Sonderbooks – Page 254 – Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

Jan 6, 2015

Review of Once Upon an Alphabet, by Oliver Jeffers

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Once Upon an Alphabet

Short Stories for All the Letters

by Oliver Jeffers

Philomel Books, 2014.
Starred Review

Oliver Jeffers’ books are quirky, offbeat, and, to certain people like me, utterly hilarious.

This is not a traditional alphabet book. As it says on the first page:

If words make up stories, and letters make up words, then stories are made of letters.

In this menagerie we have stories, made of words, made for all the letters.

The stories are all very short – with a title page, a two-page spread, and then a last page, all decorated with Oliver Jeffers’ loopy drawings, done large.

The stories possess that bizarre logic that makes me laugh. Many are tragic. Many seem pointless. And many show characters from a previous story. Taken together, they’ve got Oliver Jeffers’ unique charm.

I’ll include a couple of stories to give you the idea:

H

Half a House

Helen lived in half a house.
The other half had fallen into
the sea during a hurricane
a year and a half ago.

Being lazy, and not owning
a hammer, she hadn’t quite
got around to fixing it yet.
Which was fine . . .

. . . until the horrible day she
rolled out the wrong side of bed.

On this page we see Helen, open-mouthed, falling into the sea.

Another favorite, for which I’m afraid I can’t even begin to describe the drawings:

M

Made of Matter

Mary is made of matter.
So is her mother.
And her mother’s moose.

In fact, matter makes up everything
from magnets and maps to
mountains and mattresses.

Mary discovered all of this
the marvelous day she got sucked
through a microscope and
became the size of a molecule.

It’s a minor miracle that
they all made it back out
of the microscope at their
normal size again.

A few are done in rhyme:

R

Robots Don’t Like Rain Clouds

Robots don’t like rain clouds
So they steal them from the sky.

From everywhere and anywhere
That’s why it’s been so dry.

I’m sure you have been wondering,
What’s with all this dust?

Well, robots don’t like getting wet.
They don’t do well with rust.

I’ve already decided I want to booktalk this book next summer to the younger elementary school grades. I feel confident that just reading a few of the stories, and showing the large, dramatic pictures, will attract many readers, who will enjoy being in on the joke.

oliverjeffers.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Jan 5, 2015

Review of Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold, by Joyce Sidman & Rick Allen

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Science, Starred Review 0

Winter Bees
& Other Poems of the Cold

by Joyce Sidman & Rick Allen

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2014. 32 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Children’s Nonfiction

Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold is a magnificent collection of poetry, science, and art – all about creatures of winter.

The poems are lovely and evocative, the artwork is stunning, and the facts presented after each poem are surprising and interesting.

Usually, the poem gives the voice of the animal being featured, then a paragraph on the facing page gives more details. The creatures highlighted include tundra swans, garter snakes, moose, honeybees (in winter), beavers, wolves, ravens, voles, chickadees, snow fleas, and skunk cabbages.

As one example, here’s “Snake’s Lullaby,” featuring an illustration of a tangle of garter snakes, which we are told brumate together in a tangled mass underground.

Brother, sister, flick your tongue
and taste the flakes of autumn sun.

Use these last few hours of gold
to travel, travel toward the cold.

Before your coils grow stiff and dull,
your heartbeat slows to winter’s lull,

seek the sink of sheltered stones
that safely cradle sleeping bones.

Brother, sister, find the ways
back to the deep and tranquil bays,

and ‘round each other twist and fold
to weave a heavy cloak of cold.

This is a beautiful book which will draw the reader back again and again.

Do you have a child who likes facts about animals? This book is full of choice bits. You’ll learn about subnivean creatures. You’ll learn about springtails – tiny arthropods whose tails flip them up into the air. You’ll learn how honeybees keep the hive warm during the winter, and so many other interesting facts. And while your child is learning, the chances are good that they will be pulled into enjoyment of the accompanying poetry and artwork.

joycesidman.com
kenspeckleletterpress.com
hmhco.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/winter_bees.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.

