Review of Coronets and Steel, by Sherwood Smith

Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Romance, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Suspense 0

Coronets and Steel

by Sherwood Smith

DAW Books, 2010. 420 pages.
Starred Review
2010 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Fiction

I love Sherwood Smith’s books, and this was my favorite novel for adults I read in 2010. It’s got a touch of fantasy, with grad student Aurelia seeing ghosts during her European adventure, but mostly it’s swashbuckling action, intrigue, and romance in modern-day Europe, in the style of Anthony Hope’s Prisoner of Zenda.

Aurelia is in Vienna trying to track down her grandparents’ families. Her mother was only two when she and Aurelia’s grandmother left Paris during the war, and her grandmother never talks about her life before Paris. Then she starts meeting people who act like they know her. A handsome young man, who looks like Mr. Darcy, sits next to her at the opera, and the next day runs into her again.

She thinks he’s quite charming, until he drugs her drink, abducts her, and sticks her on a train.

This book has mistaken identity, family secrets, hidden treasure, and royal plots to take over a small country. It’s tremendous fun, and I was delighted to read that Sherwood Smith has planned more books in this series.

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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 book I ordered from Amazon.com

Review of The New Policeman, by Kate Thompson

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

The New Policeman

by Kate Thompson
Performed by Marcella Riordan

Recorded Books, 2007. 6 compact discs, 6.5 hours.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #1, Children’s Fiction

I’d heard about this book for a long time, probably since it was first published. So, like so many other books I’ve been meaning to read but have never quite gotten around to, I decided to listen to it on my way to work.

I was completely enchanted. This book is all the more delightful on audio, because it is set in Ireland and has much about Irish music. So the narrator’s Irish accent adds to the enjoyment, and I especially liked the Irish tunes played between each chapter. I only wish the library had the next two books in audio form. I found the book haunting me, and the Irish tunes made me feel transported to that world even as I drove through this mundane world to work.

The book is not what I expected. There’s a new policeman in the Irish small town, but the story isn’t so much about him. The story is more about J.J. Liddy, a 15-year-old in a family with a long heritage of being musicians.

Time is getting shorter and shorter. No one ever has enough. Because of that, people are expected not to waste time by playing music at all hours. J.J.’s mother says what she really wants for her birthday is more time, and J.J. decides to get it for her. He finds his way to the land of Tir na n’Og, the land of the ever-young, where time never passes and nothing ever changes, and the inhabitants are always ready to make music that lifts the heart like nothing from our world.

There are problems in Tir na n’Og, too. Time is actually passing. Extremely slowly, but it is passing. The sun is beginning to set. J.J. discovers there’s a time leak. Time from our world is leaking into Tir na n’Og. It’s bringing changes and eventual death to those people, and a horrid lack of time to our world. Can J.J. figure out how to stop the leak?

This book reminded me of the fabulous Momo, by Michael Ende. Both books have a magical explanation for the reason why the more you try to save time, the less you have. Both books have a child who can find out what’s going on and save the world. Both books are definitely worth taking the time to read!

I do highly recommend listening to the audio version of this book. The Irish accents and the Irish music interludes make the experience completely captivating.

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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 audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Plain Kate, by Erin Bow

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Plain Kate

by Erin Bow

Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic, 2010. 311 pages.
Starred Review

I read this book on a flight from Virginia to California, and I was enchanted. Right from the start, the language drew me in. Here is a passage from the beginning:

“Plain Kate’s father, Piotr, was a wood-carver. He gave Kate a carving knife before most children might be given a spoon. She could whittle before she could walk. When she was still a child, she could carve a rose that strangers would stop to smell, a dragonfly that trout would rise to strike.

“In Kate’s little town of Samilae, people thought that there was magic in a knife. A person who could wield a knife well was, in their eyes, halfway to a witch. So Plain Kate was very small the first time someone spat at her and crooked their fingers.

“Her father sat her down and spoke to her with great seriousness. ‘You are not a witch, Katerina. There is magic in the world, and some of it is wholesome, and some of it is not, but it is a thing that is in the blood, and it is not in yours.

“‘The foolish will always treat you badly, because they think you are not beautiful,’ he said, and she knew this was true. Plain Kate: She was plain as a stick, and thin as a stick, and flat as a stick. She had one eye the color of river mud and one eye the color of the river. Her nose was too long and her bones were too strong. Her father kissed her twice, once above each eyebrow. ‘We cannot help what fools think. But understand, it is your skill with a blade that draws this talk. If you want to give up your carving, you have my blessing.’

