Moldylocks and the Three Beards, by Noah Z. Jones

Some weeks life is busy, and there just isn't time to read and write lots, and so the blogging is slow.  And it's been even slower for me because most of the books I have managed to finish recently didn't move me to write about them, mostly because of me not having the mental energy to figure out and express eloquently why they hadn't worked for me.

So last night I turned to a book from a series (Scholastic's Branches) that promises to build "reading confidence and stamina," both of which I feel I need right about now.

Moldylocks and the Three Beards, written and illustrated by Noah Z. Jones (Scholastic, published in paperback in Jan 2014, and in a hardcover library edition April 29) is the first book in a series--"Princess Pink and the Land of Fake-Believe."   My eyes rolled when I read the words "Princess Pink," but not so much so that I was unable to look at the cover more closely.  And lo, Princess Pink seemed pretty cool. 

So I tried it last night, and rather enjoyed it, and can happily recommend it.  If you are a young reader who enjoys the absurd. and who is looking for something fun and easy, this is what you get here.

Princess Pink is not a princess; after seven boys, her mother wanted a one, and so that's what she was named.  She hates pink.  She turned her pink fairy dress into a cowboy caveman outfit.   (Perhaps her hatred of pink, and her taste in dirty sneakers and bugs is a tad polarizing--does the cheesy pizza she enjoys really have to look so gross?  And one can enjoy the outdoors without one's shoes stinking.  But this is not a book that aims for subtly, so I shall let it pass).

And in any event, Princess Pink opens her fridge one night, and falls (literally) into a the Land of Fake-Believe, where she visits the home of three beards (not nice) in the company of a girl named Moldylocks.   The whole beard premise was rather effective, and I enjoyed it.

Recommended for those who don't mind negative portrayals of pink princess stuff.  

Not particularly recommended for those who don't like whimsical stories whose primary point is to make learning to read entertaining.  Also not recommended for those who loath spiders.  There are too many spiders for those readers to take.

Not really recommended to their adults for their own reading pleasure, although it was kind of exactly right for my tired brain last night...........and I might well find myself picking up Little Red Quaking Hood when it comes out in August.

Note:  Princess Pink's family looks to be African-American--pretty darn rare in easy-reader fantasy books!  (quick--name another girl character of color in an easy reader fantasy book.............those dots are me not being able to).

Disclaimer:  review copy received from the publisher

Nightingale's Nest, by Nikki Loftin-- with interview, link to giveaway, and excerpt!

Way back in November I went to Kidlitcon in Austen, and had the pleasure of meeting Nikki Loftin.  This was lovely in and of itself, in part because I had enjoyed her first book, The Sinister Sweetness Of Splendid Academy, but as an added bonus she gave me an ARC of her new book, Nightingale's Nest (Razorbill, Feb. 2014). Nightingale's Nest is a reimagining of Hans Christian Anderson's story, "The Nightingale," but though there are clear parallels and echoes enough to please those who enjoy reimaginings for their own sake, this new story stands alone just fine.  

It tells of two hurting children, and the unforgettable summer when their lives intersect.  12 year old "Little John," as he is known, is working side by side with his father for the first time, on a massive landscaping project for the rich old "emperor" Mr. King, owner of a chain of Texas stores.  Money for John's family is tight as all get out, but deeper than that worry is the grief they are living with--John's little sister falling from a tree, and his mother has been driven almost mad with sorrow.

At the edge of the emperor's property, he meets Gayle, perched high in a tree--a foster child with sadness of her own.   She has lost her parents, but can't stop hoping they will find her again.  Just as they told her too, she has made a nest for herself, up in the tree with her small treasures, and she waits for them to hear her singing and come find her again.

And the magic of Gayle's singing, and just her own sweet self, start to bring some measure of healing to John and his father.  But Mr. King has heard Gayle's song too, and wants it for his collection of recordings.  And he will pay John for it, money that John needs to save his family, and John must decide whether or not to betray Gayle's trust....and the sadness of it all gets ratcheted up and up.

I had to put it down here and there, and go off and do other things, and I wondered if it was maybe too sad for the target audience of 10-12 year olds.  But I think it is a sadness that will be harder for grown-ups than for kids to read about--the child reader might well feel sorry, and be truly moved, but the grown-up reader (judging by my own personal reaction) will want to fix things, which of course is impossible.  That being said, it might be too much for younger children who are either strongly empathetic and/or vulnerable themselves, and though the ending resolves things in a hopeful way, it might not offer quite enough security and comfort to off-set the sadness (but again, this might be just my personal reaction!).

But in any event, it is a lovely book, moving and powerful.  Fans of fairy tale re-imaginings should definitely seek it out, and so should fans of magic mixing with the real world, and so also should those who love books that hit the heart full-on (but not so much those who want light fluffy escapist fun!).  And though the cover shows a girl, and though girls will like this book just fine, I hope it finds its way to boys too--it does, after all, have a boy as the central character...

And now, the interview!

Hi Nikki!  So Nightingale's Nest started out as a picture book, called The Treasure Nest.  What made it grow into a full-fledged novel? Did you keep coming back to it over the years, or was there a sudden surge? And how did the writing of The Sinister Sweetness Of Splendid Academy fit into it?

It took years, long painful ones! I think maybe every author has a story or two they must tell no matter what, and this was one of those for me. I could not stop thinking about that picture book, even after agents, editors, and critique partners had all gently let me know it wasn’t going to fly. I revised it as a picture book again and again. Then I tried writing it as a novel, but without any fairy tale connection. That didn’t work either.

All the while, I was doing school and library visits, talking about my debut novel, The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, and my favorite fairy tales. Hansel and Gretel was at the top of the list, but The Nightingale was a close second. When I was messing around with the failed novel draft one day, I wondered if I could do something like I’d done with Sinister Sweetness, reworking a fairy tale in contemporary America. The Nightingale seemed a natural fit. I began to weave Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale loosely in with my initial story of a girl who climbed a tree and built a nest, and a boy who was afraid to climb up to join her… and once I realized it was the boy’s story to tell, it worked! I wrote the draft of Nightingale’s Nest in less than three months, and that draft is remarkable similar to the one that will be published.

Is The Nightingale a story that had particular meaning for you, as a child or an adult?

I was raised in a family of musicians. Our house was filled with instrumental and vocal music, and like reading, I don’t remember a day when I didn’t sing or play. (I played violin, cello, ukulele, and piano, all with varying degrees of skill.) So the idea in The Nightingale that the most beautiful thing in the whole of China was a song? I liked that as a child.

As an adult, I had a career for a decade or so as a Director of Family Ministries in the Presbyterian Church. One of my jobs every Sunday was to interpret the week’s scripture for the children, and present it in the children’s sermon. The act of thinking deeply about concepts like grace, forgiveness, and redemption, and distilling them for kids, left its mark on my brain. As an author, I found myself drawn to the selfless act of the nightingale in Andersen’s story, and in the way I saw grace at work there. I wanted to explore it further, and the form of a novel gave me the space to do that.

And did you ever have your own treasure nest? 

I still do, sort of! The desk I write at has these little shelves where I keep things that are significant to me: a picture of my grandma when she was young, my favorite childhood toys (two Weebles and a Raggedy Ann doll), a rock from a beach in Normandy, and love notes from my sons, among other things. I’ve always collected small items that meant something to me, little talismans against forgetting what really matters.

Was it hard writing a book in which the main characters were hurting so badly? (I imagine that you must have had to hug your loved ones more than usual....)

