Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse, 2009, YA, 448 pages), was that lovely sort of book which exceeds one's expectations. I knew it would be well-written, I expected, in general, that it would be a good book. I didn't, though, expect to enjoy it as much as I did.

I haven't read that much steampunk, mainly because I find complicated machinery and billows of toxic smoke and steam unappealing, and although I know that's a naive view of the genre, but that's what was in my mind. But looking back on Leviathan, the skies were clear, and the machinery unobtrusive, allowing me to enjoy the story...

In a Europe that never was, WW I is beginning. This alternate Europe had split years before into two factions--each taking a different path towards improving the quality of life (and the quality of war as well). The western countries followed the lead of Darwin, mixing and matching bits of life forms to create living technology, and the East went the route of wondrously complex mechanical creations. So in this alternate WWI, Darwinist England's vast living zepplins guarded by bats who poop metal spikes (owie?) are about to face off against Klanker Germany's air craft and huge land machines, great behemoths of steam-driven ingenuity.

As the book begins, two teenagers become caught up in the madness of war. One is Alex, son of the assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, fleeing toward a place of safety where he can ride out the war without being captured by either side. One is Deryn, who disguised herself as a boy to join Britain's air force, and now is a midshipman on the greatest living zepplin of them all--the titular Leviathan.

When the Leviathan crash lands in Switzerland, near where Alex and his guardians have taken refuge, the paths of the two meet, and much excitement ensues. Can the Hapsburg bunch help the British bunch without jeopardizing themselves? Will the Germans come to make sure they finished off the Leviathan? Can the Leviathan be fixed, or are they all stuck in the Alps forever? And what is the mysterious mission the Leviathan was embarked on, carrying Darwin's scientist grand-daughter to the Ottoman empire, with a cargo of precious eggs?

It's great "kids in peril" stuff, with both Alex and Deryn forced to grow-up fast as war becomes a reality for them. Alex, in particular, must cope with an utter re-shuffling of his views of the world and the realities of his life. The technological split between Darwinists and Clankers adds wondrously fascinating detail, the plot is exciting, yet these things never overwhelmed the character arc of the two teenagers and their growing friendship.

Technically this is a YA book, but at this stage of the game (dunno what will happen relationship-wise in the next book--for now Alex and Deryn are still at the just friends but almost certainly about to become more than that) this is a great book for older middle grade kids. The detailed black and white full page illustrations are fascinating in their own right, as well as bringing Westerfield's creations to life. You can see some of them at Westerfield's blog--they are fantastic.

The second book of the series, Behemoth, will be out in October 2010.

Backtracked, by Pedro de Alcantara, for Timeslip Tuesday

Backtracked, by Pedro de Alcantara (Delacorte 2009, YA, 256 pages)

"By the day I was born, April 3, 1990, I had already lived several lives. But I didn't learn about them until Tuesday, February 28, 2006." (page 1)

Tommy Latrella's brother was a firefighter killed on 9/11. Ever since then, he's felt that whenever his parents and teachers look at him, they see Jimmy's absence, and Tommy knows they think he falls far short of his hero brother. So he slacks off in school, riding the subways instead...not caring much about anything.

But the downward spiral of Tommy's life changes one day when a joke he plays in a crowded station goes horribly wrong, and a little girl lands on the train tracks. Trying to save her, Tommy ends up back in 1918. There he is taken in by the Italian immigrant community. Working long hours building the subway tracks he'll ride in the future, he still finds time to feel like part of an extended family...and then the influenza epidemic strikes.

Time tricks Tommy again, and this time he is a bum in the Depression. To save a friend, he accepts money from the mob, and gets sucked into a spiral of increasing violence, until, once again, he's bumped forward in time. His final life in the past is as a WW II army recruit, and finally, in this life, Tommy gets a chance to trust himself, without any heroics, but just as a part of growing up. And then it's back to the present...

So that's the gist of the timetravelling--a teenage boy's journey from a slacker existence as his brother's ghost to a confident sense of self-worth and purpose. But this book isn't just a Lesson (although there is a somewhat didactic miasma to it). It's good historical fiction of the time-travelling sort--one of the best early twentieth century Italian immigrant experience stories I've read, the best boy sucked in by the Prohibition era mob story I've read, and the best teenage grunt in training for WW II I've read.

Although I, um, can't think of any others I've ever read. So I think that's one main strength of the book--it's an introduction to neglected pieces of the past, with tons of boy appeal in the types of story being told (although, unfortunately, the least "exciting" part of his adventure, the 1918 track-laying stint, is first, which might off-put some readers).

But it's more than just a presentation of the past through time-travel. It's an archetypal boy growing up journey, and I found Tommy's passage from disaffected slacker to thoughtful almost-adult to be both moving and convincing. Of course, it helps that he was in the past, away from his family, for about a year of hard labor--I think it was this chance to grow up that led to this transition, more than any specific "lessons" taught by the past. Although he does decide, based on experience, that he'd rather starve than join the mob again.

Especially recommended to boys who like riding the NY transit system, and anyone with an interest in New York's history.

Time travel-wise--no rhyme or reason to it all; the loose connection to the subway explains nothing. And there's one real sticky point for me. Tommy come home with a buzz cut, wearing a WW II uniform, which his parents notice. So the physical changes wrought by his life in the past are real--surely someone would notice that he's just been through basic training and is a lot bigger and stronger?

High marks, however, in the believable disorientation of the time-travelling teenager category.

Another review from a reader who reacted quite differently from me, at The Englishist.