Jan 5, 2015

Review of Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Brown Girl Dreaming

by Jacqueline Woodson

Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin), 2014. 337 pages.
Starred Review
2014 National Book Award winner for Young People’s Literature
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2, Children’s Nonfiction
2014 Cybils Finalist, Poetry

Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir in verse. It’s lovely, and I hope children will find it in the nonfiction shelves of our library.

Jacqueline Woodson writes evocatively of her childhood, in Ohio, then South Carolina, then New York City. She wanted to be a writer even when she was a child, and catches that dream. She writes about being a Jehovah’s Witness, and about her family, about her best friend (who is still her best friend), and about how South Carolina and New York City were so different from each other.

I like the way each poem tells about a particular incident, but taken together they give a picture of her life. They are also told in different styles, focusing on different things – family, places, growing, writing.

There’s a series of haiku sprinkled throughout, all titled “how to listen.” Here is “how to listen #9”:

Under the back porch
there’s an alone place I go
writing all I’ve heard.

I’ll include some poems I enjoyed.

a girl named jack

Good enough name for me, my father said
the day I was born.
Don’t see why
she can’t have it, too.

But the women said no.
My mother first.
Then each aunt, pulling my pink blanket back
patting the crop of thick curls
tugging at my new toes
touching my cheeks.

We won’t have a girl named Jack, my mother said.

And my father’s sisters whispered,
A boy named Jack was bad enough.
But only so my mother could hear.
Name a girl Jack, my father said,
and she can’t help but grow up strong.
Raise her right, my father said,
and she’ll make that name her own.
Name a girl Jack
and people will look at her twice, my father said.

For no good reason but to ask if her parents
were crazy, my mother said.

And back and forth it went until I was Jackie
and my father left the hospital mad.

My mother said to my aunts,
Hand me that pen, wrote
Jacqueline where it asked for a name.
Jacqueline, just in case someone thought to drop the ie.

Jacqueline, just in case
I grew up and wanted something a little bit longer
and further away from
Jack.

Here’s a story about her sister:

the reader

When we can’t find my sister, we know
she is under the kitchen table, a book in her hand,
a glass of milk and a small bowl of peanuts beside her.

We know we can call Odella’s name out loud,
slap the table hard with our hands,
dance around it singing
“She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain”
so many times the song makes us sick
and the circling makes us dizzy
and still
my sister will do nothing more
than slowly turn the page.

Later, there’s more about her sister:

gifted

Everyone knows my sister
is brilliant. The letters come home folded neatly
inside official-looking envelopes that my sister proudly
hands over to my mother.
Odella has achieved
Odella has excelled at
Odella has been recommended to
Odella’s outstanding performance in

She is gifted
we are told.
And I imagine presents surrounding her.

I am not gifted. When I read, the words twist
twirl across the page.
When they settle, it is too late.
The class has already moved on.

I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them
then blow gently,
watch them float
right out of my hands.

This one’s a nice family poem:

harvest time

When Daddy’s garden is ready
it is filled with words that make me laugh when I say them –
pole beans and tomatoes, okra and corn
sweet peas and sugar snaps,
lettuce and squash.

Who could have imagined

so much color that the ground disappears
and we are left
walking through an autumn’s worth
of crazy words
that beneath the magic
of my grandmother’s hands

become

side dishes.

And perhaps my favorite is about Jacqueline deciding she’s going to be a writer:

when i tell my family

When I tell my family
I want to be a writer, they smile and say,
We see you in the backyard with your writing.
They say,
We hear you making up all those stories.
And,
We used to write poems.
And,
It’s a good hobby, we see how quiet it keeps you.
They say,
But maybe you should be a teacher,
a lawyer,
do hair . . .

I’ll think about it, I say.