Yes, it was ridiculously hard, emotionally. I cried buckets of tears writing it, many of them sitting at various lunch tables in Austin with my mom! (She lives close by, and I figured she was about the only person in the world who would listen to me blubber on about how horrible Little John’s life had been. I have the best mom in the world - she listened without complaint for all three of those months!)

and finally---what's next? 

Wish Girl! I just turned in my editorial revision for my third book, another middle grade with Razorbill. This one is also magical realism, with a bit more magic and humor, and less tragedy (although it has some of that, too). It’s about a boy who runs away to a valley to be away from people – and bumps into a girl who seems to think her wishes come true, and who may need the boy to save her life if they don’t.

I will look forward to it--congratulations!  Thank you so much for stopping by, Nikki!


Here's the scene from Nightingale's Nest when John first meets Gayle:

She just started humming under her breath, the same tune she’d been singing, but this time, it was softer. It still brought tears to my eyes.

At least I thought that’s what was happening. It must have been, because as I watched her, and listened to the music, the singing that got louder and louder, clearer and higher and purer, she got… fuzzy around the edges. Her outline was against the sun, I thought, that’s why she seemed to blur. It was awful hot; maybe it was just the flickering mirage of heat lines.

I wiped my eyes again, and squinted up at her. The more she sang, the more she seemed to shimmer against the sky, her edges feathering into the background blue.

Her voice was loud now, so loud I couldn’t have stopped the sound even by plugging my ears. Through the melody, though, I heard something squeal and slam behind me, on the other side of the fence.  A door.

Someone else was listening.

I turned and saw the Emperor, a hundred yards back, standing outside his back door, a deep purple, velvety robe flapping around his bony legs. He was staring at the tree, mouth wide open, watching the girl. The sunlight glinted on his wrinkled, wet cheeks. I wondered, for a moment, at the sight of a grown man crying. But her voice… it was the kind that could bring tears to anyone, I figured.

Cra-ack! I knew the sound of a branch cracking. I whirled back around.
That’s when I realized the girl had to be touched. She hadn’t started to come down at all—she’d started to climb out on the branch, toward me. She was perching, hopping like a wren, further and further out on one of the limbs that wouldn’t hold her.

I knew what was going to happen next. She was going to go out too far on the branch, and it would snap under her. She would fall, screaming, in a shower of small branches, leaves, and bark.

It was the nightmare I had every night.

I wouldn’t be there to catch her. I never made it to the base of the tree in time, my legs too small, too short, my hands reaching out at the ends of arms too weak to hold her anyway.

And I would have to watch her snap like a bough herself, on the ground, the blood as red as a cardinal’s wing.

It was the nightmare I’d lived once before. 

And the reason I had devoted my life to cutting down every tree in the world.

Every last murderous tree.

The girl screamed as she fell, and I raced to catch her, knowing I would be too late.

You can enter to win a copy of Nightingale's Nest, and a paperback of Sinister Sweetness at this blog tour giveaway.


Final note--uttermost kudos to Razorbill for the beautiful cover--there's nothing I noticed in the text that signifies Gayle's ethnicity, so it's a lovely thing they chose to show her as a shining, lovely, black girl.  More covers like this and no-one will bat an eyelash because  Rue in the Hunger Games is black (I hope).

So because I think it would be a good thing just for that reason (and not just because it's a good book) if lots of people bought Nightingale's Nest, here are all the on-line places you can get it:

Amazon

B&N

Books-a-Million

Indiebound

Google Play

Itunes

A Question of Magic, by E.D. Baker

The First Round of the Cybils is done--I handed in the blurbs for Elementary and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction today, and I do hope you all like our list!   It will be announced with virtual trumpets on the First of January, over at the Cybils website.   

My Cybils reading ended up far outpacing my reviewing (which happens when you have a list of 149 books to read), and so I am left with many fine books on hand that I received for Cybils reading purposes, many of which deserve to be read widely and well.   One of these books is  A Question of Magic, by E.D. Baker (Bloomsbury, Oct. 2013) which turned out to be my favorite of all E.D. Baker's books thus far. 

It is a reimagining of the Baba Yaga story.  After the death of the original bad witch, a string of young girls took her place over the years, heirs to her chicken-legged house with its fence of bones.   Serafina is the most recent girl to assume the mantle, and she does not want it one single bit.  She wants to peacefully marry her beloved, and live a simple life that does not involve magical responsibilities.  

For Baba Yaga, in this story, has the power to answer with the truth--one question per person per lifetime.   But for every question answered, Baba Yaga grows older, relying on a magical tea to restore her youth.  Lots of people have questions for her, from simple matters of the heart, to sweeping political questions....and so Serafina finds the truth coming from her mouth, finds herself in a cycle of aging and rejuvenating, and finds herself caught in the war that's swept through the kingdom.   And she misses her beloved something fierce, thought the skulls are friendly once you get to know them, and a magical cat who adds conversational spice.

Then the potion of youth is spilled.  The war grows worse.  And Serafina cannot refuse to answer the questions that keep coming...even though with each answer she grows nearer to death.......

But not to worry.  There is a happy ending.

What a nice premise is was, the whole question thing, and how nicely E.D. Baker used it!  There was just tons of variety in the questions and their consequences, and I enjoyed it very much.   With my mind still very much preoccupied with Christmas cookies, I would compare A Question of Magic to an American version of Pfeffernüsse (a sweet outside around a softly spicy inside).  Which may or may not be useful, review-wise, but there it is.

In any event, this is one I'd give in a sec to my nine year old self, in the absence of other handy nine-year-old girls.    It would not necessarily be easy to get a boy to read it--the cover is very girl marketed, what with the pink dress and the fairy (yes, there are fairies in the story) and, though I enjoyed it lots myself, I feel no need to insist with passionate conviction that my own son try it (but darn it, before he turns 11 I will get him to read The Runaway Princess, by Kate Coombs.  Maybe as a birthday present to me).

But A Question of Magic is good too.  Give it to fans of Diane Zahler and Gail Carson Levine (both obvious, because of also specializing in fairy tale retellings....), or to any girl who likes magical cats and has not grown too cynical for fairies.

Thanks, Bloomsbury, for the Cybils review copy.

The Witch's Curse, by Keith McGowan

The Witch's Curse, by Keith McGowan (Henry Holt, 2013), takes up right where The Witch's Guide to Cooking With Children left off, with Sol and his little sister Connie escaping from the city where they were almost eaten by the witch who lived next door.  But what Sol had hoped would be a simple bus ride through the forested mountains to their aunt's house turns into a nightmare when the two children find them selves lost in the cursed forest of yet another evil witch.  A witch who turns children into animals, and then sends out her fearsome hunter to slay them.

If they can make it through the forest, they'll be safe, but the power of the witch is strong, and it is all very touch and go indeed.  The witch has had, after all, years of experience entrapping children...and the children are still new at the business of escaping.  And since I don't want to spoil particulars of the plot, that's all I shall say.

It's a  more straightforward adventure than the first book, which was more playful in its juxtaposition of the witch's culinary musings with the danger the children were in of becoming part of her meal plan.   Here we also have glimpses into the point of view of both the witch and her huntsman, but it's a more familiar story of lost children in danger in an evil forest....Though it takes a while for Sol and Connie to realize the extent of the danger they are in, because the reader is privy to the bigger story, what might otherwise have been a slowish start is instead almost immediately tense, and gets more so.  And as was the case in the first book, the relationship between the siblings, sometimes fraught with tension of its own, adds a human element to the supernatural dangers.

Here's what I especially liked--the fact that the hunter himself is under a curse, and is therefore not clearly evil.  I like my antagonists nuanced, and I hope we see more of him in the next book.  That being said, this particular witch is not nuanced at all--at least the witch in the first book was killing children for a reason, not just as part of a sadistic game--but an all out wicked witch is perfectly acceptable, I think, in a fairy tale.

