Nebula Awards Announced--Powers by Le Guin wins!

Oh my gosh. I am stunned by the news that Powers (Annals of the Western Shore), by Ursula Le Guin--a YA novel, character driven and gently paced--has won the Nebula. My money was on The Name of the Wind all the way, which was on the longer list for the Nebula this year, but not the final ballot. *


Is this the first time a YA book has won the best novel award? I'm very pleased, because I love Le Guin in general, and am happy every time she gets recognition, but since I think that the second book in this series, Voices, is much better, I'm a little mmph-ish.

The Andre Norton Award, which specifically is awarded for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, went to Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room), by Ysabeau Wilce.

*edited to add--here is what Le Guin said about The Name of the Wind: "It is a rare and great pleasure to find a fantasist writing not only with the kind of accuracy of language absolutely essential to fantasy-making, but with real music in the words as well. Wherever Pat Rothfuss goes with the big story that begins with The Name of the Wind, he'll carry us with him as a good singer carries us through a song."

The Magic Thief: Lost

The Magic Thief, by Sarah Prineas (Harper Collins), was one of my favorite books of 2008. It was one of the first books I read for the Cybils last fall, and it stayed firmly in the small group of books I was determined to push onto our final shortlist. Happily, no pushing was required.

Here's the blurb I wrote for the Cybils website:

"This fast-paced, fun, and engrossing story tells of a young thief who has survived on the strange streets of Wellmet alone, thanks to his quick hands and quick wits. But when Conn picks the pocket of the wizard Nevery, and pulls out the stone that is the locus of Nevery's magic, his life changes. As the wizard's new apprentice, Conn has only thirty days to find his own locus magicalicus, or lose his new status. Much worse is the fact that someone, or something, is sucking the magic out of Wellmet, and Conn has to use every bit of his quickness, and every bit of his new-found magic, to defeat the Magic Thief. A great adventure, with great characters!"

And so when book number two, The Magic Thief: Lost(coming May 12), arrived at my door courtesy of Harper Collins (thanks!), I felt delight, and a tinge of trepidation. Would I enjoy it as much? Would Conn's utterly engaging voice still be there? Would the really swell cast of supporting characters continue to delight?

So I started reading....and enjoyed it no end.

At the end of Book 1, Conn's new-found locus magicalicus went up in smoke, so he's back to a nebulous status--still Nevery's apprentice, but no longer welcome at the school of magic. But Conn is convinced that he can still reach the magic of Wellmet, if only he can find exactly the right combination of magically explosive ingredients. What with the creepy dark shadows turning people to stone in the night, and his own feeling that the magic needs him, he can't stop his incendiary experiments just because he might blow the house up and be exiled from Wellmet...

I will stop there, so as not to be spoilerish.

As I read, I would occasionally stick my head out of the book to ask myself why I was enjoying it so much. The brisk pace? The engaging characters, who are interesting because of what they say and do, without Prineas ever going into much authorial detail about their inner lives? The insertion of letters and journal entries from points of view of characters other than Conn, which I enjoyed very much? It's not the plot, qua plot, that hooks me, although I have no quarrel with it. I'm thinking that it is mainly because of Prineas' writing.

Here's an example, found just now by opening the book at random:

"His spell book was fat, held closed with a lock because it was bursting with paper markers and dried leaves and interesting bits of maps."

I find it charmingly immediate, while being full of backstory that we'll never know about (why the leaves? I try hard, myself, to keep organic matter out of my favorite books). It's friendly writing, if you know what I mean, without fancy-pants latinate vocabulary words, or overuse of adjectives and adverbs, or epically run-on descriptive sentences.

And so it's hard for me to imagine the fantasy-reading middle schooler who would not enjoy this series, and it makes great escapist pleasure reading for older readers too.

Disclaimer: Book 3 of the series (Magic Thief: Found) has been written and is in the works, and book 4 is coming along well, which is very nice. However, I was dismayed to read at Sarah Prineas' blog that Harper Collins has not yet agreed to publish book 4--they are waiting and seeing. Obviously, I want to read Book 4, and so want Book 2 to sell just as many copies as it can. But I am as certain as can be that I would have written the same review even if I hadn't known this.

Incidentally, the paperback of The Magic Thief has just been released, and includes Extras!

Appendix for those who have read Book 1:

Perhaps, like me, one of your favorite characters is Benet, the taciturn knitting henchman who bakes a mean biscuit. Here is a teaser from the second book:

"I caught a look at Benet's face. It was gray, and his lips were darker gray, and he was still as stone. He was stone. Nevery kept saying the spell, and I laid blankets over Benet." (page 81)

This was a very worrying part.

Shortlist for the 2009 Carnegie Awards

The press release for the Carnegie Awards calls these "seven outstanding ‘rites of passage’ novels." In all seven, the main characters are boys.

COSMIC, , by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Macmillan, age range 8+
BLACK RABBIT SUMMER, by Kevin Brooks (Puffin, age range 14+)
AIRMAN Eoin Colfer (Puffin, age range 9+)
BOG CHILD Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling Books, age range 12+)
OSTRICH BOYS Keith Gray (Definitions, age range 12+)
THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO Patrick Ness (Walker, age range 14+)
CREATURE OF THE NIGHT Kate Thompson (Bodley Head, age range: 14+)

I am particularly happy to see Airman on the list--this was one that impressed all of us on the Nominating Committee for the Cybils so much that it made our shortlist for that award, and it hasn't yet gotten the attention it deserves.

Here's the blurb that my co-panelist Amanda Feller, who blogs at the Shady Glade, wrote for the Cybils website:

"Conor Broekhart love of flying started when he was born in a falling hot air balloon at the 1878 Paris World Fair. Conor dreams of inventing the world's first airplane, a dream that is interrupted when he is accused and jailed for a crime he didn't commit. But Conor's not about to let the person truly responsible get away with it. A rousing adventure story with a sensible hero, with a dash of Jules Verne and The Count of Monte Cristo, Eoin Colfer's Airman will satisfy readers young and old alike."