The Humblebee Hunter, Inspired by the Life and Experiments of Charles Dwarwin and his Children, for Non-fiction Monday

The Humblebee Hunter, Inspired by the Life and Experiments of Charles Darwin and his Children, by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Jen Corace (Disney 2010, ages 4-8).

I wish I had been one of Darwin's children. Not that I didn't have a happy childhood of my own, but reading this book made me wish that I'd been part of the exploration of nature that permeated the Darwins' home (and it also inspired me to take a magnifying glass outside with my own kids).

"Father was still a collector. And most of all he collected questions. We grew up asking what? and why? and how?

When Father studied worms, Lizzie and I stuck knitting needles in the ground to try to measure their holes.

Willy and I helped Father put seeds in salt water, to see if they might still grow if they were carried across the seas." (page 9)

What a fun childhood.
The Humblebee Hunter tells of one particular summer afternoon in the life of the Darwin family. Henrietta is inside, helping to bake, but she can see her father outside, looking closely at the bees...and she'd much rather be there with him than in the kitchen! So when her father calls to bring the flour shaker out to him, she's off running.

And the great humblebee count begins--each of the Darwin children (except little Horace--he's too young to count, so he's assigned dog playing duty) will count how many flowers their particular bee will visit in one minute.

It's an enchanting little story. The illustrations have an old fashioned look to them--rather formal, and in darkish colors, but enchanting none the less. And the actual counting, with pictures that jump from child to child, is more exciting than it might sound!

A great book for spring--the humblebees are buzzing around our garden these days, and I'm very happy to see them!

Here's an essay Deborah Hopkinson wrote for Book Page last February, describing the making of this book. In it she says that although there's no specific evidence that the Darwin kids were part of a great bumblebee count, although this was a question that interested him. But even though I guess this then becomes historical fiction, I'm counting this for non-fiction Monday anyway--it's a great introduction to Darwin for the young!

The Non-fiction Monday Roundup is at Shelf-Employed today!

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction reviews/news from around the blogs

Welcome to this week's installment of middle grade sci fi/fantasy children's book stuff gleaned from the blogging world. There are far too many reviews here by me this week--please let me know if I missed your post, or if you have any news to share!

The Reviews:

The Dragon of Trelian, by Michelle Knudson, at Books I Done Read.

Enchanted Glass, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Book Aunt.

Felix Takes the Stage, by Kathryn Lasky, at Charlotte's Library.

The Foundling, and Other Tales of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander, at Fantasy Literature.

The Night Fairy, by Laura Amy Schlitz, at Five Minutes for Books and at Green Bean Teen Queen.

The Oerkern Leaves, by Thomas Clayton Booher, at The Christian Fantasy Review.

The Princess and the Goblin, by George MacDonald, at Things Mean a Lot.

The Runaway Dragon, by Kate Coombs, at Becky's Book Reviews.

Sea of the Dead, by Julie Durango, at Charlotte's Library.

The Spellcoats, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Charlotte's Library.

The Thirteenth Floor, by Sid Fleischman, at Charlotte's Library.

The Thirteenth Princess, by Diane Zahler, at Becky's Book Reviews.

Wild Magic, by Cat Weatherill, at Charlotte's Library.

Plus three reviews of mg fantasy books nominated for the Cybils last fall: Fairest of All, The Magician of Oz, and Skeleton Creek, at Charlotte's Library.

Not exactly reviews:

Margo Dill's Read These Books and Use Them! offers some discussion possibilities for Sharon Creech's Unfinished Angel.

Story Sleuths has an excellently thoughtful post on point of view in Laini Taylor's Blackbringer.

Miscellaneous:

The Goddess Girls are on tour--here's a guest post by their creators, Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams, at Cynsations, that includes the full tour lineup. Athena the Brain and Persephone the Phony, the first two books in the series, are out this month.

On April 26, the Enchanted Inkpot Book Club will begin discussing The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander--a classic of middle-grade fantasy. If you haven't read it, now's your chance!

Betsy at Fuse #8 is up to Number 2 in her compilation of the Top 100 Children's Novels. Will number 1 be a fantasy, like numbers 2, 3, and 4?

(I'd really appreciate it if anyone felt like spreading the word about these round-ups I do, and thanks, all of you who have already!)

24 Hour Readathon wrap-up

The 24 Hour Readathon has ended...I was derailed by my decision to go to a fundraising gala for my kids' school, which wiped out yesterday from 5pm on, so my totals are not what I had hoped.

Still, I read and reviewed four books: Felix Takes the Stage, by Kathryn Lasky, Wild Magic, by Cat Weatherill, Jimmy's Stars, by Mary Ann Rodman, and Hannah's Garden, by Midori Snyder, for a total of 930 pages, plus 273 pages of Prophecy of Days, by Christy Raedeke, which I hope to finish today, plus 15 pages of The Dark Horse, by Marcus Sedgewick (after I put down Prophecy of Days somewhere in the house and couldn't find it again sigh sigh sigh). And I also read 24 pages of Old Mother West Wind's How Stories (out loud to children).

So my total is 1242 pages.

And here's the final mini-challenge:
1. Which hour was most daunting for you? I thought about trying to do some reading on my own after the children went to bed, but I am so unused to social gala type events that I had to just go to bed myself.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Generally I'd suggest short and snappy. But on the other hand, this time around, one of my books (Prophesy of Days) was an incredibly dense and complex story. I'm glad I was able to give it several uninterrupted hours, instead of reading it in snatched moments here and there. So complicated works well too! I think variety is key...