And maybe all of us know

this is just another one of my
stories.

The whole book gives a flavor of love and family and a girl listening to the world around her. Indeed, it’s the story of a brown girl dreaming.

jacquelinewoodson.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/brown_girl_dreaming.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.

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

Jan 3, 2015

Review of The Castle Behind Thorns, by Merrie Haskell

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

The Castle Behind Thorns

by Merrie Haskell

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

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

In the room beyond, everything was broken.

Every single thing.

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

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

Now he knew where he had awakened.

He was inside the Sundered Castle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All that happens in just the first chapter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

merriehaskell.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/castle_behind_thorns.html

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

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

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

Jan 3, 2015January 3, 2015

Oops! One more Stand-out!

Stand-outs 0

It happened again! Because of some failures in record-keeping (and a couple of computer deaths this year), I inadvertently left a wonderful book off of my Stand-outs list. Fortunately, I haven’t chosen an arbitrary number for each list, so I will just add this book in. A few books will go down in rank, but they are still on the list.

The book is:

Once Upon an Alphabet, by Oliver Jeffers

I’m putting it at slot #5 in the Picture Books list.

I’ll correct the blog post below and eventually correct the main website page for the 2014 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

One of these years, I won’t need to make any corrections!

Jan 2, 2015January 8, 2015

Announcing the 2014 Sonderbooks Stand-outs!

Stand-outs 0

Happy New Year!

I always wait until the year is completely over to decide my favorite books of the year — I always hope to squeeze in a few more books read.

New Year’s Day is also when the Cybils Finalists are announced. This past year I served on the panel to choose the Finalists in Speculative Fiction for Elementary and Middle Grades. The Cybils Finalists are distinctive in that each panel tries to create a balanced list with literary excellence and child appeal. Our hope is that something on the list will appeal to every reader in our target age range. To come up with such a list, we discuss the books and weigh the other opinions in the panel.

Sonderbooks Stand-outs are not like that. These are simply my favorite books from my year of reading. I don’t attempt to evaluate “literary excellence” or which books are most worthy of an award. I don’t count books reread, but other than that I don’t worry about publication year. If I read it in 2014, it’s eligible. These are the books that stood out in my mind after a year of reading, ranked according to how much I personally enjoyed them.

Of course, all the books are highly recommended. Refer to the review to find out more.

As I’m first posting this, I don’t have reviews posted yet of every book on the list. I hope to rectify that soon and catch up on posting all the reviews I’ve written this year. (And I’ve promised myself that if I haven’t caught up by the end of January, I’ll just post the reviews on the blog and not on the main site.) Tonight I don’t yet have the 2014 Stand-outs page on my main site, but that will also follow soon.

Without further ado, here are the 2014 Sonderbooks Stand-outs:

Children’s Fiction:
1. The Winter Horses, by Philip Kerr
2. The Castle Behind Thorns, by Merrie Haskell
3. Greenglass House, by Kate Milford
4. The Whispering Skull, by Jonathan Stroud
5. The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier
6. The Interrupted Tale, by Maryrose Wood
7. Jinx’s Magic, by Sage Blackwood
8. The Great Greene Heist, by Varian Johnson
9. Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door, by Hilary McKay
10. Constable & Toop, by Gareth P. Jones
11. The Swallow, by Charis Cotter

Teen Fiction:
1. Mortal Heart, by Robin LaFevers
2. Impossible, by Nancy Werlin
3. All the Truth That’s In Me, by Julie Berry
4. The Caller, by Juliet Marillier
5. Unthinkable, by Nancy Werlin
6. The Shadow Hero, by Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew
7. Chasing Power, by Sarah Beth Durst
8. Extraordinary, by Nancy Werlin

Fiction for Adults:
1. You Should Have Known, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
2. Chestnut Street, by Maeve Binchy
3. The Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen
4. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, by Gabrielle Zevin
5. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, by Maria Semple