“‘I will never give it up,’ she answered.

“And he laughed and called her his Brave Star, and taught her to carve even better.”

Unfortunately, Kate’s father dies when she is still too young to become an apprentice. The guild sends a new carver to run his shop, and Kate ends up sleeping in the bottom drawer of her father’s stall, doing carving for people who are willing to defy the guild for someone who is an expert. Also in her father’s stall, she finds three kittens, and one stays with her, so she has a companion.

But then Kate meets a witch who wants her shadow. He cannot steal it — witchcraft works on the principle of willing exchanges. But he has ways to make sure Kate will want to bargain with him. The people are already suspicious of her, so when he calls fish to her, they are suspicious. He does more magic, until the townsfolk are so convinced she is cursing the town, she knows she has to leave.

The witch takes Kate’s shadow and gives her the true wish of her heart. Losing a shadow, though, is a slow process. Kate joins the Roamers, for awhile, and makes a friend. But will the Roamers keep her after they see she has no shadow? And what about the sleeping sickness that is turning up wherever she goes?

And what did the witch want with her shadow?

I loved this story. It’s a fantasy not quite like any other. There’s a talking cat, and I love the things he says — always perfectly cat-like. Here’s a scene with the cat, Taggle:

“‘Are we finished fleeing?’ the cat asked, the last word swallowed by a huge yawn. He stretched forward, lengthening his back and spreading his toes, then sprang onto the wall beside her. His nose worked. ‘Horses,’ he said. ‘Dogs. Hrrmmmmm. Humans. Chickens. And — ah, another cat! I must go and establish my dominance.’ He leapt off the wall.

“Plain Kate lunged after him. ‘Taggle! Wait!’ She snatched him out of the air by the scruff of his neck.

“‘Yerrrrowww!’ he shouted, hanging from her hand. ‘The insult! The indignity!’

“Kate fell to her knees and bundled the spitting cat against her chest. ‘Taggle!’ she hissed. ‘Stop!’

“‘I shall claw you in a moment, no matter how much I like you. Let me go!’ He writhed against her chest.

“‘Tag, you can’t talk.’

“‘I can talk,’ came the muffled, outraged voice. ‘I can also claw and bite and scra –‘

“‘No,’ she interrupted. ‘You can’t, you mustn’t talk. Listen to me. They’ll kill you if they hear you talk.'”

Kate is up against something very sinister, and she feels responsible, since her shadow is involved. But how can one girl, who doesn’t have magic, stop magic powerful enough to destroy a city? And will she find a place where she belongs?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author said she wrote the first chapter on a plane. Watching the plane’s shadow separate and disappear gave her the idea of losing a shadow.

I’m going to call this Children’s Fiction, rather than Teen Fiction, but I think either group would like this book. The themes are serious, with people dying and Plain Kate living on her own. But she is still a child, too young to be an apprentice, on her own in the big world, with only a cat for a friend.

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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 an uncorrected proof I got at the ALA Annual Conference.

Review of House of Dead Maids, by Clare B. Dunkle

Fantasy, Historical, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

House of Dead Maids

by Clare B. Dunkle

Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, 2010. 146 pages.
Starred Review

I’ve never liked ghost stories. Too much imagination, I think. So I wasn’t planning to pick up this particular Advanced Review Copy at ALA Annual Conference — until I saw the author’s name, and then I snatched it up.

I consider Clare Dunkle a friend. We met when we both lived in Germany, after I raved about her first book, The Hollow Kingdom, on my blog right before she was doing a book signing at the local BX. We met up a few times after that, and I got to know her and like her. And her books continue to be fabulous. Here are my reviews of Close Kin, In the Coils of the Snake, By These Ten Bones, and The Sky Inside.

I still put off reading it, since the creepy cover freaked me out. (Though I’m sure it will entice many teen readers who come to the library looking for “scary” books.) But then I learned that Clare was doing a Blog Tour and asked her to include my site. So on October 14, 2010, I’m posting my first Author Interview! Her answers to my questions turned out to be fascinating, so I’m excited about it.

I read the book surrounded by people on a jet with my reading light firmly ON. I was coming back from the Horn Book at Simmons Colloquium in Boston. I had decided against reading it alone in my hotel room in a strange city! That was a good choice, because the book is definitely creepy. But it’s intriguing, and definitely got me hooked.

