The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson

The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Arthur A. Levine, March 2013) is a rather rare thing in the YA speculative fiction genre.  It's set on a future earth, that has been pushed to the brink of destruction by warfare and climate change (this is not uncommon), and there's high tech sci fi stuff (also not uncommon), and the particular bit of the world that we focus in on has elements that could be considered dystopian (common as mud).  And, as is to be expected in a YA book, two teenagers, our heroine, June, and Enki, the titular Summer Prince, bring about much needed change.

So what makes it different?   Answer:  it's not actually a future dytopia, it's a sci fi book about what constitutes civilization in a world where civilization was almost destroyed, and where the tension between humanity and technology, in keeping "civilization" going, is a primary issue, along with tension between the old and the young, in a world where people live decades (if not centuries) longer than they live today.   So it's much more true sci fi set on earth than most YA today.

The future city of Palmares Tres is functioning fairly well--an island of civilization where there have been years of calm prosperity.  June, our heroine, is a high status resident of this city, happily planning her future as an artist, and  not suffering any privation in the least.   But there's a twist or two to Palmeres Tres.  This city depends on the fields of algae, tended by a lower class who must live with its fetid smell, who have few opportunities for advancement in society.   And the matriarchal government of Aunties shares power with the Summer Prince--a man chosen each year, allowed to share in the government, and then killed as he chooses, every five years, the next Auntie who will be Queen.

When Enki, a miraculously charismatic man from the lowest social rank of the algae tenders becomes chosen as king, June's life and that of her city are changed.  Because Enki isn't afraid of technology.  And Enki wants the City to be a different place.   And because June, and her best friend (but not boyfriend) Gil both love Enki.   When June enters a partnership with Enki to create public art on a vast scale, she has no idea how far her art is going to take her and her city.   Nor does she know how she can stand to watch him die when his time as the king comes to an end.

So this all is just fine.  It's a nicely diverse society in Palmeres Tres, with a blending of races and same-sex relationships being totally unremarkable.  The sci-fi elements were nicely imagined, and I like books centered on societal tensions, as opposed to paranormal menaces.

But somehow it fell flat for me.  I think it's that I never quite cared for the characters.  June in particular was unsympathetic-she has been brought up in comfort and has nothing to worry about, and never hits any truly tense notes of emotional resonance.  Mostly she seems kind of whinny, and focused on her personal relationships with the two main boy characters, and her personal success as an artist, to the exclusion of much else.  Though she has a sad bit of backstory related to the death of her father that has created great tension between her and her mother, and her mother's new wife, we aren't told about it until near the end (when it was so unimportant to the larger story as to be a let-down).  In short, June kind of felt like an ordinary spoiled brat for most of the story, and I was never entirely on her side.

Enki, on the other hand, is perhaps too extraordinary--he is more than human, and we keep getting told how marvellously charismatic he is, and having to take that on trust, so I wasn't ever entirely empathizing with him either.   So it didn't quite work for me as well as I had hoped.

Here's what distracted me as I read:  when you have character named Gil (from the high status world of the city) and a character named Enki (from the low status wilder part of the world) in love with each other, you expect the myth of Gilgamesh and Enkidu to somehow be worked into the story in at least a metaphorically referential way.  For the life of me, I wasn't able to see any the myth being played out, primarily because Gil is offstage most of the story, and June is no Inanna/Ishtar.

Other reviews:

Finding Wonderland
Down for the Barbeque
Oyceter

48 Hour Reading Challenge finished!

I am finished with my reading for the 48 Hour Reading Challenge!   Thanks every one who stopped by with encouragement, and thanks to Ms. Yingling for hosting it!

Total of pages read/listened to:  3086  

Total time read:  23 hours and 32 minutes
(there were Demands on my time.  Some polite requests too).

Plus three hours (ish) of social media

Books finished: 11.  Books being actively read: 1
 (clearly I need to do this every weekend.  This is not even a drop in the bucket.  I listened to a long audiobook for much of my time, which was fun, and allowed me to work outside, but it cut down on my book count lots)

Here's what I read, broken down  by category (mainly for my own interest)
 (I started with 5 each in 6 categories).  I am pretty happy with all the books I read; In the Shadow of Blackbirds was particularly good, as was Hat Full of Sky.

Bought:

The Summer Prince

Given:

Crocuses Were Over, Hitler Was Dead, by Geraldine Symons


Library:

In the Shadow of Blackbirds
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time
Interesting Times and Hat Full of Sky, by Terry Pratchett

Picked up on the cheap/free (mostly through library booksales)

The Children's Blizzard
Mooncoin Castle
Counting Stars, by David Almond

Paperback Book Swap

Canary in the Coal Mine, by Madelyn Rosenberg

Daughter of the Forest


Books for Review:

194 pages of The Apprentices, by Maile Meloy

This week's Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction round-up (June 9, 2013)

 Enjoy!  And as always, let me know if I missed your post.

The Reviews

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time, by Frank Cottrell Boyce, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Cloneward Bound, by M.E. Castle, at Xander's Middle Grade Book Reviews 

The Cup and the Crown, by Diane Stanley, at alibrarymama

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Waking Brain Cells, Kid Lit Frenzy, By Singing Light, Book Nut, Bookshelf Fantasies, and Back to Books 

The Fallen Pharaoh, by S.W. Lothian, at Mother Daughter Book Reviews

The Farwalker's Quest, by Joni Sensel, at Deb A. Marshall

The Fire Chronicles, by John Stephens, at Sonderbooks

Frogged, by Vivian Vande Velde, at Kid Lit Geek 

Ghost Knight, by Cornelia Funke, at Books YA Love

Goblin Secrets, by William Alexander, at The Ninja Librarian 

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, at Akossiwa Ketoglo 

Haunters, by Thomas Taylor, at Charlotte's Library

The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley, at Tales of the Marvellous

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy, at Small Review and Geo Librarian

Heroes in Training books 1-3, by Joan Holub & Suzanne Williams, at Back to Books

House of Secrets, by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini, at Log Cabin Library

In Search of Goliathus Hercules, by Jennifer Angus, at Ms. Yingling Reads 

Iron Hearted Violet, by Kelly Barnhill, at Challenging the Bookworm

The Key and the Flame, by Claire M. Caterer, at Maria's Melange

Magic by the Lake, by Edward Eager, at Nerdy Book Club 

New Lands, by Geoff Rodkey, at Charlotte's Library

The Planet Thieves, by Dan Krokos, at Bookyurt 

Popular Clone, by M.E. Castle, at Xander's Middle Grade Book Reviews 

The Runaway King, by Jennifer Nielsen, at Leaf's Reviews

Through the Skylight, by Ian Baucom, at Cracking the Cover 

The Tiger Thief, by Michaela Clarke, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books

