Review of The Hollow Boy, by Jonathan Stroud

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

hollow_boy_largeThe Hollow Boy

Lockwood & Co., Book Three

by Jonathan Stroud

Disney-Hyperion, Los Angeles, 2015. 385 pages.
Starred Review

It’s here! Book Three of the Lockwood & Co. series! I only had to wait a week after finishing listening to the audiobooks of the first two books. (You can be sure I preordered my own copy. These are so good to reread, I’m not settling for a library copy any more.)

The good news: This is not a trilogy! (I was hoping not.) The bad news: Like the other two, the book ends with a fairly major plot point that will make everything change – and we have to wait to find out how that plays out. Aaugh!

Jonathan Stroud doesn’t write the same book over and over again. We’ve still got Lucy, Lockwood, and George battling ghosts with iron chains, magnesium flares, salt bombs, and silver-tipped rapiers. But now their agency, having met with success, is more popular than ever before. They’re having to split up to take on all the cases.

So Lockwood and George hire an assistant while Lucy is on vacation. A young female assistant named Holly Munro who is annoyingly perfect. She whips the agency into shape and manages their caseload, but Lucy isn’t entirely happy with the changes she brings.

Meanwhile, Lucy’s ability to listen to ghosts is growing. What if she attempts to hear what they have to say rather than immediately trying to destroy them? But that can have some dangerous results.

Meanwhile, there’s a huge outbreak happening in London with all the big agencies on the case. In the last book, I was a little annoyed by the childish rivalry between Lockwood & Co. and a certain team from the Fittes agency. (Even though they actually are children. Schoolyard bullying didn’t seem appropriate.) But I liked very much that in this book, the two teams need to work together – and manage to do so. Interpersonal relationships got much more complex.

I shouldn’t say too much, because if you’ve read the first two books, you’ll be eager to read this one. And yes, yes, yes, it’s as good as the previous two. You will want to read this series in order. While I’m sure you could enjoy this book as a stand alone, it really is part of a continuing story. As a whole, it’s one of the best series for children out there. If you missed it before, you still have time to catch up before the next installment!

Here’s how the book begins:

I think it was only at the very end of the Lavender Lodge job, when we were fighting for our lives in that unholy guesthouse, that I glimpsed Lockwood & Co. working together perfectly for the first time. It was just the briefest flash, but every detail remains etched into my memory: those moments of sweet precision when we truly acted as a team.

Yes, every detail. Anthony Lockwood, coat aflame, arms flapping madly as he staggered backward toward the open window. George Cubbins, dangling from the ladder one-handed, like an oversized windblown pear. And me – Lucy Carlyle – bruised, bloody, and covered in cobwebs, sprinting, jumping, rolling desperately to avoid the ghostly coils . . .

Sure, I know none of that sounds so great. And to be fair, we could have done without George’s squeaking. But this was the thing about Lockwood & Co.: we made the most of unpromising situations and turned them to our advantage.

Want to know how? I’ll show you.

LockwoodandCo.com
DisneyBooks.com

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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.

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Review of Troll and the Oliver, by Adam Stower

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

troll_and_the_oliver_largeTroll and the Oliver

by Adam Stower

Templar Books (Candlewick Press), 2015. 40 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s some high drama for the preschool set. We start out being introduced to Troll and “an Oliver.” Troll keeps trying to catch the Oliver, wanting to eat it for lunch. But the Oliver keeps getting away. We see many of these scenarios, as the Oliver dodges, hides, and sneaks away, cleverly eluding capture. As he escapes he sings little songs and always wears a happy smile. Despite the giant fuzzy blue troll, the reader isn’t really frightened for Oliver.

Then one day, the reader thinks Troll has given up. Oliver looks and looks for Troll and steps stealthily just in case.

And shall I give a spoiler? I don’t feel like I can explain how absolutely brilliant this book is without explaining what happens.

But perhaps I can get away with saying there’s a half-page turn in this book – which is the most dramatic page turn I have ever seen in a children’s book. Read well, I can easily imagine children jumping out of their skin.

When I say half-page: A double page spread has vertically half a page in the middle of it. Before you turn the half-page, you’ve got Oliver in the kitchen, just having realized the Troll has given up.