The House of Dead Maids is a prequel to Wuthering Heights. Now, believe it or not, I’ve never read Wuthering Heights. I had meant to, and even bought a paperback copy. I think I decided not to after all when my German landlady mentioned that she had to read it in her English class, and she thought it was awful. She asked why anyone would want to read such a horrible story. So I put it a little further on the back burner.

Clare assured me that I could read The House of Dead Maids before reading Wuthering Heights, and she’d expressed that she was hoping her book would get more readers for the classic novel. I do intend to finally read Wuthering Heights now and see what I think. I did read Jane Eyre long ago and completely fell in love with it. Reading The House of Dead Maids, Clare Dunkle completely succeeded in creating a voice that reminded me of Jane Eyre. She says she was trying to write like the Brontes, and I think she did. The voice pulled me into that world and that kind of mindset.

As always, Clare’s writing feels like it was actually written at the time — which makes you believe all the more that the supernatural happenings “really” happened. In this case, she wove in superstitions and rituals of the time for a terribly creepy tale.

Tabby Ackroyd is the narrator, an orphan taken to serve at a creepy mansion. She is given charge of a wild young boy who claims to be master of the house. Tabby doesn’t know what happened to the orphan who went there to serve before her. But then she sees ghosts all over the house and grounds. It turns out they were both brought there for a sinister purpose.

I like the way Tabby Ackroyd turns out to be the housekeeper of the Bronte sisters. I found it quite plausible that she told the girls, who loved ghost stories, this tale of a wild boy who wanted to be master. It was left for them to tell what became of him….

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

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

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader’s Edition picked up at ALA.

Review of The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon, by David Almond

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Delightfully Silly, Fantasy 0

The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon

by David Almond
illustrated by Polly Dunbar

Candlewick Press, 2010. 117 pages.

Here’s a whimsical look at a boy with big ideas and the amazing things he finds when he’s willing to act on them.

Paul lives underground in a basement flat at the bottom of a great apartment block. One day, he decides to go and touch the sky.

On his way up the apartment building’s steps, he meets a variety of quirky characters, one of whom shows him the elevator. On the very top floor lives Mabel, the most interesting character of them all. Or is she Molly, Mabel’s identical twin sister, looking after Mabel’s apartment while Mabel is on holiday in Barbados?

Paul’s parents find Paul on the top floor, and Molly shows all of them a new way to look at the world. Paul admits that he is a person who has strange ideas, and all of them celebrate his ideas. They go on a strange adventure to visit Molly’s very shy brother, and eventually all the people in the apartment building help Paul to fulfill his wish of climbing to the moon.

This is a book of delightful nonsense, where logical things are stood on their heads. It celebrates strange ideas and self-belief and adventure and family and dreams coming true and poodles who fly. The illustrations are plentiful and full of fun. I have a feeling that children will “get” this book even better than imaginative adults.

This book is a quick read, perfect for a child who’s beginning to read chapter books, hopefully read when they are still young enough to freely and happily suspend disbelief. Anything is possible!

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

Review of Ascendant, by Diana Peterfreund

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Ascendant

by Diana Peterfreund

HarperTeen, 2010. 392 pages.
Starred Review

Wow. I thought Diana Peterfreund’s first book about killer unicorns, Rampant was outstanding. But its sequel, Ascendant, is simply awesome. I just spent my Saturday reading it, and couldn’t tear myself away.

In the first book, things are fairly straightforward. Astrid Llewelyn learns that her crazy mother was right and unicorns are, in fact, bloodthirsty killers, and their family has magical powers for hunting them down and subduing them. She goes to Rome and trains with other girls they’ve found, virgin descendants of families from the ancient Order of the Lioness. They learn to hunt together and defeat a conspiracy against them. Along the way, she finds Giovanni, an Italian-American spending the summer in Rome, who loves her as she is.

In the second book, we’ve got the repercussions of this magical scenario. First, Giovanni goes back to college in America so she has to deal with a long-distance relationship. Now the world knows about the Reemergence of unicorns, and Astrid’s mother is capitalizing on their interest. The girls of the Order are still trying to kill any unicorns they can find, but their magic is growing. The hunters can read the unicorns’ thoughts, and Astrid doesn’t like killing something whose thoughts she can read — but her powers are superhuman when unicorns are around. And then, what about school? She wanted to be a doctor, but now she’s a high school dropout.

