Review of The Swallow, by Charis Cotter

Children's Fiction Review, Cybils, Fantasy, Historical, Paranormal, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

swallow_largeThe Swallow

A Ghost Story

by Charis Cotter

Tundra Books, 2014. 318 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Cybils Finalist, Speculative Fiction for Elementary and Middle Grades
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #11 Children’s Fiction

I don’t think of myself as liking ghost stories, but this didn’t feel like a typical ghost story to me. This is a cozy friendship story and a girl-in-a-big-family-finding-a-friend story.

Sections in this book alternate between the voices of Polly and Rose. Their houses are next door to one another, and it turns out that their attics adjoin. The houses overlook the cemetery.

Rose has always been able to see ghosts, and she hates it. Polly has always wanted to see a ghost, and she isn’t sure that Rose isn’t one herself. She’s so pale and otherworldly.

Polly says:

I’ve always wanted to see a ghost. More than anything. I keep watch at my window for hours, I go for walks in the cemetery almost every day after school and I read all the ghost books I can find at the Parliament Street Library.

Rose says:

I never want to see a ghost again. I’m sick of it. Ladies all in white who follow me down the street, sad men in suits who sit at the back of the bus, children in nightgowns floating out hospital windows – I wish they would all disappear.

Rose hasn’t seen any ghosts, for some reason, since her hospital stay a few months ago. But then, when she hears Polly through the wall of her attic, she thinks they’re back. Polly, after hearing Rose’s voice, thinks she’s finally met a ghost.

Rose says,

I felt sick to my stomach. I was not used to invisible ghosts. And I certainly was not used to ghosts that talked so much. Especially out loud.

My heart sank. I hadn’t seen one ghost since I’d got home from the hospital, and I had really hoped they were gone forever. And now here was a ghost, right in my attic, in my own special nest. Where one came, the rest would follow, and I just knew I’d go stark raving mad if I couldn’t keep them away from me.

“Tell me,” said the ghost, “did you die a horrible death? Are you doomed to wander the ghostly regions between the land of the living and the life beyond?”

“Stop playing games,” I said. “You know I’m not a ghost. You’re the ghost, and you’re pretending to think I’m a ghost to drive me crazy. It isn’t going to work. Go away. All I want to do is sit in my attic and read my books and sing my songs in peace. Is that too much to ask?”

“Do ghosts read?” asked the ghost. “That’s very interesting. Do you have to turn the pages or can you sort of absorb the story by holding the book and pulling the words into your head?”

“I – am – not – a – ghost!” I said slowly and firmly. “Ghosts don’t read! They’re ethereal. They haunt people. They follow them down the street, they watch them when they’re doing their homework, they lurk behind gravestones, they hide in people’s attics –“

“For someone who says they’re not a ghost, you seem to know an awful lot about them,” said the ghost.

I opened my mouth but no words came out. This was the most infuriating ghost I had ever met.

I love the part – in the next chapter – where they figure out what’s actually going on. Rose had gotten frustrated and shouted out, “MY NAME IS ROSE MCPHERSON AND I LIVE AT 43 CEMETERY LANE AND I AM TWELVE YEARS OLD AND I AM NOT DEAD!”

She continues:

It felt good to lose my temper. I made a lot of noise, but the ghost didn’t seem at all put out.

“Wait. Where did you say you live?” she asked calmly.

“43 CEMETERY LANE!” I repeated.

Silence.

“Hit the wall again,” suggested the ghost.

THUMP.

“Umm . . . Ghost?” she said.

“My name is Rose!”

“Ummm . . . Rose?” she said.

“What?”

“I live at 41 Cemetery Lane. Next door.”

It took me a minute to figure it out. “You mean you’re in your own attic? On the other side of the wall?”

“Yes,” replied the ghost. “I guess you’re not a ghost after all.” She sounded disappointed.

“But why is it I can hear you so clearly?” I asked. “As if you were right here beside me?”

“I am right here beside you,” she said, starting to tap against the wall. “This wall must be really thin, not like the brick wall downstairs.”

“That must be it,” I said. A great feeling of relief swept over me and I spoke without thinking. “So you’re not a ghost either. You must be one of the dreadful Lacey children who live next door.”

“Who says we’re dreadful?” asked the girl.