My name’s Oliver,
Look at me!
I’m as clever
As can be!
I’m the best
And I’m the winner.
I’ll never ever
Be that smelly
Troll’s dinner!

Turning the half-page “opens” the cabinet – to devastating effect.

Let’s just say that it’s a good thing it turns out Olivers taste awful. And the pictures of Troll tasting him all have Oliver’s legs hanging out of Troll’s mouth. So still not too frightening.

And then, in a brilliant stroke, Troll smells what the Oliver was baking in the kitchen. All along, something was wafting from the oven, but our attention wasn’t called to it. Turns out – Trolls love CAKE!

And the book finishes off with a happy scene of Oliver having a Cake Picnic with a whole big party of trolls. The back endpapers have a recipe for Troll Cupcakes.

I especially like the Author’s Note at the end:

I would strongly advise the reader to ALWAYS have some cake handy, just in case a troll should happen by. He might be hungry. . . .

One of the things I love about this book is that Oliver is consistently smiling. Despite the dramatic reversal in the middle, the reader is never too worried for Oliver, because he’s not worried. Yep, there’s a big fuzzy blue troll trying to eat a little kid, but it’s not really a frightening book. And you come away with the message: Always have some cake handy.

What could be better?

I’m going to try this book at Storytime. . . And see if I can make the kids jump.

candlewick.com

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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.

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Review of The Whispering Skull audiobook, by Jonathan Stroud

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

whispering_skull_audio_largeThe Whispering Skull

by Jonathan Stroud
read by Katie Lyons

Listening Library, 2014. 11 ½ hours on 9 compact discs.
Starred Review

I’m thoroughly enjoying rereading the Lockwood & Co. series by listening before the third book in the series comes out this month. I was disappointed that a different narrator was used for the second book, but she’s still got a British accent, and it’s still an enthralling and absorbing story that makes the commuting miles fly by.

In the second book, there’s more tension between the members of the agency Lockwood & Co. The skull in the title is our friend in the jar – and it starts talking to Lucy, but continues to say things that build mistrust and get the agency into trouble.

There’s more horror in this book – this time the ghost of a man eaten by rats, as well as people who die by looking into a cursed mirror. Lockwood & Co. are looking for this mirror, which was stolen from a coffin that was dug up in their presence and also contained the bones of a particularly threatening Visitor.

Again, this would make great family listening – but only if the kids are old enough for a very scary story. If they’ll be badly freaked out by the thought of rats eating a human body – this audiobook is not for them.

However, for older kids and adults, this is more brilliant excitement from Jonathan Stroud. We’ve got a mystery again – what happened to the mirror? But there’s also competition with another agency, secrets between Lucy and Lockwood and George, and more interesting tidbits about this world where dangerous Visitors walk among us, but only kids can see them.

I had so much fun reviewing this series in preparation for Book Three, I have a feeling it’s going to become a yearly tradition. (This is a case where I am definitely hoping we’re not talking about a trilogy.) I’m just not getting tired of these brilliant books.

jonathanstroud.com
lockwoodandco.com
listeninglibrary.com

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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.

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Review of Wolfskin, by Juliet Marillier

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

wolfskin_largeWolfskin

by Juliet Marillier

Tor, New York, 2002. 493 pages.
Starred Review

I was in the mood to read an outstanding book and wanted something that would really absorb me, so I reflected that there are still some books by Juliet Marillier which I haven’t read. I chose Wolfskin because it was a first-in-a-series title that was on our shelves at my library branch.

At first, I admit, I was a little dismayed. There’s some foreshadowing that goes on which didn’t sound good. Our hero, Eyvind, a Viking, wants nothing more than to be a Wolfskin, a berserker soldier who hears Thor’s voice. When he is young, he hears a tale about two men with a blood oath of brotherhood. Later, because of that blood oath, one of the men ends up killing his beloved, who is in the family of the enemies of the blood brother. The story is held up as an example of wonderful loyalty. And soon after, Eyvind is asked to swear a blood oath to a nobleman’s brother who is staying with them, Somerled. The reader knows this can’t end well.

