Review of The Grey King, by Susan Cooper

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

The Grey King

by Susan Cooper
Performance by Richard Mitchley

2001, Listening Library. Book originally published in 1975. 5 compact discs; 5 hours, 40 minutes.
Starred Review
1976 Newbery Medal Winner
2012 Margaret Edwards Award Winner

I’m slowly rereading the Margaret Edwards-winning Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. I never discovered them as a child, so I’m afraid they don’t have the magic to me I think they would have had if I had read them at a younger age. And I’d only read them once before, but that was enough to know they’d be worth reading again.

In general, I’m not crazy about the plot of these books. In this one, Will is pretty much led by the nose. He senses what he’s supposed to do as he’s supposed to do it. There’s a rhyme that he has forgotten at the start of the book, but it comes back when he needs it, which doesn’t surprise us. In fact, as an Old One, Will has what amounts to superpowers, and that makes it hard to worry much about him. The kid he joins up with, Bran Davis, is far more interesting, and we do wonder at times if he will make it through.

What these books are strong on is atmosphere. The Grey King is set in Wales, and Susan Cooper makes you feel like you’re there, with the mountain like a presence. The surprising plot development (which I’d completely forgotten) adds to the sense of magic and the weight of history. Maybe you don’t expect the Light to fail, but Susan Cooper spins a yarn that keeps you interested in the quest and keeps you feeling that there’s magic in the air.

Of course, listening to this volume added much to the experience. The Welsh and English accents were delightful to listen to, and it only added to the strong sense of place. A classic worth enjoying again.

listeninglibrary.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 audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

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

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

Review of The Thing About Luck, by Cynthia Kadohata

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

The Thing About Luck

by Cynthia Kadohata

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, June 2013. 271 pages.

Here’s how The Thing About Luck starts:

Kouun is “good luck” in Japanese, and one year my family had none of it. We were cursed with bad luck. Bad luck chased us around, pointing her bony finger. We got seven flat tires in six weeks. I got malaria, one of fifteen hundred cases in the United States that year. And my grandmother’s spine started causing her excruciating pain.

This book opens after that string of bad luck, or does it? Summer’s parents got a call from Japan, and three elderly relatives expect them to come take care of them in their last weeks and months. Summer and her brother Jaz are staying with their grandparents, Obaachan and Jiichan. They are going to be the ones working the harvest this year, so it will be up to them to get the money for the year to pay the mortgage. Summer and Jaz have to go along, so they’ll be hanging around the harvesters all summer, and it will be up to Summer to step in and help with the cooking when Obaachan’s back puts her in too much pain.

The family works for a custom harvesting company. Mr. Parker owns the $350,000 combines that the workers must use for long hours to get the farmers’ crops in before rain comes. The information about harvesting the wheat crop and how the whole procedure works is fascinating. The portrayal of Obaachan and Jiichan, with their constant crazy bickering, but underlying love for their grandchildren, made them come to life. We fully understand Summer’s frustration but love for them.

This is a quiet book. It feels a little bit unfinished, just stopping a little way into the harvest, though a book about the whole summer would have gone on too long. Summer has lots of reasons to worry about her grandparents and whether they can keep the job, and has to step up to help in much bigger ways than anticipated. There’s a cute boy on the harvest team, too, and then there are worries about her brother, who is not much like most other boys, and is having trouble making friends after his best friend moved away.

This book isn’t for people who want an action-packed plot. But it is for readers who are interested in rich, quirky characters, a kid caught up in big events, and a detailed setting based on what happens every year in America.

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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 Advance Reader’s Copy I got at KidLitCon 2012.

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 Lulu and the Duck in the Park, by Hilary McKay

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Lulu and the Duck in the Park

By Hilary McKay
Illustrated by Priscilla Lamont

Albert Whitman & Company, Chicago, Illinois, 2012. First published in the United Kingdom in 2011. 104 pages.

Good beginning chapter books aren’t easy to find. There’s an art to writing an interesting story while keeping the language simple. The situations need to be recognizable in a child’s life, yet the characters need to be unusual enough to feel true-to-life.