Oops. “Um – my mother.”

“Oh,” said the girl. “Well – she’s right. We are.”

The girls agree to meet in the cemetery – and then find a grave with Rose’s name on it. Rose is convinced she’s not a ghost, but who is Winnifred Rose McPherson, who died at twelve years old, 40 years earlier?

The girls build a friendship. They research this other ghost. And then they find a way to go secretly into each other’s attics. But Rose’s home does have a ghost – and she’s angry, and doesn’t seem to want Polly to go into her attic.

This book is indeed a ghost story – but it’s also a friendship story, and a story that warmed my heart, despite the ghostly chill.

chariscotter.com
tundrabooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/swallow.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 sent to me by the publisher to evaluate for the Cybils Awards.

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 Castle Behind Thorns, by Merrie Haskell

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

castle_behind_thorns_largeThe Castle Behind Thorns

by Merrie Haskell

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2014. 327 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Cybils Finalist, Speculative Fiction for Elementary & Middle Grades
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #2 Children’s Fiction

I loved this book. It begins with Sand (Alexandre) waking up in a fireplace. He has no memory of how he got there, or even of falling asleep.

In the room beyond, everything was broken.

Every single thing.

The mantel lay in two disjointed pieces on the cracked hearth. Mixed with the mantel’s splinters lay the shattered crest of a great family, their gilded phoenix and silvered swan once entwined, now separated and dismembered.

The enormous wooden tables throughout the room sagged and slumped like beasts fallen to the hunt. Every bench around the tables lay sideways and in pieces. Each cup and bowl was shattered or smashed. All the tablecloths and tapestries puddled in scraps on the floor or hung in tatters, and even the wood and kindling for the fireplace had been reduced to slivers….

Now he knew where he had awakened.

He was inside the Sundered Castle.

Every morning of his life, Sand had stepped out the front door of his house and ignored this broken castle across the valley. Everyone in the village ignored it. It was unreachable. Only the castle’s towers were visible above an enveloping thorny hedge, a raspberry bramble of astonishing proportion that had grown up around the ruin after the abandonment. Of course, no one picked raspberries from the hedge.

Sand explores the castle. Everything in it is broken. Even loaves of bread, books, and items of clothing are ripped in half.

Nothing was whole here, nothing at all. Not a spoon, not a toothpick, not a bed, not a door. No room had been exempted from the destructive force that had overtaken the castle.

Nothing in the castle has rotted, though, and it is oddly free of any signs of life – no animals, birds, or even mold.

Sand goes looking for the treasury, but instead finds the crypt, and a broken tomb.

The body that had once dwelled inside the fragmented tomb must have been ejected by the same force that had rent earth and stone throughout the castle. Scraps of a shroud littered the floor. It was strange, like some great outside force had tried to free the body. But to what end? To just let it lie in a heap on a dirt floor?

The body hunched in a haphazard pile of withered skin. Like one of the apples in the kitchen, Sand thought disjointedly, altogether horrified. His candlelight should have been steady in the still air below the earth, but it trembled with his shaking hand. Even the quivering light showed the details too well.

The corpse had been a girl. Her clothes were, perhaps, the only thing in the entire castle that were not ripped or town; they were fine fabrics, deep saffron velvets and russet silks that had not faded with age.

And the corpse was whole as well, though clearly the body’s bones were broken beneath its powdery, dried-out skin. The neck was tilted at an odd angle, and the arms and legs were bent horribly akimbo….

He shouldn’t leave her like that. He should put something to rights in this broken place, and she deserved it; she had been a person once. . . .

With his duty done, he fled up the stairs into the sunlight. He was ready to leave. He’d seen enough, maybe too much, and he wanted nothing more from this place. Its treasures could stay hidden. Its secrets could remain undiscovered. He had to get out. This place hadn’t suffered from some earthquake. Something else had happened here. Something that cut leather, ripped apples in half, and tore apart cast iron kettles. Something that broke bread and tossed bodies from tombs.

Naturally, Sand tries to get out. But the thorny hedge has a life of its own, and one thorn prick gives him a fever.

All that happens in just the first chapter.

