Review of Rose, by Holly Webb

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

Rose

by Holly Webb

Sourcebooks, 2013. 234 pages. Originally published in Great Britain.
Starred Review
2013 Cybils Finalist

Rose lives in an orphanage. She wants nothing more than to get out of the orphanage and go into service some day. She wants to do a good job as a maid, and have nobody notice her.

So when she’s selected to be underhousemaid at a grand house, the home of an important alchemist, she thinks her dreams have come true. But why does it feel like the walls and stairs are moving, like she can talk to the plants, and how can she hear the cat talk to her?

Strange things happen around Rose, and she’s terribly afraid she’s not the ordinary person she wants to be. But then some children in the neighborhood mysteriously disappear, including Rose’s best friend from the orphanage. She’s determined to find her friend, even if it means using magic to do so.

This is a warm and sparkling story, with a lot of heart. You can’t help but like Rose, with her humble aspirations, excitement at living in a grand house, and loving desire to help her friend.

My one quibble is that the rules of magic in that world aren’t clear. (Though they aren’t for Rose either.) At her level, it seems like she can do anything she wishes for hard enough. I hope as the series goes on, those things will become more clear. But even with that quibble, I enjoyed every bit of this book.

We’ve got the below-stairs look at a grand English house — with magic thrown in. The result is a lot of fun.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/rose.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 copy I received as a judge 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 Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Rithmatist

by Brandon Sanderson
illustrations by Ben McSweeney

Tom Doherty Associates Books (Tor), New York, 2013.
Starred Review
2013 Cybils Finalist

The Rithmatist is a fantasy story set in an intricately detailed alternate reality. The world isn’t slightly different from ours; it’s drastically different. In the front, there’s a map of “The United Isles,” a collection of large islands with shapes and names similar to our states. It’s like America would perhaps look if sea level were a lot higher or the land was a lot lower.

We follow the fortunes of Joel, essentially a charity student at Armedius Academy. He’s obsessed with Rithmatics, and in his job as messenger, manages to sneak into some Rithmatic classes. He talks about historical Rithmatic battles and can draw a nine-point circle better than the Rithmatic students.

Joel wants to study his summer elective with Professor Fitch, a Rithmatics professor. But Fitch gets challenged to a duel and then demoted to tutor. Which does give Joel an opportunity to study with him – along with Melody, a remedial Rithmatics student, who can draw chalklings incredibly well, but can’t manage a circle to save her life.

We gradually learn about that world, where magic is done by Rithmatists with chalk drawings and diagrams that they can animate. They spend their final year of study on the Isle of Nebrask, fighting the wild chalklings, which can eat people.

Rithmatists are chosen by the Master, but because of his father’s death, Joel missed his chance to be chosen.

And Rithmatic students begin disappearing, with traces of blood and strange new patterns drawn in chalk near the scenes of the attacks. Professor Fitch is in charge of the investigation, and Joel eagerly tries to help him put the pieces together.

As I read this, I was trying to decide if it was a clever use of math – with the geometry of the Rithmatic lines – or if it was just silly. I decided, in the end, that it was clever, and only a tiny bit far-fetched. I was never pulled dramatically out of the world by a logical inconsistency.

Now, I always dislike bullies in children’s books, or characters that our hero just knows are up to no good (like the whole house of Slytherin). This book has some of that, which may have helped the characters feel a little cardboard to me. But the book included a nice solution to the mystery, a nice moment of triumph for our heroes, an introduction to a fascinatingly complex world, and plenty of threads to lead us into sequels. I will definitely want to find out what happens next.

brandonsanderson.com
inkthinker.net
tor-forge.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/rithmatist.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, which 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.

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

Review of Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo

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

Flora and Ulysses

The Illuminated Adventures

by Kate DiCamillo
illustrated by K. G. Campbell

Candlewick Press, 2013. 231 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Newbery Medal Winner

Flora is a girl who loves comic books. Her mother, a romance writer, wants Flora to “work to turn her face away from the idiotic high jinks of comics and toward the bright light of true literature.”

But because of Flora’s knowledge of comic books, she knows exactly what to do when she meets a superhero squirrel.

You see, their neighbor, Mrs. Tickham, was given a new Ulysses Super-Suction, Multi-Terrain 2000X vacuum cleaner for her birthday. When she tries it out, it accidentally sucks up everything in sight, including her book of poetry, and a squirrel.

