Review of The Runaway King, by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Runaway King

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Scholastic Press, New York, 2013. 331 pages.
Starred Review

The Runaway King is the sequel to Cybils-winning The False Prince, and I like it even better than the first book. Yes, you should probably read them in order, mainly because this book gives away some things from the first book. In fact, you probably shouldn’t read my review until you’ve read the first book. You do not have to vividly remember what happened in the first book to read this one, because crucial information is filled in without being tedious.

Jaron’s life is threatened right at the start of the book. The pirates who were hired to kill him are upset that they failed. If they don’t get him, they’re going to attack all of Carthya. Other neighboring countries are threatening as well, but Jaron’s regents don’t want to let him prepare for war.

The title is something of a misnomer, because Jaron never runs. He decides to pretend to be pouting in safety, but instead he’s going to head to the pirates and deal with them. How will he deal with them? That’s what this book is about.

I do think I’m going to need to reread the book to decide if I think Jaron is more clever or more lucky. His plot was rather complex, and I got the impression things didn’t go as he planned them — but there was still at least one major surprise for me regarding his intentions, and I enjoyed that. (Is that obtuse enough to not give anything away?)

I love the way Jaron compulsively tells the truth. The reader can see him doing it as he goes and watch people “misunderstand” his words with his careful misdirection. And how much do we readers misunderstand? I’m going to have to reread it just to figure that out.

The story still isn’t finished; trouble looms at the end of the book. But this is one of the more satisfying second books I’ve read in awhile. The story in this book has a nice beginning, middle, and end, and isn’t simply an unfinished continuation.

This book, like its predecessor, begs comparison with Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series. This one actually doesn’t suffer by the comparison (which is high praise coming from me!). Jaron doesn’t seem as in control of his complicated plan as Gen would be, but he also is in a more precarious situation to start with. He’s a younger king than Gen, and he’s growing into his kingship. Watching him do so is a delight to read.

jennielsen.com
scholastic.com

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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 a library book from the 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 Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Dark Is Rising

by Susan Cooper

Simon Pulse, New York. First published in 1973. 244 pages.
1974 Newbery Honor Book
2012 Margaret A. Edwards Award
Starred Review

I decided to reread Susan Cooper’s books when I heard she’d won the 2012 Margaret A. Edwards Award. I missed her books when I was a kid; I’m not sure why. They would have fit nicely with the other fantasy books that were my favorites: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Edward Eager, Zilpha Keatley Snyder. But I have read them once, as an adult. Also in the meantime, The Dark Is Rising was named one of the Top 100 Children’s Novels in School Library Journal‘s poll.

I have to admit, The Dark Is Rising isn’t my favorite kind of fantasy, at least not as an adult. I like the main character to have some clear goals and some plans for attaining them. In The Dark Is Rising, Will Stanton does have to find the Six Signs, but to do that, he has to follow his gut. He has to trust to luck and his newly discovered magic and do his best.

However, The Dark Is Rising is a wonderfully atmospheric book. The Dark Rider isn’t as sinister as Tolkien’s dark riders, but he’s close. (And, come on, this is a children’s book!) In her Margaret Edwards speech, Susan Cooper described how she was living in America, far from her home. She answered that longing for her home by putting it in The Dark Is Rising. You can feel it. The places described feel real.

And Will moves by feel. You see that throughout the book. So though I personally don’t prefer a book where the character just senses what should come next, Susan Cooper was able to pull it off by giving us the feelings along with Will. In fact, as I thought about rereading this book, I admit I remembered most vividly how frightening the beginning of the book is, where the cold tries to get in, and the snow breaks Will’s attic room skylight. Here’s the scene after he cleans that up:

There was nothing to see, now, except a dark damp patch on the carpet where the heap of snow had been. But he felt colder than the cold air had made him, and the sick, empty feeling of fear still lay in his chest. If there had been nothing wrong beyond being frightened of the dark, he would not for the world have gone down to take refuge in Paul’s room. But as things were, he knew he could not stay alone in the room where he belonged. For when they were clearing up that heap of fallen snow, he had seen something that Paul had not. It was impossible, in a howling snowstorm, for anything living to have made that soft unmistakable thud against the glass that he had heard just before the skylight fell. But buried in the heap of snow, he had found the fresh black wing feather of a rook.

He heard the farmer’s voice again: This night will be bad. And tomorrow will be beyond imagining.