As the book goes on, Sand figures out how to live in the castle. The old food can be salvaged, and he finds a way to get water from the well, even though the bucket is broken. He finds a stuffed falcon with a broken leg, splints the leg and begins carrying the falcon with him, to have a face to talk to.

In the smithy, even the anvil is in two pieces. But Sand is a smith by calling, having learned from his grandfather, and half an anvil is better than no anvil at all. He begins systematically mending things.

But his mending works better than it should. His unskilled efforts perfectly restore things. And then the falcon comes back to life. Readers will not be surprised at what else does.

But there’s still the problem of the curse on the castle. And the thorns have them trapped inside. I like the interaction as the two children slowly figure out how to break the curse. And figure out how to deal with the outside world if they do get out.

It’s also refreshing to have a boy in a book whose father wants to send him to the University – but he wants to be a blacksmith. I’ve heard the opposite story often. Sand is smart enough to go to the University, but his heart is in the craft of blacksmithing.

The author also beautifully works in a message about forgiveness. She’s not preachy, and it’s seamlessly and naturally built into the story, but I loved that part. I also loved that she didn’t present the idea that forgiveness can be achieved in an instant, but that just beginning to forgive has a magic of its own.

This is a fairy-tale-like story, but with nothing so simple as “true love’s kiss” to break the spell. The two main characters are middle-school-aged kids, and they go about the business of surviving and breaking the spell with kid-sized determination. They start out with some bickering, but learn to get along, bridge their differences, and become friends. This story completely charmed me.

merriehaskell.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/castle_behind_thorns.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 Mortal Heart, by Robin LaFevers

Fantasy, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

mortal_heart_largeMortal Heart

by Robin LaFevers

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2014. 444 pages.
Starred Review

Wow! The third book of the trilogy that began with Grave Mercy is everything I hoped it would be! I had preordered the book before I found out I was going to be a Cybils judge. So the book came in while I was very busy with Cybils reading – and was the first thing I pulled out when we had finished making our list of Finalists.

The trilogy is summed up in three words: Medieval Assassin Nuns.

One thing I love about the three books is that each one is a complete story on its own – the complete story of one of the initiates into the order of St. Mortain – the god of Death. I also love that each girl’s story is totally different from the next. Each book has romance – and I thought I had it all figured out how it would go. Then this volume was completely different.

Because each book tells a complete story, with even a little bit of overlap in the timelines, you could read the books in any order. But I still highly recommend beginning with Grave Mercy. You will want to read all three books, so you might as well start at the beginning. The first book also goes into a little more depth about the political situation facing the Duchess of Britany. (The duchess in the 1490s really was engaged to multiple suitors when her father died.)

It’s all based on actual historical events – even the ancient gods of Brittany, whom the church absorbed as saints. I’m guessing that in real life, the god of Death didn’t have actual physical daughters who had special gifts as assassins, but it definitely makes a good story!

This third volume goes into more detail about some of the paranormal elements, as Annith meets the Hunt, with hellequins sent out from Death himself. Like Ismae and Sybella in the books that went before, she is struggling with her role and whether the Abbess is actually representing Mortain’s guidance, or following her own purposes.

There is an overall plot arc to the series, too, which is resolved in this book. I didn’t know anything about Brittany and its history with France, so the resolution was a surprise to me. I’m guessing things didn’t happen the way they did for the same reason portrayed in this book, but they *could* have, and I love that in a historical novel.

Parents of young teens, just to warn you: All the girls “take lovers.” No details are given, so they are not sexy reads, but that might influence whether or not you think it’s good reading for your own daughters.

They are wonderfully romantic tales, with each book having its own conflict and dangers, and each girl having a different – but beautiful – relationship with the god of Death. And I do like the way no one can push around these trained assassins!

Yes, on finishing this trilogy, I’m all the more impressed with each book individually, and the series as a whole. Each book demonstrates outstanding writing. I have no doubt I will be coming back to these books over the years. In fact, I’ll be looking for an opportunity to reread the whole series soon.

robinlafevers.com
hmhco.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/mortal_heart.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 via 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 Clariel, by Garth Nix

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

clariel_largeClariel

by Garth Nix

Harper, 2014. 382 pages.

I’m crazy about Garth Nix’s other books about the Abhorsens of the Old Kingdom, Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, and Across the Wall. So I preordered Clariel. My copy came in the very day I was told I get to be a Cybils first round judge for Elementary and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction. I needed to get reading for the Cybils, but I couldn’t resist reading Clariel first.