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Nope! I thought it was great.

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? I liked having readers of the hour to visit.

5. How many books did you read?/6. What were the names of the books you read? see above.

7. Which book did you enjoy most?/ 8. Which did you enjoy least? They were all good in their own way.

9. n.a.

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I might well sign up to be a cheerleader next time...

THANK YOU so much to the organizers of the Readathon, for all their hard work. It was a blast!

The Deadlies: Felix Takes the Stage, by Kathryn Lasky

For the last hour of the Read-a-thon, I abandoned my original choices and went with something quick and easy from the general to-be-read pile: Felix Takes the Stage, by Kathryn Lasky (Scholastic, May 2010, for ages 7-9, 148 pages).

It can be hard to be a young brown recluse spider with a fondness for the arts. People tend not to want extremely venomous spiders around, and brown recluses, in general, aren't known for their beautiful webs.

But young Felix, growing up in a California concert hall, spends his evenings admiring the conductor, wanting to be part of the music...until one evening, when he gets to close to the conductor, and lets himself be seen. The conductor has a heart attack, Felix looses a leg, and the exterminators are on their way...so the spider family (mother, two older sisters, and Felix, and the god-spider theatre cat who's known the children since they were eggs) must find a new home.

The antique store nearby offers shelter, but other spiders already live there, including snooty orb weavers, the dangerous pirate spiders. It's not the place where cultured, intellectual mother spider wants her children to live. Maybe it's time to move to Boston, where there are great libraries, theaters, art galleries....maybe there Felix can find an outlet for his creative urges.

A charming spider story for the young. Older readers (like me) might find it too didactic at times--not only does the mother spider herself directly instruct her young throughout the book on various topics, there are many embedded lessons, primarily on the topic of judging people/spiders not by their venom, but by their characters. But for the young intended audience, this is, I think, a fresher, more salient point of view than it is for the adult reader, and it's certainly a lesson I want my children to learn. And the charm of seeing the world from a spidery point of view, with many little humorous details to chuckle over, keeps the story moving nicely despite the moral underlinings.

I read this book in art form, without its final art, so cannot speak to the appeal of the finished product. But I think it's a good one to give, in particular, to the child fascinated by the world of animals (and then next year said child can read Masterpiece, by Elise Broach, the story of an artistic beetle). Even though it's ostensibly for youngish readers (friendly font size, pictures, short chapters--that sort of thing), I think it has enough interest to be a good choice for the nine year oldish child who lacks reading confidence.

Postscript: I especially liked the Black Widow couple, Albert and Rachel: "...the two were on their honeymoon as well, and they were determined to buck the current. Rachel point-blank refused to kill her mate. "Tough spinnerets!" she huffed. "This one's a keeper. I'm not letting him go!" (page 69 of ARC)

(disclaimer: ARC received from the publisher at ALA Midwinter)

Wild Magic, by Cat Weatherill

My 24 Hour Read-a-Thon reading got derailed yesterday evening, when I decided that it was my duty to go to the school fundraising event...but I got up early this morning, and have read another book!

Wild Magic, by Cat Weatherill (Walker and Co., 2007, middle grade, 278 pages) was a lovely book to read in the dark of the morning. It's a retelling of the Pied Piper story, taking the bones of that familiar fairy tale and building a magical story with them.

"He dared to be different. Into a sad, drab world of gray and black he had come, burning bright in turquoise and jade. Dazzling as a dragonfly. He had played a pipe and the rats had followed, dancing till they drowned in the quick brown water of the river. They had to follow him. They couldn’t resist his music. And Marianna couldn’t resist it now. It was glorious. She wanted to dance. She wanted to dream. She wanted to follow the Piper.

And Marianna wasn’t alone. The streets were packed with children. Every boy, every girl in Hamelin Town seemed to be there, and they were all dancing.

Except one." (page 4)

It was never explained in the original story just what the Pied Piper was going to do with the children of Hamlin Town, when his piping led them into the hill. In Wild Magic, the Piper has a reason--he's seeking the one magical child he was told would be among them, hoping to be free of the terrible curse that has tortured him for centuries. For the piper is actually one of the elves who live in the land beyond, and years ago he broke the laws of that realm. Now every full moon he is turned into a terrible beast...and if he can find the right child, he can pass on the curse and be free of it.

But the right child wasn't among those who followed his piping through the door in the rock. Marianna knew that her brother Jakob was falling behind on their dance to the piper's music, but under its spell she couldn't stop to help him, and Jakob never made it through.

In his wrath when he discovers that he doesn't have the child he seeks, the piper turns the children into animals. Now Marianna is a fox...and is pretty sure she might stay that way forever. But Jakob is still searching for a way in, and it is his magic and true heart that can save both his sister and the piper. If he is willing to pay the price...and it is a terrible one.

Weatherill doesn't go into great detail about the workings of her enchanted realm, but I think this is a strength of the book, rather than a weakness, that there is lots of unexplained magical-ness--it is the blank spaces on maps, after all, that are the most enticing. More worryingly, her transformation of Finn the Piper from child kidnapper to sympathetic character might seem, to older readers, a tad forced, and some suspension of disbelief is required to accept this.

But despite that, I found Wild Magic a rather delightful middle-grade fairy-tale retelling--there's plenty of adventure and magical world making, and it's an exciting story. I'd recommend this one highly to any young reader who's looking for enchantment.