Well, it slowed me down. It turns out Somerled isn’t a tremendously likable character. And Eyvind is not as clever as Somerled, and gets taken advantage of.

But I knew I could expect deeper things from Juliet Marillier, and I was definitely not disappointed. Many years later, Eyvind travels across the sea to the Orkney Islands under the command of Somerled’s brother. Events that happen there require Eyvind to trust his own instincts and stand for the truth.

Here’s a section from the beginning of the book, where Eyvind’s older brother Eirik comes home for a visit.

Eirik was his hero. Eirik was a Wolfskin. That was the most glorious calling in the whole world, for surely nothing could surpass the moment when you heard Thor’s call to battle ringing in your ears, pulsing in your blood, filling every corner of your being with a red rage that shut out any thought of fear. To charge forward in pure courage, inspired by the god himself – that bold vision tugged at Eyvind’s thoughts by day and filled his dreams by night. What matter if a Wolfskin’s life were short? Such a warrior, once fallen, would be carried straight to Thor’s right hand. One day he himself would pass the test, and become one of that band to which Eirik and Hakon belonged, as had many of Eyvind’s kin in times past. The men of Hammarsby had a noble tradition in the Warfather’s service. So Eyvind practiced with the bow and with the axe. He ran and climbed, he skated and swam. He shoveled snow and hunted and grew strong, awaiting that day. Eirik’s tales kept his dreams alive. Later, perhaps his brother would tell of the autumn Viking, the riches plundered, the battles won.

Once they get to the Orkneys, the story of Nessa is told alongside Eyvind’s. Nessa is the king’s daughter, training to be the priestess of her people. But then Somerled’s brother dies, and Somerled insists that the folk of the Orkneys are responsible, and there is trouble between their peoples.

This book includes the detailed creation of a world as it may have been, with adventure and bravery, romance and passion, right and wrong, justice and treachery, loyalty and betrayal, and a touch of magic.

Juliet Marillier has done it again. (Or I should say, “did” it again. I just preordered her next book to be published in America!)

julietmarillier.com
tor.com

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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.

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Review of The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, read by Miranda Raison

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

screaming_staircase_audio_largeLockwood & Co.

The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

read by Miranda Raison

Listening Library, 2013. 10 hours on 8 compact discs.
2013 Cybils Winner: Speculative Fiction, Elementary and Middle Grades
2013 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Children’s Fiction
Starred Review

Normally, I won’t listen to a book I’ve already read. In the case of The Screaming Staircase, I’d already read it twice: Once when it came out, and once for the Cybils Award. (It won.) I also named it my favorite children’s book read in 2013. (I don’t allow rereads to count as Sonderbooks Stand-outs any more, so that way I won’t be tempted to give it to this book again in 2015.) So you won’t be surprised that I loved this audiobook (which our library finally purchased). Apparently, I don’t get tired of this story at all!

I’ll refer you to my original review, but point out a few things I noticed.

As a straight mystery (Who killed Annabelle Ward?), this book is wonderfully well-crafted. There are clues and red herrings as well as a life-endangering denouement accompanying some clever deductions from our heroes.

This book is scarier than I remembered it. The Red Room – with blood dripping down from the ceiling threatening to flood them (and they’ll die if it touches them) is incredibly sinister, not to mention the Screaming Staircase, where long-ago monks were led to their deaths and today you can hear their screams in your head. So that’s the only caveat when giving this book to children or suggesting it for family listening (It would be great!) – they have to be able to handle Scary.

As I suspected, though, the only thing better than reading this book is having it read to you with a British accent. The narrator is utterly wonderful! When I got to the part I used to read aloud at schools when booktalking last summer – I could recite the words along with the narrator, but they sounded so much better with a British accent! This narrator also captured the different voices with excellence.

As I mentioned in my first review, there’s so much going on with this book. We’ve got ghosts, swordplay, a deadline which must be met to keep their business, banter between colleagues, an interesting alternate world with great detail as to the different types of ghosts, kids in charge (because only they can see ghosts), and our heroes setting out to show the world that they are excellent at what they do – without the supervision of adults.