She’s definitely got the atmosphere going. She also works in so many things that seem mythic. Elements of wood, bronze, iron, water, fire, and stone. Herne the Hunter. Even the time of Midwinter through Twelfth Night. And she moves her characters back and forth through time smoothly, which is an accomplishment in itself.

In some ways, it’s appropriate for Will to follow his nose in this book. On his eleventh birthday, he discovers as the seventh son of the seventh son, he’s one of the Old Ones. He has a task, but has to learn quickly. Part of that learning is to learn to feel his own magic. I don’t remember the remaining books well enough to remember if this progresses to where he is more of the instigator. I am looking forward to noticing that this time around.

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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 personal copy.

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 Fangbone! Third-Grade Barbarian

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction 0

Fangbone!
Third-Grade Barbarian

by Michael Rex

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2012. 120 pages.

Fangbone! Third-Grade Barbarian is straight-up silly fun. I do not expect to see it sitting on the shelves for long, or, well, ever.

Fangbone the Barbarian has been sent by his clan to our world to protect the Big Toe of Drool.

Here Fangbone explains the back story to his new third grade class:

Five hundred winters ago, the greatest evil that ever lived ruled over Skullbania. Venomous Drool was his name. He built an army that swept through the lands and almost wiped out the clans.

Many battles were fought, and many great warriors died to keep his evil from spreading.

Finally, Drool was defeated, and cut into many small pieces. . .

The pieces were separated and taken to different lands so that Venomous Drool could never rule again.

But since my birth, a new army of Drool worshipers has been moving through Skullbania, collecting the pieces one by one, and rebuilding Drool.

The only piece that they do not have is his big toe! My clan was put in charge of protecting the big toe because it is the most evil, cursed, wretched part of his body.

I was given the toe and sent into your world. Venomous Drool and his army will never find me here. He will never get his big toe back.

For I am FANGBONE! Protector of the Big Toe of Drool!

Of course, the situation of Fangbone in a normal (well, klutzy) third grade class has all sorts of opportunities for hilarity. I love the way the teacher tells the kids, “Class? Class! Please relax. Fangbone comes from a faraway place. People are different all over the world. We must respect his culture.”

The story of the book? Fangbone helps his class defeat the bullies in the school’s beanball tournament. And his new class helps Fangbone defeat the monstrous creatures the Drool worshipers send against him.

Best of all? This is a graphic novel with pictures that match the silly fun of the words. There are already three volumes in the series and I already anticipate having kids come to the Information Desk again and again asking if we have the next volume (because someone snatches each volume up just as soon as it gets turned in). Everything about this book says kid appeal. Michael Rex is the author of such stellar parodies as Good Night, Goon and Furious George. He put all that clever and insightful humor into this graphic novel series. A win all the way around.

mikerexbooks.blogspot.com/

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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 a library book from the 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 One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, by Jasper Fforde

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Mystery, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

by Jasper Fforde

Viking, 2011. 362 pages.
Starred Review

I never thought I liked metafiction, where characters enter books. The concept always broke down at some point and just seemed silly. That was before I read Jasper Fforde. While his work is, indubitably, silly, the concepts are inscrutable and flawlessly carried out.

In this volume, we are following a written Thursday Next, a character in a book about Thursday. Thursday Next herself is missing. So is the written Thursday we are following possibly Thursday herself, hidden in the newly rebooted Book World? Whatever is the case, our Thursday has a mystery to solve, and we’re right there with her.

There is so much cleverness in this book! This series is for those who love words and literature and thinking about words and literature. I started marking passages I wanted to share with people, and now the whole book is full of post-it notes. I think I can recite these sections without giving away the plot. The plot is a good one, don’t get me wrong; but you will most enjoy these books if you love the playing the author does with the language and the concepts. For example, here’s a brief scene with some Lost Positives:

I moved quietly to the French windows and stepped out into the garden to release the Lost Positives that the Lady of Shalott had given me. She had a soft spot for the orphaned prefixless words and thought they had more chance to thrive in Fiction than in Poetry. I let the defatigable scamps out of their box. They were kempt and sheveled but their behavior was peccable if not mildly gruntled. They started acting petuously and ran around in circles in a very toward manner.

Our Thursday gets a chance to look for the real Thursday in the Real World, and Professor Plum explains the rigors of being briefly Real:

“It’s highly disorderly,” he explained, “not like here. There is no easily definable plot, and you can run yourself ragged wondering what the significance can be of a chance encounter. You’ll also find that for the most part there is no shorthand to the narrative, so everything happens in a long and painfully drawn-out sequence. Apparently the talk can be confusing — for the most part, people just say the first thing that comes into their heads.”