Black Rabbit Summer and Ostrich Boys I have never heard of...

Here's the Guardian's take on it.

11 Birthdays, by Wendy Mass for Timeslip Tuesday

11 Birthdays, by Wendy Mass (Scholastic Press, 2009, 267pp, middle grade).

Amanda and Leo were born on the same day, in the same hospital. Their parents didn't know each other, and didn't particularly want to, but fate, helped by a mysterious old woman who's lived in their town for longer than anyone can remember, throws the children together. And Leo and Amanda spend birthday after birthday together, best friends.

The tenth birthday, however, was different. After it was over, Leo and Amanda weren't on speaking terms anymore. Now the eleventh birthday has come, the first where each kid is having a separate party. Amanda can't wait for it to be over with.

There's just one problem. The next day it's her eleventh birthday all over again.

Trapped in a daily time shift, Amanda slowly starts to push at the borders of temporal inevitability--at first reluctant to change anything, she gradually grows more confident in her daily exploration of her eleventh birthday. When she realizes that Leo too is repeating that particular day, together they set out to mend their friendship, and decide to push the boundaries of what they can do (Amanda, for instance, auditions as a drummer for a local rock band, Leo reads poetry at the open mic event at the local senior center). With every night washing out the consequences of the day before, life is whatever they want to make of it. But even the best birthday grows old, and so they set out to find the strange old woman who they suspect might have the solution to the time trap they have fallen into.

This is a beautifully realistic book, with the angsts of eleven-year old life front and center, but it is also a beautifully magical book, a what-if story of the nicest sort, that leaves the reader with lots to day-dream about. This dualistic nature might annoy the middle grade reader set on reading Fantasy (the consequences of the fantasy are explored much more fully than the magic itself), or the one fixed on Realistic Fiction (who might find the magic an irritant), but I think it more likely that it would make a fun change for either. To borrow the criteria of one of the judges in the School Library Journal Battle of the Books, I think my child self would have enjoyed it quite a bit. My adult self found it a very pleasant book to read while recovering from the flu (except that I kept imagining reliving day after day of recovering from flu....)

Some other reviews can be found at Teen Lit Review, Welcome to my Tweendom, and A Year of Reading.

At the Guadian Book Blog, a new look at The Death of Grass

I've never read The Death of Grass, by John Christopher, which has just been re-issued. At the Guardian Book Blog, Sam Jordison, who did read it as a child, re-visits it, and finds it much, much scarier now that he's a grown up.

"As a boy, I read it primarily as an unusually dark, but highly unlikely imaginary game. Safe in my schoolroom, knowing that the cold war was winding down and blissfully unaware of the approaching recession of the early 1990s, Christopher's threats about A-bombs and food shortages seemed remote, even quaint. Now I have a family of my own and the cold winds of financial meltdown are beginning to bite, the desperation in The Death of Grass seems far closer."

I tended to avoid things that were disturbing as a child, but now, as an adult reading the slew of distopian, cataclysmically awful (plot, not writing) books that are so easy to find in the YA section, it's pretty easy to be anxious about the future.

Sci fi/fantasy releases on the 20th and 21st of April

The 20th has just one book The Reformed Vampire Support Group, by Catherine Jenks. Booklist described the cast of characters as "barely likable whiners and pathetic hand-wringers" but went on to praise the book's humor. I myself don't mind whining, but I do prefer likable whiners (my children come to mind)...so I might pass for the moment on this one (but see the enthusiastic recommendation in the comments).


The 21st, on the other hand, brings with it several books:

Bad Girls Don't Die, by Katie Alender. A spooky sounding story of ghostly possession--I want it!

Warriors: Power of Three #6: Sunrise, by Erin Hunter

Vampire Kisses: The Beginning, by Ellen Schreiber

And then, of course, there's Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely), by Melissa Marr. Many of us are looking forward to this. But did you know that she has begun a new series of graphic novels, set in the same universe, also releasing today?

Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales, Volume 1: Sanctuary, by Melissa Marr, illustrated by the Xian Nu Studio. From the Amazon blurb:

"The desert is far away from the schemes of the Faerie Courts—and that's how Rika likes it. Once a mortal and now a faery, Rika seeks isolation and revels in her ability to appear invisible to humans. Then, she meets him. Artistic and kind, Jayce is the last person Rika wants to hide from.

But change is coming, challenging Rika's freedom and her new romance, as her past pursues her, even into the heart of the desert. . . ."

The Shirley Jackson Awards short list

The Shirley Jackson Awards honor outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. While I agree that "The Lottery" is an utter triumph of a short story, and The Haunting of Hill House is very scary, my favorites of Jackson's books are the two about her family (Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons), and if you are a parent and haven't read these yet, you should. As is true for the lives of so many of us with small children, there is suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic in plenty. They are very funny (even for those who don't have children).

I am not sure that can be said for any of the books on the awards shortlist:

• Alive in Necropolis, Doug Dorst (Riverhead Hardcover)


• The Man on the Ceiling, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem (Wizards of the Coast Discoveries)


• Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)


• The Resurrectionist, Jack O’Connell (Algonquin Books)


• The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (William Morrow)


• Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Knopf)

I am happy to see Tender Morsels getting another nod (which is the main reason I'm posting this), because I liked it very much, even though it is not, um, funny.

The awards will be presented on Sunday, July 12th 2009, at Readercon 20, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Another award presented at Readercon is the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award. From the Science Fiction Awards Watch website:

Winner receives

Recognition at last.

Submissions method

None, but it helps to have been forgotten.

Slob, by Ellen Potter

Slob, by Ellen Potter (May 14, 2009, Philomel Books, 197 pp)

Every day, 12-year old Owen gets three oreo cookies in his lunch. They give him a moment of bliss, no matter how bad the school day. Even though he would rather eat a whole package, he's smart enough (with an IQ just shy of genius), to know that he's plenty fat already. It's hard for him to forget, what with the constant reminders from his sadistic gym teacher and sundry classmates. But his cookies comfort him.