If your kids are old enough to handle Scary, this would make phenomenal family listening, because I guarantee the adults will be as mesmerized as the kids. I certainly was. And this was a book I successfully recommended to several adult coworkers. I am having fun listening to the audio version of the first two books in the series in preparation for Book Three coming out soon. I can hardly wait!

jonathanstroud.com
lockwoodandco.com
Listeninglibrary.com

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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.

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Review of The Eye of Zoltar, by Jasper Fforde

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 2

eye_of_zoltar_largeThe Eye of Zoltar

by Jasper Fforde

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers, 2014. 405 pages.

The Eye of Zoltar continues the adventures of Jennifer Strange, young manager of Kazam Mystical Arts Management.

The first chapter catches the reader up without really spoiling anything. Here’s her summary of the way things stand:

I now manage forty-five barely sane sorcerers at Kazam, only eight of whom have a legal permit to perform magic. If you think wizards are all wise purveyors of the mystical arts and have sparkling wizidrical energy streaming from their fingertips, think again. They are for the most part undisciplined, infantile, argumentative, and infuriating; their magic only works when they really concentrate, which isn’t that often, and misspellings are common. But when it works, a well-spelled feat of magic is the most wondrous thing to behold, like your favorite book, painting, music, and movie all at the same time, with chocolate and a meaningful hug from someone you love thrown in for good measure. So despite everything, it’s a good business in which to work. Besides, there’s rarely a dull moment.

So that’s me. I have an orphaned assistant named Tiger Prawns, I am now Dragon Ambassador to the World, and I have a pet Quarkbeast at least nine times as frightening as the most frightening thing you’ve ever seen.

My name is Jennifer Strange. Welcome to my world.

The story was good for an airplane read. As usual, it’s bizarre, strange, and quirky. Despite being the third book, loose ends are not tied up — the story will continue.

In this one, Jennifer Strange travels with Perkins to the perilous Cambrian Empire to hunt for the famed Eye of Zoltar — an artifact of great power, but one that can also turn the holder into lead. She must bring along the princess of Snodd — who was transferred into the body of a servant girl to teach her a lesson.

This book is good if you’re in the mood for silly and bizarre — or if you’re simply hooked on Jasper Fforde. There is some deadly peril going on, and more actual deaths than I was comfortable with (though the reader and the participants were warned about the 50% survival rate) but there’s always something to laugh about along the way.

jasperfforde.com

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at an ALA 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.

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Review of Nightbird, by Alice Hoffman

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

nightbird_largeNightbird

by Alice Hoffman

Wendy Lamb Books (Random House), 2015. 197 pages.
Starred Review

I’ve read at least three different books about a teen who sprouts wings, and how they deal with that. This book is different — It’s about the sister of a boy with wings. In fact, the wings are part of a family curse on all the men of the family.

Twig Fowler lives in the small town of Sidwell, Massachusetts, with her mother and a brother that no one knows about. The town has plenty of tradition – including Twig’s mother’s Pink Apple Pie. But one of the traditions — the Sidwell Monster — is not so benign.

James is tired of living in hiding. And Twig is tired of not having friends. When a family moves into the home of the witch who cursed the Fowler family, and they are descended from that witch — Twig and her new friend Julia decide it may be time to break the spell. But how? And James is getting more and more reckless — and falling in love with Julia’s sister Agate.

This is a feel-good story, and if things worked out awfully nicely, I don’t begrudge any of them a happy ending. We’ve got a kid just wanting friends, a small town infused with magic, and Alice Hoffman’s brilliant writing.

alicehoffman.com

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at an ALA 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.

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Review of The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

Fantasy, Fiction Review 0

goblin_emperor_largeThe Goblin Emperor

by Katherine Addison

Tor Fantasy, New York, 2014. 502 pages.

This is the sort of book that usually gets me telling people I don’t particularly like fantasy written for adults — so much detail in the world-building! So many strange names and strange cultural facts! So much strangeness in names and terminology!

However, unlike some others which I won’t name, Katherine Addison won me over completely with her story, despite the abundant detail. I found myself completely caring about the protagonist and even about his detailed choices — which at first I’d been impatient about.