Nonfiction:
1. Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl Strayed
2. Her Gates Will Never Be Shut, by Bradley Jersak
3. Daring Greatly, by Brené Brown
4. Trees Up Close, by Nancy Ross Hugo and Robert Llewellyn
5. How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk, by John van Epp
6. Quiet, by Susan Cain
7. Ken Libbrecht’s Field Guide to Snowflakes, by Ken Libbrecht
8. Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing, by Megan Smolenyak
9. Call the Midwife, by Jennifer Worth
10. The Periodic Table: A Visual Guide to the Elements, by Paul Parsons

Children’s Nonfiction:
1. A Boy and a Jaguar, by Alan Rabinowitz, illustrated by Cátia Chen
2. Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson
3. Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold, by Joyce Sidman & Rick Allen
4. The Scraps Book, by Lois Ehlert
5. The Great American Dust Bowl, by Don Brown
6. Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractals in Nature, by Sarah C. Campbell
7. A Little Book of Sloth, by Lucy Cooke

Picture Books:
1. Anna and Solomon, by Elaine Snyder, pictures by Harry Bliss
2. The Princess in Black, by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale, illustrated by LeUyen Pham
3. A Dance Like Starlight, by Kristy Dempsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper
4. Winter Is Coming, by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Jim LaMarche
5. Once Upon an Alphabet, by Oliver Jeffers
6. The Most Magnificent Thing, by Ashley Spires
7. Anna Carries Water, by Olive Senior, illustrations by Laura James
8. Waiting Is Not Easy! by Mo Willems
9. Grandfather Gandhi, by Arun Gandhi and Bethany Hegedus, illustrated by Evan Turk
10. The Pigeon Needs a Bath! by Mo Willems
11. Two Speckled Eggs, by Jennifer K. Mann

Now it’s your turn. Which were your favorite books you read in 2014? Are any of them the same as mine? What did I miss?

Dec 29, 2014

Review of Mortal Heart, by Robin LaFevers

Fantasy, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Mortal Heart

by Robin LaFevers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

robinlafevers.com
hmhco.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/mortal_heart.html

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

Source: This review is based on my own copy, preordered via Amazon.com.

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

Dec 27, 2014

Review of Clariel, by Garth Nix

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Clariel

by Garth Nix

Harper, 2014. 382 pages.

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

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

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

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

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

“But how can I help?” asked Clariel.

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

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

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

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

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

garthnix.com
epicreads.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/clariel.html

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

Source: This review is based on my own copy, preordered from Amazon.com.

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

Dec 27, 2014

Review of The Falconer, by Elizabeth May

Alternate History, Fantasy, Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Falconer

by Elizabeth May

Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2014. 382 pages.

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

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

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

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

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy, sent to me by the publisher.

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Dec 26, 2014December 26, 2014

End of the Year Review Blitz

General 0

Happy Old Year!

As the year draws to a close, I find myself a little frustrated with my website. I have 45 reviews that I’ve written but not yet posted, and about 15 that I need to write. What’s more, I’ve been behind all year long — with reviews I wrote and meant to post that didn’t get posted for months.

So — I want to start fresh. But rather than give up and just trash those reviews — I’m going to try to do a blitz and post them all, one category at a time.

Mind you, the books I’ve read for the Cybils I will wait to post reviews for until January 1st, when we announce our list of Finalists. This is also when I plan to announce (and choose) the Sonderbooks Stand-outs for 2014.

Of course, I’m also still reading. I have four days off for Christmas! And I’ve finally finished reading for the Cybils — so can indulge in the books I preordered which came in when I didn’t have a chance to read them.

Usually, I like to vary the books I review. For example, I read a bunch of Three Investigators books and P. G. Wodehouse audiobooks. Normally, I like to mix those up and alternate them with other reviews. Now, however, I just want to get them posted! So let’s see if I can get caught up in the next couple weeks.

Ready, Set, Go…!