At home, more comfort comes from his work on Nemesis, a mass of tangled wire coils and hardware that Owen and his little sister have scavenged from demolition sites. Nemesis, if successful, will let him watch what was shown on television on a certain night two years ago. When he wasn't fat.

Then one day someone takes the oreos from his lunch box. And it happens again, and again. The obvious suspect is the new kid, the one with the scary scar, rumored to have a switchblade in his sock. Owen decides it is time to take action...

Although Owen, an engrossing and sympathetic narrator, is front and center, his little sister, Jeremy, has an engrossing and powerful sub-plot of her own. She is, in fact, one of the most engaging fictional little sisters I've encountered for a while, and her presence in the book adds a lot.

Slob isn't "a story about a fat boy," although Owen is fat. Nor it is about the misery of middle school, although that is there too. It is much more, and Potter does an incredibly skillful job moving delicately from the mystery of the cookies to larger story arcs of love and loss and growing up. (It made me cry a bit at the end).

Other reviews can be found at Kids Lit and Bookshelves of Doom.

Today's science fiction and fantasy releases for kids and teenagers

I am rather glad that I have this rather mechanical post to write. I do not think it would be wise for me to try to write a review at this point in my sickly and sleep-deprived life.

Here are the science fiction and fantasy books for kids and teenagers being released today (from the calender at Teens Read Too).

The Eternal Tomb (Oliver Nocturne) by Kevin Emerson. Latest in a series about a teenaged vampire, for ages 9-12.
Grim Hill: The Forgotten Secret by Linda DeMeulemeester. The third in another series for 9-12 year olds, perfect for soccer-loving girls who like magic (I've read the second book in the series, so I can say this in all honesty).
Last Battle Of The Icemark (Icemark Chronicles), by Stuart Hill. The third book in a series for, yes you guessed it, 9-12 year olds. Magic. Battles. Parents fighting against their daughter.
The Mad Scientist (Meet The Kreeps), by Kiki Thorpe. This is the fourth book in yet another series for 9-12 year olds, but looks younger than those above. I'm not sure if its really science fiction, although it's about science experiments, and the series is described as "spooky."
Necropolis (The Gatekeepers), by Anthony Horowitz. The fourth in a series for 9-12 year olds. I am having trouble believing this one. It looks and sounds older. Has Amazon gone mad?
The Silver Door (Moon & Sun), by Holly Lisle. Sequel to The Ruby Key, for 9-12 year olds. I believe this one.

And finally, a stand-alone (I'm guessing here) YA book!

Thirteenth Child (Frontier Magic Book), by Patricia Wrede, which looks rather good--here's the Amazon blurb:
"Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he's supposed to possess amazing talent -- and she's supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that separates settlers from the beasts of the wild."

This would be my pick from today's new releases. I do, however, suspect it of being the first in a new series for 9-12 year olds.

Tomorrow there's only one release, so I'm sticking it here:

Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling; an anthology of fairy tale retellings.

More to come on the 20th.

And now, neglecting the piles of new exciting books I really want to have the time and energy to read, I shall fall back on the soothing comfort of The Four Graces, by D.E. Stevenson. I don't mind, exactly, being home from work, but I do object to being home from work too sick to read new books.

Today's science fiction/fantasy release for kids and teens

I have been having a rather pleasant time browsing the release date calender at Teens Read Too, and thought it would be fun to share the science fiction and fantasy books being released today! Mostly I haven't read them, so the descriptions are gleaned rather than guaranteed. If time permits, I'd like to do this on a regular basis...so I've penciled in more to come tomorrow.

The Amulet of Amun Ra by Leslie Carmichael. Time travel to ancient Egypt for middle grade readers.
The Battle for Duncragglin by Andrew H. Vanderwal. Time travel to 13th century Scotland.
Bloodhound (The Legend of Beka Cooper, Book 2) by Tamora Pierce. Sequel to Terrier.
Discordia: The Eleventh Dimension by Dena K. Salmon. An online fantasy game becomes real.
Fortune's Folly by Deva Fagan. A very charming quest to fulfill a made up prophecy, my review.
Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates by Philip Caveney. Pirates and magic.
The Softwire: Wormhole Pirates on Orbis 3 by PJ Haarsma. Third in an action packed space adventure series.

I'm pleased to see there are two timeslip books in this lot, that being one of my favorite sub-genres (and later this evening I will I hope be publishing today's Timeslip Tuesday entry...but who knows. We are all sick).

Edited to add: Here's another--The Dragon of Trelian, by Michelle Knudson.

The day before Easter

I went out in the snow (snow. so spring-like. not.) with the snipers to cut forsythia (which is not actually blooming qua blooming, but there is the suggestion that it might be about to) so that we would have something on which to hang our little egg ornaments, (the tender perennial tree we had been using in years past objected to not being watered while we were away at Christmas, and still hasn't grown any new leaves, although I am still hopeful) and while I was outside I decided to go see if the chickens had laid any eggs, which they hadn't done for the last few days. But today they had--two of them, beautiful brown eggs, so seasonally appropriate-- so I carefully put them in my coat pocket and then cut the forsythia and went inside, totally forgetting I had raw eggs in my pocket, and sat down before taking my coat off. Sigh.

And then I read a very soothing ya book about a young nursing student in New York, imaginatively titled Young Nurse in New York, by Diane Seidner (1967) while my coat dried in front of the wood stove.

Crazed vegetables, Elizabeth Enright's mother, and gardening in times of war

It was strangely appropriate that, while I was reading Bones of Faerie, which features crazed vegetables fighting their planters, I should receive an invitation to a war gardening event* bearing this picture:



Curious to know who the creator of such demonic potatoes was, I looked further, and found another war gardening poster, in which the vegetables are even more insane:

The artist is Maginel Wright Enright Barney, a children's book illustrator from the first half of the twentieth century who was the sister of Frank Lloyd Wright and mother of Elizabeth Enright.