According to my review, I read Lirael ten years ago. No wonder I don’t remember the character Clariel turns out to be (which Garth Nix tells us at the end). I did remember some details about the Old Kingdom, such that the Abhorsen can walk into Death and that Charter Magic holds the kingdom together, and Free Magic creatures are dangerous and evil. All that would be quickly learned if you decided to start with Clariel, since it is, after all, a prequel.

However, I’d rather people started with Sabriel. I think it’s a better book and will win more fans than Clariel. Clariel gives us something of a downer of a story, epitomized in the tagline printed on the cover: “A passion thwarted will often go astray. . . .”

Clariel has come with her parents to the capital city of Belisaere, where her mother enjoys honor as the greatest Goldsmith in the kingdom. Clariel hates it, and wants to go back to the Great Forest. But her parents have other ideas. They are related to the King and the Abhorsen, and her parents want her to marry the governor’s son and become the next Queen.

The Charter Mages her parents engage to tutor Clariel promise to help – if first she will do them a small service and help them find a Free Magic creature they believe is lurking in Belisaere, probably connected with the governor.

“But how can I help?” asked Clariel.

“Like many of the Abhorsen line, you have a strong affinity for Free Magic, and great potential to wield it,” said Kargrin. “The rage is one indicator of that, and there are other signs within you. Like seeks like, and once it becomes aware of you this creature will seek you out in order to augment its power. It is the nature of such things that they must test each other, and the lesser fall under the will of the greater.”

So Kargrin uses Clariel essentially as bait to bring out the Free Magic creature. The consequences are more than he bargains for.

This is the first of the Old Kingdom books Garth Nix has written that I didn’t love. Though his writing still captivates me, the story is too sad for me. There’s some awful violence and some vengeance – and it’s just not as uplifting as the other Old Kingdom books. And indeed, “passion thwarted will often go astray,” but I found it sad to read about.

This book doesn’t tell as many of the details of how the Abhorsens travel in Death and how the bells work and how the Charter works, so it might be confusing to those who haven’t read the earlier books. So even though the action takes place before Sabriel, I’d still recommend beginning with Sabriel. Then if you’re like me, you’ll be so hooked on the Old Kingdom, you’ll read anything written about it, even if it does seem a bit tragic.

I was very happy to read at the end that Garth Nix is now working on a book about Lirael and Nicholas Sayre, and what happens to them after Across the Wall.

garthnix.com
epicreads.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/clariel.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 Falconer, by Elizabeth May

Alternate History, Fantasy, Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

falconer_largeThe Falconer

by Elizabeth May

Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2014. 382 pages.

All the society ladies gossip about Aileana. She was found crouched over her mother’s body, covered in blood. Aileana knows that a faery killed her mother and ripped out her heart. Now she hungers to kill faeries herself.

But meanwhile, she’s supposed to be a proper young lady, and her father wants her to get serious about attracting a husband. It’s tricky when Aileana senses that a faery is hunting one of the guests at the dance. How can she stay for all the dances when she needs to save someone’s life?

Since her mother’s death, Aileana, unlike most people, can see faeries. Like even fewer people, she can kill them. She’s being trained by one of the more powerful faeries, but she’s not at all sure she can trust him. Then her childhood friend comes back from school, and he can see faeries, too. But more and more fearsome creatures are coming after Aileana, and she learns the seal keeping humanity safe is weakening.

Set in a steampunk Scotland, this story is a page-turner. I’m not crazy about books written in present tense, but this one was worth the read. The other thing I didn’t like, though, was that as the first of a trilogy, this stopped in the middle of the action, and didn’t come to a satisfying conclusion at all. However, I have to admit that it hooked me, and I very much want to know what happens next.

elizabethmaywrites.com
chroniclebooks.com/teen

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/falconer.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, sent to me by the publisher.

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 Princess in Black, by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale

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

princess_in_black_largeThe Princess in Black

by Shannon Hale & Dean Hale
illustrated by LeUyen Pham

Candlewick Press, 2014. 90 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a brilliant book for children who love princesses – and superheroes. It’s an easy-reading chapter book with fifteen short chapters and pictures on every spread.