The Time-travelling Fashionista at the Palace of Marie-Antoinette, by Bianca Turetsky, at Sonderbooks

Tuesdays at the Castle, by Jessica Day George, at Reading Nook

The Watcher in the Shadows, by Chris Moriarty, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George, at Greg Hill

The Wells Bequest, by Polly Shulman, at I Read To Relax 

The Wizard of Dark Street, by Shawn Thomas Odyssey, at Geo Librarian

a two-for-on at The Book Smugglers--Millicent's Gift, by Ann Rinaldi, and Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine


Authors and Interviews

Merrie Haskell (Handbook for Dragon Slayers) at Literary Rambles (giveaway)

Jennifer Nielsen (The Runaway King) at In This World of Books

Middle Grade debut authors talk "Mad for Middle Grade" at One Four Kidlit

Jennifer Angus (In Search of Goliathus Hercules), at A Patchwork of Books, The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia,  The Fourth Musketeer, and The Midnight Garden (all giveaways)

Melanie Crowder (Parched) at Cynsations

Kimberley Griffiths Little (When the Butterflies Came) at Michelle I Mason (giveaway)

Ian Johnstone (The Bell Between Worlds) at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books


Other Good Stuff

Here's a nice little list of MG/YA Time Travel books at Readatouille, if you want to dip in to that sub-genre.

And The Book Smugglers have assembled a nice list of gateway fantasy for younger readers at Kirkus (MG and YA).

Romance in MG--Finding the Balance, at Project Mayhem

I was very happy to see Malorie Blackman appointed the new children's laureate of the UK.   I've reviewed her middle grade time travel book, Thief, and here's a review of her most recent book, Noble Conflict, at the Guardian.

Zoe at Playing by the Book has a lovely list of links to 22 children's book inspired doll houses.

48 Hour Book Challenge updates--Saturday

8:41 pm update: read and listened for five more hours between 1 and now... my body betrayed me and demanded a nap.  Pathetic. 

Drove 10 year old to birthday party listening to Hat Full of Sky, his first Pratchett.  His enjoyment was gratifying.  I'm now about to start disc 4 of 7.

Read two more books  Crocuses Were Over, Hitler Was Dead, an older UK time travel story, and The Summer Prince; will be reviewing both of these later.

Morning:

Up with the larks (not that there are any hereabouts) at 5:30, ready for more reading...It is cold and rainy here in southern New England.  A good day for reading with a warm blanky.   But there was a saddness--no tasty food.  For some reason I though my husband had just gone to the grocery store yesterday.  I was so wrong.  So wrong.

Miday Update update:

Read for three more hours  (and went to the grocery store).  Among other bits of reading, Finished The Children's Blizzard.  Now know lots more about late 19th century weather forecasting.   It fell a tad shy, though, of being a really interesting book.  295 pages of which I read 70 yesterday. 


Total of pages read (not counting books in progress)  1541 plus Crocuses
Total time read:  13 hours and 32 minutes
Books finished:  7.  Books being activly read:2

Books broken down by category (mainly for my own interest)
 (I started with 5 each in 6 categories)

Bought:
The Summer Prince

Given:
Crocuses Were Over, Hitler Was Dead

Library:
In the Shadow of Blackbirds
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time
Interesting Times

Picked up on the cheap/free (mostly through library booksales)
The Children's Blizzard
Mooncoin Castle

The books being activly read are from the remaining two catgories of Paperback Book Swap and Review Copies, so that's good.

In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters

In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters (Amulet, 2013) is a page-turning mystery/horror/romance/ghost story of great riveting-ness.   Set in California toward the end of WW I, the Spanish Influenza is an overwhelming nightmare, boys are coming back from the war horribly maimed and shell shocked, and 16 year old Mary Shelley Black's father has just been arrested for helping boys dodge the draft.

Her aunt Eva takes her in--not an old fussy aunt, but a 26 year old working making battleships, grieving for her dead husband (tb) and her lost youth, and rather fascinated by the work of a young spirit photographer, Julius.   Who Mary hates.  Mary loved Julius' young step-brother, Stephan, and they had one all to short sweet bit of passion before Stephan went to war.....and now Julius is there, and Stephan isn't.

Mary's hopes that Stephen is still alive proof unfounded.  He is dead.  There is his coffin.

And then she gets struck by lightning, and all supernatural heck breaks loose.

Because Stephen begins to haunt her.  And Stephen is suffering the tortures of the damned.

Mary cannot find peace until she can help him, and so a dark unwinding of fact and spirit and treachery and death begins....

I would have read this in a single sitting even if I hadn't been reading it for the 48 Hour Challenge.   I am not sure if I blinked as much as I should have.   Huge emotional punch, huge emotional wrenchings, great characters, and fascinating plot.  At least I think there was all that, but I was so busy reading I wasn't thinking.  Just feeling.

I'll leave it at that.  

48 Hours of Reading Fun

I started reading for the 48 Hour Reading Challenge at 4:53 pm today.  It is now 6:20, and I have just finished my first book, In the Shadow of Blackbirds (as Liviania advised me too, when I posted the pictures of the books I wanted to read). 

Here are my Saturday updates.

Stats from Friday

Time:  6:20 pm   1:28 hour/minutes read.  One book, In the Shadow of Blackbirds, finished (my thoughts).  387 pages read.

Time: 6:45.  Have used up 25 mins of precious social media time on review and this intro. 

8:15 now.  1 hour and 24 minutes more reading.  One more book finished--Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett.  It's 295 pages, but I was on page 110 when I stared, which makes 195 more pages for my total.

8:35 now.  20 more mins of social media time used.  Circa 10 Friendly Comments left on participating blogs.  One book requested from Paperback Book Swap where partipator MAD Hoydenish had just posted it.

10.05 1 hour and 20 more minutes read.   Read Mooncoin Castle, a nice kids' fantasy from 1970- a jackdaw enlists the help of a ghost and a witch to help save his ruined Irish castle home from being demolished to make way for a supermarket.   I might offer it to my ten year old...141 pages.  Read the first 70 pages of the Children's Blizzard, by David Laskin.   He gets Laura's sister Mary and Mary Power confused when talking about the Lond Winter.  I sneer at him for this.  Still, it's rather interesting, though a bit slow--at this point we've met the immigrant families whose kids are about to die, and seen them starving on the prairie for a while (I know much more about Mennonites than I did at 9:05).   I'm just at the point where the titular blizzard is about to hit...