Enright is one of my favorite children's book authors, and features a World War II victory garden in one of her books, Then There Were Five. The children in that book decide to do help the war effort, in part part by expanding the vegetable garden. While Rush and Randy head off in the surrey to collect scrap, poor little Oliver is left behind to weed the massive garden: "Weeds....He knew plenty about them by now. There was one called purslane, with a lot of fat, pink tentacles, that grew up overnight in countless numbers. There was quack grass, coarse and hardy, its roots stretching under the earth in endless nets. There were yellow dock, and lamb's quarters, and velvetleaf...such stubborn boring little enemies."

I am fascinated by Victory Gardens, and the Women's Land Army. On my list of books to read is Fruits of Victory: The Woman's Land Army of America in the Great War (aka WW I), by Elaine Weiss. I think this would make a great basis for a YA book--a young girl in her first year, at, say, Bryn Mawr leaves college to head off to the war gardens of California to become a farmerette.

The only YA fiction book I know of that focuses on the Women's Land Army is A Strange Enchantment, by Mabel Esther Allan. It's about an English girl in WW II who signs up, goes through the rigorous training, and heads out to farm...it's very good, one of my favorite books in fact. Although this is a UK book, it was also published in the US, and was bought by many US libraries, so do check to see if your system still has it!

*for anyone in the Greater Providence RI area who might be interested, "Green Zones: From the War Garden to Your Garden" will take place Tuesday, May 5th, at 5:30, at Firehouse 13, 41 Central Street, Providence. More information can be found here: http://www.greenzonegarden.wordpress.com/

Updated to add: "The tomatoes, they come out of nowhere, or just in weird places," Liu said. Read more about the future of robotic gardening here.

Bones of Faerie, by Janni Lee Simner

Bones of Faerie, by Janni Lee Simner (Random House 2009, YA, 256 pp)

"I had a sister once," Liza's story begins. "She was a beautiful baby, eyes silver as moonlight off the river at night. From the hour of her birth she was long-limbed and graceful, faerie-pale hair clear as glass from Before, so pale you could almost see through to the soft skin beneath.

My father was sensible man. He set her out on the hillside that very night...." And fifteen year- old Liza sneaks out to find her sister, but all that is left are baby Rebecca's cracked and bloody bones.

Twenty years ago, a war between humans and the faerie world had brought cataclysm to both. In a small village, a handfuls of human survivors eke out a fearful existence in a world of deadly flora--trees and brambles can kill, poison ivy is a predator, and even dandelions have teeth. Liza, surrounded since birth by vegetative nightmares, has never known any other world, and her father works diligently to keep any taint of magic from his community. Rebecca, born with the physical traits of faerie, could not be tolerated, and had to die.

A few weeks later, Liza's mother is gone too, escaping from the village to almost certain death. And Liza is beginning to acquire magic herself. In mortal fear of her father, whose beatings are already terrible, Liza flees from home, hoping to find her mother.

Her friend Matthew, his own family killed in a most terrible way years before, follows her. As they travel, she finds that Matthew is not the quite boy he has seemed all his life, and the world the Liza encounters holds much more hope for people and magic than Liza had dreamed. But first she must follow her mother into the land of faerie itself, and learn the true horror that the war brought to both realms, and she must face as well the dark shadow that journeys with her (this was a surprising sub-plot, that I won't say more about because it's a spoiler, but I liked it lots).

Pretty exciting stuff, with a great premise (post-apocalyptic earth meets faerie magic--how cool is that), and great characters. I found Liza's narration convincing and engrossing. The world is wonderfully realized, with survivals from our familiar landscapes and lifestyles made strange by their setting in the jungle of hate-filled flora.

I have only two quibbles. The first is that Liza's magic, which begins as chance visions in reflections, seems to grow and grow during the course of the book, until I wasn't exactly clear about what her powers entailed, and she became just a bit too gifted to convince. My second quibble is that I wish it had taken about 100 more pages to tell the story--it was all so interesting I wanted more! The back story of the war never became clear to me, the relationships between humans and faeries, in the past and the present, could have been explored in greater depth, and many of the walk-on characters didn't get as much attention as I would have liked.

On the other hand, the sharp focus on Liza's point of view, and the impetus that keeps moving her forward before the reader can settle down and hear some back story, are deliberate choices that keep the story riveting. And these are all issues that Liza herself would probably like to know more about. Perhaps in another book...

Here are other reviews, at Otherwhere Book Reviews, Fantasy Book Critic, and The Puck in the Midden.

Waiting on Wednesday-- The Princess and the Bear

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of reading The Princess and the Hound, by Mette Ivie Harrison. It was a pleasure, except (spoiler alert) I had one considerable complaint. As I wrote in an earlier post, "I think that when an author expects me to invest in getting to know a character (Princess Beatrice) it is not fair to turn her back into the hound she really was and send her off into an unnatural relationship with a bear."

Now we get to find out what happens with Beatrice and the Bear! I am very curious. How much of her hound self will Beatrice retain in human form? How much Bear will the Bear still have now that he is human?

The Princess and the Bearcomes out on April 28, 2009. Here's what the blurb on Amazon says:

"He was once a king, turned into a bear as punishment for his cruel and selfish deeds.

She was a once a princess, now living in the form of a hound.

Wary companions, they are sent—in human form—back to a time when magic went terribly astray. Together they must right the wrongs caused by this devastating power—if only they can find a way to trust each other.

But even as each becomes aware of an ever-growing attraction, the stakes are rising and they must find a way to eliminate this evil force—or risk losing each other forever."

Waiting on Wednesday, in the words of Reviewer X, is a community book lusting effort started by Jill over at Breaking the Spine.