Lulu and the Duck in the Park walks that balance, which is no surprise coming from Hilary McKay, the author of the brilliant books about the quirky Casson family.

Lulu was famous for animals. Her famousness for animals was known throughout the whole neighborhood.

Animals mattered more to Lulu than anything else in the world. All animals, from the sponsored polar bear family that had been her best Christmas present, to the hairiest unwanted spider in the school coat room.

Lulu’s teacher is not as big an animal lover as she is, so when Lulu lets her dog follow her to school, Mrs. Holiday is not pleased. When Lulu prompts the class to think of all the animals their class guinea pig might like to have visit, Mrs. Holiday makes it very clear that if any more animals visit, the guinea pig is likely to be traded for the stick insects in the next classroom.

So – when the class goes to the park and sees two dogs disturb all the duck nests, the reader is not surprised when Lulu rescues an egg about to roll onto the sidewalk. We also aren’t surprised that Lulu doesn’t want to tell her teacher about it. But Lulu and that egg do have some surprises in store for us!

This excellent transitional chapter book manages to reflect a child’s world, while achieving a story that is anything but trite.

Albertwhitman.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 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 Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

Wednesdays in the Tower

by Jessica Day George

Bloomsbury, New York, 2013. 229 pages.

I’m a huge fan of Tuesdays at the Castle, so when I saw a sequel was coming out, I didn’t wait for the library to get a copy, but ordered my own copy. And I used that purchase as an excuse to enjoy rereading Tuesdays at the Castle first. In a way, I’m sorry I did. Although I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing Tuesdays again, there were some logical inconsistencies between the books that I might not have noticed if the first book weren’t fresh in my mind.

Let me say right from the beginning that the second book is not a complete story in itself. Not at all. The book ends with half the story not told. Tuesdays at the Castle was a complete and satisfying story that didn’t cry out for a sequel. Wednesdays in the Tower doesn’t need a sequel — it needs the other half of the story. So in a way, I feel like it’s not quite fair to review it when the story isn’t complete. But the book came out without the story complete, so I am going to go ahead.

Now, there are still wonderful things about this book. I love the family that lives in Glower Castle. Princess Celie’s a delight, and she still knows the castle better than anyone. In Wednesdays in the Tower, Celie discovers a tower that she’s never seen before (yes, it happens on a Wednesday), and in the tower is a large, orange, burning hot egg. When the egg hatches, Celie witnesses the birth of a griffin.

The castle doesn’t let anyone but Celie find out about the griffin, and makes it very clear she’s not to tell anyone, by slamming doors if she even thinks about telling her parents. So she has to try to raise a griffin on her own.

This is never explained at all. The castle does let two other people find out about it. Why those two? And later, further into the book, suddenly the castle lets everyone find out. Why then? It’s not made clear. Maybe later in the story it will be?

But a bigger inconsistency is in Castle Glower itself. In the first book, we had a portrait of a castle that changes shape, adding or taking away rooms, if it gets bored, usually on Tuesdays. These changes included making the rooms of the ambassador it didn’t like much smaller and more uncomfortable, and the rooms of the ambassador it did like much larger and nicer. That doesn’t seem to fit well with what we’re told about the castle in this book. Now we learn that the castle exists in two places and is bringing rooms from its other location. So how would it then change their shape? To me, it doesn’t quite fit.

And why is Lulath still here? I love Lulath. He’s a fun character. But didn’t he come for the king and queen’s funeral? Why is he still there? And why isn’t he getting any better at using the language if he’s been hanging around for months?

And what’s with the wizard? I can’t figure out — even by the end of the book — if he’s good or bad. And his motivation for suddenly telling everything but keeping back one thing (I’m trying to be vague here to not give anything away.) — well, it left me pretty confused.

However, a baby griffin? Totally fun. Celie and her family back? Delightful. Castle Glower showing Celie a griffin egg? That I can believe.