Princess Magnolia is a princess who dresses in pink and does princess-y things. But she has a secret. She’s currently having hot chocolate and scones with Duchess Wigtower, who visited unexpectedly and loves to uncover secrets.

But then her monster alarm goes off! Princess Magnolia excuses herself, hides her pink frilly dress in a broom closet, puts on her mask and cape, slides down a secret chute and high-jumps the castle walls as The Princess in Black!

I love the way her unicorn, Frimplepants, is also in disguise. When it’s time to fight monsters, he’s Blacky, the Princess in Black’s faithful pony.

There’s a hole in the ceiling of Monsterland. When a big blue monster smelled the delicious goats in the pasture outside the hole, he decided to come out. But he reckoned without the Princess in Black!

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Smash! Sparkle Slam! Those are some of the ninja moves of the Princess in Black!

The monsters in this book are cuddly and foolish and not too scary, though much bigger than the Princess in Black. But they are no match for her ninja skills.

This book is completely delightful and so rewarding for beginning readers. Neither boys nor girls will be able to resist the adventure, the secrets, and the ninja moves.

squeetus.com
candlewick.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/princess_in_black.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, purchased via 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 Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

queen_of_the_tearling_largeThe Queen of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen
performed by Katherine Kellgren

HarperCollins Publishers, 2014. 14 ½ hours on 12 CDs.
Starred Review

Once I saw that Katherine Kellgren, the narrator of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place reads this book, I knew I would enjoy listening to it. She is an outstanding vocal performer. (It’s happening – I’m getting to be a fan of certain audiobook performers.) She seamlessly uses different voices for the different characters, male and female, so you can tell who is speaking just by the sound of her voice.

The story she reads is also excellent. Kelsea Raleigh is 19 years old. She’s been raised in hiding, in the forest, but she is Queen of the Tearling. The Tear is a kingdom in the New World, made from emigrants from England and America who in some distant future time made The Crossing, leaving the old world behind.

At the beginning of the book, the Queen’s Guard has arrived. They are going to take her to the capital city to rule as Queen of the Tearling.

There are many who want Kelsea dead, including the Regent, her uncle, and The Red Queen, ruler of Mortmain, the neighboring kingdom, to whom the Tear send a horrible tribute. Kelsea has been told nothing about her kingdom and nothing about what it will take to rule. She has been given a sapphire necklace, with a jewel that seems to have a magic all its own.

This story has some horrible moments – Some graphic violence, as well as awful things going on in that world. This is fantasy for adults, and it doesn’t pull away from sex or violence. But mostly, it’s a story of a young woman coming into her power, trying to make things right.

Kelsea inherits a throne that’s corrupt. On her journey to the capital city, two different groups come after her, both very dangerous. When she arrives, a horrible spectacle meets her eyes. Even when she’s “safely” in the Queen’s Wing of the Keep, more threats to her life arise.

This book doesn’t tie up all the loose ends, so I very much hope it is only the first book of a series. I liked Kelsea – tough and determined, but very young and alone. I want to find out how she will deal with the challenges that are sure to continue.

BlackstoneLibrary.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/queen_of_the_tearling.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 Jinx’s Magic, by Sage Blackwood

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 1

jinxs_magic_largeJinx’s Magic

by Sage Blackwood

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2014. 389 pages.
Starred Review

In Jinx’s Magic we learn more about the boy who lives in a viciously magic forest and can see people’s feelings.

You’re going to want to read Jinx before you read this one, and you’re definitely going to want to read what comes after. My biggest complaint against this book is that not many plot threads get tied up, and danger is looming from many different directions. I prefer trilogies where each book feels like part of the story has finished. However, I enjoyed this one so much, I almost didn’t notice that it doesn’t fit my preferred style.

I love Jinx’s world. Jinx is a Listener; he can hear what the trees have to say. And he can see people’s thoughts and feelings – in the form of colors and shapes. I like the way it’s hard to tell if certain individuals are good or bad – there are levels of gray here, exactly like real life. And sometimes characters I thought were good turn out to be doing some not-so-good things.

