The Prometheus Project: Trapped, and its sequel, Captured

The Prometheus Project Books 1 and 2--Trapped and Captured, by Douglas E. Richards (DNA Press, 2006 and 2007, 135 and 160 pp, middle grade).

Ryan and his little sister Regan are not at all happy that their parents have moved to the middle of nowhere to take new jobs. But then they find out, with the help of some unintentional eavesdropping, how to break through the security systems that guard the top secret Prometheus Project their parents are working on. Soon they are plunged into an adventure involving a hidden alien city, other worlds, and a bit of computer-engineered time travel on the side....

The second book of the series finds the Prometheus Project under threat from an alien criminal mastermind. Their parents and all the other scientists inside the city are being held hostage, and Ryan and Regan are the only two good guys who haven't been captured. It will take all their intelligence and scientific knowledge to figure out how to foil the evil alien's plan.

Trapped is a book I'm happy to recommend to any geeky type kid, who loves cool machines and science facts and figuring things out (perhaps the kid who really enjoyed the Magic School Bus chapter books). There's lots of science present in the conversations that the two kids have as they try to make sense of of things, as in this example:

"So imagine the force-field surrounding the city is like our skin-- our first line of defense against invaders. The best way to avoid an infection is to not let it enter the body in the first place. Our skin helps prevent an invasion by bacteria, maybe the force-field is there to prevent invasion by...well, maybe invasion by...us."

Regan frowned. "Maybe. But if that's true, it has failed. we did get in. We cut the city's shield." (page 76)

To the adult reader, this sort of almost pedantic discussion might be an impediment to reading enjoyment, but I bet the aforementioned science-minded kid would be more appreciative.

Edited to add: my older boy has now read these, and thought they were fabulous (here's what he said over at his blog, Pickled Bananas). So my recommendation (perfect for technology minded, non-fiction-loving kid) has been vindicated!

Trapped is a well-constructed, very interesting story, qua story, and I enjoyed it. Captured did less for me, primarily because the basic plot (clever kids foil bad guy) is not exactly fresh, and the wonderful mystery of the alien city that enlivened the first book is, by the second, not news anymore. But Captured might well appeal to kids less jaded than me who are looking for an exciting adventure story.

These two books are published by a small press (DNA) that specializes in things scientific. The "small press" part shows a bit, I think, in the cover designs, but these books happily don't suffer from any inadequacies of copy editing. Edited to add again: they now have new covers--the one for Trapped is shown at right.

Here's what The Children's Book Review has to say about these, and another review from The Super Mom (with her look at the second book here).

(note: my review copies supplied by the author)

Amazon takes Macmillan books off its shelves

I think it's stinky that Amazon has stopped selling Macmillan books directly, in protest over Macmillan's request that Amazon raise the prices of ebooks (from 9.99 to around 15).

I'm rather fond of many Macmillan books--I just reviewed two I liked very much, in fact-The Crow Girl and Eidi, published under their Farrar Straus Giroux imprint. Macmillan is also Henry Holt, St. Martin's Press, and Tor.

The China Garden, by Liz Berry

The China Garden, by Liz Berry (1996, Harper Collins, YA, 284pp), is a book that I would have utterly adored if I had read it as a teenager. I went looking for it after I read about it in one of the "What a Girl Wants" posts at Chasing Ray, where Melissa Wyatt said "For girls who are looking for more supernatural romance, I highly recommend The China Garden by Liz Berry. A strong female protagonist who finds her own way to accept a seemingly inescapable destiny, a real live human boy for her to love, an intricate and beautiful mystery based in British folklore and enough steam to set off plenty of palpitations."

17 year-old Claire is appalled when she finds out that her mother proposes to abandon London for the remote country village where she was from, which Claire has never visited. But almost against her will, Claire finds herself saying, "I'm coming to Ravensmere with you."

Claire's mother, a nurse, is going to be looking after the old man who owns the vast Ravensmere estate, a most marvellous place of gardens and treasures. When they arrive, Claire becomes more and more disturbed by the way all the villagers seem to recognize her. As she explores Ravensemere, she begins to realize that she is part of an old and magical story of an ancient Benison guarded by two families for millenia.

Claire is the descendant of one of these families, and Mark, arrogant, dangerous, and troubled, is the descendant of the other...and now the power of Ravensmere has tied their fates together.

I would have loved this book so much back when I was young for its wonderful gardens (the China Garden that gives the book its title is particularly magical--it's been locked for years, and Claire must bring it back to life), its weaving of old legends into the present, and all the treasures of the past that are described in loving detail.