“Is it as bad as they say it is?”

“I’ve heard it’s worse. Here in the BookWorld, we say what needs to be said for the story to proceed. Out there? Well, you can discount at least eighty percent of chat as just meaningless drivel.”

“I never thought the percentage was that high.”

“In some individuals it can be as high as ninety-two percent. The people to listen to are the ones who don’t say very much.”

“Oh.”

“There are fun things, too,” said Plum, sensing my disappointment. “You’ll get used to it in the end, but if you go out there accepting that seventy-five percent of talk is utter twaddle and eighty-five percent of people’s lives are spent dithering around, you won’t go far wrong. But above all don’t be annoyed or distracted when random things happen for absolutely no purpose.”

“There’s always a purpose,” I said, amused by the notion of utter pointlessness, “even if you don’t understand what it is until much later.”

“That’s the big difference between here and there,” said Plum. “When things happen after a randomly pointless event, all that follows is simply unintended consequences, not a coherent narrative thrust that propels the story forward.”

Much later, I loved the character Thursday discovered involved in the mystery:

“And the name of the driver?”

“Gatsby.”

“The Great Gatsby drives taxis in his spare time?”

“No, his younger and less handsome and intelligent brother — the Mediocre Gatsby. He lives in Parody Valley over in Vanity. Here’s his address.”

When they go to see Mediocre, they meet his brother, Loser Gatsby, at a meeting:

“This is our Siblings of More Famous BookWorld Personalities self-help group,” explained Loser. “That’s Sharon Eyre, the younger and wholly disreputable sister of Jane; Roger Yossarian, the draft dodger and coward; Brian Heep, who despite admonishments from his family continues to wash daily; Rupert Bond, still a virgin and can’t keep a secret; Tracy Capulet, who has slept her way round Verona twice; and Nancy Potter, who is . . . well, let’s just say she’s a term that is subject to several international trademark agreements.”

Along the way, there are choice bits at the start of each chapter quoting from Bradshaw’s BookWorld Companion. Here are two I particularly enjoyed:

Although Outlander authors kill, maim, disfigure and eviscerate bookpeople on a regular basis, no author has ever been held to account, although lawyers are working on a test case to deal with serial offenders. The mechanism for transfictional jurisdiction has yet to be finalized, but when it is, some authors may have cause to regret their worst excesses.

Off the coast lies Vanity Island, and off Vanity likes Fan Fiction. Beyond Fan Fiction is School Essays and beyond that Excuses for Not Doing School Essays. The latter is often the most eloquent, constructed as it is in the white-hot heat of panic, necessity and the desire not to get a detention.

Though in most books written with so many jokes and so much cleverness, you wouldn’t expect to find a coherent plot, this book truly does have one, and contributed to making this a thoroughly satisfying read.

But, bottom line, reading the quotations above should give you the idea of what’s going on here. If you find those bits at all humorous, you need to read the Thursday Next books. I normally say to read them in order, but I’m starting to lose track of what has gone before, and I’m not completely sure it matters. In this book, I’m sure you could start fresh and still enjoy it.

jasperfforde.com
penguin.com

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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 a library book from the 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 Days of Blood and Starlight, by Laini Taylor

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Days of Blood and Starlight

By Laini Taylor

Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2012. 517 pages.
Starred Review

Days of Blood and Starlight is the sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone. If you haven’t read Daughter of Smoke and Bone yet (What are you waiting for?), stop reading this review right now, since I can’t talk about this book without giving away a little bit of what happened in the first book.

Of course, if you have read Daughter of Smoke and Bone, there’s nothing I need to say further. Either I could never stop you from reading on, or I could never persuade you. I’ll just say that if you liked the first book, you will like this one. I liked the second one even more than the first.

But you know I won’t stop there! I have to give some impressions about the book. I’ll do my best not to give anything away. If you want to be more specific, please feel free in the comments.

First, I was pretty annoyed with both the lovers at the end of the first book. Later, they liken it to the scenario that Romeo wakes up and thinks Juliet is dead – so he goes out and kills all her family and her people. Really? This guy who talked about Peace? I mean, there was the little matter of torture and being forced to watch her die, but, Really? And then, as if that weren’t enough, now she’s working with Thiago, the guy who killed her and tortured the one she loved? I know, I know, they showed that extreme things were going on, but I wasn’t happy with the situation in the first 20 percent of the book or so.