Danger is lurking from many different directions. Why does the forest call Reven “The Terror”? Why will no one help Simon make sure the Bonemaster is secure? And who killed an entire clearing full of people? And when Jinx goes to Samara to find an important book for Simon, why will no one even acknowledge Sophie’s existence? What happened to her? And people are cutting down the Urwald! Can Jinx find anyone to help stop them?

Here’s how the book begins:

It wasn’t that Jinx didn’t like people. It was just that sometimes he had to get away from them.

He was no sooner out of earshot of the campfire, breathing in the deep, green strength of the forest, than he heard a single tree’s voice.

Stuck. Trapped. All is lost.

Jinx hurried through the underbrush, weaving around great moss-covered trees and stumbling over roots.

The cries came from a beech sapling. A mighty pine had fallen, crushing the beech to the ground.

Jinx grabbed the sapling and yanked, but couldn’t free it. He could hear it murmuring its despair. You waited and waited for a chance like this, for a big tree to fall so that you could grow toward the sunlight, and then this happened. It was hard to be young in the Urwald.

Jinx wrapped his arms around the rough, pitch-splattered pine trunk and tried to move it. He couldn’t shift it an inch.

Oh. Right. He was a magician.

Jinx drew the Urwald’s lifeforce power up through his feet. He levitated the fallen pine a few inches.

Free! Free! said the sapling. Sunlight!

It swept upward, its leaves brushing Jinx’s face.

Jinx was feeling a sense of accomplishment — the tree might someday grow as tall and stout as the giants around it, thanks to him — when he suddenly sensed a deep golden hunger nearby. He turned his head slightly to the left . . . and was eye to eye with a werewolf.

It is true that in this book there are a confusing number of different kinds of magic. However, the book is all about Jinx learning about his and other’s magic, and it works. The rules of each different kind of magic seem to be self-consistent.

Still, my only serious complaint against this book is that the next book can’t come quickly enough for me. I enjoyed every minute I spent in Jinx’s world.

harpercollinschildrens.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/jinxs_magic.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, purchased via 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 Caller, by Juliet Marillier

Fantasy, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

caller_largeThe Caller

A Shadowfell Novel

By Juliet Marillier

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2014. 437 pages.
Starred Review

The Caller is the third book in the trilogy begun in Shadowfell. You should definitely read the books in order. This is a wonderful culmination and completion of the story.

The book did not go as I expected. Neryn was planning to complete her training from the last two Guardians, and then go to the Gathering at Midsummer and Call the Uncanny Folk to fight on the side of the rebels. But early on, people and situations require her plans to be changed. The servants of the White Lady have been killed. The king, who rules the land with a reign of terror, has found a Caller of his own. He is planning to Call the folk to fight on his own side, and he doesn’t mean to ask nicely.

Meanwhile, Neryn’s beloved is in the middle of it all. It’s getting harder and harder for him to keep up the pretense of being a loyal king’s man. And how can he stand by while the Good Folk are being harmed?

Here’s how the book begins, in a Prologue that gets right into the action and the tension:

Done. He was done. No more lies; no more acts of blind savagery; no longer any need to pretend he was Keldec’s loyal retainer. His precarious double life as Enforcer and rebel spy was over. He had turned his back on it, and he was going home.

Crossing country under moonlight, he pondered what his sudden decision would mean. He would be at Shadowfell, the rebel headquarters, over the winter. He would see Neryn again: a precious gift, though there would be little time alone together in that place of cramped communal living. His arrival there would bring a double blow for the rebels, for he carried not only the news of their leader’s death, but also an alarming rumor, passed on to him by the king himself. Another Caller had been found; Neryn was not the only one. If true, these ill tidings set the rebels’ plan to challenge Keldec at next midsummer Gathering on its head. An expert Caller should be able to unite the fighting forces of humankind and Good Folk into one mighty army. He shuddered to think what might happen if two Callers opposed each other. He must take the news to Shadowfell as fast as he could. That, and his other burden.

I wasn’t willing to wait for the library to get this one – I preordered it as soon as I heard it was coming out. And I am glad I did; I will want to reread this trilogy many times, to once again enter the ancient Alban of Juliet Marillier’s brilliant imagination.