The Top Ten Books of Magical Spells

Over at the Guardian today there's a fascinating list of the top ten grimoires (books of magical spells), real ones, not ones from fiction. I have read none of them, but here's the one that looks most useful to me professionally, as an archaeologist:

"Grimoires purporting to have been written by a legendary St Cyprian (there was a real St Cyprian as well) became popular in Scandinavia during the late 18th century, while in Spain and Portugal print editions of the Libro de San Cipriano included a gazetteer to treasure sites and the magical means to obtain their hidden riches."

I have several colleagues whose skill in finding archaeological sites borders on the miraculous...perhaps this is their secret. Or perhaps, like Professor Calculus in The Seven Crystal Balls (a Tintin book which I am currently reading to my boys), they dowse for sites.

My favorite fictional book of magic would have to be The Book of Three (Lloyd Alexander), but the one I think I would most like to read would be the one behind the clock in The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper). Anyone else have a favorite?

Following a preamble about my day, an introduction to a new blog to love, and a tip of the hat to an old(er) friend

I just got the Love Your Blog Award from Aerin at In Search of Giants, which provided a much needed lift on a sticky evening--the sort with blood, broken glass (the two are unrelated--the blood came from the nose of my five year old's erstwhile best friend--will said friend be able to forgive? will said friend's mother take the apologetic call I made in a forgiving spirit?), rejected suppers, and assorted colds (although nothing went wrong at work). So anyway, it was nice to be loved.



Fortunately there is a new blog to quickly pass the award onto before anyone else does--The Enchanted Inkpot, where, if you head over now, you can read a fascinating entry on fantasy in Asia by Cindy Pon.

And I'd also like to pass it on to The Spectacle, another blog by fantasy/speculative fiction writers, which I have been enjoying very much!

And now I have to go watch my five year old's pet scrubbing brush (ala Traction Man, for those who know that lovely picture book) have his swimming lesson in the bathroom sink.

VOYA's list of 33 best Sci Fi, Fantasy, and Horror for teens

Here is VOYA's list of last year's thirty-three best science-fiction, fantasy, and horror titles for teens. VOYA is a library magazine ("the Voice of Youth Advocates"). Last year, incidentally, includes a bit of 2009.

Not surprisingly, there are many familiar titles on the list (Graveyard Book, Hunger Games, Battle of the Labyrinth), but it was nice to see a few books that haven't gotten much recognition. One of these, whose inclusion will make several people I know (co-panelists for the Cybils) very happy, is The Unnameables, by Ellen Booraem.

It's also interesting to see what didn't get included...

Amd continuing this line of thought, over at Wands and Worlds, Sheila has just posted a rather more in depth discussion of book lists and book buzz and undiscovered gems.

Fortune's Folly, by Deva Fagan

If you are looking for a lovely new book to give a ten year old girl (or the right sort of boy) I am happy to recommend Fortune's Folly, by Deva Fagan (coming April 14, from Henry Holt, 257 pages in ARC form).

Once Fortunata's father made the most beautiful shoes in all the land. But when her mother died, the fairies that he believed helped him in his work left, and now the things he makes are laughable. Rather than stay in their home city, becoming poorer and poorer as the market for ridiculous shoes drys up around them, Fortunata and her father hit the road. Their path leads them to a group of travelling performers, and almost before she knows what's happened to her, Fortunata finds herself selling fake fortunes....and being rather good at it.

To good, in fact. The truly unpleasant leader of the troupe is so impressed with her skills that he traps her into telling the fortune of Prince Leonarto himself. The words come tumbling out of her mouth, telling of a witch, a white horse, a wondrous sword, a princess in danger, and the most beautiful pair of shoes ever made. If her "prophesy" comes true, Leonarto will be able to assume the kingship. If it is proven false, Fortuna's father will be killed.

And so Leonarto and Fortunata head out on a journey to make a fairy tale come true, the prince believing in the prophesy, the fortune teller desperate to make it happen. What she doesn't know is that she will have to contend with more than simple human evil on their journey, and what she didn't foresee was that she would fall in love with the prince herself...

This is a delightful story, told with charm and verve. It's not a fairy tale retelling, exactly, although there are plenty of allusions to well-know stories, and there's no overt magic in it, although the reader is left wondering if Fortunata really can see the future...but it will make fans of fairy tale retellings feel right at home. I liked Fortunata a lot, and I was happy to cheer her onward as she persevered in her quest (Leonarto never quite became real to me, although he is rather sweet).

And it ends with a pair of shoes that I confess I would rather like, although I just don't know when I would ever wear them:

"A pale blue, like cornflowers, but deeper and more pure. Silver braiding edged each graceful curve; even the laces ended in delicate silver tassels. They were the most lovely pair of shoes I had ever seen."

These are officially my favorite pair of fictional shoes, beating out Maria Merryweather's boots in The Little White Horse.

Amazon says this is a young adult book, but Amazon is wrong- it's for ages ten and up. Really. The back of the book says so. Here's another review at Kidliterate, and you can read the first chapter for yourself at Deva Fagan's website.

Horrid Henry

For a couple of years, I've been vaguely aware that, over in the UK, children have been reading and loving a series of books featuring a boy nicknamed "Horrid Henry," written by Francesca Simon, and illustrated by Tony Ross. Friends there have recommended them to me, I've seen them on lists of books nominated for the British children's choice awards, and I've seen that sometimes Horrid Henry books have been the winners (Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman won the Galaxy Award in 2008, and Horrid Henry Robs the Bank is on the 2009 short list) . What I hadn't seen, here in the United States, were the books themselves (on my trips to England, mostly I am looking in used bookstores for books for me).


But this has now changed (um, not the part about me, which is still true). As of April 1, 2009, the first four (of sixteen) Horrid Henry books are available in the US! And my eight-year old and I have read them.