But let me say this: I love how Book Two ends! It still includes those awful words, “To be continued,” but this time a few highly satisfying things happen toward the end, and a huge development happens that I never saw coming and that is going to make a fabulously dramatic final book.

Now the whole destined-for-each-other thing gets a little old in the beginning of this book, what with all the betrayals and deaths and war. But by the end of the book, that’s not so much their focus as the whole bigger picture and they’re thinking again about things like Peace and Life and trying to end the war, and I like that change of focus.

Oh, and I love Zuzana and Mik in this book!

Okay, I’ll stop before I give anything away. Read this book! She pulls it off! And she sets up the final book to be the most dramatic of all.

daughterofsmokeandbone.com
lb-teens.com

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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 a library book from the 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 Hokey Pokey, by Jerry Spinelli

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

Hokey Pokey

by Jerry Spinelli

Alfred A. Knopf (Random House), 2013. 285 pages.

Hokey Pokey is not quite like any other children’s novel I’ve ever read, and therefore a little hard to explain. Of course, I don’t want to explain too much, because part of the fun is figuring out what’s going on.

It’s true: Kids live in their own little world, don’t they?

The book opens with the universe whispering to Jack: It’s time!

Here’s how he wakes up:

Something is wrong.
He knows it before he opens his eyes.
He looks.
His bike is gone!
Scramjet!
What more could he have done? He parked it so close that when he shut his eyes to sleep, he could smell the rubber of the tires, the grease on the chain.
And still she took it. His beloved Scramjet. He won’t say her name. He never says her name, only her kind, sneers it to the morning star: “Girl.”

Everything goes wrong from there on out. Jack’s revered in Hokey Pokey. He caught Scramjet himself from the herd of bikes running wild on the Great Plains. It is wrong that a girl should be riding the famed Scramjet and paint it yellow with pink sparkles. And then other things go wrong as well.

The strength of this book is the description of the world of childhood, complete with the logic of childhood. There are places to play like Thousand Puddles, and the Playground. There’s a pile of Dirty Socks that stinks badly enough to make anyone gag. There’s Cartoons where kids can watch all day long. There’s Snuggle Stop, where Little Kids can get hugs (and Big Kids sometimes go secretly).

I like the Four Nevers that get told to any Newbies:

Never pass a puddle without stomping in it. Never go to sleep until the last minute. Never go near Forbidden Hut. Never kiss a girl.

All in all, it feels like a pretty decent description of the world of childhood – except, the world of childhood from a boy’s perspective. Sure, there’s a Doll Farm and girls doing girly things, but there weren’t any little girls mooning over horse books or playing house with their dolls, so I didn’t see my own childhood in those pages. Though that may be appropriate, since the protagonist is a boy.

As an adult reading it, I could tell pretty quickly where it was going, and I felt like it took a long time to get there. With nice touches along the way, mind you. I wonder how it will come across to an actual kid. Will they relate to it, or is all the charm in nostalgia? Will they find it insightful? Will they wish they really did have a world like that? Or will it seem like an adult’s idea of a kid’s world?

There were a lot of creative and imaginative details. I would have appreciated the herds of wild bikes more if I hadn’t recently read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente, which had the same thing. But there were other great details like the Hokey Pokey Man who gives frozen treats of every possible flavor, or the monsters that appear over kids when they sleep, or the half a walnut shell in the right front pocket of every pair of pants. When a kid holds it to his ear at bedtime, he hears The Story.

This book is fun and imaginative and nostalgic. I hope I’ll hear from some kids who’ve read it, because I’m curious what they will think of it.

randomhousekids.com

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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 a library book from the 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 Flame of Sevenwaters, by Juliet Marillier

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Historical, Romance, Starred Review 0

Flame of Sevenwaters

by Juliet Marillier

A Roc Book (Penguin), 2012. 434 pages.
Starred Review

I completely blame Juliet Marillier. Sunday afternoon, I should have gotten a whole lot of organizing and packing done for my impending move. Instead, I read Flame of Sevenwaters. I should have known better than to even start it, since pretty much all of her books has absorbed me to the extent that I forget about trivial things like eating.

This is the sixth book in her stories from Sevenwaters, completing a second trilogy. Each book completes a story, but there is an overarching storyline throughout each trilogy, so the books are best read in order. The second trilogy features three sisters from the household of Sevenwaters.