The Witch's Guide was a reimagining of  Hansel and Gretel, and The Witch's Curse is a retelling of the more obscure Brother and Sister.   There's no need to rush out and read the original story first, but having just done so myself after the fact, I appreciate the way it is twisted here lots!  Sol and Connie are not the two original children, but rather follow in their footsteps, walking unwittingly into a nightmare for which they are poorly prepared (for instance, Sol's homemade computer/gps/etc. device, which should have been able to save the day, begs to be recharged at a crucial juncture!).

Highly recommended for intelligent readers who like a nice, dangerous adventure with twists and turns;  though not, perhaps, a series for the child who's already frightened of what's out there in the dark woods...

The Witch's Curse is one of many fine books nominated for this year's Cybils Awards in Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction.  Anyone can nominate books they love, but nominations close tomorrow night, so time is short....

disclaimer:  review copy received from the publisher

The Witch's Guide to Cooking With Children, by Keith McGowan

The Witch's Guide to Cooking With Children, by Keith McGowan (Henry Holt, 2009), is a Hansel and Gretel reimaging--in this case, the children, and the witch who wants to eat them, are nextdoor neighbors in a modern urban setting.  The reader knows from the get go what's up, as the book opens with passages from the witch's journal, describing her nasty dietary habits and the means of procurement she uses.  And it does not take long for eleven-year-old Sol and his little sister Connie to realize that something is very wrong with their neighbor--scientifically minded Sol can't help but notice that her dog is playing with a human femur.  Their father and stepmother (with nasty secrets of their own) have a good reason for wanting the kids gone...but will Connie's cussedness and Sol's scientific smarts be sufficient to keep them out of the pot?

Clearly, if you are disturbed by truly mordant humor of the sort in which children are eaten you will not enjoy this book.  However, I didn't actually find this to be the stuff of nightmares.   Nightmares are lurking threats, looming ever closer, insidiously building in terror....and those sorts of books make me sad and sorry for the kids involved, and anxious to hug my own.  But here, since we see the witch from the beginning, reminiscing about different recipes she's used, the threat is right there up front, in an almost over-the-top, verging on absurd, way.    It's handy that readers are given this perspective immediately, so that they can decide whether to continue or not with little investment! 

I myself was happy to keep going, and found it, as it were, very tasty--a fun, fast read that did not inspire any anxiety viz children being eaten.  There are many little bits that amused me lots, like a nice modern twist on the breadcrumbs that Hansel used to mark the path home.  The sibling conflicts between Sol and Connie added depth, and Sol's character--he's a science geek type, unblessed with sympathetic friends, craving support and understanding-- was appealing (and this is what made me anxious to hug my own older one).  And I found the "let's tell it like it is" perspective of the witch amusing. 

Many kids do have a dark sense of humor (I myself, sweet and nice though I was, enjoyed Edward Gory very much at a young age), and I can imagine mine enjoying this one.  That being said, I can also imagine my younger one (10) asking me how I could give him a book that's so mean.  Hard to know.  

The ending is an ending--as in the original story, the witch gets what she deserves--but obviously Sol and Connie can go home again.  I'm half-way through the sequel right now--The Witch's Curse--and am actually more anxious reading this one.  Even though the danger of being eaten is past, the kids aren't out of the woods yet...

I don't often notice illustrations, because of being so busy reading, but couldn't help but notice that the black and white drawings here added beautiful to the balance between humor and fear--here's an example from the author's website:

Recommended enthusiastically, but cautiously--it won't be for everyone, but those who enjoy it will enjoy it lots!   Here's another blog review from Liz at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Jackie Morris

East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Jackie Morris (Francis Lincoln Children's Books, March 2013), is a beautiful retelling of the titular fairy tale, beautiful in part because of the lovely water colors that grace many pages, but also because of how very satisfactory the retelling is.   It is a really good book that deserves its Kirkus star.

In this version, the white bear comes to an American city to visit a family living in poverty and despair.  They had fled their homeland after the father, a journalist, was arrested and tortured by the government...but they have not yet found sanctuary as political refugees.   The great bear promises that all will be well with them...if the oldest daughter comes away with him...

So she does, and sticking very closely to the original, the girl and the bear live together in a beautiful palace (though with no windows), and every night in the darkness someone gets into bed with her.   Then comes visit home, the tinderbox from her mother, and the realization that the bear is under an enchantment, broken too soon, and bringing an end to what might have been a happy ever after of love.

And here comes the first little twist--the bear prince admits that it's actually just as much his fault for not having the will power to stay away.  Which made me pause, and think that it is really rather creepy that he is getting into bed with her in the first place in the dark all secret like, and she still just a kid, but regardless, now he has to go off to the troll palace east of the sun and west of the moon, to marry the troll princesses.

So the girl (we don't know her name at this point), sets off to find him, not knowing where to go, and in a beautifully described journey meets three wise old sisters, one by one, who send her to the winds, and at last she arrives at the gates of the North Wind, the only one who can take her where she needs to go, and the first person in the book to call her by name (Breneen).  But he wants to win her heart for himself...and she must decide whether to stay and rejoice in the wild beauty and power he can offer, or keep on after the bear prince.

The next bit I will make white, because it a spoiler, but without telling it I can't convey why I liked the ending so much.

Breneen goes on after the bear prince, and saves him from the trolls, but then---she decides not to marry him.  She was a girl when they lived together, she only knew him one day in human form, and she realizes, so wisely, that there is no particular reason why they should end up marrying each other.  Just because he needed her doesn't mean it's true love...

If you are thinking about Christmas presents already, as I am, this one would be a very satisfactory book to give to give to an older reader reader of fairy tales.  It is a very "presenty" sort of book, what with all its illustrations, some double spreads, some little decorations,  it's quirky, friendly, size (smaller and squarer than most books), and the generous margins giving the words lots of room to breath (and after I wrote this, I read on  Jackie Morris' website that this is exactly what she had in mind for its design!).    The illustrations are truly lovely, and you can see some them via that same link.

I say older reader as gift recipient deliberately, as it's a retelling  that I think works best for people who have already been down the road of the original, and who will appreciate it anew, and perhaps even more, in its new form.  A marker right at the beginning--a brief mention of prostitutes and drug dealers as part of the description of the city--made me realize I wasn't reading an illustrated version of a fairy tale for young children, and the circumstances of Breneen's family, illegal immigrants who had to flee from torture, clarified that.   (You can read more about Morris' decision to take this path at this interview at Playing By the Book).   I hit to the prostitutes and drug dealers on page, didn't want to be in a gritty urban setting, felt confused, and put the book down for several days...but I picked it up again, and was very glad I did (the gritty part doesn't last long, and the fact that it was there to begin with adds heft to the story).

But as well as that, older readers, I think, are more likely to grin at the way the ending (more spoiler) subverts the stereotypeof the "happily ever after" as I said in the first spoiler; Breneen gets to grow up, and become her own person, and not stick around just because the prince once needed her. 

In short, though it's marketed for readers 11-14 year old, and while I think it's just fine for them, the romantic fairy tale loving adult is an equally suitable reader.   I myself picked it up to see if it belonged in my category of the Cybils (ages 9-12), and I think if it were nominated, it would be happier in YA. 

Final thought: I'm counting this an example of diversity in fantasy even though I can't tell you what country Breneen is from--it's never stated, the name is not easily placed (as far as I could see) and the illustrations are ambiguous.  I look at the cover, and can see a Middle Eastern girl, or an Asian girl, or a Central American girl (at the moment I'm seeing her as Asian)--but in any event, she's not from northern Europe!