10:16  11 mins more social media time.

But I am sleepy, and am calling it a night.  Much as I love a good reading challenge, I don't feel compelled to suffer.

Totals for Day 1:  4 hours 12 minutes read,  56 mins. social media time.   I did really well at reading while doing other things.   These did not include cooking.  Thanks, Patrick.

New Lands, by Geoff Rodkey

New Lands, by Geoff Rodkey (Putnam, May 2013), is the second book of the Chronicles of Egg.  In the first book, Deadweather and Sunrise (my review), we were introduced to a fictional version of Caribbean/Central American colonialism, in which a boy named Egg (short for Egbert) finds himself (after various adventures) the only person in the world in possession of a map that leads to an ancient, magical treasure of one of the native tribes on the continent (he memorized it, and destroyed the original to keep it safe).  And an unscrupulous colonial oppressor type, Roger Pembroke (the sort that has native slaves working in his silver mines) wants the treasure. 

New Lands sees Egg and his comrade Guts (they became friends on a pirate ship) setting off for the continent, to find the Okalu tribe who can interpret the map.  But when they reach the mainland, they find that the Okalu have been almost destroyed by slave trading at the hands of a rival tribe...the mission seems hopeless.

Then they meet Kira, one of the lost Okalu.  She can't interpret the map, but she can lead them to her homeland.   But Pembroke is after Egg, and will stop at nothing to capture him.  His daughter, Millicent (love of young Egg's life) has followed Egg to the mainland to warn him.

Now Egg, Guts, Kira and Millicent are racing to find the Okalu, hotly pursued and in danger of their lives....can they find the lost treasure, which can bestow tremendous power on the one who possesses it, before the evil Pembroke finds them?

It's character rich adventure of an exciting sort, with a nice mix of suspenseful bits and amusing bits.   And though there's no actual magic, the alternate world is a fascinating place, though perhaps to close to real world colonialism to make for comfy reading...

Rodkey does a good job, I thought, at portraying the native peoples--they have agency, and aren't just passive victims of the colonial encounter.  And Kira is a very fine example of a stalwart, skilled, brave girl; she is far more than a stereotypical native guide, and she saves the day on many occasions in very practical ways.   Ethical questions about colonialism and slavery are raised, making the reader stop and think, but they don't weigh the story down.

My favorite character by far was Guts--I can't think of any other fictional boy quite like him.  Though he lost a hand to a brutal pirate, he doesn't let that stop him--whether it's saving the day through his mad guitar skills (strumming with his hook), or keeping things humming with his defiant, in your face attitude, he adds considerable zest to the story.  Millicent, my favorite character from the first book, plays only a minor role here, but it's interesting to see the development of her relationship with Egg (will young love triumph over societal expectations?  Can Millicent, daughter of the bad guy, really be trusted?).   I think Rodkey is a bit to quick to forgive some unsympathetic characters from the first book, but that's my only real quibble with regards to character.

I didn't love it for myself as a reader--I'm not really the non-stop adventure, here we go escaping death over and over as we crash through unknown lands, type--but I did find it a brisk and entertaining read.  And it's easy to imagine the target audience enjoying the series lots.  Clearly there's more to come, but this book stops at a good stopping point.

Question:  can one count New Lands as an example of diverse speculative fiction for kids?   Kira, who's Okalu, is such a strong, central character that I want to count her.   Rodkey doesn't make racial prejudice part of his narrative, so there's no dark skinned/light skinned dichotomy thing going on--Kira is not a clear "character of color."  On the other hand, its clear that in this world, as in ours, "civilized" people from far away are exploiting the native people, like Kira's tribe.  So does this make Kira, by extension, a diverse, non-white, non-European character????

disclaimer: ARC received from publisher

Ready for the 48 Hour Reading Challenge--my books

So just now I finally got to do something I have been wanting to do for ages.

Was it going to work, to serve the people of my fine state to the best of my ability?

No, although work has its moments.

Was it helping my seventh grader with his science homework, to wit, making his own periodic table?

No.  And if your child ever has this assignment, do something like fruit.  Do not do "interesting wars and battles."  These are Really Hard to organize into a periodic table, and we decided to ditch all the battles  of WW II and the Iraq War he'd gathered (too clustered) so we had to scrabble for more.  11 o'clock found us desperately searching for a naval battle fought between 1457 and 1602.  7:14 am the next day brought a frantic search for a religious conflict post 1500, pre 1900.   Stressful.  Most of the other students did fruit.

Was it selling off the grass in the back yard as mow-your-own hay? 

No.  I shall deal with that this weekend, while listening to an audio book on my new portable cd player!  (thanks, co-worker Jeff!)

Was it cleaning up after the past weekend's book sale at the library, whimpering softly to myself as I moved books I'd already moved 4 times already?

No, although I did need to get my shoe rack bookshelf home in order to do it...

Was it (drum roll) organizing my book stacks for the 48 Hour MotherReader Challenge??????

YES! Yes it was.

This time around, instead of a Big Mass, I have picked five books in each of six different categories.  They are:

Books given to me by my loved ones
(thank you, loved ones!  Just because it's
taken me a few years to get to your gift
doesn't mean it hasn't made me happy!)


I am determined to read The Double Shadow,
by Sally Gardner.




Books from my misc. tbr pile, mostly
picked up at library booksales or free.



That's the old doorbell.  Doesn't work anymore,
but looks cool (maybe?)




Books from the library.  Summerkin! Rump! Plainswalker! Shadow of Blackbirds!  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time!

ARCs that want reading.  Note short, easy book
about cyber squid included.  It's good to have
variety.









Books that I bought for myself.

la la la









Books traded for at Paperback Bookswap.

Will this be the week in which I actually
read Daughter of the Forest????






I feel happier now I've done that!   Will you be reading this weekend too?

Haunters, by Thomas Taylor, for Timeslip Tuesday

Haunters, by Thomas Taylor (Chicken House, 2013 in the US, 2012 in the UK), is a fine example of a particular type of time travel book--the exciting, sci fi-ish adventure packed type of story in which a young protagonists must race back in time to keep disaster from happening.   