Maia is the half-goblin fourth son of the elven emperor. His father is ashamed of him — he looks far too much like his goblin mother. He only met his father at his mother’s funeral, when Maia was 8 years old, and then was sent back into exile, accompanied only by a tutor who was also in exile and unhappy about that.

But then the emperor and his three oldest sons are all in an airship crash. Maia must come to the capital city immediately and take the throne.

This book is the story of an 18-year-old young man with no training for leadership being suddenly exalted to the position of emperor. He must learn how to rule and how to navigate the court and the halls of power. As well as wanting to stay alive.

Maia doesn’t even know how to dance or ride a horse. Can he get himself crowned, investigate his father’s death, choose an empress, rule the country — and stay alive while he’s doing it?

Despite my original prejudices, this ended up being an absorbing and engaging story.

katherineaddison.com
tor.com

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Source: This review is based on a book I got at ALA Annual Conference, signed by the author.

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.

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Review of Uprooted, by Naomi Novik

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 1

uprooted_largeUprooted

by Naomi Novik

Del Rey, New York, 2015. 438 pages.
Starred Review

Naomi Novik is the author of the brilliant books about Temeraire, a dragon who fought in the Napoleonic Wars in alternate-history England. This new book begins with a very different sort of dragon.

Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.

Agnieszka is born in the year of the girls who will be 17 the next time a girl is chosen to go serve the Dragon for ten years. But she’s not worried for herself. Everyone is sure that her best friend, beautiful Kasia, is going to be the one chosen.

But the Dragon looks at Agnieszka and makes a quick decision that no one expects. He suddenly takes her back to his tower without even a chance to say good-by. It turns out that Agnieszka has magic.

But not long after she’s been serving the Dragon, and having learned just a little bit — messengers come to the tower when the wizard is gone, saying that the Wood has taken Kasia.

The great Wood is sinister and evil. No one has ever escaped it. But Agnieszka will not and cannot stand by. And she sets in motion a series of confrontation with dark forces inhabiting the Wood and stretching all the way to the king’s court.

This is a wonderfully absorbing story and I read it all avidly with only a few breaks for air. I should mention that with Agnieszka being seventeen years old, the only reason I can see for this not to be a young adult novel is that there is one quite explicit sex scene as well as many gruesome deaths. (I mentioned that the Wood is evil?)

I enjoyed the way the magic is described and how Agnieszka’s magic is different from that of the Dragon, more in the tradition of Baba Jaga.

This is a wonderful story of a peasant girl discovering power and using it to defend the helpless and make things right.

naominovik.com
delreybooks.com

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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.

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Review of Jinx’s Fire, by Sage Blackwood

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

jinxs_fire_largeJinx’s Fire

by Sage Blackwood

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2015. 388 pages.
Starred Review

Jinx’s Fire completes the story about Jinx, growing up in the Urwald, told in Jinx and Jinx’s Magic. Yes, you’ll want to read the other books first.

This book does bring things to a nice conclusion and reads like a complete story. I like the character things that happen as Jinx figures out his own magic and his connection to the Urwald.

In this book, three different kings are invading the Urwald, intending to destroy it, maybe “generously” giving them a small “preserve.” At the same time, the Bonemaster is growing in strength, causing Jinx not to be able to access the forest’s lifeforce. And Simon is still missing, and Elfwyn dangerously near the Bonemaster. Jinx also needs to get the people and creatures and wizards and witches of the Urwald to help against the invaders.

Basically, there’s much for Jinx to accomplish in this volume of the trilogy, and the author pulls it off in a satisfying way. There are many different kinds of magic in these books, but her descriptions of the magic don’t come across as vague and unclear as so many fantasy novels do. In fact, being able to describe multiple kinds of magic is one way Sage Blackwood stands out.

And it’s impossible not to love Jinx. He’s no saint. He gets impatient and can be overbearing. He sometimes has trouble figuring things out. But his gift of seeing the color and shape of people’s thoughts and his ability to listen to the trees makes him a distinctive character I will never forget.

A satisfying conclusion to a wonderful trilogy.

sageblackwood.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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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.

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