And I'd also recommend it to anyone who was left hanging at the end of the original story. This is my favorite kind of fairy tale retelling--one that address the glaring questions left unanswered by the original. Not just what happened next, or who these people were, but why the heck it all happened in the first place!

Here are two other reviews, at Collected Miscellany, and at Book Nut.

(disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher)

Jimmy's Stars, by Mary Ann Rodman

The second book I've completed for today's Read-a-Thon is Jimmy's Stars, by Mary Ann Rodman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, middle grade, 257 pages).

About an hour ago I needed a break from the very dense fantasy I was reading, and picked up a book that I happened to have out from the library about which I had heard good things. Now I am still sniffing a little as I type this, because this story of a girl on the homefront in WW II made my cry like a baby...

Ellie's big brother Jimmy was the light of her life. He was the one who made her feel special, who brought joy to everything they did together. So when Jimmy went off to war, Ellie clung to his promise that he'd be back. Long months of missing him past, with Ellie navigating the ins and outs of middle school, trying to get used to the aunt who moved into his room, and coping with the extra work around the house that she has to shoulder with her mother doing war work...but all the while she clings to the promise that he'd made, that he'd be back. And Ellie, just as she had promised, keeps the Christmas tree up, waiting for him.

And then, on page 201, comes the part where I start crying...

I wasn't quite sure if I was going to like this book for the first few chapters--Ellie's life was so ordinary, and she herself was neither particularly likable or dislikable. Just an average girl with an average family. But as the war came closer and closer to home, and Ellie began to realize all its implications, and I was hooked. I think Rodman does a great job with this important part of the book--not didactic, or overtly anti-war, but making clear that heroism isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Jimmy is, by any definition, a hero, but Rodman makes it clear that more importantly than that, he is also a good person. The most moving part of the book was when Ellie's family discovered all the many small ways in which he had done good things for others.

A fine book indeed, although I worry that the young reader might be off-put by the slow start, and I am afraid that boys, who might well benefit from the book, will not even give it any sort of chance. Especially not with the cover on the hardback, shown above. The British paperback cover, at right, is much more appealing.

That being said, my own 9 year old liked the naughty rhyme about Hitler and Mussolini very much (which I probably should not have been sharing with him, but I guess it's Educational to know who Mussolini is, as well as the more obvious Hitler...). But he didn't like it enough to want to read the book....sigh.

Here's the review at Biblio File that made me want to read the book.

Readathon Mini Challenge 3-- a book title sentence

The current readathon mini-challenge, hosted by Bart's Bookshelf,is to make a sentence with book titles:









Tiger Moon, wake nothing but ghosts!

Hannah's Garden, by Midori Snyder

I've just finished my first book for the 24 Hour Readathon--Hannah's Garden, by Midori Snyder (2002, Penguin, YA, 247 pp).

Cassie and her young mother, Ann, have lived a nomadic life, hopping from city to city. Now that Cassie is in high school, and Ann has enrolled in college, things have settled, and Cassie is free to concentrate on her violin playing, and her growing relationship with Joe, a very cute boy and mandolin player, who's introduced her to the world of folk music.

But when word comes that her grandfather, a famous landscape painter, is seriously ill, Cassie, Ann, and Ann's new boyfriend head up to the isolated farm where he lives--a place Ann never wanted to see again, after her quarrel with her father a few years before, when she enrolled at college. For Cassie, the farm is a bittersweet place, holding memories of the grandfather she loved, before he changed, and no longer seemed to recognize her at all....

When they arrive, they are appalled by the devastation that has befallen the farm. The house is horribly vandalized, the garden overgrown...Gradually Cassie begins to learn that the farm, and her grandfather, are part of a world beyond everyday reality, a world in which two clans of faerie folk are at war. On one side are the Green clan--the winter hare, the guardian badger, strange creatures part animal, part plant. Against them are the Red Clan, who want to claim power for themselves, unleashing death and havoc on the human realm.

And Cassie is their first target.

Snyder chose to introduce the supernatural elements of the story gradually, giving both Cassie and the accompanying reader time to become drawn in slowly and magically. It's not as darkly paranormal as many books featuring fairy/human interactions, although there are dark elements that are reminiscent of that genre (including a scary would-be demon lover), and because of this it's more suitable for younger YA readers than, say, Melissa Marr or Holly Black. But this is not to say that it's not an exciting story-- the tension builds nicely to a final confrontation (in which Cassie's music plays a key role).

What I liked best, thought, were the beautifully thick descriptions of both people (magical and otherwise) and place (the titular garden, for instance, that Cassie's great-grandmother Hannah had made).

There's also a thick description of a folk music session that Cassie attends, which I found extremely interesting, in as much as I married an Irish piper and was introduced through him to the whole session sub-culture (I started playing the fiddle myself, when we were young, but don't much anymore--my playing made my babies cry. Sigh). I read this part out loud to my husband, and boy, do he and Midori Snyder have different ideas about what constitutes a nice session.

Readathon Mini Challenge--my kick off strategy

From Miss Remmers' Reviews come Mini Challenge 2: What have you surrounded yourself with for these early hours of the challenge besides your books? Is there a coffee thermos, lucky book mark, snacks, pillow.... We want to know how you have prepared so you do not have to leave your cozy reading space (by the way - we'd like to know what is too.... (are you still in bed, a chair, the couch.....)

Um. Knowing that I would be home with the kids without spousal support, I haven't surrounded myself with much of anything...besides the books.