Meanwhile, Astrid’s cousin Philippa is trying to get unicorns worldwide protection as an endangered species. Astrid tries to reconcile those ideas with the work they are doing. After all, unicorns are attracted to hunters, so they need to train more hunters, or all the people around the untrained hunters will be in danger.

Then there’s the matter of the Remedy — the ancient cure that their ancestors knew how to make that would heal any wound and purify any poison. It works like the unicorns themselves heal when wounded, and like the hunters heal from stabbings by unicorn horns. Surely it can’t be bad for scientists to perform tests on any unicorns they can, in order to try to produce the remedy and save thousands? Can it?

That’s a basic idea of the themes and questions of the book — but the working out of them is much more complex. The plotting is very intricate, and a lot of things tie together in ways we don’t expect. The story is wonderfully well-told, and there are no easy answers. I hope with all my heart that Diana Peterfreund is working on a sequel, because the book doesn’t leave Astrid in a very good situation at all. I’m pretty confident there must be a third book coming, because that’s not the only thing that’s left unresolved. Though the story does end at a satisfying place, I want to learn that things get better for several of the hunters — and the unicorns.

Meanwhile, this book makes a terrific read. A story of characters who find out that saving the world isn’t as simple as it used to be.

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

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

Source: This review is based on an uncorrected proof I got at ALA Annual Conference and had signed by the author.

Review of White Cat, by Holly Black

Fantasy, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

White Cat

The Curse Workers, Book One

by Holly Black

Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster), New York, 2010. 310 pages.
Starred Review

“I wake up barefoot, standing on cold slate tiles. Looking dizzily down. I suck in a breath of icy air.

“Above me are starts. Below me, the bronze statue of Colonel Wallingford makes me realize I’m seeing the quad from the peak of Smythe Hall, my dorm.

“I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don’t even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I’m going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn’t involve dying.”

If that isn’t a cliff-hanger beginning, it’s certainly a roof-balancing one. Cassel was dreaming of a white cat. So why is there a white cat outside, watching him on the roof? Later in the first chapter, Cassel tells us:

“Don’t be too sympathetic. Here’s the essential truth about me: I killed a girl when I was fourteen. Her name was Lila, she was my best friend, and I loved her. I killed her anyway. There’s a lot of the murder that seems like a blur, but my brothers found me standing over her body with blood on my hands and a weird smile tugging at my mouth. What I remember most is the feeling I had looking down at Lila — the giddy glee of having gotten away with something.”

I had already scanned the first chapter and decided not to turn it back in (because I have too many books checked out), when I met Holly Black at ALA and she talked about her book — and I moved it to the top of my stack of books to read. I was not disappointed. This book was one I had to keep reading once I started.

Cassel’s world is like ours, only certain people are born with the ability to perform curses. You can curse someone by touching their skin with your hands. But cursing is illegal, and everyone in that society wears gloves all the time.

Curses run a wide range. The most common are luck workers, but there are also people who can change memories, or people like Cassel’s mother who can give you whatever emotion she wants you to have. There are even people who can kill with a curse. Most rare of all are people who can transform things into something else.

All the curses have blowback to the person performing them — a strong reaction proportionate to the curse being performed. So if a memory worker changes a lot of memories, he will start forgetting things himself, for example.

However, Cassel is part of a family of curse workers — and also a family deeply involved in the world of organized crime. He’s the only one in his family who does not have the ability to curse anyone, and he’s been trying to lead a normal life at a private school, trying to forget about what he did to Lila, the reigning crime lord’s daughter. (His family covered it up.)

Now, though, with this sleep-walking caper at the beginning of the book, the school isn’t going to let him live in the dorm. He has to move back in with his brothers, which puts him in the thick of things again.

Holly Black has intricately and beautifully spun a world that seems plausible and real, even with those amazing premises. There are plots and counterplots and counter-counterplots, that get tied up cleverly at the end. Along the way, Cassel learns about making friends and trusting them.

I love that this is called “Book One,” because I can’t wait to read more about this fascinating world. This is a skilfully crafted novel that will make you look at gloves in a whole new way.

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

Review of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

Fantasy, Romance, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

An Eclipse Novella

by Stephenie Meyer

Megan Tingley Books (Little, Brown), 2010. 178 pages.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is a spin-off from Eclipse, telling the interesting back story of a minor character. Since it’s a novella it’s short, and made for a fun afternoon read.

It’s been awhile since I read Eclipse, and I haven’t seen the movie, so I didn’t remember who Bree Tanner was until I got to where her story was intersecting with Bella’s. That was fine, but you will want to have at least read Eclipse before you read this book, to be familiar with the world of sparkly vampires.