And I probably would have found young Mark incredibly attractive. I bet a lot of young teenage girls would find Mark incredibly attractive.

But sadly, as an adult, I wasn't able to tolerate Mark at all. The first time we meet him, he essentially kidnaps Claire, when he and his gang of toughs force her onto the back of his motorcycle...and although Claire, who is filled with Young Love/Lust, gets over this, I never did.

Oh well. The gardens, though, are utterly to die for.

Green, by Laura Peyton Roberts

Green, by Laura Peyton Roberts (Delacorte, 2009, middle grade, 261pp).

When Lily was 12, she was an unremarkable, uncoordinated, socially uncertain middle-school kid, but when she turned 13, things changed with a bang. An exploding birthday present left on her front steps introduces her to the world of the leprechauns, and a trio of the little fellows whisks her off to the land of the Green Clan before she has a chance even to see how much of her hair she has left (it was a rather dramatic bang).

There in the Green she finds that she is expected to take the place of her beloved grandmother, who had died the year before--turns out her grandmother was the Keeper of the gold of Clan Green. But before Lily can become the Keeper herself, she must pass three tests...and she's not given any choice about the matter.

I have to confess, I was pretty skeptical about the whole leprechaun side of things. But that soon faded--Green is a fun and fast read that I enjoyed very much. Lily is not some specially gifted Chosen One; instead, she's smart, but only moderately determined, and not overly brave. The leprechauns also managed to avoid the pitfalls of Magical Creature Cliche, and were instead an interesting collection of individuals.

In short, this is a great one for middle school lover of fantasy who isn't ready for the dark complexity often found in books for older kids. I'd even go so far as to say, based on my own experience, that the grownup looking for something light and pleasant to read for themselves might well find this nicely diverting.

Here's another review at My Pile of Books.

(disclaimer: I received an ARC to review from the publishers at ALA)

New releases of fantasy and science fiction for children and teenagers--the end of January, 2010 list

Here they are! My information comes, as usual, from Teens Read Too, with help from Amazon.


THE CHESTNUT KING: BOOK 3 OF THE 100 CUPBOARDS by N. D. Wilson
The third book of the 100 Cupboards. "Twelve-year-old Henry York, finally reunited with his family, works with them and the Chestnut King, the long-deposed and mythic leader of the faeren people, to destroy Nimiane and her forces of evil."



DRAGON GAMES: THE BOOKS OF UMBERby P. W. Catanese. Sequel to Happentance Found. "Happenstance would like nothing more than to stay in the comfort of the Aerie, Lord Umber's spectacular cliffside home, without having to worry about the secrets of his past -- or the undetermined role he must play in Umber's desperate mission. But adventure beckons when Umber receives two mysterious messages. One is a desperate plea for help from Caspar, the man who stole precious documents from Umber's archives that could unlock the mysteries of Hap's powers. Caspar is trapped on a forbidden island, the victim of a nightmarish curse. He is willing to reveal his secrets to Umber and Hap -- but what he demands in return may be impossible to achieve. The second message is from an oppressed kingdom ruled by a brutish monarch, where an old rival of Umber's has stolen a cache of dragon eggs. The eggs have begun to hatch, and the question is, what do they plan to do with those infant dragons?"


THE MEMORY OF WINGS: THE FAERIE PATH, LAMIA'S REVENGE by Frewin Jones

Sorry there's not description here--I looked online for a while, but gave up...





THE WISH STEALERS by Tracy Trivas. "Griffin Penshine is always making wishes. But when a sinister old woman tricks her into accepting a box of eleven shiny Indian Head pennies from 1897, Griffin soon learns these are no ordinary pennies, but stolen wishes. This box of labeled pennies comes with a horrible curse: People in possession of the stolen coins are Wish Stealers, who will never have their wishes granted.... In fact, the opposite of what they've wished for will happen. Griffin must find a way to return these stolen wishes and undo the curse if her own wishes are to come true."