And will I want to read the next book? Absolutely. I have to find out how the story ends. And I admit I want to spend more time with Celie and her family and the griffin.

JessicaDayGeorge.com
bloomsbury.com

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Source: This review is based on my own copy, purchased through Amazon.com.

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

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

Review of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken, read by Lizza Aiken

Alternate History, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

by Joan Aiken
read by Lizza Aiken

Listening Library, 2012. The book was written in 1962. 5 hours on 4 compact discs.
Starred Review

Why had I never read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase before? I remember seeing it as a child, and I think I may have even checked it out once, but it looked far too dark for me. (I never have really liked dark books.) This time reading it, I was completely enchanted. Yes, the girls triumph over adversity, but I wouldn’t even call this book “dark” now that I’m an adult. I guess the Edward Gorey illustrations were too much for me.

And this 50th anniversary production is especially delightful in that it’s read by the author’s daughter. And she talks at the beginning about the writing of the book and the adversity her mother faced in her own life. Her mother had a gap of ten years in writing, and read the chapters to her children when she finally took it up again. For me, this inside information made me enjoy the story all the more.

The story is wonderful. As they point out in the introduction, we’ve got orphan girls with everyone set against them. They must figure out a way to escape and somehow set things to rights, and they do so on their own power. The sinister wolves add atmosphere and drama and probably too much darkness for the little girl I once was. But this audio production would make marvelous family listening. (If it gets too scary, you can comfort any little ones listening.)

The story is old-fashioned and melodramatic, but there’s so much to love. This classic was #57 in Betsy Bird’s Top 100 Children’s Novels Poll. I’m so glad I’ve finally read it.

listeninglibrary.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 audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

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

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

Review of P.S. Be Eleven, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Children's Fiction Review, Historical 0

P.S. Be Eleven

by Rita Williams-Garcia

Amistad (HarperCollins), 2013. 274 pages.

P.S. Be Eleven is a sequel to the brilliant, multiple-award-winning One Crazy Summer. We get to see Delphine and her two younger sisters when they go home to their Pa and their grandmother, Big Ma.

They write to their mother, whom they left back in Oakland. The title comes from her letters to Delphine, the tag on the end. I commented in my review of the earlier book, “It wrenches my heart to hear of kids being forced to take on the responsibilities of a parent when they should just be a kid.” Cecile (their mother) is a fine one to tell Delphine to “be eleven,” since it was pretty much her fault Delphine was forced to mother her younger siblings all summer. Though I can’t help but be glad someone’s telling her to.

In this book, she deals with more ordinary, though interesting, eleven-year-old things. School friendships and rivalries. A new teacher, on an exchange program from Zambia. Trying to earn money to go to a Jackson Five concert. The sixth-grade dance. Their Pa is thinking about marrying and giving them a stepmother. Their Uncle Darnell is coming back from Vietnam.

I came to love these three girls in the first book, so I was glad to read on. But I have to admit this book doesn’t feel nearly as momentous and important as One Crazy Summer. There, they were taken up with big events, getting involved with good work the Black Panthers were doing. In P.S. Be Eleven, the events are more ordinary slice-of-life. That’s good for our characters, because we want Delphine to get to be a kid, but it doesn’t make for as dramatic a book.

And the plot did take some turns I didn’t like. Which isn’t necessarily a weakness. I’m just saying it’s not as happy a story as I might have hoped. I didn’t get some of the actions the adults took. Why did Pa react to their disappointment in the way he did? Why did Big Ma suddenly make a big change? And the story involving Uncle Darnell is just plain sad.

The book isn’t as unified as the first, taking place over half a school year instead of a summer. The events don’t all flow together as well.

Bottom line, I was happy to again spend time with these girls. I’m going to continue to strongly recommend One Crazy Summer, and those who want more will, like me, happily take up the next book. I’m glad that Delphine is learning to be a kid, going from Eleven to Twelve.

ritawg.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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

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

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

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

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

Review of Doll Bones, by Holly Black

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

Doll Bones

by Holly Black

Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2013. 244 pages.
Starred Review

Wow! Holly Black has surpassed herself with Doll Bones. It’s a kids-going-on-an-adventure novel, a ghost story, a growing-up tale, a story of friendships changing, and a story of coming to terms with parental expectation. And it’s all carried out beautifully.