In Eclipse, Edward’s enemy is building an army of newborn vampires to battle and defeat the Cullens. Bree Tanner is one of that army, who’s used in Eclipse to show how ruthless the Volturi are. In an introduction, Stephenie Meyer says she wishes she had ended that differently now, and the reader will agree with her in that, because this book does give the reader sympathy for Bree, a ruthless bloodthirsty hunter.

I found it kind of amusing that one way their leader controls the newborn vampires is to tell them it’s dangerous to go out in the sunlight, that it would turn them to ash. He tells them all the old tales are true, and they believe him since they are, after all, vampires.

Toward the beginning, Bree meets another vampire who actually seems trustworthy, and they discover the secret. Even though she’s used to everyone looking beautiful, they’re filled with wonder at the sparkliness, just like Bella was in Twilight.

Stephenie Meyer manages to make us care about this bloodthirsty vampire hunter and want her to learn to transcend her savagery. We enjoy the beginnings of her journey to do so, though unfortunately her second life is very short.

An enjoyable quick adventure back in the world of sparkly vampires and undying love, or rather, undead love.

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

Review of Half-Minute Horrors, edited by Susan Rich

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Readalouds, Short Stories 0

Half-Minute Horrors

edited by Susan Rich

Harper, 2009. 141 pages.

I read this book entirely waiting at traffic lights. Well, except the parts I read aloud to people when I first checked out the book. The many, many stories in here, by stellar children’s authors, are really short enough to be read in half a minute. It was perfect for reading at traffic lights, and would also be perfect for reading to a class of schoolchildren to get them interested in the library.

I have to admit, most of these stories would have scared me too much when I was a little girl with an overactive imagination. Now, they make me laugh with their delightful creepiness. Especially the first story, by Lemony Snicket, about the quiet man who watches you every time you sleep.

Since they are so short, the stories tend to be the sort of thing you’d find in The Twilight Zone, but they all tend toward the scary side, especially if you think about them too long!

Now, this isn’t for all kids. Not the ones like I was who scare easily. If I do ever get a chance to read some of these stories to a class of schoolchildren, I will have to be a little careful which ones I choose.

However, I know from working in public libraries that there are lots of kids who love scary stories and want more of them. This book is absolutely perfect for those kids. And if any such child is a reluctant reader, this book is exactly what’s needed to draw them in. The stories are so short, you can always read just one more.

A fun volume of scares in small doses.

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

Review of Princess of Glass, by Jessica Day George

Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Princess of Glass

by Jessica Day George

Bloomsbury, New York, 2010. 266 pages.
Starred Review

I’m becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Jessica Day George. Princess of Glass is a follow up to her excellent Princess of the Midnight Ball, but it’s also an incredibly creative twist on the story of Cinderella.

I thought that the Cinderella story has been rewritten so well so many different ways, there was not much more that could be done with it. Though I must admit all the versions I’ve read are among my favorite fairy tale retellings: Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine, Bella at Midnight, by Diane Stanley, and Just Ella, by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

Jessica Day George does something quite different with the story and wonderfully creative, using the version where Cinderella attends three balls. What if the godmother were really an evil witch bent on entrapping Cinderella for her own evil purposes? What if the prince and all the people at the ball were affected by an enchantment and falling in love with Cinderella despite their true feelings?

Finally, what if a princess who had experience with evil enchantments and how to protect against them was at the court and was falling in love with the prince herself?

The main character of the book is Poppy, one of the younger of the 12 Dancing Princesses featured in Princess of the Midnight Ball. After so many princes suffered fatal accidents trying to break their family’s enchantment, the king tries to build bridges by sending some daughters to foreign courts.

Poppy is a delightfully independent young lady. When she notices strange things going on around Eleanora, a clumsy servant girl from an impoverished family, she determines to get to the bottom of it. I like the way she’s still knitting charms to help, which she learned from her brother-in-law.

The author includes two knitting patterns at the end, one for the poppy-decorated shawl Poppy wears to a ball. My only complaint is that I wish there were a picture. I’m going to have to make one to see what it looks like!

I found it ingenious how Jessica Day George wove in all the motifs of the Cinderella story (except maybe the stepsisters) in a way so completely different than I’d ever thought of them before. Brilliant!

I can’t help but hope that more stories will be forthcoming about some of the other 12 princesses and their adventures in other foreign lands.

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