Fairy Tale Comics, edited by Chris Duffy, with interview of contributor Bobby London

Once upon a time, First Second Books, creators of lovely graphic novels for kids, published a book called Nursery Rhyme Comics, and it was good.  Now they have  filled a felt need with a second book in the same vein--Fairy Tale Comics (coming Sept. 24), and it, too, is a book well worth adding to your child's library (after enjoying it yourself).

17 stellar cartoonists were gathered together to present, in graphic form, 17 fairy tales in kid-friendly fashion.  The majority are well-known stories (Red Riding Hood, Snow White), but several are from outside the European tradition (like The Boy Who Drew Cats, which you can preview here, and The Prince and the Tortoise).  There's a nicely balanced mix of girl and boy and animal heroes.  Some stick right to the traditional versions, others put little twists in (a female woodcutter, a boy who realizes he has no qualifications for king-ship, and refuses the crown, sparking a democratic revolution).   In short, there's lots of fun.

Graphic novels for kids are excellent offerings for any reluctant readers you might have on hand.  Some of the stories here have slightly denser text than others, but there's nothing here that's unsuitable for a young reader of 7 or 8, and many are great for emergent readers; that being said, even 13 year old boys will read it repeatedly (from personal observation) and grown-ups will enjoy it too.

This one is not just great for the reader, but also one for the budding graphic artist.  When you have 17 different artists all gathered together, it's a fantastic way for a kid to see and learn different approaches to telling a story visually and rendering reality in comic form.

And I really do think this particular collection of fairy tales serves a felt need.   Raising my boys, I've worried a bit about their fairy tale literacy--I've read stories out-loud to them, sure, but they've never voluntarily curled up with the Brothers Grimm, and so many of the fairy tale picture books are girl-oriented, and they weren't that interested.   However, when something is presented in comic book form, its boy appeal soars....and voila, they become familiar with the stories.   I hope there are more books to come!


It's my pleasure to be part of the Blog Tour for Fairy Tale Comics, and to have interviewed one of the contributors--Bobby London, whose story "Sweet Porridge!" kicks off the book.

Charlotte: So it's my understanding that Chris Duffy, the editor, read lots of fairy tales, picked the ones he thought would make a nice book with Calista Brill, the senior editor at First Second, and then found "cartoonists who would be a good match for particular stories"  (from this interview at the Westfield Comics Blog).

Bobby: More often than not, he'll just rely on his poker buddies. 

Charlotte: Were you surprised to be asked to illustrate this story?  Did you get a specific version of the story that specified "porridge," or did you get a chance to browse through versions with different food-stuffs (such as pasta)?   Had you in fact had any previous experience drawing porridge, or other gelatinous substances, that might explain why you were picked for this one?

Bobby: I was surprised to be asked to draw the lead story,  I'm usually found at the back of the bus,  when I'm not busy being thrown under it. As for sampling grits, rice krispies or any other forms of breakfast cereal for the story, no, I did not; I don't think the Grimm Brothers would appreciate me changing the title of their story to "Sweet Pasta"; we're talking about the Grimm Bros. here, not Carlo Collodi.

It's true  I had to be adept at drawing any number of funky substances to keep my spot in National Lampoon, but for Fairy Tale Comics I had to work very closely with Mark Martin, the talented cartoonist who translated my color layouts to Photoshop, to get precisely the right color of  porridge yellow. Too much green or brown and I would have proven I taught the guys at Ren & Stimpy everything they know. And, no, it wasn't type casting; I prefer to think was chosen for this project because of my literary heritage, i.e. my familiarity with the works of Cervantes, Rabelais and Jonathan Swift.

Charlotte: I've been reading up on your past history as a cartoonist....how you have moved from comic strips for grown-ups to children's media, and now to graphic illustration for kids.   Did you enjoy creating your version of the story?

Bobby: My past history is rather poorly represented in the media and generally in the context of the lives of other artists. My Wikipedia page has been vandalised - er, that is, I mean, "edited' and "rewritten" - over 2 dozen times by total strangers, fans of other cartoonists and people  to whom I owe large sums of money. For instance, nobody knows that I didn't start out as an adult, have been drawing cartoons well since age 4 and submitting to Highlights For Children at 12. Of course, I was attempting to illustrate the Kama Sutra as soon as puberty set in but I couldn't have made the segue to kids comics without having a successful career  illustrating for mainstream newspapers and magazines and I brought those characters with me to Nickelodeon Magazine via my comic strip, Cody. It's a very liberating experience drawing comics for kids.

Charlotte: When you were working on Sweet Porridge, did thoughts of the youthful age of the possible audience affect choices you were making, or did you let things just happen?

Bobby: No, I don't have to think about it. My girlfriend will attest to my true age level being about 6. When writing for adults, I often used to get tired of having to shock myself so this is a holiday. And, you know,  I get my nasty grownup ya-yas out drawing Dirty Duck so I don't feel compelled to sneak naughty messages into kid stuff, like some perverted creeps I know.

Charlotte: What will be next?   Do you think you'll do more graphic illustration for kids, maybe even your own graphic novel?

Bobby: I'm working on an autobiography but it's not a graphic novel, I couldn't bear drawing *some* people I've had to work with over the years ( I'm a cartoonist, not a Witch Doctor). Yes,  I'd love to write and illustrate a storybook or two if they'd still have me, and Chris Duffy has been nagging me to do a Cody graphic novel. Animation offers have come in, too. Believe me, it's a dream come true to still be in demand at age 63  but  I think I'll have to hire an assistant. If that means I'm a sellout, so be it, I also get the Senior Discount at Chili's.

Charlotte:  Thanks Bobby!  And good luck with the autobiography.

And thanks also to First Second for the review copy of Fairy Tale Comics.

Frogged, by Vivian Vande Velde

Frogged, by Vivian Vande Velde (HMH Books for Young Readers, April, 2013), puts a fun spin on the old fairy tale of the princess who kisses the frog prince.   In this case, when young Princess Imogene kisses an enchanted frog one day at his request (without getting too freaked out about it--she is a sensible type, unsquemish viz amphibians), he does indeed transform back into a boy as expected.  But as she kisses him, Imogene transforms into a frog!  To her horror, she learns that the only way out of the enchantment is to pass the kiss, and concomitant frog-ness, on to another victim!

The ex-frog boy won't help her, the witch who enchanted him in the first place won't help her...and before Imogene can hop home to find her parents, she's kidnapped by a rag-tag bunch of travelling players.  A talking frog adds zest to any performance...but every day finds her farther from home, trapped in a bucket and eating flies, when she's not reluctantly entertaining the masses.

This being a fairy tale re-imagining for the younger reader, Imogene does end up restored to her former self.   But rather disappointingly, it's not through her own agency or cleverness, but rather because another character decides to help her.  And so, though the premise of the story is fun, and Imogene's adventures as a frog are entertaining, it felt a tad flat in the end.  I kept waiting for Imogene to hatch a Cunning Plan, or something...and it never happened--though that being said, she does come up with the cunning a ha! moment that sets her free without be-frogging anyone else! 

Oh well.   Imogene's likeable, the frog spell and its implications are fun, and in short, it's a perfectly nice one to give a fairy-tale loving eight- or nine-year-old.