Young Adult:

THE ENCHANTED QUEST: THE FAERIE PATH by Frewin Jones. "Far from the Realm of Faerie, a quest to save immortality . . .A deadly plague is sweeping through Faerie, and no one is immune to its bite. Now, with the guidance of the Dream Weaver, Tania, Rathina, and a mortal ally, Connor, must head off to find the Divine Harper—the only one who can help Tania renew the Faerie Covenant of Immortality. Their quest will soon take them outside the borders of Faerie, to hostile and unwelcoming lands beyond. On their travels, Tania and her companions encounter danger at every turn as they battle pirates, contend with mysterious and mystical beings, and try to outwit those under the sinister grip of the Dark Arts. But when Tania's beloved Edric appears, it looks as if they have help at last. Or do they? As tensions and dangers rise, Tania is forced to question everything and everyone around her in order to decide if she is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to save her loved ones."

I KISSED A ZOMIE, AND I LIKED IT by Adam Selzer. "Algonquin “Ali” Rhodes, the high school newspaper’s music critic, meets an intriguing singer, Doug, while reviewing a gig. He’s a weird-looking guy—goth, but he seems sincere about it, like maybe he was into it back before it was cool. She introduces herself after the set, asking if he lives in Cornersville, and he replies, in his slow, quiet murmur, “Well, I don’t really live there, exactly. . . .” When Ali and Doug start dating, Ali is falling so hard she doesn’t notice a few odd signs: he never changes clothes, his head is a funny shape, and he says practically nothing out loud. Finally Marie, the school paper’s fashion editor, points out the obvious: Doug isn’t just a really sincere goth. He’s a zombie. Horrified that her feelings could have allowed her to overlook such a flaw, Ali breaks up with Doug, but learns that zombies are awfully hard to get rid of—at the same time she learns that vampires, a group as tightly-knit as the mafia, don’t think much of music critics who make fun of vampires in reviews. . . ."

INCARCERON by Catherine Fisher. "Incarceron is a prison so vast that it contains not only cells, but also metal forests, dilapidated cities, and vast wilderness. Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, has no memory of his childhood and is sure that he came from Outside Incarceron. Very few prisoners believe that there is an Outside, however, which makes escape seems impossible. And then Finn finds a crystal key that allows him to communicate with a girl named Claudia. She claims to live Outside- she is the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, and doomed to an arranged marriage. Finn is determined to escape the prison, and Claudia believes she can help him. But they don't realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost more than they know."

UNDEAD MUCH by Stacey Jay

Everyone thinks Megan's at fault for the new uber-zombie uprising. Looks like she'll need the help of both Cliff and Ethan if she's going to prove her innocence before it's too late...



Comic books/graphic novels

TRUE BELIEVERS: RUNAWAYS by Brian K. Vaughan A collection of comics. "When a group of teenagers discovers that their parents are actually super-villains, they run away from home...but that's only step one! Now that the evil Pride is gone, nearly every bad guy in the Marvel Universe is trying to fill the power vacuum in Los Angeles, and the Runaways are the only heroes who can stop them! Plus: What does a mysterious new team of young heroes want with the Runaways, and which fan-favorite Marvel characters are part of this group? Collects Runaways (2005) #1-6."


LOLA: A GHOST STORY by J. Torres A graphic novel. "Jesse sees dead people, monsters, demons, and lots of other things that go bump in the night that no one else can see. No one except his ailing grandmother - a woman who used her visions to help those living in her small town... the same rural community in all the scary stories Jesse's heard as a child. Man-eating ogres in trees. Farmhouses haunted by wraiths. Even pigs possessed by the devil. Upon his grandmother's passing, Jesse has no choice but to face his demons and whatever else might be awaiting him at grandma's house."

The Crow Girl and Eidi, by Bodil Bredsdorff

The Crow Girl and Eidi, by Bodil Bredsdorff (US editions 2004 and 2009, respectively, Farrar Straus Giroux, middle grade)

The Crow Girl beings at the edge of an ocean, long ago and far away. A girl and her grandmother are the last two people left in a tiny village, barely managing to stay alive with what can be scavenged from the sea. When her grandmother dies, the girl leaves home to find work, following the direction taken by two crows. In the world beyond her home, she encounters people of all sorts...and some, brought together by their loneliness and need, become her family. The little band of children, and one young man and one young woman, go back to Crow Cove together, to live in the haven it offers.

When the sequel, Eidi, begins, a new baby is being born in Crow Cove. And Eidi, the oldest girl in the little clan, feels like her home is too small to share with him. So she sets off to find work, weaving wool for a kind shepherd who was introduced in the first book. An accident on the way to market means that Eidi and the shepherd will have to stay in town much longer than expected. There she finds work weaving for the richest man in town, and there she finds herself falling into the role of protector for the abused and underfed boy whom he hates.

