) The old man looks at the back of the book and finds out it’s about a girl and tells Stanley he wouldn’t want to read it.

Stanley really did want to read it, but now he felt embarrassed.

His friend Valeria comes along, and she does get to read the book.

But things start getting silly when the old man finds a cat book but won’t let Stanley check it out. Instead, he gives it to a cat! And when Stanley asks for a robot book, he’s told only robots can read books about robots — and a robot rolls up and checks it out.

After another attempt to read an interesting book that has a girl as a main character, the old man gives Stanley a book to try and he goes over to the field where everyone who got a book is reading.

After that, some secretive trading happens, not only between Stanley and Valeria, but between the cat and the robot as well.

But as they are quietly enjoying books that were not authorized, the ground shakes because a dinosaur is walking to the bookmobile. The dinosaur wants to read a book about ponies. When the old man doesn’t dare deny the dinosaur’s request, Stanley gains the ability to speak up as well.

It’s all silly and delightful and shows how ridiculous it is to insist that boys read books about boys and girls read books about girls. Because who’s going to tell a dinosaur she can’t read about ponies?

shannonhale.com
tracysubisak.com
penguin.com/kids

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Review of Otto: A Palindrama, Jon Agee

Children's Fiction Review, Delightfully Silly, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

Otto

A Palindrama

by Jon Agee

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2021. 144 pages.
Review written April 23, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is just so silly. But it’s irresistible if you like palindromes at all. I was sitting and chuckling over it in my office, and had to bring it out and share, which got my coworkers laughing, too.

This is a kid’s full-length graphic novel — in which the only printed text that appears are entirely palindromes. The result is very silly — but it all actually makes sense!

Here are some of the 200 palindromes that appear:

Was it a rat I saw?

No, Son.

Nate Bittnagel, elegant Tibetan.

[In a museum] Gustav Klimt milk vats? Ug!

[On a tombstone] Evil, atonal, racy Carla. Not alive.

Eva, can I stab bats in a cave?

No, Don.

I’m Al, a slob. My symbol: Salami!

Too hot to hoot.

This all happens while Otto is looking for his dog, Pip. And of course it’s the pictures that make it all make sense. It’s all extremely silly, but a whole lot of fun.

We’ll have some more Palindrome Days in March 2023, so this may be the perfect book to pull out for a program.

JonAgee.com
penguinrandomhouse.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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Review of A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher, read by Patricia Santomasso

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

by T. Kingfisher
read by Patricia Santomasso

Tantor Audio, October 2021. 8 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written March 30, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2020 Andre Norton Nebula Award Winner
2021 Locus Award Winner for Young Adult Fiction
2021 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Winner for Children’s Literature

I loved this book! I listened to it while driving to and from vacation, and it helped make the driving delightful. Patricia Santomasso’s English accent captured the voice and tone of the main character beautifully.

The book begins when 14-year-old Mona goes in to work in her aunt’s bakery in the wee hours of the morning — and finds a dead body! Even worse, when the authorities are alerted, they think Mona is suspicious because she’s a magic worker. Never mind that her magic is confined to working with bread.

Mona can make dough rise quickly, keep bread from burning, and even make gingerbread men dance. She’s got a sourdough starter in the basement named Bob that seems to be sentient. But she certainly wouldn’t be able to kill anyone with bread!

Fortunately, when Mona is brought before the duchess, things get straightened out — but that’s only the beginning. More magic workers are dying, and Mona, even confined to bread magic, may be a target. And things keep going and escalating — until the fate of the entire city may depend on Mona using bread magic to defend against an invading army.

This book is just so much fun. Mona is resourceful and compassionate and knows her own limits. The book is full of humor and joy as we read about a worthy heroine thrust into impossible situations and figuring out how to do her best.

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