As to cozy reading spaces--my house is furnished so as that we have multiple places to read, depending on where the sun/warmth is. This morning before the challenge I prepared by lighting a fire (we are back to more Aprilish temperatures here), so that Space 1 -- the part of Sofa A nearest fire, would be ready. When I go downstairs, I shall go to Space 2 -- Sofa B under sunny windows, in a different room (the one shown in my pile of books post below), leaving the kids the prime real estate of the floor in front of fire. Later in the day, I shall move to the blue chair, where the afternoon sun comes in sort of slant wise (on sofa 2, there's too much glare on the pages by afternoon)........

Did anyone else furnish their doll's house with an eye to providing comfy places to read for its residents?

24 Hour Readathon--getting started

The 24 Hour Readathon has begun! The fun lies not in the reading, but in the community of it all, and a large part of that community is the mini-challenges.

Here's Challenge 1:

3 facts about me--

1. My children have lots more books than I did when I was their age. I think I have overwhelmed them.
2. I read my first sentences of Dorothy Sayers when I was five years old, sitting on my mother's lap--it was Gaudy Night, and the cover scared me. I don't know if my lap is smaller than my mother's, or if my boys are bigger and bonier and squirmier, but they have never sat on my lap while I peacefully read my own book.
3. I once was so short on books to read that I had to read the Aeneid in Latin for pleasure. I had taken it to Kenya with me the summer between my junior and senior years of college, when I realized I had to fall back on Latin to fulfil the language requirement. So there I was in the desert near Lake Turkana, having read my four fiction book as many times as I could stand (Startide Rising, by David Brin, was one of them, and I might have read that one four times that summer), and had to fall back on Vergil...

How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?

I have 12, but goodness knows there are more lurking in the corners.

Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?

I'd like to be able to put away/return to the library at least 10 books today.

If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, Any advice for people doing this for the first time?

My only bit of advice is to put your book down where you are reading, and not carry it off into the house/garden with you. I have already misplaced my first book (on a kitchen chair, blocked from view by the counter. Four minutes of reading lost).

Three 2009 Cybils middle-grade fantasy nominees

Realizing that, if all goes well, I am going to be adding 12 books to my "to be reviewed pile" tomorrow during the 24 Hour Reading Challenge, I am facing the fact that I have more books already waiting to be reviewed than I have hours in the day. So this evening I am playing catch-up, offering short reviews of three of the books that I received from the publishers/the author during my stint as a Cybils panelist in the middle grade science fiction and fantasy category last fall, that have been waiting ever since...

Fairest of All, A Tale of the Wicked Queen, by Serena Valentino (Disney Press, 2009, 250 pages). Valentino pulls off quite an accomplishment with this book--she tells the story of Snow White from the "evil" stepmother's point of view, making the Queen a sympathetic character. For the Queen was not always evil--once she was the young bride of the king, finding in her love for him and his little girl happiness that had escaped her growing up under the shadow of a truly evil father. But her father, even though ostensibly dead, still casts a shadow over her life, lingering in the sinister magic mirror that haunts her...Its twisted messages to her, combined with the malevolent doings of three old women, distant cousins of the king, gradually drive the queen to cruelty toward her beloved step-daughter.

The cover does the book something of an injustice--although plenty dark toward the end, much of the book is not so black as the cover would suggest, and the Queen is, as I said, a sympathetic character. I would have chosen a cover showing her in a beautiful dress, in a brightly lit room, with the mirror front and center. Recommended highly to fans of fairy tale retellings.

The Magician of Oz, by James C. Wallace II (Scientia et Vox Press, 2009, 240 pages). As the title indicates, this is an Oz story, one that takes the great grandson of the Wizard of Oz to that magical land, where he has an Oz-ian adventure of his own. Looking through the contents of an old trunk up in the attic, young Jamie discovers the magical paraphernalia of his great-grandfather, and embarks on the study of conjuring (I enjoyed this part of the book, in which he is mastering his new skills, quite a bit). But there is more than just sleight-of-hand awaiting Jamie when he finds himself in the marvellous land of Oz, meeting many of the old Oz-ian friends familiar to readers of the Oz canon. There is danger waiting for him too--ancient trees seek vengeance on the Tin Woodsman who chopped many of their number down years past, and now they want revenge. Conjuring won't be enough to stop them--with Ozma's help, Jamie must tap into the true magic of Oz.

Wallace certainly captures the "oddness" of Oz--the extravagant and bizarre magical nature of both the place and all its inhabitants is here in full force. As with many other Oz books, logic is not front and center, and although Jamie is firmly established as a real character through the reader's time with him in the real world, the cast of supporting Oz-ians remains dreamlike, even though the point of view jumps between them at times. The plot of the evil trees likewise never felt real to me (and anyway, I felt they had a justifiable grievance). Why, I wondered, couldn't Ozma have taken care of the problem herself?

It's been a while since I read any Oz books, so I don't know how Wallace's prose style compares--I found it a tad overblown at times, in its use of formal structures and latinate words, and occasionally his language is plain confusing:

"The Leader of the Sycamores looked down at the Flowering Plum tree, pleased at his promptness and recalled his command to the band of bushes which had scattered them to the four winds in search of comrades for his plan of revenge" (page 149).

Although I appreciate Wallace's clear admiration for Oz, I'm not at all sure how this contribution to Oziania will fly with ardent fans, or if it will attract any new ones.