David is a modern kid, with a difference--he's been having extraordinary dreams about a strange boy named Eddie.  When one of these dreams turns into a full blown nightmare, with Eddie trapped inside a burning building, David's life gets even stranger.   David saves Eddie from burning alive in reality as well as in his dream...but Eddie's life is still in danger, even though he's been dead for a few years.

Eddie is a child of WW II London, and he's destined to figure out how kids can travel in time through their dreams, as David has been doing.  He's going to set up a sci-fi training headquarters for his Dreamwalkers under the Swiss Alps.  But not all the dreaming time travellers are the benevolent shepherds of history that Eddie had planned.  A rouge faction has sprung up, determined to sabotage the past, and Eddie is their target.

Untrained, baffled, and impulsive, David wants desperately to work with the good guys to save Eddie.   But first he must find Eddie again...in a London torn by war, with killers on the hunt...

Once things get going, and we are past the part where David is introduced to the society of Dreamwalkers, things get going with a vengeance.  It's a wild ride through time, with plenty of nail-biting tension to keep the pages turning.   It's not a subtle, character driven book of great emotional resonance, but it does deliver just enough in terms of interesting personalities to add a bit of depth to the adventure. 

If you have a young reader on hand whose eating up the Mutiny in Time series, this is a perfect book to give them. 

In one word:  exciting. 

Good for older middle grade kids (11-12).

A Corner of White, by Jaclyn Moriarty

A Corner of White, by Jaclyn Moriarty (Scholastic, April 1 2013, upper Middle Grade/YA) lept with conviction onto my list of top ten books for the year--it was sweet, smart, fun, thought-provoking, gripping, and eminently readable.  

I must admit that I did not instantly rush to get this when I heard that it involves a fantasy land full of swarming colors that drift around killing people (if they are bad colors).  This sounded somewhat suspectly whimsical and twee (despite the killing part).   I should have trusted Moriarty more (after all, she wrote The Murder of Bindy McKenzie--an excellent book, not at all twee), and indeed, the colors were a perfectly fine, fresh, un-cute magical phenomenon.  So that was good.

The story concerns a girl in our world, Madeleine, who gets gets drawn into a correspondence with Elliott, a boy who lives in the fantasy world of color drifts, and their epistolary friendship changes both their lives.   And the lives of a number of others.   For in the fantasy realm, not only is Elliott determined to charge to the rescue of his vanished father, there are intrigues and machinations at play of a socio/political sort that complicate life and need resolving.  In Madeline's world, there are the mundane issues of her particular reality as a teenager, and these are so beautifully particular, yet also universal (in Moriarty's trademark way) that I enjoyed the reality as much as I did the fantasy.  It added lots to my enjoyment that the characters are smart (though sometimes naive, not seeing what's right in front of them, etc.)

Even though I sincerely loved this one, I'm not going to say any more--it is full of details of plot, and character, and backstory, and world-building that don't deserve to be described in a cursory way by me.   However, you can read more about it at The Book Smugglers (Ana loved it too).

Who would I give it to (besides "people who like the same books as me"):

--Middle Grade readers (10-12) who want something from the YA section that isn't fully of sexy and distrubingly violent stuff but has some Dawning Teen Romance, which, though mild, is more than you get in the children's room.

--YA readers of fantasy who aren't totally absorbed by paranormal romance and dystopia, and willing to take a chance on something quirky that has the added bonus of not involving a quest or a Chosen One.

Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction from around the blogs (6/2/13)

This past week I took part in Armchair BEA, and one topic of discussion was Children's Books.  I'm offering this post as my contribution--what better way to show that there are lots of out there who love MG SFF!

I do these round-ups every week, reading through the blogs I follow and employing cunning google searches to find more.  I am a tad selective--I generally don't include really short or cursory reviews, or reviews of books (like Harry Potter and the Lightning Thief) that have saturated the market.  Every week I miss lots of posts--if I missed you, let me know, and feel free to send me links at any time (charlotteslibrary at gmail dot com).  Thanks!

The Reviews:

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett, at alibrarymama

The Aviary, by Kathleen O'Dell, at Kid Lit Geek

Darke, by Angie Sage, at Leaf's Reviews

The Devil's Backbone, by Rae Ann Parker, at Barbara Ann Watson

Doll Bones, by Holly Black, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile, That Blog Belongs to Emily Brown, Charlotte's Library, and So Many Books, So Little Time

The Emerald Atlas, by John Stephens, at Bibliophile Support Group

The Emerald Ring, by Dorine White, at Geo Librarian and Bibliophile Support Group

Enchanted Glass, by Diana Wynne Jones, at books4yourkids 

Fake Mustache, by Tom Angleberger, at Sonderbooks

The Golden Door, by Emily Rodda, at Scott Reads It

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy, at Michelle I. Mason

The Hotel Under the Sand, by Kage Baker, at It's what you read when you don't have to

House of Secrets, by Ned Vizzini and Chris Columbus, at Ms. Yingling Reads 

In Search of Goliath Hercules, by Jennifer Angus, at My Brain on Books

Island of Silence, by Lisa McMann, at Back to Books

The Key and the Flame, by Claire M. Caterer, at Boys and Literacy

Leni Cyrus: School Virus, by Joe Schreiber, at  Ms. Yingling Reads

Loki's Wolves, by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr, at Aine's Realm and Books, Books, and More Books

The Lost Hero, by Rick Riordan (audiobook review) at Karrisa's Reading Review

Magic Zero, byThomas E. Sniegoski and Ghristopher Golden, at Guys Lit Wire

Margaret and the Moth Tree, by Brit Trogen and Kari Trogen, at Reads for Keaps

The Neptune Project, by Polly Holyoke, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Once Upon the End, by James Riley, at Carstairs Considers 

The Orphanage of Miracles, by Amy Neftzger, at Sharon the Librarian

Parched, by Melanie Crowder, at Akossiwa Ketoglo 

Path of Beasts, by Lian Tanner, at Kid Lit Geek (audiobook)

The Planet Thieves, by Dan Krokos, at In Bed With Books

Relics of Mysticus Books 1 and 2--The Serpent's Shadow and The Trickster's Totem,  by H. B. Bolton, at Dear, Restless Reader

Rump, by Liesl Shurtliff, at Bookalicious, Books Take You Places, and Views from the Tesseract