Flora sees it happen from her bedroom window. She rushes down and shakes the squirrel out of the vacuum.

He didn’t look that great. He was missing a lot of fur. Vacuumed off, Flora assumed. His eyelids fluttered. His chest rose and fell and rose again. And then it stopped moving altogether.

Flora knelt. She put a finger on the squirrel’s chest.

At the back of each issue of The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto! there was a series of bonus comics. One of Flora’s very favorite bonus comics was entitled TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! As a cynic, Flora found it wise to be prepared. Who knew what horrible, unpredictable thing would happen next?

Thanks to her reading, Flora is able to give the squirrel CPR and revive him. She names him Ulysses, after the vacuum cleaner.

His encounter with the vacuum cleaner has given him amazing superpowers. He is super strong. He can type. He can write poetry. And he can fly.

But all good superheroes have an arch-nemesis. In Ulysses case, that arch-nemesis is none other than Flora’s mother, who believes squirrels are filthy beasts and wants Flora to have nothing to do with him.

Can Flora and Ulysses overcome evil and save the day?

Various parts of this book, particularly the parts with Ulysses’ superpowers, are shown in comic panel form, which is appropriate to the story. All the characters they encounter are bizarre in at least one way or another, which is also appropriate to a story of a superhero squirrel. It all adds up to a fun and quirky story with a lot of heart.

candlewick.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/flora_and_ulysses.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 Far Far Away, by Tom McNeal

Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Far Far Away

by Tom McNeal

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013. 369 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Capitol Choices Selection

Here is how Far Far Away begins:

What follows is the strange and fateful tale of a boy, a girl, and a ghost. The boy possessed uncommon qualities, the girl was winsome and daring, and the ancient ghost . . . well, let it only be said that his intentions were good.

If more heavily seasoned with romance, this might have made a tender tale, but there was yet another player in the cast, the Finder of Occasions, someone who moved freely about the village, someone who watched and waited, someone with tendencies so tortured and malignant that I could scarcely bring myself to reveal them to you.

I will, though. It is a promise. I will.

This strange and fateful tale is narrated by the ghost himself — who is, in fact, the ghost of Jakob Grimm, and someone who knows something about tales.

Jakob was alarmed, after death, not to find his brother Wilhelm anywhere about. He did, however, find a boy in a small town who was able to hear ghosts, Jeremy Johnson Johnson. But this boy was in danger. Jakob knew that somewhere in the same town was the Finder of Occasions, who would want to harm such an uncommon boy.

This story tells about that harm, and how Jakob attempted to help. Along the way is a remarkable tale, fully worthy of the Brothers Grimm. Jeremy and his friend do go far far away, but can they end up with a happily ever after?

I always said that I’m not particularly a fan of ghost stories. Yet 2013 may have changed my mind about that. It seems to have been a year for excellent ghost stories, each one having a flavor and plot all its own. In this story, there’s nothing sinister about the ghost. But there are definitely sinister forces endangering Jeremy, which the ghost tries to protect him from. Beautifully told.

mcnealbooks.com
randomhouse.com/teens

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/far_far_away.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, which I got at ALA Annual Conference, and had 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.

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

Review of Conjured, by Sarah Beth Durst

Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Conjured

by Sarah Beth Durst

Walker Books (Bloomsbury), 2013. 358 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #9 Young Adult Fiction
2013 Cybils Finalist

I wasn’t sure about this book at first. It seemed awfully dark, and I wasn’t sure what was going on. But oh my yes, Sarah Beth Durst pulled it all together into a fantastic and powerful story.

Eve doesn’t remember anything. As the book opens, she’s being taken by two people from the Agency to live in a home. It’s a Witness Protection Program, but she doesn’t remember what she witnessed, why she is being protected by the Agency, even what sort of Agency it is. She’s sure her face didn’t use to look like it does now. And she remembers surgeries, but not what was done. And she has strange powers. But whenever she uses them, she blacks out and has a vision, a sinister vision of a Magician.

Here is a scene from the first chapter:

She wondered how she even knew this was a bedroom when she didn’t remember ever having one. She’d known what a car was too, though the seat belt had felt unfamiliar. She could recognize a few kinds of birds. For example, she knew that these painted ones on the walls were sparrows and the live one outside had been a wren. She didn’t know how she knew that. Perhaps Malcolm had told her in one of her lessons.