Skeleton Creek--Ryan's Journal, by Patrick Carman (Scholastic Press, 2009, 185 pages and several on-line video clips). This one scared me! Two teenagers, Ryan and his friend Sarah, stumble across a dark and scary mystery off in the woods, where the great rusting hulk of an ore-crushing monstrosity lurks...along with its resident ghost. Sarah is determined to get the bottom of the mystery, and Ryan, more reluctantly, finds himself drawn in too. Ryan's journal entries are interspersed with (scary) clips filmed by Sarah...

Ostensibly middle grade, I think this is a book more comfortable in the YA section. Unless I am just a wimp....At any event, it's as gripping as all get out (I thought I might find it jerky to move back and forth between text and video, but I managed just fine), and it should appeal greatly to mystery fans.

And that's it for now....

The 24 Hour Readathon meets the Once Upon a Time Challenge for me tomorrow

This weekend I'll be taking part in Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon--I'll won't be able to read exclusively, since the children are not yet able to wait on me hand and foot, and their father will be off teaching, but I will do my darndest...

Shown above is the assortment of books I selected from the three main To-Be-Read holding areas of my house. And since it is all fantasy, I decided to sign up for the Once Upon a Time Reading Challenge hosted by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings. I think that I might end up meeting the requirements for Quest the Second, in which one reads at least one fantasy, one folklore, one fairy tale, and one mythology (I'm not sure if anything in my pile above counts as folklore, though--I guess I'll find out!)

Here's the list of books (which I did not actually pick on the basis of their color coordination with each other and the sofa):

The Grimm Legacy, by Polly Shulman

Neive, by Terry Griggs

Dragonfly, by Julia Golding

The Dark Horse, by Marcus Sedgewick

The Pig Who Saved the World, by Paul Shipton

Hannah's Garden, by Midori Snyder

Elfland, by Freida Warrington

Wild Magic, by Cat Weatherill

Princess of Glass, by Jessica Day George

Prophecy of Days, by Christy Raedeke

Swan's Wing, by Ursula Synge

And that should keep me plenty busy. Fortunately, it is going to rain tomorrow, so I won't be tempted by the great outdoors....

Textile fantasies cont.- The Spellcoats, by Diana Wynne Jones

Just to recap, ever since reading Brightly Woven, by Alexandra Bracken, I've been thinking about fantasies in which textiles play a key role, or are a key aspect of the central character's persona, mainly because I love books in which a hands-on craft (music, metal work, glass-blowing etc) is deeply integrated into the story. So far, as well as Brightly Woven, I've looked at Tom Ass, by Ann Lawrence, and, a while back, I reviewed Silksinger, by Laini Taylor, which has lots of textile-y goodness.

Today's Textile Fantasy, Spellcoats, by Diana Wynne Jones (1979, suitable for older middle grade on up) has got to be the queen of them all. After all, it is the only book I know of that is actually told in weaving! The central character, a girl named Tanaqui, is using a system of woven symbols for words, to "write" in fabric the story she is a part of...resulting in the spellcoats that give the book its title. As the cloth grows on her loom, it becomes imbued with the magic of the great River that flows through story, a river whose power is being attacked by an evil mage. Tanaqui must weave the story of her family's journey down the river--a journey that brought them face to face with living gods, Heathen invaders, and the mage himself-- and use the spellcoats to free the River from his bounds.

Spellcoats was the first book by DWJ that I ever read. I don't know how many times I've reread it in the twenty five years since, but I know that each time I fall in love with it all over again. On my most recent re-reading yesterday, I was struck anew by how much I love the family dynamics of this book--five siblings stuck in a boat in pretty horrendous circumstances, by turns snapping at each other and growing up, as each realizes the part they will play in the coming confrontation and its aftermath. It's pretty superb characterization, and the dialogue often makes me chuckle. As Hern, the middle brother, says at one point (in sarcasm weaving font, if there is such a thing), "Fun and games all the way to the sea" (page 51).

And there is a wonderful Magic at the heart of the story- the "gods" are very real, and not like anything I've ever encountered elsewhere...and postscript is a must read, that, in just a few paragraphs, adds a huge temporal dimension to it all.

But here's the coolest thing about the book-- Tanaqui manages to be a kick-ass heroine without actually kicking anybody--she has to use her brains and her skill at weaving to save the day. How great is that!

This is the third volume that DWJ wrote in the Dalemark Quartet:

1. The Spellcoats (1979)
2. Drowned Ammet (1977)
3. Cart and Cwidder (1975)
4. Crown of Dalemark (1993)

I didn't realize the other three existed until they were reissued in the late eighties. Spellcoats is a perfectly fine stand-alone, taking place centuries before the other books (and if you are sick of series fiction, you can pretend the other books don't exist). But Spellcoats should most definitely be read before Crown of Dalemark!

Age wise: Spellcoats is, I think, just fine for upper middle-grade on up --there is some military violence, a bit of scary-ness, and some drowned victims of flooding that might distress a younger child.

Here's another look at Spellcoats at Fitful Murmurs.

(The cover I've shown is the most recent (I think). The others are dreadful, so I won't show them).

Sea of the Dead, by Julia Durango

When compiling my list of new releases back in the middle of July 2009, I noticed a book called Sea of the Dead, by Julia Durango (Simon and Schuster, 2009, middle grade, 132 pages), and thought it looked interesting. But it didn't get much blog buzz, and it didn't get nominated for the Cybils, and so it languished in my mind. Then it won the Golden Kite Award, given by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and that bumped it into front and center.

And boy, is it a good book!