The Runaway King, by Jennifer Nielsen, at YA Book Shelf

School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, at I Heart Reading

Summerkin, by Sarah Prineas, at Karissa's Reading Review

A Tale Dark and Grimm, by Adam Gidwitz (audiobook) at Rex Robot Reviews

A Tangle of Knots, by Lisa Graff, at Books Beside My Bed

Through the Skylight, by Ian Baucom,  at Librarian of Snark

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead, at Kid Lit Geek

The Year of Shadows, by Claire Legrand, at Shelf-employed


Authors and Illustrators

Dan Krokos (The Planet Thieves) at In Bed With Books

R.R. Russell (Wonderlight) at The Write Path

Merrie Haskell (Handbook for Dragon Slayers) at Catch A Star As It Falls

H.B. Bolton (The Serpent's Ring/Trickster's Totem) at Literary Rambles (giveaway)

Janni Lee Simner (Bones of Faerie series, which is actually YA, but she's talking about researching fantasy, so it's applicable) at Cynsations

Karen Sandler (Tankborn and Awakening, also YA, but she's talking about writing diverse characters, so also of mg interest) at Rich in Color

R.L.W. Lee (the Andy Smithson series) at BC Blog Critics

Other Good Stuff

If you have a kid around who loves graphic novels (I raise my hand), send them over to the Kids Comics Revolution 2013 awards, where they can vote for their favorites in various categories (added bonus: the nominees make for a lovely shopping list...)

Likewise, nominations are now open for the QBR Phyllis Wheatley Book Award which recognizes the best African American books and writers from 2012 in categories including children's books.  The deadline to  nominate an author is  June 15th, 2013 (thanks Tanita).

I've finished Quest for Kim, and now want to offer Kipling recommendations

Have you ever read Kipling?  I know two of you haven't really, which is why I am writing this post of recommendations.  I myself have been reading him since I was a tot, and I still re-read him. Here are my favorites....

Kim (that's the cover I had when I read it for the first time when I was 13)

Yesterday I started reading a non-fiction book, Quest for Kim, by Peter Hopkirk (1999).  Hopkirk has loved Kim with a passion all his life, and this book tells how he travelled through Pakistan and India in the footsteps of Kim and the lama interspersed with arguments about which real life people Kipling might have drawn on and discussions of the history of colonial (and some 20th century) India and its neighboring countries.   He doesn't try to deconstruct Kipling's imperialist baggage, though he gives nods to those who do, and although he notes that Kipling did have his personal prejudices (against Bengali intellectuals, and the Russians, for instance), this is not the point of the book either.  Instead, it is a homage to Kim.  And I love Kim too, and so enjoyed this quest very much, reading it in as much of a single sitting as circumstances allowed.

Here's the story of Kipling's book in a nutshell.  Kim is the son of an Irish soldier and poor Irish mother, both of whom die, leaving him to be raised on the streets of colonial Lahore.  When the book opens,  he's a kid living by his wits (which he has lots of).   He befriends an old lama, come on pilgrimage from Tibet.  He discovered to be British and sent to school (paid for by the lama).  And he becomes a piece in the Great Game of espionage and information gathering that sweeps across India and beyond.

If you have not read Kim, here's why you might want to.

--Great inter-generational relationship:

The relationship between Kim and the lama is my favorite inter-generational relationship in fiction (at least, I can't, at the moment, think of one I love more).   To me, and I think to Kim to, this relationship is the most important thing in the book.  Makes me cry every time.

--Kim reminds me of Eugenides (in Megan Whalen Turner's books)
 
Kim is pretty much, in my opinion, the archetype of the really smart, really smart-aleck thief/trickster boy.

--It's quoted in Code Name Verity

Julie, like Kim, is recognized by the folks in Intelligence as being spectacularly suited for espionage and intelligence gathering, and she is directly compared to Kim:  "Only once in a thousand years is a horse born so well fitted for this game as this our colt."  (page 81 of CNV).

--It has some great descriptions of British India in the 19th century and you will learn a lot.

Why you might not want to read it:

It's not exactly enlightened

You might get stuck on the unavoidable fact that Kipling is part of the whole British Imperial thing.   He gets a bit weird with gender, too.   (So does the author of Quest for Kim, who closes the book with a fun game he plays, in which he asks his fellow Kim aficionados who they'd like to be.  I guess he doesn't know many women who like Kim,  because there really isn't much of anyone for a woman to want to be...)

The language gets a bit archaic-y; Kipling uses thees and thous when the characters aren't speaking English.  Takes getting used to.

The fact that one knows the vultures of India are now on the verge of extinction because of chemical poisoning will make you sad every time vultures are mentioned.

The unlucky chance that this is the only copy available to you, and you are deeply disturbed by it.

Moving on from Kim, here are other Kiplings that I re-read.

The Just So Stories (1902) should be read aloud for the sheer magic of  the tasty as heck language.  The Sing-Song of Old Many Kangaroo ("Still ran Dingo, yellow dog Dingo...") and The Elephant's Child (with its "great grey-green greasy Limpopo...") are the best.  Some stories are less good. Can't be helped.

I think everyone should read The Jungle Book, and should do so before seeing or hearing anything from the Disney movie.   But if you can't bring yourself to do so, at least read Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, one of the short side stories interspersed between the stories about Mowgli.  Preferably do so when you are 7 years old or so, like I was:

My reaction when I was 7:  "Mongoose love!!!!!  Best mongoose every!  Bad snakes.  Excellent, excellent, young hero mongoose who never gives up and has to fight scary scary terrifying snakes.  Mongoose wins.  Saves boy who is his friend.  Want mongoose of my own."

Stalky and Co. (1899) is a school story, featuring three boys, one of whom borrows from Kipling's own school boy self.  It's tremendously entertaining, in a kind of appalling way (for a variety of reasons)...and it blows the conventional pious boy school story stereotype out of the water (although there's no sex.  Just saying).  Best dead cat in fiction ever.

And finally, Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) should be read by any fan of English children's fantasy.  Two ordinary kids meet Puck one midsummer eve, and go on a series of magical journeys back in time, kind off--the journeys themselves are straight historical fiction, and the real magic is Puck himself, and the oak, the ash, and the thorn... It's not a book that's going to knock the socks off the modern reader of fantasy, but it is well worth reading.  You will also learn things.

Armchair BEA--keeping it real, fresh and fun

The first of two topics at Armchair BEA today is "Keeping it Real, Fresh, and Fun."  I myself prefer to be real, fresh, and fun (vs false, stale, and boring), but how does one do this?

"Real" is perhaps the hardest part.   I dunno what "real" is, and I wonder about my authenticity on a daily basis, as I move from role to role (mother, wife, worker, reader, person hiding in a quiet corner).  And when you project your "self" into the void of the internet,  it all gets fuzzy around the edges.