These books are beautifully subtle, told in a calm and understate voice, but full of all the emotions that lie just below the surface of daily life. What I loved most about these books, though, was the way in which Bredsdorff's clear prose brings the far off and unfamiliar to life. I don't know if this is the best example, but it stuck in my mind:

"She took her knife from her belt and dug into a clump of seaweed, and there, at the very bottom, some small pale shoots of sea kale stuck up from the sand like birds' bones." (page 13)

Some credit for this is obviously due to the excellent translations, and in fact Eidi was just awarded a Batchelder Honor (an award that recognizes books translated into English).

I think the covers do a rather fine job showing just what sort of books these are--there aren't any bright colors or flashy action bits. Instead, they are rather dreamy and introspective, and I think that's the sort of middle-grade kid who will love these books most. When Tasha at Kid Lit reviewed Eidi, she said that "reading this second book was like returning to a place you never knew you had been missing." I agree. Crow Cove a place I feel I imagined as a child, when I played my pretend games of being poor and alone...and then went inside, glad to see my family again.

The Order of Odd-Fish revisited --reading in color, defaulting to white)

I just got an email from James Kennedy, author of the truly bizarre middle-grade fantasy Order of Odd-Fish (my review), and thought it would be interesting to share it (with his permission).

"The heroine, Jo, is biracial (in the tapestry scene, when she sees a picture of her parents, she discovers she has a black father and a white mother). The narrative doesn't make a fuss about it; the book isn't "about" race. Sir Oliver, the leader of the Odd-Fish is black and so is Dame Delia. And the second protagonist, Ken Kiang, is of course Chinese. Many other characters don't have racial attributes described at all.

"Jo's face on the covers of the hardback [top left--in the center of the cover] and the paperback [below] seem to be about the skin color of a Maya Rudolph or Halle Berry. It seems you could read those images as either biracial or just a tanned white girl. I've noticed, however, that when I ask some who have read the book what color Jo is, they say "white" a distressingly large amount of the time, even though she's explicitly described in chapter 1 as having brown skin.

"Cover artists whitewashing characters is one thing; but when the reader's imagination automatically defaults to white for a character, even when the text says otherwise, that says volumes about our unconscious attitudes -- even among the most well-meaning."

I myself was a defaulter-to-white reader (gah). Which is why Kennedy emailed me in the first place, because I hadn't tagged my review of his book...

So the point would seem to be that reading in color is rather more than just picking up books with people of color on them, and involves making sure that the traps of old mental habits are avoided. In that spirit, next time I read A Wizard of Earthsea, by Usula Le Guin, I will try to push White Ged out of my head, and try to see him as dark skinned as his author intended.

More Order of Odd-Fish news:

Oddness would appear to beget oddness--here is Kennedy's gallery of fan art inspired by his book. Not content with showcasing it on line, he is putting on a gallery show / extravaganza of Order of Odd-Fish art in Chicago. Anyone can contribute fan art (the deadline is March 15). Here's the call for submissions.

It sounds like fun--from Kennedy's description:

"It'll be not only an art show, but also a costumed dance party and theatrical extravaganza. I'm working with a Chicago theater group called Collaboraction to do this. They're going to decorate their cavernous space to portray scenes from the book (the fantastical tropical metropolis of Eldritch City, the digestive system of the All-Devouring Mother goddess, the Dome of Doom, etc.).

Opening night will be a dance party where people dress up as gods and do battle-dancing in the Dome of Doom. In the weeks afterward, we'll bring in field trips from schools. They'll browse the fan art galleries, be wowed by the elaborately decorated environment we've created, take in some performances from the book, and participate in an energetic writing workshop."

"Fire Watch" by Connie Willis for Timeslip Tuesday

Connie Willis' new book, Blackout (coming February 2nd--yay!), takes time travelling historians from the future and sends them back to World War II London. I though, therefore, that for today's Timeslip Tuesday it would be fun to look at her first time travel story, "Fire Watch." It was first published in 1982, and republished in an anthology of the same name in 1985.

"The only things that would have helped were a crash course in London during the Blitz and a little more time. I had not gotten either.

"Traveling in time is not like taking the tube, Mr Bartholomew," the esteemed Dunworthy had said, blinking at me through those antique spectacles of his. "Either you report on the twentieth or you don't go at all."

"But I'm not ready," I'd said. "Look, it too me four years to get ready to travel with St Paul. St Paul. Not St Paul's. You can't expect me to get ready for London in the Blitz in two days."