Set in an alternate Mesoamerica, it tells of a boy named Kehl, the son of one of the Warrior Princes of a great empire. It's an Aztecian-type empire, whose power is built on slavery and blood, and Kehl has been rigorously trained for years to take his place in its hierarchy. Then he is kidnapped by the people of the sea, the enemies of his people, known to him as "the Fallen." Aboard a ship crewed by former slaves and victims of his empire's raids, Kehl is forced to question what he has always taken for granted about his world.

The captain sets him to work drawing a map of the familiar empire and the uncharted lands and islands beyond it. As the map grows, so does Kehl's understanding of what his empire really is, and what waits at its boarders. For the first time, he feels valued for his skills, for the first time, he makes a real friend, and, again for the first time, he feels like a person with choices. And the ultimate choice lies before him...

Although short, it is sweet and to the point. It's not tremendously subtle (but this, I think, adds middle grade accessibility), but on the other hand it has great immediacy of setting and plot. By turns exciting and contemplative, Kehl's story entranced me, and I highly recommend it to all and sundry.

I put a fantasy tag on this post, because it's alternate history, but there's no magic, and although two goddesses are mentioned, they never show up...So if you are looking for a book for a ten or eleven year old boy or girl who doesn't like books dripping with the fantastic, but who does like piracy (although the Fallen aren't exactly pirates) and ocean adventure, with kidnappings and a bit of blood (although not that much), and a lot of physical detail, think of this one!

I put in girl, because I think girls would enjoy it too, even though there are no female characters...except one who is dead and one who is off in the distance. On the other hand, it's lovely to have an excellent book on hand about a fantastical Mesoamerica, peopled by characters of color.

Here's another review, at Tempting Persephone, and another at Zion School Library.

The 13th Floor: A Ghost Story, by Sid Fleischman, for Timeslip Tuesday

The 13th Floor: A Ghost Story, by Sid Fleischman (Greenwillow, 1995, middle grade, 131 pages)

Sid Fleischman recently passed away, leaving behind a rich legacy of stories. Today's Timeslip Tuesday is one of these.

Contrary to what the title indicates, there are no ghosts in this story. Instead, it is a time travel tale, and quite a fun one too. Young Buddy Stebbins and his older sister Liz, a lawyer, are newly orphaned and facing a mountain of debt; soon they must sell their family home. If they had the treasure of their pirate ancestor, things would be different, but it was lost way back at the end of the 17th century.

Then a message comes from the past, and is picked up by their answering machine (!). A girl's voice urges her family to make haste to the thirteenth floor of an old building downtown, to save her from a great calamity...Liz dismisses the message as a joke, but when she doesn't come home the next day, Buddy heads off downtown himself, to see if she got off at the non-existent thirteenth floor.

And he finds himself on board his ancestor's pirate ship in 1692, heading for Boston just in time for the hysteria of the witch trials to begin! Reunited with Liz on shore, the two of them must save their ancestor, ten year old Abigail, from being hung as a witch...and perhaps, while they're back in time, find out where the treasure is hidden.

It's a fun, fast read. Fleischman keeps the ball rolling with brisk pacing. No setting ever lasts for long--from ship to long boat to Boston Harbor to witch trial, Buddy's time in the past zooms by. And this is fine--it is an adventure, after all. There is not much overt characterization, yet Buddy is still a perfectly believable kid (except, perhaps, for his rather blasé attitude toward his adventures. I would have been a wreck).

This would be a great book to give the kid who loved The Magic Treehouse books, or the A-Z Mystery series when they were younger, or who enjoys Scieszka's Time Warp Trio. It has the same relaxed improbability that makes for a pleasantly diverting read. (But I wouldn't recommend it to myself--it never once stirred any emotion in me. For that matter, neither do the Magic Treehouse books).

Timeslip-wise: There is no attempt to actually explain why the thirteenth floor leads to the past. The thirteenth floor as liminal space that doesn't exist in the real world is a fascinating concept, but awkwardly unrelated to a. pirates b. witch trials c. anything else in the book. So it calls for more suspension of disbelief than the majority of time travel books.

Experience of the past-wise: some comments on differences in material culture, and some minimal instruction about the witch trials, but mainly the past is there to provide Adventure. However, it makes the witch trials sound really interesting, and so would segue nicely into some non-fiction reading. Buddy and his sister fit remarkable easily into the 17th century world, with no troublesome details of costume, custom, or accent to bother them, unless the author chooses to bring some such detail forward for effect (this really bugged one kid reader who gave it a one star review on Amazon).

As I said, suspension of disbelief is called for...and if that can be achieved, all is well.

Pod, by Stephen Wallenfels

Pod, by Stephen Wallenfels (Namelos, 2009, YA because of violence, 212 pages), is a page-turner of a book that combines a Life as We Knew It style scenario with an alien invasion. When the aliens arrive, filling the sky with black pods, instantaneous death from above strikes any person who ventures outside. And yet, the aliens don't seem to be attacking directly--just picking off humans one by one...

"A white Honda is closest to me. Jamie is crouched down low, using her position to shield her from the sphere. It's a forty-yard dash to our front step.
A flash of light and two cars are gone.
"Jaime, now!'
She looks at me. There's a cut on her forehead, blood smeared on her cheek.
Another flash. The RV disappears.
*****
Jamie is at the end of our driveway. Her eyes lock on mine.
She disappears, in a flash of blue-white light." (page 15)

And that's how 16-year old Josh is introduced to the pods. For Josh, trapped with his dad in their home in Washington with all lines of communication to the outside world cut, every day is a slow water torture of isolation in which the normal annoyance of a teenager toward his father is magnified by their circumstances. Their food and water is running out, he has no idea what has happened to his mother, horrible things are happening in the apartment building across the street...and he can do nothing.