Zach and his friends Alice and Poppy have an incredibly detailed imaginative world going. In a episode that reminded me of the ship scene in Momo, Zach leads his action figure William the Blade on a pirate ship adventure, attacked by Poppy’s mermaids and assisted by Alice’s Lady Jaye.

But Zach is twelve years old, and it’s not only other kids who think he’s too old to play with action figures. When Zach comes home from basketball practice, his Dad has thrown all of them away, saying it’s time for Zach to grow up. Zach doesn’t want to tell the girls.

That anger curdled inside his belly and crawled up his throat until it felt like it might choke him. Until he was sure that there was no way he could ever tell anyone what had happened without all of his anger spilling out and engulfing everything.

And the only way not to tell anyone was to end the game.

Not surprisingly, the girls don’t take kindly to that. Poppy tries to entice Zach back into the game by taking the creepy doll her mother owns, the doll they call The Queen, out of its glass cabinet. But when she does so, that night she has a vivid dream.

“It wasn’t like a regular dream,” Poppy said, her fingers smoothing back the Queen’s curls and her voice changing, going soft and chill as the night air…. “It wasn’t like dreaming at all. She was sitting on the end of my bed. Her hair was blond, like the doll’s, but it was tangled and dirty. She was wearing a nightdress smeared with mud. She told me I had to bury her. She said she couldn’t rest until her bones were in her own grave, and if I didn’t help her, she would make me sorry.”…

“Her bones?” he finally echoed.

“Did you know that bone china has real bones in it?” Poppy said, tapping a porcelain cheek. “Her clay was made from human bones. Little-girl bones. That hair threaded through the scalp is the little girl’s hair. And the body of the doll is filled with her leftover ashes….

“Each night she told me a little more of her story.” Illuminated by the flashlight, Poppy’s face had become strange. “She’s not going to rest until we bury her. And she’s not going to let us rest either. She promised to make us miserable unless we help her.”

So the three kids set out. Zach and Alice aren’t sure Poppy’s not making it up, until more strange things happen. Their plan is to take a bus to the gravesite up the river in East Liverpool, Ohio. But a crazy man on the bus spooks them, and they get off the bus too soon, and then must escape the attention of officials.

I’ve said in other reviews that I don’t normally enjoy creepy stories. But this one is done beautifully. I should say that there’s a lot more scary dread than anything that actually happens to the kids. But I think it’s fair. The doll gets upset when they get sidetracked from their mission, but she has no reason to be upset as they near the goal.

Readers also might fault it for how nicely all the emotional threads tie up in the end. But I loved it. The different emotional threads are woven into the story with a delicate touch, and even though they tie up nicely, it never feels too good to be true.

This book is excellent on so many levels. The friendship between the kids changing on the cusp of adolescence feels real, with all the touchiness inherent in those changes. The quest is in the classic tradition of The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The kids aren’t well-prepared, and they argue along the way, but they follow their quest to a tremendously satisfying conclusion.

blackholly.com
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

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

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

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

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

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

Review of Caddy’s World, by Hilary McKay

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Caddy’s World

by Hilary McKay

Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster), 2012. 265 pages.

This is another book about the marvelously quirky, highly disfunctional, and utterly delightful Casson family. The parents are artists, and all the children’s names are colors. Caddy’s World is a prequel that takes place before all the other books. It’s about Caddy and her four friends and all the changes that happened in Caddy’s world when her youngest sibling was born and spent months in the hospital.

I’m afraid I wasn’t as enraptured with this book as I was with all the others. Maybe because I knew the baby in later books, so I wasn’t worried about her? Maybe because I knew some revelations about their philandering father and held that against him back when he was still pretending to be part of a normal family?