"Yes," Dunworthy had said. "We can." End of conversation."

And so a young history student from the future is travels back in time to guard St. Paul's from Hitler's bombs.

For the next few months, he labors to save the cathedral, sleep-deprived, overwhelmed by both the particular strangness-es of the past (cats! colds!) and by his own growing emotional involvement with the people and the place. As his detachment fades, both Bartholomew and the reader are drawn into the heart wrenching position of realizing that, in the end, that which you love can't be saved forever. (At which point I begin sniffing). Because Bartholomew, being from the future, knows what is going to happen to St. Paul's...

Here's an interview with Connie Willis from 2001, which covers her entire oeuvre up to that point. About "Fire Watch" she says: "My favourite story of all time that I have ever written is Fire Watch. I don't think it is my best story. I was very much a beginning writer, when I wrote that one."

I agree that, technically, it might not be her best story--it is almost clunky in places, and the relationship between Bartholomew and Enola, a young London girl he meets, is not as convincing as might be. But boy, for me at least, all the parts that don't quite work are forgiven for the sake of the emotional power of the whole.

"Fire Watch" by Connie Willis won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette in 1983. Willis went back to her time travelling historians with Doomsday Book (1992, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel), and To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997, only won the Hugo). Doomsday Book is too unbearably sad for me to want to re-read it, but To Say Nothing of the Dog is a comic masterpiece. These are all, techincally, adult books, but good for teenagers too.

Reading in Color (the books I've talked about since my blog began, and books I hope to talk about in the future)

I just went through all 889 blog posts I've written to add a new label--"reading in color." The majority of the posts thus tagged discuss books in which the main character(s) are non-white, based on either the cover illustration, the text, or both. I hope this might be useful for people looking for books with people of color (I know that I would love to see labels like this at some of the blogs I trust to recommend good books to me!).

On 5/17/09 I decided to make an effort to actively seek out more books with people of color. This did have some effect on my book choices, but I'm upping my level of commitment by joining the People of Color Reading Challenge (although I might not remember to link every month...)

Reading as I do mostly middle-grade science fiction and fantasy (with some YA thrown in the mix), I am a little worried about finding books for the challenge. I currently have 31 middle-grade science fiction/fantasy books in my To Be Read/To Be Reviewed pile (not counting library books). Three, I think, will count. One is set in medieval Japan. One is the latest book in Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. And one is a fantasy from Botswana.

Any recommendations of really well-written middle-grade fantasy with strong kids of color, preferably shown on the cover, are welcome.

Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs, by Ursula Vernon

Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs (Dial Books/Penguin, lower middle grade on up, Feburary 4th, 2010, 205 pp) by Ursula Veron.

When I was up in Boston for the American Library Association meeting last week, this was one of the ARCS I was happiest to get, because I knew how very very happy it would make my children (they love Dragonbreath). And indeed, five minutes after I got home, my nine year-old had cracked the spine.

Attack of the Ninja Frogs brings back Danny Dragonbreath himself, still as imaginative and enthusiastic as any young dragon ever was. When Suki, a Japanese exchange student, is beset by Ninja Frogs, Danny and Wendell, his geeky iguana pal (who's fallen hard for Suki) travel with her to mythical Japan to find out what's going on. Danny thinks it's the greatest thing ever to be in the thick of real Ninja action, Wendell's worried about Suki, and as for Suki herself--she just wants to be a comic-book reading veterinarian, preferably a veterinarian who isn't being stalked by Ninjas...

The story is great fun, and the smart, snappy dialogue made me grin for a good part of the book. But what I loved most of all is the range of expressions that Vernon gives to her little reptiles and amphibians. My son (who's trying his hand at cartooning) and I poured over all the panels that showed Danny, marvelling at how a few subtle changes from picture to picture can bring about such great characterization.

Both Dragonbreath books are absolutely, utterly perfect for the kid who is still daunted by long chapter books. Word heavy pages (with large type) are interspersed with graphic heavy comic-style panels, making the books very friendly to the uncertain reader.

Here's another review, from fellow Dragonbreath fan Doret at TheHappyNappyBookseller.

This Sunday's Round-up of Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction from around the blogosphere

Here's what I found while wandering the internet this week looking for reviews of middle grade science fiction and fantasy, and related miscellany. Please feel free to send me links to anything I missed!

The big news this week is, of course, that a middle grade sff book, When You Read My, by Rebecca Stead, won the Newbery!