Here's a very small detail (one sentence worth) I liked--Imogene is a fairly typical un-princessly princess--she likes to run around and not worry about getting grubby.  However, she also enjoys embroidery, and it's nice to see sewing not as just one of the unpleasant things of princess girl life but as something worthwhile.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett

So I am steadily working my way through the complete oeuvre of Terry Pratchett, in preparation for the North American Discworld Convention.  When I was invited to be on the program last fall, I had read only a few Discworld books, but that was enough to make me eager to be part of the fun.  I have read 24 Discworld books so far this year, and enjoyed every one of them lots (although some more than others).   And what has surprised me, in the best possible way, is that they aren't just fun and games--I have been moved to tears by the poignant humanity of them (increasingly so as the series progresses) and even would go so far to say that I want my kids to read them too as one part of becoming better, more thoughtful people. 

Yep, even The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (2001), a light-hearted reimagining of the Pied Piper ala Discworld, made me teary (not that it takes much), and think a few deep thoughts en passant on what it means to be human.

Maurice is a cat, and the rodents are rats, and they can think and talk just as well as, if not better than, most people.  Maurice is a cat with ambition, and he has organized the rats, along with a boy musician of a dreamy, unambitious nature, into a money making con operation.   They arrive at a town, the rodents Infest (brilliantly--with the regiments of Light Widdlers and Heavy Widdlers heading out to do their worst while the more dextrous rats work on trap defusing), and then the boy pipes them away once the town is desperate.

But then they arrive a town whose Bavarian-esque charm hides rat-related depravity.  Though there are no rats in evidence, and the town rat-collectors thrive on the culture of fear they've built up and grow fat while the people go hungry.

It's up to the Educated Rodents--Dangerous Beans, the visionary, Peaches, his closest companion and scribe, Darktan, the strategist (who reminded me a lot of Sam Vines, from the Discworld books about the City Watch), and many others--to get to the bottom of the horrible cruelties being practiced on the local rats.  And Maurice, self-centered cat though his is, has to decided if he will help too.

And in the meantime, a local girl (Malicia), obsessed with the tropes of all the fairy tales she's read, gets in on the action--and miraculously, her hair pins open locks, secret passages are where she expects them to be, and so on.

So yeah, it's a lot of fun.  But it posses thought provoking-ness too, on what it means to be a thinking person, prejudice, working through difference, cruelty to animals, and how the tourism industry can be used advantageously.

I am determined to get my boys to read it.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents was written explicitly for a younger audience than the bulk of Discworld, and won the 2001 Carnegie Medal (the UK Newbery equivalent).  But adults can enjoy it just fine too.

Fearless, by Cornelia Funke

Yesterday's book (The Menagerie) was one I happily recommended to nine-year olds wanting fantasy fun; today book I can also recommend whole-heartedly, but it is very different...one I think that has as much cross-over appeal to adult readers as it does to the YA readers to whom it is marketed.

Fearless, by Cornelia Funke (Little, Brown, April 2, 2013, YA), is the sequel to Reckless (my review), which told how Jacob, a boy from our world who became a treasure-hunter in a mirrorworld where fairy tales are true, sacrificed himself to save his younger brother.   And now Jacob, waiting for the fairy curse to strike that will end his life, is on the greatest treasure hunt of his life, this time looking for the last thing he hopes can save him.  It is a weapon crafted by an evil witch king long ago, full of powerful (and potentially horrible) magic...and Jacob isn't the only one hunting for it.   Pitted against him every step of the way is another treasure hunter, one of the stone-skinned Goyl, and their race across an alternate Europe of magic come true might well kill them both.

Fortunately, and heart-rendingly, for Jacob, he is not alone--Fox, the shapeshifting girl who almost broke my heart in the first book, is with him, and here in this book they both have come to understand that their love for each other is the bedrock of their lives.  But Jacob is dying...and so desperate fear tempers their relationship.  They have saved each other countless times before, but now they are stretched so painfully thin by this most horrible quest that hope would seem impossible, if the alternative was not so unthinkable. 

Note:  The relationship between Jacob and Fox is so real, so immediate, so beautiful, and so rooted in their complex pasts that I can't think of any other romance that comes close (except that of Eugenides and Irene, in Megan Whalen Turner's books).  But it is not a physical romance (understandable, given the circumstances) so those looking for swoonish kisses should look elsewhere.

Unfortunately for Jacob's opponent, the Goyl Nerron, not all travelling companions are a good thing.  Nerron is saddled with a nasty teenaged prince, along with his ass of a tutor, and a bodyguard--an inhuman Waterman, with motivations of his own, and their internal power struggles add a somewhat grimly diverting second layer of conflict to the story.  Despite the handicaps who travel with him, Nerron pushes Jacob and Fox at every turn....but fascinatingly, though he seems at first to be the ostensible "bad guy" opponent of the piece, and though up to the last minute the suspense is killer, he is still nuanced, and even sympathetic....

So what we have, to summarize, is killer characters in a killer story.  Added to that are episodes of fairy tale-ness that made bright vivid pictures in my mind--for instance, the book includes one of the most memorable Bluebeard retellings ever.

That being said, this isn't a fast read of magical zipping-ness.   The pages turned slowly, not because I wasn't interested, but because I was so absorbed, even when I wasn't in places where I wanted to be.   Those place weren't the dark scary exciting bits, of which there were many, and which I did enjoy, but rather those times when the burning ache of Fox's and Jacob's desperation surfaces.  Though they must be fearless, they can't help but fear.

So no, not happy escapist fun.  Not a book that kids would necessarily appreciate, though many teens might.   I mysef found it a darn good book (mainly because I love Fox so very much!).  I think it has stuck in my mind so firmly that, although I can imagine re-reading it, I won't need to for a long while.

Here's another review, at In Bed With Books

disclaimer: ARC received from the publisher for review

Unlocking the Spell, by E.D. Baker

Unlocking the Spell, by E.D. Baker (Bloomsbury, October 2012, ages 8-11), is the sequel to The Wide-Awake Princess, in which the titular princess, Annie, is the only one who doesn't fall asleep when her big sister falls under the magic curse ala Sleeping Beauty.   It's up to Annie, the only person in all the kingdoms who magic has no effect on, to find a prince to come kiss her sister...which she does, with all sorts of fairy-tale mash-up adventures along the way.

However, the prince that Annie comes up with has one little issue--he's a bear.  A prince enchanted into bear form, true, but still a bear.

So Annie, her sister, the bear, and Liam (Annie's friend from her first adventure) set out to find the dwarf who worked this malicious magic.  And what follows is a pretty entertaining, though somewhat dizzying, whirl of a journey through fairy tale snippet after snippet--from Puss in Boots to the Three Little Pigs, to the Bremen Town musicians to Snow White and many, many, more....and in all these encounters, Annie's gift (?) of magic-suppression plays a part.

So basically it's a show-case of fractured-fairy tale set pieces, amusingly woven into a pretty coherent whole, but it's somewhat light on the character development (although Annie does wonder about the relationship between Liam and herself....).  Annie's spoiled and ultra-beautiful sister, for instance, never becomes much more interesting or agreeable than she was at the beginning, despite all the shared adventures and dangers.   So for younger readers who want fairy tale fun, it's great; for older readers, it might not have quite enough depth.

disclaimer:  this one was received from the publisher ages ago, and has been languishing in my home far too long...

Curse of the Thirteenth Fey, by Jane Yolen

Curse of the Thirteenth Fey: the True Tale of Sleeping Beauty, by Jane Yolen (Philomel, middle grade, Nov. 2012), has a somewhat misleading title.  It is actually the tale of the family of fairies who came to the christining, and how the princess ended up falling into her enchanted sleep.  And more particularly, it's the tale of the youngest daughter of this family, young Gorse. 