Or maybe it was a memory, forcing its way to the surface of her mind. But the sparrows she remembered flew. She pictured their bodies, black against a blindingly blue sky. She didn’t know where that sky was or when she had seen it. The birds had flown free.

Eve raised her hand toward the birds on the wall. “Fly,” she whispered.

The birds detached from the wall.

The air filled with rustling and crinkling as the paper birds fluttered their delicate wings. At first they trembled, but then they gained strength. Circling the room, they rose higher toward the ceiling. They spiraled up and around Eve’s head. She reached her arms up, and the birds brushed past her fingers. She felt their paper feathers, and she smiled.

Then she heard a rushing like a flood of water, and a familiar blackness filled her eyes.

Eve gets a job, since her handlers want her to live a normal life, meet other teens. Her job is a library page. (I love that detail.) A teenage boy also works at the library, and he seems quite taken with Eve. But is it safe to make friends?

This book is a little confusing at the start, mirroring Eve’s confusion. But trust me, it all comes together by the end and is completely worth a little confusion! A wonderful and imaginative story.

sarahbethdurst.com
bloomsbury.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/conjured.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 Frogged, by Vivian Vande Velde

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

Frogged

by Vivian Vande Velde

Harcourt Children’s Books, Boston, 2013. 198 pages.

This is one of Vivian Vande Velde’s more light-hearted works, for younger readers. When Princess Imogene meets a talking frog, he claims to be a prince who will gain his true form if she kisses him. Imogene wants to do what a good princess should do, so she kisses the frog. The frog does turn back into a boy (though not a prince), but the spell transfers to Imogene, and she becomes a frog. What’s more, she’s stuck as a frog until she can find someone to kiss her and take the spell. But what kind of princess would do such a thing to someone else?

Imogene figures she can find someone who will take her back to her parents, and they can figure out a solution. But instead, she falls into the hands of some traveling performers who plan to make money with a talking frog. In the misadventures that follow, Imogene wonders if she will ever get home again, and if she will ever be a princess again.

This book is simply fun, with a heroine who started out feeling burdened by expectations to be a good princess, but who ends up just being thankful to be herself.

vivianvandevelde.com
hmhbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/frogged.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 The Bitter Kingdom, by Rae Carson

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Bitter Kingdom

by Rae Carson

Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins), 2013. 433 pages.

The Bitter Kingdom is the conclusion to the fantasy trilogy begun with The Girl of Fire and Thorns. In it, Queen Elisa, bearer of the Godstone, really comes into her power.

Now, my biggest peeve against this series is that the first-person present-tense narration makes it feel rather breathless and overwrought. But despite my prejudice, I read and enjoyed the series. The main character, Elisa, learns and grows realistically throughout the series.

You won’t want to read the final volume unless you’ve read and enjoyed the first two. The conclusion is the best of the bunch. It packs a lot of adventure into one volume, beginning when Elisa must rescue the man she loves, continuing with the need to confront the Invierno kingdom, stop an attack on her own country, and stop a civil war.

Meanwhile, Elisa is learning how to harness the power of a living Godstone, and manage friendships and alliances – and make new ones. Without spoiling anything, I’ll say it was about time for Elisa to be happy in romance.

This is an ambitious and imaginative trilogy. I can happily say that the conclusion, The Bitter Kingdom, is satisfying and action-packed.

fireandthorns.com
raecarson.com
epicreads.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/bitter_kingdom.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 Grandma and the Great Gourd, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Susy Pilgrim Waters

Animal Characters, Fantasy, Folk Tales, Picture Book Review, Readalouds 0

Grandma and the Great Gourd

A Bengali Folktale

retold by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
illustrated by Susy Pilgrim Waters

A Neal Porter Book, Roaring Brook Press, New York, 2013. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a wonderful folktale, marvelously told. The pictures are exquisite, giving the flavor of India. The story is sprinkled with sound effects that aren’t ones native English speakers would naturally use. There’s the repetition of a folktale, and a lovely predictability — with a twist.

This is a book for school age kids, with the text on the long side for preschoolers. With that in mind, the telling is sure to engage their interest.

Here’s how it begins:

Once upon a time, in a little village in India, there lived an old woman whom everyone called Grandma. She loved gardening and had the best vegetable patch in the village.

Grandma lived by herself in a little hut at the edge of the village, next to a deep, dark jungle. At times she could hear herds of elephants lumbering on forest paths, thup-thup-thup, or giant lizards slithering over dry leaves, khash-khash.