I do try to be real, though (I think).  I'm not shy about using personal pronouns.   I try to avoid meaningless adjectives.   I allow myself to write what I feel about particular books, as well as what I think (critically, on a good day, which of course isn't the same as negatively).  I express political opinions from time to time, but I try to do so matter of factly, not stridently.  I do not deliberately deceive.

Though I might question my own reality, I can't think of any blogger I read who I don't think of as "real."  And I don't think it's because all the bloggers I read are spinning veils of illusion.

Short answer to self:  just write what you want to write, how you want to write it, and don't get your knickers in a twist about reality.

"Fresh" and "Fun" are easy.  Fresh and fun are all about not falling into a rut.  I kind of know when I'm not Tremendously Excited about reviewing a book when I default to my standard of summary followed by commentary.  For instance, I had a great time reviewing River of Time recently, and did so in a "fresh" and "fun" way.   It was fresh and fun to me, that is.  There are lots of blogs I love that I don't think of as "fun," but which are worthwhile...I think "fun" is more important to the blog writer, than the blog reader.

Short answer:  only read books that you are really excited about writing about.   Only blog when your mind is fully of zesty words that will spill playfully onto the page.

Problem:  yeah, right.


(here's my Armchair BEA giveaway post; ends next Wednesday night)

Armchair BEA topic of the day--Non-fiction

An Armchair BEA post.

I read a lot of non-fiction that I never talk about here.   I read scholarly, historical, archaeological stuff for work, and I read adult non-fiction for pleasure as well--it cleanses my reading palate when I feel glutted with sci fi/fantasy.

For instance, I've just finished The International Bank of Bob: Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Dollar Kiva Loan at a Time, by Bob Harris.   It tells how Bob started lending money to Kiva, and then travelled the world to see just what his money was up to.   He tells of the logistics of his travels, the lives of the people that he meets, and the historical and social contexts that have shaped those lives.   And he gives some nice economic lessons about the potential impacts of micro-loans, without making it dry and boring.

I was inspired to pick this up because I have a young Nerdfighter in my home, and the Nerdfighters are busily decreasing "world suck" via Kiva-- 40, 244 of them (including my son) have loaned almost $2,500,000 to date (here's the Nerdfighter Kiva page).  So I thought it would be useful for me to have details to share with him, and even hoped that if I left the book around the house, he'd pick it up....

He did, but it's a bit dense for him; fortunately, I have now been educated, informed, and entertained, and we can have nice little chats about the break-up of Yugoslavia and its horrible consequences, every day life in Rwanda today, the vast complexity of India, etc.

Next up on my non-fiction reading list--Quest for Kim:  In Search of Kipling's Great Game.  I know Kipling must be read critically viz English Imperialism, but still I love Kim very very much (I've been to Lahore, and seen the canon Kim sits on at the beginning of the book, shown on the cover--very exciting for me!).   As I type this, I'm wondering to what extent Kim influenced writers of children's fantasy.  So many of the things that are now common tropes of middle grade speculative fiction are right there--the plucky orphan with special gifts who must play a role in an epic greater than he had ever dreamed of, the quest through fantastic lands, the adults who help and hinder....

Please feel free to share any good non-fiction recommendations of a sciency/historical type! I'm always on the look-out for more.

Armchair BEA--giveaway time!

Today is giveaway day at Armchair BEA! Edited to add--the winners have now been picked; Sabrina won Sylo, and Claire won K. of L. W.  Thanks all of you for stopping by to enter!

I'm sort of relieved I'm not actually at BEA--I am trying hard to keep the number of books on hand to a manageable pile, and I know that when I am BEA or other place where there are ARCs of forthcoming books to be had I begin to behave irrationally (more so than usual).   That being said, I've been busily working through the list of Armchair BEA-ers giving away books today....

And I have two ARCs to giveaway myself, which I carefully picked to have appeal beyond my regular Middle Grade niche!  I'm going to pick a different winner for each book, so let me know when you leave your comment which you'd like.

Sylo, by D.J. MacHale (Razorbill, July 2013) "They came from the sky parachuting out of military helicopters to invade Tucker Pierce’s idyllic hometown on Pemberwick Island, Maine.

They call themselves SYLO and they are a secret branch of the U.S. Navy. SYLO’s commander, Captain Granger, informs Pemberwick residents that the island has been hit by a lethal virus and must be quarantined. Now Pemberwick is cut off from the outside world.

Tucker believes there’s more to SYLO’s story. He was on the sidelines when the high school running back dropped dead with no warning. He saw the bizarre midnight explosion over the ocean, and the mysterious singing aircraft that travel like shadows through the night sky. He tasted the Ruby—and experienced the powers it gave him—for himself."

The Kingdom of Little Wounds, by Susann Cokal (Bloomsbury, October 2013) "On the eve of Princess Sophia’s wedding, the Scandinavian city of Skyggehavn prepares to fete the occasion with a sumptuous display of riches: brocade and satin and jewels, feasts of sugar fruit and sweet spiced wine. Yet beneath the veneer of celebration, a shiver of darkness creeps through the palace halls. A mysterious illness plagues the royal family, threatening the lives of the throne’s heirs, and a courtier’s wolfish hunger for the king’s favors sets a devious plot in motion. Here in the palace at Skyggehavn, things are seldom as they seem — and when a single errant prick of a needle sets off a series of events that will alter the course of history, the fates of seamstress Ava Bingen and mute nursemaid Midi Sorte become irrevocably intertwined with that of mad Queen Isabel. As they navigate a tangled web of palace intrigue, power-lust, and deception, Ava and Midi must carve out their own survival any way they can."

So just leave a comment to enter (making sure that I can find you if you win), by midnight next Thursday, June 7th, and please let me know which of these you'd like!

(sorry, I can only ship to the US)

Armchair BEA- Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy and me

So over at BEA, bloggers are meeting in person today...talking about blogging things.  Here at Armchair BEA, the topics are paths to becoming a better blogger, and genres.  I'm kind of combining the two, with a few thoughts on how I became a happier (not necessarily better) blogger by focusing on my favorite subgenre--middle grade science fiction and fantasy.  If you are already a reader of my blog, this post doesn't say anything much you haven't read before; if you are not, welcome!
 
About two years into blogging, I niched myself.  I realized that the books I was most happy to read and write about were middle grade sci fi/fantasy, and the younger feeling sci fi/fantasy Young Adult books.  