Gorse was left home sick when the rest of her family--aunts, siblings, and parents (no uncles--they were humans and didn't stick around long, but Gorse's father is an elf, and stayed), troop off to the castle to fulfil their part in a bargain made with the human king long ago.  The fairies swore an oath to do the bidding of the royal family, and bestowing Christening magic on the baby princess is part of the bargain. 

But Gorse--thoughtful, brave, impetuous, and somewhat sickly--is horrified when she realizes she's been left home alone.  Will she (and perhaps all her family) explode into light if the family oath isn't fulfilled because she isn't there?  So off she goes by herself to the castle....only to fall into an underground maze.  There a prince of the Unseely fairy court (Orybon),  along with his sworn companion (Grey),  and a clan of cave trolls (called "the McGargles" by the two fairy dudes) are were trapped underground by an imprisoning spell cast long ago (the trolls were innocent, unlucky, bystanders).  Orybon could be free any time--all he has to do is truly repent the wickedness that he's being punished for, and then Grey and the McGargles would be free too.  But repentance isn't actually on Orybon's agenda--he'd rather coerce Gorse into using her family's gift of magical shouting to batter a way through the locked gate to the upper world....

Not surprisingly, Gorse manages to save those who deserve saving, and makes it to the Christening, in time to see her mother cunningly work magic that will free her own family from their bondage to the human royals.  

Surprisingly, Grey, once restored to the upper world, reverts to the age he was when he was first imprisoned--now he's a boy again, just a bit older than Gorse.  And so, with this rather squicky implication that love will blossom despite the age weirdness, we leave them to their magic...

A few quick pluses--An imaginative look at a part of the Sleeping Beauty story that I've never seen looked at before.  Plucky, intelligent, well-read heroine.  Really cool magical book delivery system in which Gorse's father can reach into a magical book delivery slot and pull out random books, allowing Gorse to quote Through the Looking Glass. 

My less plus-like thoughts:  I just never do truly fall for Jane Yolen's books--they just never seem to me to fully deliver numinous enchantment, characters I can take to my heart, and truly gripping stories (and I do recognize that this is my issue--plenty of readers seem to love her just fine).  In this case I was put off by how long it took for the story to actually start--there are seventy six pages of backstory in which Gorse is born, grows older, hears family stories, and tells things to the reader.  Then she falls into the pit, and the pace picks up, albeit in a somewhat choppy fashion.

However, though the story now becomes genuinely interesting reading, the pit has its own problems.   Although the relationship between Orybon and Grey was fraught with all sorts of dynamics (which is the sort of thing I appreciate), I can't really call it a masterpiece of subtle character building.  And I know that I might be over-reacting, but I really didn't care for the patronizing, almost neo-Imperialist way the cave trolls are presented, both with the ridiculous name and the whole sense that I got of them as an exploited indigenous people, in an --isn't it nice that they can care about their families even though they are less than human-- way.

And finally, I was squicked out by Grey suddenly getting younger and loosing memories of what happened underground (which basically erases all of the character development that had happened in his life) and becoming a potential love interest for a girl who started things young enough to be his daughter.

I didn't mind reading it once, but I won't be reading it again.

Other reviews:

The Book Brownie
Kirkus
and the Upper Hudson Library system has gathered the School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and Booklist reviews here

The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, by Nikki Loftin

The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, by Nikki Loftin (Razorbill, 2012, middle grade).

Imagine the most beautifully breathtaking school you can--with a playground that sends a siren song into any child's heart, a cafeteria designed for fine dining, a school where each child has a dish of candy in their desks that never gets empty, and all seems designed to make every student happy....

That's Splendid Academy, where Lorelie and her brother are being sent; it's approved of by her new step-mother (not a universally welcome addition to her family).   And although sweet as all get out on the outside, Splendid Academy has a rotten core.  A kind of deadly, magical, rotten-as-all-get-out core....

Because all the lovely food, bags and plates and bowls of delicious food, pressed upon the students by the beautiful teachers, isn't for the benefit of the children growing fatter every day.

Lorelie, though, is not like other students.  She has a dark secret of her own, one that ironically will be her armour during the days can come, as, bit by bit, the horror of her new school unfolds.

I don't know if I would have seen it myself, because I can be Dim at times, but this is a retelling of Hansel and Gretal--and a good one too (not that I've ever read any book length retellings of it, but still).   The whole package of Splendid Academy makes a believable whole, magic and all....and Lorelie's own journey of discovery, the actions she took and her motivations, all made sense to me.

Her older brother was not, as one might expect, the "Hansel Figure."  In fact, the older brother was pretty much a non character, and the part of Hansel was played by another classmate, Andrew, a boy who arrived at Splendid Academy already overweight.   Loftin does, I think, a fine job with Andrew, avoiding fat kid stereotypes and making him an insightful, sympathetic character who does not miraculously have to become thin in order to be a valued, attractive, person.

It's a pretty dark book (about as dark as the original fairy tale), but it's a darkness of gradually building horror rather than grotesque violence.   I don't think, though, that the horror overwhelms the story.  Lorelie's strength of character, and determination to do the right thing, balances things out.   I liked it quite a bit.

(personal note:  I kept misreading Splendid Academy as Splenda (tm) Academy.  Which I thought was rather metaphorically apt.....)

Snow In Summer, by Jane Yolen

What if Snow White wasn't a princess, but just a girl, named Snow in Summer, loved by her papa and mama and growing up good and beautiful in the mountains of West Virginia in the mid-20th century?  And what if her mama died, and her papa was so grief stricken he couldn't spare a thought for his little girl anymore...but was ensnared by the magic of a wicked woman, who became the poor child's evil stepmother?

Snow in Summer, by Jane Yolen (Philomel, 2011) is that story, and these twists of time and place and character make for a fascinating retelling.   It's a dark one, starting off right away in sadness with the death of Summer's mother, and working its way slowly and inexorably into horror, as Summer's evil stepmother cuts the girl off from the rest of the community, punishes her horribly, and finally, plans to kill her.  For the stepmother's magic is dark indeed, and it's a greedy, hungry magic that feeds on young life....

Summer herself is aware that things are horribly wrong, but can't seem to find any way out of the maze of cruelty that's been woven around her.  It's not until she runs for her life that she finds a refugee--in the home of a family of small German immigrant brothers-- and that isn't until page 195.  

It wasn't one I loved.  I found Summer a somewhat distant, unemotional narrator, and I never connected quite enough with her to care all that much.  On top of that,  I couldn't help but feel that the last bit of the book was rushed (we don't get enough time to really get to know the Seven Dwarf equivalents), and the romance at the end (not even a romance) was unsatisfactorily tacked on.   But I did appreciate the freshness of  Jane Yolen's reworking, and can recommend it to fans of fairy tales on that basis--it made a lovely change from the faux medieval that's so ubiquitous in retellings (though I think I'll always love those medievally ones best!).

Those looking for fairy tale retellings with pretty dresses should look elsewhere (they will find the pretty cover has deceived them), but older middle-school kids (seventh graders or so) who are almost ready to move on to darkish, more Young Adult books may well enjoy it.  

Note on age:  The lust (verging on attempted rape) of the teenaged boy who has been charged with killing Summer pushes this, in my mind, out of the range of younger readers.

A sample of other reviews:  Semicolon, Leaf's Reviews, and Book Aunt

Fairy Tales From the Brothers Grimm, retold by Philip Pullman (plus giveaway)

Fairy Tales From the Brothers Grimm: a New English Version, by Philip Pullman (Viking Adult, November 12, 2012).