These books are:
Horrid Henry
Horrid Henry Tricks the Toothfairy
Horrid Henry's Stinkbomb
Horrid Henry and the Mega Mean Time Machine


In a nutshell, Henry is a Bad Child. Any adjective that you can think of that would fit a bad child (rude, stubborn, picky, obnoxious, selfish, etc) could be applied to the boy. His little brother, however, is Perfect. Henry butts heads with the world (which he often finds not to his taste), his family, his teacher and classmates, and just about everyone he comes into contact with, in stories that are funny in a slightly un-nice, slapsticky way. For instance, Henry uses other campers' tent pegs to start a campfire, which would never have occurred to a Good Child, such as myself.



Yet despite the Horrid things Henry does, he is smart, and funny, and (almost) likable...My son (being, on the whole, eager to please), was somewhat taken aback, but none the less enjoyed the books. At 80-90 pages, with lots of black and white illustrations, these are great for the youngish independent reader.

Reviewing this series is tricky. It is easy to say "children will love the subversive wit" "children will be delighted by Henry's antics" etc, but what I really want to talk about is Henry's parents and what they are doing wrong, and what I would do if Henry and his brother ("Perfect Peter") were my children. But I realize that this is not the point. So I will fall back on "I am sure that American kids will read these books with just as much enjoyment as the children over in the UK on whom they have already been tested..." or something like that.



For more about Horrid Henry, and to read a sample story (Horrid Henry Tricks the Toothfairy, which is a very good one), here's the publisher's website- Sourcebooks.

"I Am Still a Bunny" by Ole Risom (not)

Minh Le of Bottom Shelf Books and Farida of Saints and Spinners are collaborating on a unique blog contest: Unnecessary Children's Book Sequels that Never Were.

Here is my entry:

"I Am Still a Bunny" by Ole Risom. We've already spent one fun-filled year with Nicholas the Bunny. Now the cute rabbit takes another trip through the seasons, in which he continues to be a passive, isolated observer of the pageant of life. "In spring, I watch other animals making friends." Children will be comforted by the fact that flowers still bloom, leaves still fall, and Nicholas is still watching them.

Tell me you weren't dying to know what didn't happen to Nicholas next.

I feel this sequel is so unnecessary that the same cover can be used again:



This is actually one of my favorite picture books of all time. Would that more of us were like Nicholas.

Hilary McKay, however, does not share my opinion. Here is her description (from The Exiles):

"Pheobe had decided on...a story about a rabbit named Nicholas who lived, unnaturally, in a hollow tree. In spring this animal watched the flowers grow; in summer he spoke once, briefly, to a bee; in autumn he detachedly observed the falling of the leaves; and in winter, with the first deep snow, he put on striped pajamas and went to bed.

And died of boredom, thought Naomi, discarding Nicholas."

Either McKay did not look at the book before writing this, or the UK edition is different. Two things are wrong in this synopsis...

Waiting on Wednesday--Sacred Scars, by Kathleen Duey and thoughts on cliffhanging

Reaching the end of Kathleen Duey's great book, Skin Hunger, is tantamount to galloping along with the rest of your buffalo herd and then, whoops! You've just been driven over a cliff, and suddenly you are falling....This is perhaps a bad metaphor, but "cliffhanger" doesn't do this ending justice.

Anyway. The sequel to Skin Hunger, Sacred Scars (A Resurrection of Magic, Book 2) will be out August 4, 2009, and can be pre-ordered now! I am glad to know in advance what I will be re-reading on August 2nd.

Another cliffhanger that I read this past year was The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness. But that was more of the author yanking the reader's chain by introducing the cliffhanger in the last few paragraphs. In the more nuanced version, it is clear that the writer has to end somewhere because there are limits (Skin Hunger and The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, being examples of this. Waxing metaphorical again, I found reaching the ending of later more like giving in and going to bed at three in the morning, leaving half of the book unread. Perhaps this more gentle reaction on my part stems from knowing where the main character is going to end up, although not knowing how or why).

Ideally, of course, every book should give closure. Megan Whalen Turner, for instance, manages to make every book of her Queen's Thief series End, while making each one a continuation of what came before. Another book I read recently, Laini Taylor's Blackbringer, Ends, while making it clear that there is room for more (Silksinger, coming soon).

But I am sure that Kathleen Duey and Patrick Rothfuss both felt rather cliffhung themselves, and will be very glad themselves when the books are finished. I am not angry, nor do I cast blame. I just want the next books....(I do not claim to know what Patrick Ness thinks. I am still sore).

Timeslip Tuesday- The Devil's Arithmetic

This week's Timeslip Tuesday book (it was supposed to be last week's, but things happened) is The Devil's Arithmetic, by Jane Yolen (1988). In modern-day New York, a girl named Hannah is dragging her feet about going to her family's Passover Seder. She's tired of her extended family, and their constant remembering--she knows her grandfather survived a concentration camp, but his rants about the Nazis are nothing more to her than an embarrassment. But when she opens the front door, to let the prophet Elijah in, her life changes. Now she is Chaya, living in a Polish village in 1942, and the Nazis have their concentration camps up and running.

All too soon they arrive in Chaya's village. When the Nazis round the villagers up and cram them into boxcars, the girl from the future knows she is going to have to try to survive some of the worst horrors imaginable. When she returns to the future, she, too, has memories--of death, of friendships blooming in the most unlikely places, of the blue numbers tattooed on her aunt's arm.

Yolen does a fine job of portraying the hellishness of a concentration camp, keeping her description just bearable enough for a young reader to keep reading. And she does a fine job in telling of the importance of remembering the past. I wish, though, that she'd given us a bit more of the characters. They are almost truly real, but to me they were always just a tad overshadowed by the Larger Messages. I had read this one years ago, and did not remember caring for it over much--this may have been why. Still, speaking as one who advocates the teaching of history through fiction, this is a great middle-grade book from which to learn about the Holocost.

Timeslip-wise, it's clear that the time travelling is so that Hannah can Learn, and that weakens the magic of it. So although this book has many good points, it isn't one I'd recommend as a sterling example of Timeslip Genre as such.