Alex and the Ironic Gentleman at The Book Zone (for boys)

Darkhenge, by Catherine Fisher, at Charlotte's Library (technically YA, but one upper middle grade kids might enjoy).

The Ever Breath, by Julianna Baggott, at InfoDads.

The Giant-Slayer, by Iain Lawrence, at Charlotte's Library, and also at InfoDad (scroll down). Not, strictly speaking, fantasy, but with a large chunk of fantasy contained within it.

The Grey Ghost, by Julie Hahnke, illustrated by Marcia Christensen at Fantasy Book Critic

The Case of the Purloined Professor: The Tails of Frederick and Ishbu by Judy Cox, at Fantasy Book Critic (scroll down)

The Lotus Caves, by John Christopher, at Rhiannon Hart's blog (Science Fiction! How rare!)

The Night Fairy, by Amy Schilz, at Fuse #8.

Powerless, by Matthew Cody, at Fuse #8.

Ring of Fire (Century Quartet, Book 1), by P.D. Baccalario, at Charlotte's Library.

Unfinished Angel, by Sharon Creech, at Book Nut.

Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, by Laurel Snyder, at Charlotte's Library.

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle, at Book Nut.

Kate at Book Aunt takes a look at a number of great graphic novels for kids, several of which are fantasy.

There's a great discussion of Folk Tales in the publishing world today at Bobbi Miller's blog--Where have all the Folk Tales Gone?

The Aurealis Awards, honoring the best Australian Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror have been announced:

Best Young Adult Novel: Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, (Penguin)*
Best Children's Novel: A Ghost in My Suitcase, by Gabrielle Wang, (Penguin)
Best Children's Short Fiction/Illustrated/Picture Book: Victor's Challenge, by Pamela
Freeman, illustrated by Kim Gamble (Walker Books)
Best Illustrated Book/Graphic Novel: Scarygirl, by Nathan Jurevicius (Allen &
Unwin)

*In case you were wondering, Westerfeld has permanent residency in Australia, thanks to his marriage to Justine Larbalestier.

Feel free to send me links for next Sunday at any time during the week.

Ring of Fire (Century Quartet Book 1), by R.D. Baccalario

Ring of Fire, by R. D. Baccalario (Random House, 2009, upper middle grade, 291 pp) is an exciting fantasy/mystery for sixth graders on up.

In Rome, on December 29, four 12 year-old kids find themselves forced to share a hotel room. Harvey (from the New York), Mistral (from Paris), Sheng (from Shanghai), and Elletra (the hotel owner's daughter) are surprised and amused to find that they share the same strange birthday--February 29. But things quickly grow more surprising, and less amusing, when they go for a night-time ramble through the old streets of Rome, and a frantic man presses a briefcase on them.

"Please," the man insists. "They're looking for me. I don't have time to explain. No one does. No one." (page 61)

And the next day, the man is found dead.

Inside the briefcase is a set of strange wooden tops...and clues that will take the four children on a dangerous quest to find answers, as they realize that stakes of the mystery they have become part of are higher than they could have dreamt.

The mystery, rather than the fantasy, is what drives the story, and the action is almost non-stop. The point of view shifts, particularly in the first half of the book, between the kids and the Bad Guys, so the reader knows from the beginning that this is a matter of life and death.

Although an effort is made to make the kids distinct characters, this is not the strongest point of the book (and adult readers of mg fantasy might well be disappointed in this regard). There's really not much time for characterization--all the things happening keep whisking them around Rome... And indeed, Rome, with all its ancient secrets, often takes center stage, with several very handsome color pages of maps and illustrations let the reader explore alongside the four protagonists. (The only problem with putting them in the middle of the book is that I didn't know they were there--I might have made more use of them in the first half of the book had I known).

I personally don't care too much for third person present narration, but I was able to loose sight of that as I got caught up in the action. Although some resolution of the central issue of this book is achieved, there are many unanswered questions--it is, after all, the 1st of a quartet.

In short, a fine book for the mystery loving kid (recommended to fans of the 39 Clues Books and The Mysterious Benedict Society).

(Note: I'm going with sixth grade on up because, besides the issue of the rather complicated plot, there are a few bits of rather intense violence-for instance, someone gets shot at point blank range and tied up to possibly bleed to death in a bathtub).

Here's a review from a sixth-grader at Book Trends, one from the Lateiner Gang, and another review from Amanda at A Patchwork of Books, who nominated this for the Cybils.