This story isn’t as much about the Casson family as it is about Caddy and her three best friends. Here’s how the book opens:

These were the four girls who were best friends:

Alison . . . hates everyone.

Ruby is clever.

Beth. Perfect.

Caddy, the bravest of the brave.

(“Mostly because of spiders,” said Caddy.)

I have to admit that Hilary McKay has a way of making concerns for these girls that transcend the ordinary. There’s a boy Caddy likes who’s a boyfriend to three of them but wants to conquer the fourth. One of them is horrified to be outgrowing her pony. One of them is being offered a scholarship but doesn’t want to leave her friends. One of them has parents who want to sell their house and move to New Zealand. And Caddy finds a little bird and tries to save its life. Then when the new baby is born, it looks an awful lot like that little doomed bird.

Hilary McKay’s books are always charming. I think I’d suggest that readers start with this one, chronologically the first about the Casson family, and I suspect they won’t be bothered by the things they already know, like I was. I also suspect that most readers who once meet the Cassons will want to read on.

HilaryMcKay.co.uk
simonandschuster.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 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 Horten’s Incredible Illusions, by Lissa Evans

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

Horten’s Incredible Illusions

Magic, Mystery & Another Very Strange Adventure

by Lissa Evans

Sterling Children’s Books, New York, 2012. Originally published in Great Britain in 2012 as Big Change for Stuart.

Horten’s Incredible Illusions is a follow-up to Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms, and you should definitely read the first book first. I can say with confidence that if you liked the first book, you will also enjoy the second.

In the second book, Stuart Horten has found his uncle’s magic tricks, but now he must figure out a puzzle that involves an adventure with each piece of magical equipment. The puzzle leads to his uncle’s will, which he needs to prove the tricks belong to him.

The puzzle format works well, and this is simply a fun adventure tale for kids. Here’s a sample from when Stuart and April first get to look over the tricks:

They looked at each other. “Once you start using magic, it’s very hard to stop,” quoted April, her voice breathy. “It’s another puzzle, isn’t it? Another adventure?”

Stuart closed his hand over the star, and felt the six prongs dig into his skin. His heart was suddenly thumping; he felt both excited and slightly frightened, and he knew from April’s expression that she felt the same. The hunt for Great-Uncle Tony’s workshop had been a wild and exciting chase, sprinkled with danger and magic, and now another quest was beckoning. But for what? What was the prize this time?

He felt his hand tingle, and he knew that the object he was holding was so full of magic that over fifty years it had bleached the paper it was wrapped in; he could feel its power.

sterlingpublishing.com/kids

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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 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 Cup and the Crown, by Diane Stanley

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

The Cup and the Crown

by Diane Stanley

Harper, 2012. 344 pages.
Starred Review

Molly’s back! The Molly who saved the kingdom in The Silver Bowl with the help of her strange powers, seeing visions in a silver bowl, has now been made a Lady. But the king has a commission for her. She is to go find a Loving Cup, made by her grandfather, with the power to bind two people together. He needs it for an important alliance. And since Molly has been having nightly visions about such a cup, she agrees to go.

In this volume, we find out much more about the source of Molly’s magic and her family history. I think you could read it without having read the first book, but I almost want to say you shouldn’t read it without reading whatever’s coming next. I’ll simply say about the ending that it annoyed me. I’m hoping Diane Stanley can write a third book that will reconcile me to those events.

But right up until the annoying ending (and that may be a personal quirk that I didn’t like it), I thoroughly enjoyed this journey. I was a little disappointed to discover Molly has noble blood — it was refreshing to have a character in a medieval fantasy who was a commoner — but I don’t think that’s a flaw. And it did emphasize her strong magical gift.

I like the slowly blooming romance between Molly and Tobias, and what they were willing to do for each other. Yet we still have a certain amount of doubt that they will really end up together (because of that annoying ending. I’ll say no more).

What started with a very unusual magical world — with magical visions in a silver bowl — has become unusual in other ways, including a secret kingdom where magic is revered. Only can Molly and Tobias ever get out again?

dianestanley.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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

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

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

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

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