She didn’t mind because she had two loyal dogs, Kalu and Bhulu, to protect her. They also helped her with garden chores.

When Grandma crosses the deep, dark forest to visit her daughter, she encounters three fierce animals who want to eat her up. But this is how that goes:

Grandma’s heart went dhip-dhip, but she didn’t let the fox see how scared she was.

“If you’re planning to have me for breakfast,” she said, “that’s a terrible idea. See how skinny I am? I’ll be a lot plumper on my way back from my daughter’s house because she’s such a good cook. You can eat me then, if you like.”

“That sounds good!” said the fox, and he let her go.

Of course, to get home after visiting her daughter, and indeed growing plump, Grandma must outwit the tiger, the bear, and the fox. Her plan works on the tiger and the bear, but the fox is more clever and confronts her. However, there’s a lovely satisfying ending, for which the groundwork was laid at the very start.

This has all that’s good about a folktale, including being one you’ll want to tell again and again.

mackids.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

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

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

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

Review of Not Your Typical Dragon, by Dan Bar-el and Tim Bowers

Delightfully Silly, Fantasy, Picture Book Review 0

Not Your Typical Dragon

by Dan Bar-el
illustrated by Tim Bowers

Viking, 2013. 40 pages.

Big thanks to my co-worker, Kim, for booktalking this book at the elementary schools this year. Watching the Kindergarten and 1st grade classes roar with laughter just at the description, I had to take a closer look.

Crispin Blaze was born into a proud family of fire-breathing dragons.
“Every Blaze breathes fire,” explained his father. “I breathe fire. Your mother breathes fire. Tomorrow, when you turn seven, you’ll breathe fire, too.”

But when Crispin tries to light the birthday candles on his cake, he feels a tingling in his tummy, but fire does not come out. Instead, he breathes out whipped cream!

Crispin’s parents take him to the doctor, and there he breathes out band-aids. The doctor gives him medicine, but Crispin continues to breathe out silly (but oddly appropriate) things. As they seem more and more outrageous, each one is good for a laugh.

Crispin meets a knight who has been told he needs to fight a fire-breathing dragon. They work on the situation together. Things get a little hot, but there’s a lovely solution at the end, and Crispin and his family get to embrace the fact that he’s not your typical dragon.

The message of not necessarily meeting family expectations, but embracing who you are, is an old one. This book puts that message in a funny and fresh package.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

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

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

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

Review of Shadows, by Robin McKinley

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 2

Shadows

by Robin McKinley

Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin), 2013. 356 pages.
Starred Review

The story starts like something out of a fairy tale: I hated my stepfather….

Okay, okay, I do know why I couldn’t deal with Val. It was the shadows. But in Newworld, where we’re all about science and you stop reading fairy tales about the time you learn to read (which always seemed really unfair), being afraid of shadows was silly and pathetic. Even if there were a lot of them and they didn’t seem to be the shadow of anything. (And if they were, whatever it was had way too many legs.) So I hated him for making me silly and pathetic. That’s scientifically logical, isn’t it?

Even the first time Maggie saw her stepfather, he was surrounded by shadows. But for some reason, her dog Mongo, who should know better, likes the shadows.

Val is from Oldworld, where they still have magic. But he never would have been allowed into Newworld if he had any magic. And Maggie can’t have any magic herself. Generations ago, the magic genes were neutralized from her family. And she has been scanned to make sure that was effective.

The problems in Oldworld are something called cobeys.

They are something like bulges, like bulges into our world from another, like hands beating against a curtain, and we do not worry unless they appear as a series… too many strong hands against an old curtain which may tear if the hands beat too hard.

But when Maggie suddenly discovers power to deal with a cobey that opens up around her, her new problems are with the authorities. For it seems there’s a lot more magic in Newworld — at least in the people Maggie cares about — than she ever knew.

I love all of Robin McKinley’s books. This one is very different from a typical fantasy tale. Who ever heard of a danger of too many shadows? And problems with boundaries between worlds?

There are places where the magic-working — including using origami and animals and shadows — seems a little vague and hard to figure out exactly what is happening. However, somehow I can handle that in Robin McKinley’s books where it might bother me in someone else’s. Perhaps because she always draws me completely in to her characters?

This book has magic and romance and danger. And an intriguing world, perhaps not as devoid of magic as the government thinks it is.

robinmckinley.com
robinmckinleysblog.com
penguin.com/youngreaders

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/shadows.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 preorder on 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!