This is my 22nd Timeslip review-when I get to 25 I'll make a list!

The Name of the Wind

I just finished reading The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1), by Patrick Rothfuss (Daw 2007, 662 pp). I am sad that I have turned the last page of the story, and will have to wait for book 2, but so happy to be able to say--Wow! Go read this book, or put it in the hands of any fantasy loving teenager asap! It was great!

It starts in an inn, miles from anywhere of importance. It starts slowly, and darkly, with the innkeeper obsessively polishing his bottles in a too-often empty room. Outside, weird metallic spider things that shouldn't be there are attacking people. On the road, drawing closer to the inn, is the Chronicler. He has heard a rumor about this innkeeper, and is coming to find his story. Because the innkeeper is actually Kvothe the Bloodless, the Kingkiller, of whom a hundred stories are told. The Chronicler is about to be told the truth.

Kvothe's story starts with a happy childhood, travelling with loving parents, performing with them, learning chemistry, physics, math, and magic from a wise old man who has joined them on the road. He is beginning to dream of the University, where he might go to read all the books in the best library in the world, and learn for himself the name of the wind.

I don't want to go on describing the plot--why spoil a good story? Very bad things happen, good things happen. There is a vegetarian dragon, the best Magical University I've been in outside of Earthsea, and lots of music. There's beautiful, and not very kind girl, who has secrets. There are chemical accidents, mysterious deaths, underground rooms (that we don't find out enough about here in book one argh), young Kvothe is a great character, and....

There were, it must be said, bits that dragged a tad, which could perhaps have used a bit of editing (I'm not sure, for instance, that the vegetarian dragon added much). And the girl character. I'm not sure what I think about her, but I'm willing to suspend judgement until I find out more.

But wow. It took me longer to get to this book than planned, because I had to spend several days watching my dear husband reading it, drawing farther and farther away from his loving family with each page...here is his reaction: "Didn't you get p....off at the end when you realized you weren't going to find out how the story ends?" He really liked it. Upon reading this, he requests that I add that he "has no patience with fantasy writing that is a mere collection of clichéd furniture with no story to tell."

In short, here is a great book about a teenaged protagonist, a fantasy that is fresh and exciting with no magic talismans (talismen?) or Quests, which leaves the reader dying for more (poor Patrick Rothfuss has gotten some nasty email as a result--he, too, would like to have Book 2 written).

The Name of the Wind is on this year's Nebulla shortlist (that's how I heard of it), and, apparently, would have won the Locus Award for Best Debut Fantasy if the votes of Locus suscribers hadn't been counted twice.

I don't exactly like the American cover, so here's the UK one. I don't exactly like that either.

Lots of dead bodies, some bad dreams, a hound, and a family of vicarage children--my week in review

I've read more books this week than I have time to review, and rather than have this week's reading vanish into the Mists of Time, here are my reactions. They were all good reads, by which I mean books that made me turn the pages at a brisk clip and which followed me around the house, as opposed to the books that sit forgotten in forlorn loneliness on the windowsill, kitchen counter, or bedside table. But they weren't quite good enough to make me want to leave off working outside yesterday to come in and write about in detail.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan (Delacorte, 2009. 320pp, YA). Mary lives in a fenced village, with uncountable zombies trying to get in. The horrible claustrophobia of it all is rather effective, as is the horrible uncertainty of not knowing what is outside--are there other villages? Is there really an ocean? Is there a point to continuing life in what might be a dead end? There are so many zombies, however, that they began to overwhelm me (as well as sundry villages). And I thought there were too many questions left hanging, although all the loose ends make me anxious for the sequel...As a member of Team Unicorn, I tried to imagine what the book would be like with Bad Unicorns--The Forest of Hoofs and Horns. Although I did not switch my allegiance, I concluded that zombies were a better choice.

Fade, by Lisa McMann (2009, Simon Pulse, 256pp, YA). I found this just as page turning as its prequel, Wake, although not quite as satisfying. Janie and Cabal are now doing their best to make a go of life as a couple, while trying to help the police snare a suspected sexual predator at their school. And all the dreaming she's been doing is taking a toll on Janie. Her eyesight is failing, her hands growing old before their time. I have one major criticism of this one--Janie's dreams seem to have been absolutely no help in cracking the case. Any undercover high school operative could have done what she did, so what was the point?

The Bone Magician, by F.E. Higgins (2008, Feiwel & Friends, 288pp, YA)
is one of those stories that I vaguely feel are ubiquitous about a boy living in a seedy city making a living under unwholesome and un-nurturing conditions. There's a creepy killer on the loose, and creepy magic being practiced. A Bone Magician and his assistant are making the dead talk...For much of this book, I kept wondering when things would Start Happening, and Pin, the young boy, would leave the city and set out to find the truth about his father, and discover magic of his own, or something, but it stayed firmly put in the stench-filled streets where the story begins. After a while, I decided this didn't matter--the atmosphere, personalities, and magic carry the book along quite nicely. This is a "paraquel" to The Black Book of Sequels, and it appears that the two casts of characters will meet in the next book....

The Princess and the Hound, by Mette Ivie Harrison (HarperTeen 2007 416pp, YA) was an impulse library pick-up. I'd heard good things about it, but hadn't read it. A prince with animal speaking magic (which he must keep secret, or be burned alive) must marry a princess from neighboring kingdom. The princess comes with a hound, her only close companion...

Spoiler

Here is a bit of complaint. I think that when an author expects me to invest in getting to know a character (Princess Beatrice) it is not fair to turn her back into the hound she really was and send her off into an unnatural relationship with a bear.