JulietMarillier.com
randomhouse.com/teens

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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, purchased via 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 A Snicker of Magic, by Natalie Lloyd

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

snicker_of_magic_largeA Snicker of Magic

by Natalie Lloyd

Scholastic Press, New York, 2014. 311 pages.
Starred Review

Felicity Pickle collects words. She actually sees words rise off people and things, and she writes the best ones in her blue book. As the book starts, her nomadic mother is driving Felicity and her little sister, Frannie Jo, back to the town where she grew up.

“Midnight Gulch used to be a secret place,” Mama said. “The mountain hid the town high-up-away from the rest of the world. And the river surrounded the mountain and kept it safe. And the forest stood up tall around the river and caught all of the town’s secrets and songs in its branches.” I relaxed into the sound of her voice. Her speaking voice is wonderful, but my mama’s story voice is like nothing I’ve ever heard, like something between a summer breeze and a lullaby. “The town had to stay secret, you see, because the people who lived there had magic in their veins.”

“Real magic?” I could barely even whisper the word. Just the thought of real magic sent shivers from my nose to my toes. This time it was my heart that answered, a steady drumbeat yes inside my chest.

Yes, Yes, Yes!

“That’s the story they tell,” Mama sighed. “They say some people could catch stars in Mason jars. And some people could sing up thunderstorms and some could dance up sunflowers. Some people could bake magic into a pie, make folks fall in love, or remember something good, or forget something bad. Some people had a magic for music. . . .”

Mama’s fingers clutched knuckle-white around the steering wheel again. But she kept on telling:

“They could play a song and it would echo through the whole town, and everybody in town, no matter where they were, stood up and danced.”

She cleared her throat. “They say some people glowed in the dark. And some people faded when they were sad — first they went colorless, then totally invisible. There are so many stories. . . .”

“And this magic town is the same town where you grew up?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Then why the hayseed would you ever leave a place like that?”

“All the magic was gone by the time I lived there. There was only a two-lane road and a traffic light that always stayed green. I figured that meant the magic had moved on out. Figured I had to move on, too, if I wanted to see any of it.”

Once in Midnight Gulch, staying with Aunt Cleo, Felicity learns about a family curse — which might be why her Mama can’t stop wandering. Felicity makes a best friend and gets to know people in town and doesn’t want to leave. Her friend Jonah (who’s in a wheelchair — which is just his background, and hardly ever mentioned) urges her to do something that might break the curse. But Felicity stutters, and she’s horribly afraid of speaking in front of people. Is she cursed to wander, too? Cursed to fail at everything she does?

Normally, with fantasy books, I’m very picky about world-building and how the magic works. I didn’t think I would like this book, because it’s awfully loosey-goosey with the magic and I couldn’t really believe in things like ice cream that doesn’t need to be refrigerated (though that’s supposedly science, not magic!) or shadows that dance.

But this book was just so good-hearted, I couldn’t help but love it. Felicity’s a realistic kid, wounded by her past, but still beautifully hopeful. I like the way the words she sees aren’t always actual words. For example right at the start she sees three smoke-colored words in the exhaust coming out of their car’s tailpipe: Spunkter Sumpter Siffle-miffle.

Words that hover around cars or trains or boats or planes never make much sense. At least they don’t make much sense to me. I’m not sure if that’s how it works for other people. I know I can’t be the only word collector in the whole world, but I’ve never met anybody else who has the knack.

I like the way she calls small, seemingly insignificant magic “a snicker of magic.” I like her friendship with Jonah and Jonah’s know-hows for doing people kindnesses.

I especially liked some wise advice Felicity was given by her Mama (of all people) about memories. They’re eating some ice cream with magic that makes people remember things. She asks her mother, “How do you make it do that? How do you keep getting good memories from it?”

“It takes some practice.” Mama set the carton back down on the floor. “But even if I taste something sour, even if the bad memory comes first, I choose to replace it with a good one instead.”

“You just choose?”

Mama nodded. “It’s as simple and difficult as that. Sad memories don’t just come in ice cream, you know. Everything you touch, everything you smell, everything you taste, every picture you see — all of that has the potential to call up a sad memory. You can’t choose what comes up first. But you can choose to replace it with something good. I choose to think on the good parts.”

So yes, I could focus my review on my quibbles about how the magic works. But you know what? The good parts really do outweigh them. This is a lovely book that uplifted my spirit.

scholastic.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/snicker_of_magic.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!