Flame of Sevenwaters takes place from the viewpoint of Maeve, who was sent away from Sevenwaters as a child to be tended by Aunt Liadan after she was severely burned in a horrible accident in which she tried to save her dog from a fire. Maeve is reconciled to the fact that there’s not much she can do, with her fingers that don’t bend. The people at Harrowfield are used to her shocking scars, but she’s been putting off going back home to Sevenwaters because she can only be an embarrassment at the high table, unable even to feed herself.

However, ten years after the accident, Uncle Bran is sending a fine young horse to her father, in hopes he can use it to placate a local nobleman after his sons and their companions disappeared on Sevenwaters land. Maeve does have a way with animals, and her presence will help calm the horse. The people of Sevenwaters are sure the disappearance is the work of Mac Dara, the powerful fey prince who’s the father of Cathal, a man who married one of the daughter’s of the house. Cathal’s been staying out of Mac Dara’s reach, but now it seems a showdown is at hand — and Maeve, despite herself, is going to be part of that showdown.

At Sevenwaters, Maeve finds two dogs alone in the forest. She slowly wins them over, and wonders where they came from.

This was the first time I had taken the dogs to the keep with me, but we had been practicing against this possibility. They had walked halfway there and back again with me and Rhian several times now. They had learned to stay quiet and calm while Emrys or Donal worked with Swift in the field or on the tracks around the clearing. They had learned not to bark at the cows or the druids. As for sleeping arrangements, I had not been displaced from my bed as Rhian had anticipated. Bear would have slept inside readily, but Badger did not like to be in the cottage when the door was closed. When night fell and Rhian began to secure our abode with shutters and bolts, he always went out to lie on the old sacks beyond the door. Bear would generally cast a sad-eyed look in my direction as he followed, but he would not leave Badger on his own. I had never before seen a dog with eyes of such a remarkable color as Bear’s, a mellow, lustrous gold-brown. Against his black coat, now glossy with good care, they were striking indeed.

I thought I’d figured out some patterns to Sevenwaters books, but this one breaks them. And it’s a wonderful culmination to the story so far. I sincerely hope this isn’t the end.

julietmarillier.com
penguin.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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 Goblin Secrets, by William Alexander

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

Goblin Secrets

by William Alexander

Margaret K. McElderry Books, New York, 2012. 223 pages.
2012 National Book Award Winner

Here’s a creepily atmospheric tale of an orphan living on the streets, under the control of a powerful witch. Graba keeps many “grandchildren” running her errands, bringing things to her. On the first morning of this book, she has Rownie wind up her leg.

“My leg bones have run down,” she told him. “Wind them for me now.” She extended a gearwork leg from under her stool. It was bird-shaped, with three long talon-toes in front and one in back, at the heel. The whole limb had been made out of copper and wood.

Rownie pried the crank out from her shin and wound it up, watching gears turn against chains and springs inside.

Graba always said that Mr. Scrud, the local gearworker, hadn’t enough skill to make legs into human shapes. Vass whispered that Graba needed the chicken legs to hold up her hugeness, that nothing smaller would suffice, and that Graba wouldn’t be able to walk today if she hadn’t lost the ordinary legs she’d been born with.

There’s clockwork all over the place, though it’s not exactly a steampunk story. The Captain of the Guard has clockwork eyes. A clockwork mule pulls a cart, and there’s a huge clock over the city of Zombay.

Rownie is still missing and looking for his older brother, Rowan, who disappeared after his illegal troupe of actors was stopped by the Guard. Players are illegal in Zombay — except for among Goblins, the Tamlin, the changed.

Rownie sees a group of Goblins performing, and is pulled into the act. They offer him a much more welcoming place than what he has with Graba. But Graba’s still looking for him, and he’s not sure why, but it seems the fate of the whole city may be at stake.

It may be a fault in me, or I may not have read carefully enough, but I was never very clear on how the magic in this world worked, or how someone could be part clockwork, or how hearts could be made into coal, or how a person was “Changed” into one of the Tamlin. I guess I like magic rules a little more spelled-out than they were in this book.

The book does “atmospheric” extremely well, though. And I loved the magical masks the players use, and how a mask helps Rownie feel brave.

Ultimately, it’s an adventure story about a kid who needs some kindness, and I was happy to see him find some kindness, and also get to play a part in important events.

willalex.net
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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 Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper

Children's Fiction Review, Classics, Fantasy, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

Over Sea, Under Stone

by Susan Cooper

Scholastic, New York. First published in 1965. 243 pages.
Starred Review

I decided to reread Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising cycle after I heard she won the Margaret A. Edwards Award for these books. I almost got this first one read before I went to the Margaret Edwards Luncheon and got to hear her speak. But I still intend to carry out my plan!