On the up-side, I've chosen to blog about the books I most enjoy reading, and why not.   I've always loved fantasy books written for kids, but I think I might be enjoying them even more these days, in as much as I have a voracious 10 year old reader of my own to share them with (he's currently reading The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Loki's Wolves).

And also on the up-side, I know with a conviction that survives even the darkest moments of blogging doubt that my blog is a useful resource to people who want to know about mg sff.   That's hugely important to me--although there are other fine reasons to blog, I want to feel that there is a point to all the time I put into this that goes beyond simply having a place to talk about books for my own enjoyment.   Mg sff doesn't get a whole lot of coverage by the pro blogs (School Library Journal, Kirkus), and so I feel that I'm helping fill a void.

I'm proud of two things in particular--I have reviewed over 200 time travel books, making my blog pretty much the best resource around for people looking for time travel for kids.   And I've reviewed around a 100 multicultural sci fi/fantasy books, most of them for kids.   Another thing I do to be useful is that every Sunday I round-up all the mg sff posts I can find--something I started doing because I wanted someone else to already have done it! (Here's last week's).  Next week will be the 180th round-up...almost four years... (If you ever review a mg sff book, please send me the link!).

The down side is that it's hard to reach lots of readers if you are niched.  I'm pretty sure I'm reaching a number of grown-ups who share my reading tastes, and I'm pretty sure I'm reaching librarians and teachers.  But I know I'll never have as wide a readership as people blogging more popular genres, and I would love, love, love, to know how to reach out to all the people out there busily providing books to young readers--the parents, for instance, of the voraciously reading middle graders.

But anyway, here I am, happily blogging the mg sff, and planning to continue so doing for the foreseeable future!

If you have an eleven year old on hand, or want to try some fun mg sff yourself, here are some favorites from my 2013 reading so far--

Doll Bones, by Holly Black
The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blakemore
The Menagerie, by Tui T. Sutherland and Kai Sutherland
Bot Wars, by J.V. Kade
Jinx, by Sage Blackwood

Speaking of genres more generally, I'd like to put a plug in for the Cybils Awards.  If you are looking to explore all the various subgenres of children's and YA books, the shortlists for different categories of Cybils Awards are an excellent place to start!  The panelists who pick these books are all bloggers like us, so if you review lots of books in one of these genres, watch out for the announcement calling for panelists for the upcoming Cybils season!

Tommysaurus Rex, by Doug Tennapel

Tommysaurus Rex (Scholastic, 2013, though it was first published in 2004 by Image Comics), is the latest graphic novel for the young reader from the masterful pen of Doug Tennapel (Ghostopolis, Bad Island, and Cardboard, to name a few).    It's the story of a boy named Ely whose beloved dog and only friend, Tommy, is killed by a car.   Ely goes off to spend the summer on his grandpa's farm, which was supposed to be fun, but there he becomes the target for a nasty bully.

But then Ely finds a T. Rex--a real, live, friendly dinosaur who seems to have a lot in common with Tommy.

Of course, there are logistical problems, and safety concerns, etc., but fortunately the town's mayor sees the T. Rex as a campaign prop, and allows Ely to keep his new friend....forgiving even the dino pee filling his convertible (bad luck, not deliberate T. Rex maleficence).

Randy, the boy who had bullied Ely earlier, though, is getting madder and sadder (his own dad took off and left him), and he can't stand the happiness of Ely and his Tommysaurus.  So he tries to prove to the town that the dinosaur is a dangerous, ravening monster....and ends up in danger of loosing his own life.

Then there's a tear-jerking moment, but it only lasts a page or so, and then all ends happily.

Many of Tennapel's books involve loss of one kind or another--here it's the loss of a beloved animal friend, taken seriously and respectfully, and Randy's lost father.   It's also a book about bullying (note-- Ely is forced to eat dog poo, which distressed me), and forgiveness (also serious topics), but it isn't all heavy stuff!  There also lots about T. Rex training that's pure light-hearted fun, and the side-story with the mayor is very amusing.

So basically there's some bad, sad stuff, and some funny, whimsical, loving stuff, and if you have a graphic novel loving 10 year old around, it's spot on.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

The River of No Return, by Bee Ridgeway

The River of No Return, by Bee Ridgeway (Penguin, 2013), is a new time travel novel for grown-ups, with a generous helping of romance and a bit of sex, set primarily in the early 18th-century, that is more than a little gripping with regard to both plot and character.

And really, do I need to say more than that?

I guess I do, so that I can put it in my List of Time Travel Books.  But I will make it snappy.

Main male character:  And 18th-century nobleman named Nick is off fighting with Wellington in Spain when he escapes death by jumping forward in time to the present.  He is welcomed into a powerful and rich Guild, which seems to be a basically benign time traveller friendly society--helping people settle in to their new time and taking care of their finances.  That sort of thing. 

But few incredibly rich, powerful organizations are as friendly as they seem.  And so, when the Guild demands that Nick travel back to his own time (after ten peaceful years of being rich in the 21st century), he gets the (unwanted) chance to start unwinding various machinations within machinations.

Turns out there's a rival organization of time travellers.  They are fighting with the Guild.  And the Guild wants Nick to be a spy.

What Nick wants is to live a peaceful, happy life.  What Nick didn't expect was that he would a. fall madly in love  b. become implicated in a tangle of double-crossing time travellers c. start worrying like heck about the fact that the future seems to be disappearing....

Most important questions (for me as a reader)--is Nick likable, believable in his motivations, and interesting?  Are the time travelling complications of his life fully considered in creating his character?

Answer:  yes.

Main female character:  Julia, the grand-daughter of 18th-century nobleman who kicks the bucket almost immediately, leaving her at the mercy of a nasty cousin.  Julia's grandfather was able to do tricks with time...and the cousin wants to find out the secret to how he did it.

When Nick comes home, Julia is saved, but ends up trying to figure out just what the heck is going on with all this time travel business.  And it turns out that Julia can do a few interesting things with time herself, making her Important to a lot of people (once they start figuring things out).

And Julia also can do interesting things with Nick, which they both enjoy.

Most important questions (for me as a reader)--is Julia likable, believable in her motivations, and interesting?  Is she a believable 18th-century heroine?

Answer:  mostly although because of her eccentric up-bringing, she's not exactly typical...though she is perhaps too quick to yield to passion, I thought her impressions of it all were rather well done...

Other Characters:  An interesting, and wildly varied supporting cast from a generous number of periods and places adds to the reading experience.  Even the small characters, who only get a paragraph or two, are fun-- I particularly liked Meg, elderly escapee from the Irish potato famine who ends up in a happy lesbian relationship in Brazil.