The Vicarage Children, by Lorna Hill (originally published in 1961, reissued by Girls Gone By Publishers in 2008, Middle Grade). Kind of like The Four Story Mistake, set in a Northumbrian vicarage in the middle of the 20th century (although Enright is a much better writer than Hill). The vicarage has no modern conveniences and a leaky roof (although it does have a Centurian's grave in the garden). The family (mother, father, four children) is very poor, and much of the story concerns the issues of the oldest sister, who does not like being a pretty teenager with no money, and suffers from the perennial "I need a party frock" desperation that plagues so many fictional impoverished girls in post-war England (although I guess 1961 isn't really all that post-war, qua post-war). The middle sister, the narrator, is a pleasantly interesting child, and the sense of place is lovely.

So these were my pleasure reading this past week. And yesterday I started reading The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1)...that one is definitely going to get its own review.

This year's official Oddest Book Title is...

The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais.

You can read more about it here, and see the books it beat. My personal favorite is The Large Sieve and Its Applications: Arithmetic Geometry, Random Walks and Discrete Groups. It sounds rather soothing, somehow. Not like those nasty planned walks.

Now I am wondering if my sieve is large enough for me to try this at home...

Radio interview with Alan Garner

Just a quick post to offer this link to a recent radio interview with Alan Garner (author of The Weirdstone of Brisingaman and The Owl Service): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j6xxz

Here's the BBC's description of it: John Waite meets Alan Garner, author of the book that helped shape Waite's own childhood, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, to discuss his life and writing career.

He discovers how Garner had his mouth scrubbed with carbolic soap at primary school to rid him of his thick Cheshire accent, what happened when he heard himself declared dead - twice - and how nothing has influenced him more strongly than his artisan ancestors who have lived in the area for centuries.

John also hears from Garner fans including academic Charles Butler and novelist Philip Pullman.

Waiting on Wednesday--The Magic Thief: Lost

Here is a present I am going to buy myself on May 12th:

The Magic Thief: Lost, by Sarah Prineas.


Or I might well pre-order a signed copy (which you can do here).

I looovveeddd Prineas' first book, The Magic Thief (a Cybils short list; here's my review), and it makes me so happy to think that I'll have book number two in my hot little hands in just a few weeks! And hopefully book number 3, The Magic Thief: Found, not too terribly long afterwards...it's just recently been copy-edited.

(as well as liking the words inside, I think these are very handsome books qua books. They are nice to hold and look at...friendly yet lavish)

The Hugo Awards Shortlist

Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK)
Saturn's Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)

Wow! Three directly marketed as YA, one (Anathem) that features teenagers, one (Graveyard Book) that's for middle-grade readers on up, and, um, then there's Saturn's Children, about which Publisher's Weekly said "Sex oozes from every page of this erotic futuristic thriller..."

I also find it interesting that something that is as utterly un-sciency as The Graveyard Book made it onto the list for the most prestigious science fiction award.

Here's the rest of the ballot.

Watersmeet, by Ellen Jensen Abbott

Watersmeet, by Ellen Jensen Abbott (Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books, 341 pages, coming out April 1), is a page-turner. For those who like Hard Data, I offer this--I read the first 120 pages in a toxic, noisy environment-- my son's 45 minute swim lesson (I hate the smell of chlorine), and I was so engrossed that I completely abandoned my habitual practice of checking every few minutes to see if he was drowning (he wasn't).

Here's the story. Humans have staked out settlements in a land of "monsters"--centaurs, dwarves, fauns, and the like--and have met these monsters with hatred. The non-human creatures return the favor. Within the settlement walls, hatred also runs hot for those who fall short of this culture's physical ideal for humanity. One such is Abisina, outcast from birth because of her dark hair and skin. She thinks she knows hatred pretty well, but when a charismatic leader arrives at her village, and preaches death to all outcasts, she has to revise her opinion. Especially as she sees this leader for the hideous white worm that he is (literally).

Fleeing from the savage attacks of her neighbors, and the horror of her mother's death at their hands, Abisina sets out to find the father she never knew, to a place she does not know how to find--Watersmeet. On her journey beyond the mountains, she must learn to trust and value the native peoples of these lands. Without the help of two dwarves, she would never have lived to find her father. And when she meets her father, she must discard every vestige of her ingrained prejudices in order to be truly his daughter. He is the leader of the united folk of Watersmeet, who must now stand against the White Worm who threatens to destroy all that is beautiful and peaceful. He is also more than simply human...

Ok--this perhaps sounds like an old plot. Outcast girl sets off on a quest, helped by magical creatures, and finds a realm of the blessed, her lost father, and powers she never knew she had. But it's a good framework to hang a story on, when the author makes her main character someone to care about and respect, as Abbott does. I was, at first, a tad doubtful about the mythological creatures, but was pleased to find them interesting and varied--they avoid being cliches. And (as I mentioned above) Abbott knows how to tell a page-turning story. I would be happy to read more books set in her world.

I find the book's cover striking and compelling. It has the look of one of those edgy, dark, ya fantasies which are currently in vogue, and perhaps, given that in-vogueness, this was the intent. I did not, however, find the book itself as dark and edgy as all that (I could, of course, have become Hardened to it all), so I don't think the cover goes with the book (and in fact older teens judging the book by its cover might be a smidge disappointed).

While Watersmeet has dark moments, they do not last long, nor are they pitch black. Although the story begins with hatred and violence, it is terrible without being overly graphic, and although there is a very vivid battle scene, Abbott manages to convey the horror of it without recourse to an overload of gore. My feeling was that this book is on the young side of YA-- I can imagine this book being adored by fantasy loving seventh and eighth-graders, and even many sixth-graders (so I've put a middle grade tag on it, as well as YA).

Ellen Jensen Abbott has created a Teacher's Guide to accompany the book, which touches on such topics as war, prejudice, symbolism, the construction of the past and the construction of identity. Interesting stuff.

And here's another review, a glowing one, at Shelf Elf.

Watersmeet is Ellen Jensen Abbott's first published book, and is the first book I've read for the '09 Debut Author's Challenge. I'm hoping to read all the middle grade and ya fantasy/science fiction debut books that I can find (here's my list so far--please let me know if I'm missing anything!).