I missed these books as a kid, which is a real shame. I’d only read them once before. The first one hasn’t gotten as many awards and recognition as the others, but it has a special place in my heart. Over Sea, Under Stone is more like fantasy novels that have gone before, like the works of E. Nesbit and Edward Eager and C. S. Lewis. You’ve got a group of siblings stumbling into magic on their summer vacation. I think that’s what I like about the book, why it has a special warm fond place in my heart.

Barney and Jane and Simon are spending the summer in their Great-Uncle Merry’s house in the village of Tressiwick, on the coast.

Great-Uncle Merry is the character who ended up inspiring the rest of the series. Here’s how the children think of him, right at the start of the book:

How old he was, nobody knew. “Old as the hills,” Father said, and they felt, deep down, that this was probably right. There was something about Great-Uncle Merry that was like the hills, or the sea, or the sky; something ancient, but without age or end.

Always, wherever he was, unusual things seemed to happen. He would often disappear for a long time, and then suddenly come through the Drews’ front door as if he had never been away, announcing that he had found a lost valley in South America, a Roman fortress in France, or a burned Viking ship buried on the English coast. The newspapers would publish enthusiastic stories of what he had done. But by the time the reporters came knocking at the door, Great-Uncle Merry would be gone, back to the dusty peace of the university where he taught. They would wake up one morning, go to call him for breakfast, and find that he was not there. And then they would hear no more of him until the next time, perhaps months later, that he appeared at the door. It hardly seemed possible that this summer, in the house he had rented for them in Trewissick, they would be with him in one place for four whole weeks.

In that house, the children find a secret room and a treasure map. The treasure map leads to ingenious clues to find the Grail. But the children and Uncle Merry aren’t the only ones hot on the trail.

This book encapsulates my idea of a good, solid fantasy tale for kids. The rest of the books are more creative and more innovative and, yes, scarier. But this one has a soft spot in my heart for being a traditionally good story of ordinary children working together and finding magic.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/over_sea_under_stone.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 personal copy.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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 Princess for Hire, by Lindsey Leavitt

Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Princess for Hire

by Lindsey Leavitt

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2010. 239 pages.
Starred Review

I got a copy of Princess for Hire at ALA Annual Conference 2010 and had it signed by the author — and then I didn’t get it read because it didn’t have a due date. Honestly, for some reason I thought it was a story about a contemporary teen who happens to be a princess look-alike, or something like that. Now, I thought I’d get to meet Lindsey Leavitt at ALA Annual this year, so I started reading Princess for Hire. The stars on the cover should have tipped me off: That wasn’t the plot at all. No, it involves magic! I read this book on the flight to Long Beach and was completely enchanted.

13-year-old Desi Bascomb lives in Sproutville, home of the Idaho Days Potato Festival. She has a summer job that involves wearing a groundhog costume in front of the Pets Charming pets store in the mall. She is humiliated in front of her crush by the girl who was once her best friend.

But then life opens up for Desi. She learns she has “magic potential.” She gets to work, on a trial basis, for an agency that provides substitutes for princesses who need a break from being royal. The agency uses magic to make the substitute look exactly like the original, as well as get the subs back only an instant after they left.

Desi gets a great variety of jobs in this book. Her first trial job is a B-movie actress princess in an insect costume who doesn’t like meeting her fans. Then she goes to replace an overweight daughter of a sheikh. She causes some trouble at a dinner — completely out of character for a princess. But the agency gives her another chance with an Amazon princess due in a coming-of-age ceremony and finally a more traditional princess who lives with her Nana in the Alps — and Desi gets to meet the heartthrob prince of the tabloids and make a difference in the princess’s life.

But Desi’s not supposed to make a difference in anyone’s life. And the Princess Progress Reports aren’t working. Will she lose her job, her chance to live her dreams, away from Sproutville?

This book has plenty of variety, lots of humor, some good insights about life, and makes for very fun reading. This was perfect reading for a flight, and kept me wide awake and smiling. I wish I had read it sooner, but am happy that now I won’t have to wait to read more about Desi.

lindseyleavitt.com
hyperionteens.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/princess_for_hire.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 I got at an ALA conference, and had signed by the author.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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!