Far to the south, 12-year old Megs is on the run inside a hotel parking lot. Her mother left her there earlier in the day, and now everyone else who had survived the first morning's horror has been corralled by the hotel owner into his dictatorship of greed and brutality. Only Megs, and her kitten friend, are still loose...but even with a gun (that she doesn't know how to use), Megs doesn't know how long she can survive on what she gleans from the parked cars.

The tension builds as the situation for each protagonist becomes progressively more grim. With the pods still watching, and killing anyone on the outside, those trapped inside have nothing to do but struggle to survive...

It is gripping stuff. Josh's story is more character driven--the relationship between the boy and his father is at the heart of his story. Megs' plot tells more of her brutal struggle to survive. But still, for Josh, there is horror, and for Megs, a backstory that is gradually revealed and that makes her a memorable character in her own right.

In short, a most excellent apocalypse, with lots of questions left unanswered for the sequel (or sequels).

Here's another review by Sheila at Wands and Worlds.

(disclosure: review copy provided by the publisher)

Little Black Ant on Park Street, by Janet Halfmann, for Nonfiction Monday

About a month ago we had an ant disaster in our house. Some of our firewood had gotten wet, and was drying on the stove. I pulled the bark off one big piece to dry it faster--and there was an explosion of big black ants, desperate to escape being steamed alive, all over the living room. It was distressing for all of us, but my six year old decided then and there that he loathed and feared ants....

Then a few days ago, unasked for and unexpected, I got a book about ants in the mail--Little Black Ant on Park Street, by Janet Halfmann, illustrated by Kathleen Rietz (Smithsonian's Backyard, 2009). Janet Halfmann is just about my favorite non-fiction animal writer, so I was confident that this would be a good book. But would my son cooperate, or would he run screaming from the room?

Cautiously I sat on the sofa next to him, book in hand. "I don't want to listen," he said, but I ignored him, and began reading anyway. Soon he was absorbed, and then my nine year old drifted over and sat on my other side...and the world of a little black ant pulled them in.

It is a straightforward account of life for an ant--lots of busy-ness, some danger, the importance of the community, feeding the queen, etc. What makes Halfmann's ant prose stand out for me is not the scientific detail (although that is just fine). It is her ability to make the ant something to care about, without in anyway anthropomorphising it. The ant never shows human emotion--sure, she gets hungry, she huddles with her nest mates, the ant hill becomes excited when it's time for the queen to mate, but she's never afraid, or anxious, or happy.

Of course, these are little black ants, not the vast steampunkian behemoths who threatened our home last month. But still, I feel that excellent writing and good science have significantly dulled the edge of my boy's dislike!

Other Janet Halfmann books I've reviewed: Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea, Seven Miles to Freedom: the Robert Smalls Story, Little Skink's Tail, Alligator at Saw Grass Road and Polar Bear Horizon, and Hermit Crab's Home: Safe in a Shell.

(disclaimer: my copy of Little Black Ant on Park Street was received from the publisher for review)

The Nonfiction Monday roundup is at Lerner Books Blog!

The Hugo Award Nominees!

The nominees for this year's Hugo Awards have been announced:

Best Novel
(699 Ballots)

• Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
• The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
• Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
• Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

Best Novella
(375 Ballots)

• “Act One”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 3/09)
• The God Engines, John Scalzi (Subterranean)
• “Palimpsest”, Charles Stross (Wireless)
• Shambling Towards Hiroshima, James Morrow (Tachyon)
• “Vishnu at the Cat Circus”, Ian McDonald (Cyberabad Days)
• The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean)

Best Novelette
(402 Ballots)

• “Eros, Philia, Agape”, Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/09)
• The Island”, Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)
• “It Takes Two”, Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
• “One of Our Bastards is Missing”, Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three)
• “Overtime”, Charles Stross (Tor.com 12/09)
• “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast”, Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)

Best Short Story
(432 Ballots)

• “The Bride of Frankenstein”, Mike Resnick (Asimov’s 12/09)
• “Bridesicle”, Will McIntosh (Asimov’s 1/09)
• “The Moment”, Lawrence M. Schoen (Footprints)
• “Non-Zero Probabilities”, N.K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld 9/09)
• “Spar”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 10/09)

Best Related Book
(259 Ballots)

• Canary Fever: Reviews, John Clute (Beccon)
• Hope-In-The-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees, Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
• The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction, Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland)
• On Joanna Russ, Farah Mendlesohn (ed.) (Wesleyan)
• The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms, Helen Merrick (Aqueduct)
• This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”), Jack Vance (Subterranean)

Best Graphic Story
(221 Ballots)

• Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert; Inked by Scott Williams (DC Comics)
• Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk with Mike Collins, Adrian Alphona and Ardian Syaf (Marvel Comics)
• Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham; Art by Peter Gross & Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn; Colour by Lee Loughridge & Laura Allred; Letters by Todd Klein (Vertigo Comics)
• Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio; Art by Phil Foglio; Colours by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
• Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse Written and Illustrated by Howard Tayler

And that's it for the book part...there are other categories, whose lists you can find at the Hugo site.

I have read exactly nothing from the list...from that perspective of utter ignorance, the only clear YA/kids related book is The Inter-Galactic Playground, but I vaguely feel (not having read the book) that Boneshaker has lots of YA crossover appeal. And I know nothing about any of the graphic novels (except for having heard of Batman, who I assume also has crossover appeal!).