The Time Travel:   I'm not entirely sure just what was going on with all the time travel difficulties everyone ends up being worried about.  It ends at a good stopping point, but I think there is going to have to be more to come, in which we explore the mechanics of time travel, Julia's abilities, and find out if the future can be saved. 

Lots of metaphoric time as river flowing to the sea (like the book title); there are few answers, yet one does not drown in confusion.

Final Answer:  I'm glad I read it; I'll definitely read the second one.  If I'd read it as a teen there would have been three pages I would have read over and over again while swooning.

Non-Review related Question:  if you find out very near the end that a main character in a book might well not actually be entirely a white European, and might actually have a parent who came from pre-contact Mesoamerica (I think), can one then count the book as a "reading in color" book?   

Answer:  I don't think one can list it in one's Multicultural Sci fi/Fantasy list, because of the reader not actually knowing for most of the book.  But the sequel might well count.   And having raised the issue, one can put a "reading in color" tag on the post, just as a little flag...especially since there are non-white members of the supporting cast, who we will hopefully get to see more of.

Armchair BEA- introducing myself

Armchair BEA is kicking off today with introductory posts from those of us taking part!  Here's mine.

I am, in fact, named Charlotte.   I live in southern New England (cunningly disguising my true location to protect my children in case there are crazed stalkers out there (you never know) but it is kind of a moot point because I can be located anyway with a bit of clever googling.  This is because I am an archaeologist (if you google Charlotte, archaeology, New England, voila). Today for work I am going to go see a runestone.  

My first blog post was on February 1, 2007, and I can't imagine giving it up, especially since I am now just as focused as all get out on the Middle Grade and YA fantasy/sci fi side of things.  This is my second Armchair BEA--the past two years, I made it to New York for the real thing, but I'm taking a break this year.   So my first Armchair BEA was nice because it helped me get over the disappointment of not being in NY; this year it will be nice because it will be much more relaxing, yet still fun!

My favorite new to me book this year was Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett (my review).  I am currently reading my way through the whole Discworld series--it was a gap in my reading that needed filling.


I'm not going to list my favorite blogs, because I will no doubt be leaving out blogs I love by accident.  My side-bar list is pretty accurate...(does anyone click on blogs listed in sidebars anymore?).  But I will say that in general the children's book blogging community is awesome.  If you blog primarily about kids books, do check out the Kidlitosphere!  It comes with a very helpful and supportive list serve, good for both the minutiae (I was just helped in creating a sitemap) and for the bigger discussions.   And the Kidlitosphere has a meeting every year that is my favorite conference ever (this year I'm pretty sure it's going to be in Austin in the fall).

But gee--looking at the long long long Armchair BEA participants list, where I know very few of the bloggers, its clear to me that I have perhaps become to comfy in my niche, and need to branch out more in my blog reading!

Doll Bones, by Holly Black

Doll Bones, by Holly Black (Simon and Schuster, Middle Grade, May 2013)

Zach and Poppy and Alice have been friends forever.  For years they have played a great game of imagination, in which their dolls and action figures became pirates and thieves and mermaids and warriors in a great fantasy epic.  Ruling this world was the Great Queen, an antique bone china doll of much creepiness, locked inside Poppy's house in a glass case.

But Zach and Poppy and Alice are getting older, and middle grade kids aren't supposed to play with dolls.   One night Zach's dad throws out his action figures, and Zach, heartbroken, abandons the game without explanation.

The Poppy begins dreaming about the Queen, and her dreams bring the three kids together for the most reckless adventure of all--one that takes place in real life.  For the Queen is no ordinary doll--she was made from the bones of a dead child, Eleanor.  And Eleanor wants to be buried.

So Zach and Poppy and Alice set out in the middle of the night to the town where Eleanor died and the doll was made.  Their ghost-haunted journey that will test not only their willingness to bend a few laws here and there (like breaking into a library, and "borrowing" a boat),  but more importantly, it will make or break their friendship...

These three kids had me on their side right from the start.   I was lucky to have a little sister, so I could keep playing games like theirs safely away from the pressures of middle school, but it is so, so, so easy to be right there feeling Zach's pain.   Add to that the fact that there's girl/boy growing-up tension starting to happen, and I wasn't sure I wanted to keep reading...

But I bravely kept on going, and was rewarded with a very satisfactory fantasy meets real life story full of historical details, clues being uncovered, logistical difficulties with money and food, all described in the sort of beautifully on-track writing that makes the reader feel caught up in each moment of the story.

What wasn't fully described is what actually happened to poor Eleanor...there are tantalizing glimpses, through the dreams they send, and a few tantalizing scraps of information uncovered by the kids...but she remains a mysterious sad figure.

(It just occurs to me, having typed that, that Eleanor's fate could be a metaphor for the whole adolescent condition.  A living, breathing, child dies and is reborn as a china doll, her vital creative spark and individual personality sublimated into society's rigid mold...This could be why the doll exercises such power in the great game the kids play--she is not something that can be a part of childhood imagining, except as something to be feared).

But in any event, the ending was deeply satisfying, with the kids talking openly about the fact that things are changing, but realizing that change doesn't have to mean loss.

"Quests are supposed to change us," Zach said.

"How about real life?" asked Poppy.

Alice picked up a blade of grass and folded it in her fingers.  "What's that? Seriously.  This was real.  This was a story that we lived.  Maybe we can live other stories too" (p 243).

And that is true, and wise, and hopeful.

But then a few lines down it gets even better:

"This was our last game," Poppy said. "This is the end of our last game."

"Oh, I don't know," said Zach.  "With the Queen gone, the kingdoms are going to be in turmoil.  Lots of people want her throne, all of them willing to manipulate, scheme, and battle to get it.  And with William and so many other heroes dead, it's going to be a different world.  A world in chaos.  Maybe we can't play it the way we used to, but we could still tell each other what happens next"  (pp 243-244).

I am so glad they get to keep their story, and that the end of childhood doesn't have to mean the end of imagination.

(I am also glad that Zach's dad ended up being really, really, sorry for the terrible thing he did).

(The cover offers lots more Fun with Metaphor, what with the three kids sailing rough waters to an unknown destination, while the doll sits below the water, like a Freudian Leviathan in the depths of their unconscious minds, she herself dripping water like she has just emerged in a new birth...or something.)

Other reviews--  Random Musings of a Bibliophile and The Book Smugglers