(note: book received from the publisher for Cybils consideration)

Darkhenge, by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher, was shortlisted for the Cybils in January of 2008, and the following fall, Sapphique, its sequel, was nominated. I was Cybils panelist in Fantasy Science/Fiction, so even though the books were only available in the UK, I went ahead and ordered them (and then, of course, read them).

Now Incarceron is being released in the US (finally), and it's getting (deservedly) a lot of buzz. I would have to re-read it before reviewing it myself, which might or might not happen, but in the meantime, here's an earlier book of Catherine Fisher's that I just read-Darkhenge (2005, published in the US in 2006 by Greenwillow, upper middle grade/YA, 340pp).*

Rob's little sister Chloe has been in a coma for three months, after falling from her horse. His life has been a fragile veneer of normalcy ever since, underlain by unspeakable waiting. When he's offered a job at a local archaeological excavation (living as he does near Stonehenge, archaeological excavations are a dime a dozen), he hopes that will distract him from his worry. But as the dirt is cleared away, a wooden circle--a dark henge of massive tree trunks-- rises up from below.

It is a gateway to another land, and things are passing through. Taliesin the bard is walking the over world again, still caught in his dark feud with the goddess Ceridwen. And Chloe's spirit has entered this other world, caught by its king, who is taking her deeper and deeper into enchantment, from castle to stranger castle.

"Now this caer is surrounded too. The outer walls were meshed first; then we heard a crash and the gates fell; a great trunk bursting through the glass.

"He caught my hand and made me run with him up the wide stairs, all made of crystal.

"It's no use," I said, breathless. "The trees will get inside. Why are you so afraid of them?" (page 97)

Rob and Taliesin follow her, determined to save her before she has passed too far into the forest. In that strange place, she is moving toward the dark part of her own mind--the jealous resentment and bitterness she has been nursing toward Rob for years. Trapped by her own feelings, the deeper in she goes, the less she wants to be rescued...

Fisher weaves a world that is just resonant as all get out with mythology and magic and Celtic-ness. And it's a good story, made especially magical by the glimpses the reader is given into what Chloe is experiencing (as in the example quoted above). However, once Rob sets off into this other world himself, some of that magic gets lost in the immediacy of the action. And Chloe's resentment doesn't seem quite convincing enough to explain the turn she takes toward the Dark Side. But neither of these two reservations was enough to spoil my enjoyment of the book.

An aside--it's interesting, having read Incarceron, to see Fisher exploring the theme of a strangely mutable and powerful prison in a totally different context.

*A note on the age range: there is no "mature content" here that makes this not suitable for middle grade kids. But it is catalogued as YA, presumably because of the teenaged protagonist, the complex sibling relationship, and the kind of scary confusion of the other world, although, quite frankly, I think that there are many middle grade books that are more scary and confusing, and have more complex relationships. I think it's fine for seventh-graders on up.

This ended up in my book pile after Liz at A Chair A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy mentioned it a few weeks ago--thanks Liz! I liked it.

Covers of color from recent YA fantasy

My happy post about the cover of Magic Under Glass being changed was my first reaction...I still am glad that it is being changed, but today I am thinking about what to do next.

My Friend Amy is hosting her annual Buy One Book and Read it. Buying a book that shows a person of color on the cover would be a good thing to do if you want to let publishers know that there is a market for such books. With that in mind, here are some suggestions of recent YA fantasy books* that show characters of color on their covers (from last April, when I started posting lists of new releases). Please note--there are other books about people of color, but these are the ones with covers of color:



Yep, all four of them. They are: Libyrinth, by Pearl North, Guardian of the Darkness (Moribito II), by Nahoko Uehashi, Silver Phoenix, by Cindy Pon, and Radiant Darkness, by Emily Whitman.

Four is pretty pathetic. Please tell me I missed some....And they are all girls. Where are the boys of color? (have they met the fate of poor Sticky, from the Mysterious Benedict Society?)



There is also Tiger Moon, which I didn't include above, because, although one can assume the person on the cover is from a country that has tigers, and is therefore quite probably a person of color, I think silhouettes are too ambiguous to count. I don't have it in front of me to stare at, so if it is not ambiguous, please let me know! (ETA--the original cover showed a girl who clearly is Southeast Asian--thanks Tanita!). Its sequel just came out--from what I've read, the central character of color, who is a prince from Nepal, is invisible, which, if they really mean it, makes him a challenge to show in the cover art.