This is the first time I've ever written in a happy spirit about a book I haven't finished, and I feel absolutely no shame at all about not having read to the end!  I'm in no rush to hurry up and read it cover to cover--instead, I'm enjoying revisiting all my old friends, reading my favorite stories out loud to my children, and relishing Pullman's fresh and friendly story-telling.

He is an author who isn't afraid to translate "pisspot" (Pißput) as "pisspot," one who isn't afraid to let the players in the stories speak with contractions (though he plays it fairly straight--he doesn't use a specifically local speech, or the repetitive formulae of oral storytelling, as Alan Garner, for instance, does in his retellings).  And my children are enjoying the experience very much as well, much more so than the stiffer versions in my own childhood Grimm.

I didn't have enough enough books as a child living overseas, so I was forced to re-read those (relatively) few books I had  and that included Grimm.  Though I would periodically force myself to read straight through, I had my favorites, of course--The Golden Bird, Jorinda and Joringel, The Goose Girl...stories I knew pretty much by heart. 

Reading Pullman's retellings was like coming home to find the walls of my house repainted--fresh and bright and like new again, with the added bonus of some new rooms that I'd never been in before.

 This isn't a book specifically for children--there are no illustrations, no sanitization--though many children will enjoy reading it; instead there is lots of fascinating commentary on the stories.  This isn't one to put on the kids' bookshelf, in their room upstairs, but it's one that I'd shelve happily in the living room library, and not be at all ashamed of adult visitors seeing it there!

Giveaway:  To win your own copy of this one, leave a comment (with a way to get a hold of you if you don't have contact info. on your own blog) by next Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 11:59pm.  (US and Canada)

And the winner is...ILuvReadingTooMuch

(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)

Beauty and the Beast: The Only One Who Didn't Run Away

Way back in 2005, Wendy Mass published the first in her Twice Upon a Time series--Rapunzel: the One With All the Hair. The second book, Sleeping Beauty: the One Who Took a Really Long Nap, followed in 2006. And then Mass left fairy tales for the next few years (though she didn't leave off magic). This year Mass returned to Twice Upon a Time, with Beauty and the Beast: the Only One Who Didn't Run Away (Scholastic, middle-grade, June 2012).

And, um, it didn't work for me.  Not in a horribly negative way--I have no hostile feelings at all toward it.   I didn't mind reading it, and was diverted--all the things I like about the story as it exists in my mind (the bookish little sister who cares about important things, the Beast with a backstory--likable, even lovable, under the fur, the castle with books) are there.  A younger reader might well enjoy it lots, what with its likable heroine, and its mix of humor and a serious, life-or-death, story.

But it felt a bit off to me.  For one thing, Beauty doesn't arrive at the castle until page 212 of 282 pages, so Beauty and the Beast getting to know each other is a lot less important than it often is, and since that is my favorite part of the story, it was a disappointment.   And what comes before The Meeting doesn't make up for it.  Before we get there, we have lots of kind of inconsequential stuff, along with two main sub stories (told in the alternative perspectives of Beauty and the Beast), to wit:

1.  A quest adventure that Beauty has on her own, the point of which doesn't become at all clear until quite close to the end of the book (and even when it's clear it doesn't seem like much point).  It was a really implausible sort of quest too, involving a girl who is kind of fairy-like wanting to find something her mother lost years ago, and it doesn't have much umph to it and it beats me why anyone thought that Beauty, just cause she didn't have much else better to do and was reasonably bright and spunky, and had travelled a little, would be the perfect travelling companion for this mysterious little girl.  But the baker's apprentice is going too, and pleasant, intelligent young bakers with no skills beyond baking are awfully useful on quests (?). 

2.  The story of how the Beast came to be a Beast, and how his invisible parents and older brother and him in Beast form all live together in the castle hoping for a girl to come marry him.  This part made more sense, although the logistical details of the invisible family (they were keeping their presence secret) bothered me, and the older brother was incredibly annoying and the parents not much better.

So those two stories get the reader to page 212, when the Meeting happens, and then Beauty, being really special, manages to fall in love with the Beast at an unrealistic speed (though they share a keen interest in alchemy, which is nice for them).  This disappointed me, because I like people to fall in love with slow, inexorable subtly.  And then the bad witch who cursed the beast gets what she deserves.

In both these substories, the tone felt unbalanced to me--there was considerable humor, of an almost teetering on farce type, but then the reader was asked to take the story seriously regardless.   Perhaps if the Beast hadn't been named Riley I would have liked it more, but Riley seems to me so 21st-century a name that from the moment I read it (page 6) I was distrustful, and it underscored the disjuncture I felt between the book's "relatable fun" and its moments of "serious historical fantasy." (The cover makes me similarly uneasy--that dress looks much more modern than I think it should, suggesting a contemporary romance).

In short, this re-telling didn't hang together in a cohesive way, but felt like piece-work, kind of randomly joined at the seams. Of course, for this fairy tale, Beauty, by Robin McKinley, set so very high a re-telling bar that nothing else really comes close for me....

Once Upon a Toad, by Heather Vogel Frederick

I have always appreciated the story of the two sisters who are rewarded/punished for their behavior with flower and jewels, or reptiles and amphibians, coming from their mouths when they speak.  It was a very unambiguous story--the good child is rewarded, the bad child punished.  End of story.  Clearly spraying those around you with flowers and jewels is better than drooling toads.

Or maybe not. 

Once Upon a Toad, by Heather Vogel Frederick is a retelling of this fairytale, set very much in the present day, but with a magic that makes no concession to modernity!  It's the story of two girls--stepsisters--who loathe each other.  One of whom, Cat, is blessed (?) with a fairy godmother, her Great Aunt Abyssinia, who leaps in to set things right (?).  Suddenly Cat finds herself speaking toads, and her mean girl stepsister, Olivia, speaks in diamonds and flowers (the species of flower changing depending on her mood, which I thought was a nice touch).

Of course, this being the 21st century, a secret branch of the government becomes keenly interested when Olivia's gift becomes public knowledge (Cat manages to maintain a charade of laryngitis).  And diamonds, being diamonds, attract the interest of would-be profiteers....When Cat and Olivia's mutual little brother is kidnapped by these bad guys, the two girls head off to find Great Aunt Abyssinia, desperate to get him back, and to have their "gifts" rescinded.

It's an entertaining retelling, nicely fractured and reassembled into a coherent adventure.   There are Issues dealt with--coming to terms with family relationships that are forced on you, learning to get along with, and even appreciate,  people very different from yourself --but though these issues are very clearly present, even underlined, they don't take over the story (much).   This is a fantasy that might well appeal to  middle school girls who would generally prefer realism, and who think they don't like magic.  And for those who do like magic, the contemporary setting makes a nice change.  Not necessarily a deep or powerfully moving change (it's not subtle or profound enough for that), but fun nonetheless.

In a Glass Grimmly, by Adam Gidwitz

In a Glass Grimmly, by Adam Gidwitz (Dutton Juvenile, Sept. 27, 2012, middle grade)

In A Tale Dark and Grimm (2010), Gidwitz fractured the story of Hansel and Gretel into a quest that was a conglomeration of several fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.  In a Glass Grimmly is a companion to that story, again drawing on several desperate tales to make a surprisingly coherent narrative about the trials and tribulations that befall royal children Jill and Jack.  As in the first book, there are frequent intrusions from the narrator, a considerable helping of danger, and some really unpleasant moments.  But there's also humor, and hope, and character growth to balance off the less cozy aspects of the tale....

Both Jack and Jill are leading lives that are somewhat twisted--Jack longs to be accepted by the village boys, and Jill longs to be as beautiful as her beautiful mother, so as to win attention from her.    But when the tailor responsible for the Emperor's New Clothes comes to town, Jill finds herself the victim of his cruelty....and runs off the village where Jack lives.   Jack has his own problems--he's just traded a cow for a bean.  And these happenings set in motion a journey that will take the children on a quest of a mirror that will tell the truth to whoever looks into it...if they can deliver the mirror to the mysterious woman who asked them to find it, they'll get their hearts desire.  If they don't get it, they've agreed their lives are forfeit.  It's the sort of quest that involves dangers from goblins, giants, evil mermaids, and finally a face to face encounter with a massive, very fiery salamander.

And it's the sort of quest where, when all the pieces fall into place, Jill and Jack have changed so much that what they thought they wanted--validation from others--has changed as well....

Comic relief along the way is provided by a three-legged frog (throwing a frog against a wall doesn't actually turn a frog into a prince, you know.  It just hurts him).  And the pluck of the two kids, and their quick wits adds zest to the story.   So all in all, I found it a very diverting read, one I preferred to the first book.   I'm not quite sure why that last is so--perhaps this book had a more hopeful, interior oriented character arc, perhaps the authorial intrusions were intruded with a more practiced hand, perhaps I just found Jack and Jill more interesting...perhaps it's because I liked the frog.

In short, although A Tale Dark and Grimm didn't work for me, this one did, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it to kids from fourth grade on up (yeah, it's dark, but so is Harry Potter).   I know lots of people loved ATDAG--I'd love to hear from any of you who did about whether this one worked as well for you!

And as a final aside--there's no need to have read the first book before picking this one up, and there's no real need to know the fairy tales, although it adds considerably to the interest.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Circle of Cranes, by Annette LeBox

Circle of Cranes, by Annette LeBox (Dial, April, 2012, upper middle grade), is the story of an orphaned Chinese girl, 13 year old Suyin. Her father died, and her mother disappeared when she was little, and her paternal grandfather was so angry at this that he forbid any of the women in the village to teach Suyin any of the embroidery for which her mother was famous. So she has grown up passed from one family to another, and deprived of the heritage of her Miao ancestors--the women from this minority group define themselves in large part by their skill with the needle.

But Suyin is blessed with a preternatural skill for languages. And so, when a clearly untrustworthy human trafficker offers passage to America for one of the villagers--at a steep price--Suyin, who speaks English, is chosen to go. The expectation is that American dollars will flow back to the village, paying of the dept and bringing prosperity.

Suyin does not want to go. How can she leave her beloved cranes, the birds with whom she feels a strange kinship, birds that she has actually visited and spoken with in their own dream-like land? They had promised that someday she might be one of them--a crane woman, able to fly--but how can this dream come true in America?

The voyage is hellish--children packed for weeks in the hold of a derelict vessel. And instead of being the promised Golden Land, New York is a land of sweatshops and virtual slavery for the children, a place where brutal enforcers deal with any attempt to rebel, or escape. Suyin, who cannot sew, earns only a pittance in the garment making sweatshop, and her future seems bleak indeed.

But the cranes have not abandoned her. Indeed, they are pinning their own hopes on her. For the Queen of the Cranes was Suyin's mother, who disappeared years ago, and without her, there is no future for the clan. If Suyin can prove herself worthy (and if she can learn to sew, for the cranes, like the Miao women, pass down wisdom and beauty through their stitchery), there is hope.

Except that it is hard to be worthy when being ground down by the miseries of a life of brutal labor.

But cranes teach her embroidery, and messages written in the secret language of women, passed down through the generations, and hidden in plain sight in the stitches, brings comfort and wisdom. And finally Suyin finds the courage to speak up in public about the plight of the garment workers....and it all resolves to a happy ending.

Circle of Cranes is two stories. There is the realistic story, of the horrible working conditions faced by illegal immigrants--they work in fear of the government, in fear of their bosses, and with little hope. Prostitution is the only clear alternative for these young girls. Then there is the fantasy story, a reimagining of the story of the Crane Wife (the story of a woman torn between life as a bird and her human family is Japanese, not so much Chinese, but the author's endnote says has "roots in many Asian cultures"). Each is vivid and compelling in its own right, with the realistic elements being a grippingly eye-opening story, and the fantasy elements making a magical counterpoint.

It didn't, however, work perfectly for me. Though I was fascinated, especially by the details of the embroidery, the contrast between the two aspects of the book was great, so much so that I was not always convinced by the magical reality of it as a whole! I have to confess that a personal prejudice of my own came into play--I really get creeped out when a human person starts to sprout feathers (Suyin only has one feather, and it falls out quickly, but still). But that is just me. And the tidy resolution, in which the human identities of the crane women were revealed, seemed a bit much (all the important women in Suyin's life seem to be crane women...).

But in any event, this is one I'd give to the young (11 to 13 year old) lover of fairy tale retellings, for whom the magic of the cranes might well ring true, and whose heart might be deeply moved by Suyin's horrible experience in New York. It might especially appeal to those who want a lovely, magical daydream to lift them out of quotidian, possibly unpleasant, reality....

Final though: I think this is my favorite cover of the year so far. Isn't it beautiful?

The Brixen Witch, by Stacy DeKeyser

The Brixen Witch, by Stacy DeKeyser (Margaret K. McElderry Books, June 26, 2012, middle grade) is a fresh and fun re-telling of the story of the Pied Piper, told from the point of view of the one boy who was not ensnared by the spell of the music that lured the other village children into a mysterious cave.

Rudi, and all the other villagers of Brixen, have known all their lives that the mountain looming above them is home to a fearful witch of great power. But Rudi is one of the few who has a chance to learn of her power directly. When he brings home a golden coin he found in the high meadow, his grandmother warns him to return it to the witch immediately--or else he will feel her wrath. So the next day he tries to take it back, but it is lost in a rockslide.

All that winter Rudi is haunted by nightmares...and then spring bring brings trouble to the whole village. A plague of rats destroys the peace and prosperity of the village, and the price the mysterious stranger charges to solve the problem is one golden coin (undreamed of wealth to the villagers).

It's clear to Rudi and his grandmother that this stranger is in league with the witch, and that Rudi must find the lost coin. But the deadline passes before he, and the music of the stranger's violin lures all the village children up and away, into the mountain.

To save them, Rudi must confront the Brixen Witch...and he finds that witches are not always what they seem to be....

This is a satisfying re-telling, adding new twists to an old story to make a seemless whole. The magic of the witch is clearly present from the beginning, though the quotidian details of village life, and mundane attempts to kill rats (which I confess was one of my favorite parts of the book--I now know lots more about historic rat hunting, and found it interesting! plus bonus ferrets!), give a solid grounding to the story. The thought-provoking twist at the end, when Rudi meets the witch, lifts the story to the truly magical.

The straight-forward storytelling, and focus on Rudi, an ordinary boy forced to step outside the safe world of childhood, makes this an excellent choice for younger "middle grade" kids, of nine or ten. It's not one for the reader who wants wild and whacky magic with Slayings and Spells and a kid who has great powers (that kid might find this one slow), but more for the kid who likes fantasy stories that one could imagine really happening.

If I were a fourth or fifth grade teacher, doing a unit on fairy tale retellings, this is one I'd most definitely be offering those kids (boys or girls) who aren't drawn to pretty dresses (and who like ferrets, though they don't actually get that much page time)! And I'd be pretty stuck to think of any others--perhaps The Book of Wonders, by Jasmine Richards, and the Sisters Grimm series. (Can you think of any other boy-friendly fairy tale retellings?)

So all in all, a nice read for me as a grown up, and one that I think fills in fine style a pretty empty niche for the target audience.

disclaimer: review copy gratefully received from the author.