So there are some suggestions of good books to buy. But even if one doesn't have the money to buy books oneself, one can always ask the library to buy books. Or you can do what I did, and become president of the Friends of the Library so that you can use some of the money you raise to buy books for your library that show people of color on the cover.



Here is an on-line letter from readers to publishers; if you agree with the following, please sign it!
"We appreciate your work and the selection of great books you provide us with.
We do not pick books based on the color of skin on the cover. We love books for their story; so if the main character is Asian, Hispanic, African-American, gay or overweight, and is accurately represented on the cover, fear not. If we love the story, we’ll certainly buy the book!"

And here's something I will do--I will take the time (and it's a lot of time) to put pictures up in my lists of new releases, so as to have a better data set for future reference (I am, after all, an archaeologist, and we like large assemblages of material cultural from which we can draw our conclusions).


*for middle grade fantasy books with kids of color, please see this post.

The Giant-Slayer, by Iain Lawrence

The Giant-Slayer, by Iain Lawrence (Random House 2009, middle grade, 284 pages), is two stories. There is the straight story, historical fiction set in 1955, that tells of a group of children struck down by polio just before the vaccine was developed. Within that story is a fairy tale, told by one of the characters, that (I think) gets more page time than "real life" does. So although its not a fantasy (nothing "magical" happens), it's also not quite non-fantasy. What is told in the story doesn't, exactly, stay in the story...

Laurie's father is a scientist, working as many hours as he can to develop the polio vaccine; when he thinks of his daughter, keeping her safe from polio is the only thought that comes to mind. But when Laurie's best friend Dickie falls ill, Laurie enters the polio wing of the hospital to find him. There he is, in a room with two other children, all being kept alive by iron lungs.

Laurie is a storyteller, and there in that room her voice brings to life a tale of an unlikely hero and his quest to kill a giant. Gradually her story takes into itself the listening children; each of them is there--Dickie, the great hunter Khan, Carolyn, the Swamp Witch, and Jimmy, the hero whose father kept him from growing up. When Laurie can't finish her tale, they bring the story to its end themselves...

It's hard to know just what to say about this. The central fairy tale is just fine (there are some interesting twists), but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to fans of fantasy. The real-life aspects of the book are fascinating (it's the best fictional representation of a polio ward I've ever read about), but felt overshadowed by Laurie's fable (I wanted more of the 1950s), so I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to fans of historical fiction.

But together the two parts of the book somehow worked for me, and I think it would work even better for a certain type of young reader, the sort who is sensitive to metaphor, the sort who appreciates stories with a lot of heart (ie me when I was in sixth grade, before I became all cynical etc).

Other reviews at Through a Glass Darkly, the Book List blog Bookends, Buxtolicious Blog, Shelf Awareness, and from a sixth grader (who loved it) at Book Trends.

GREAT NEWS on the Cover of Magic Under Glass!!!!!

From the Bloomsbury Kids website: “Bloomsbury is ceasing to supply copies of the US edition of *Magic Under Glass*. The jacket design has caused offense and we apologize for our mistake. Copies of the book with a new jacket design will be available shortly.”

And for those of us who are worrying about what the new cover might show, this sounds reassuring:

From Jaclyn Dolamore's blog-- "I've been speaking with Bloomsbury and have learned that they will be doing a new jacket for Magic Under Glass, with a model who will more closely reflect my own design, as seen in the book trailer."

Oh my gosh. Oh gosh. Cheers for Ari, and Susan, and Doret, and Colleen, and all the others who blogged so passionately about this. And thanks Bloomsbury, for doing the right thing. (please don't let it happen again).

Finnikin of the Rock, by Melina Marchetta

Finnikin of the Rock, by Melina Marchetta (February 9, 2010, Candlewick, YA, 416 pp)

When Finnikin of the Rock people was nine years old, his world collapsed. In the five days of the Unspeakable, the royal family of his country, Lumatere, were assassinated. During the ensuing chaos, the people of Lumatere turned on the Forest Dwellers, followers of a goddess many of their countrymen feared. And so Seranonna, matriarch of the Forest Dwellers, cursed Lumatere as she burned at the stake...and soon its boarders were sealed with a wall of dark magic.

Some scattered bands of Lumaterens escaped before the border closed. Ten years later, when the story proper begins, Finnikin of the Rock is an exile, about to follow a dream that will lead him to Evanjalin, a strange girl who can walk in the sleep of the people trapped inside Lumatere. She claims that young prince Balthazar, rightful heir to the throne, survived. With this message of hope, Finnikin and Evanjalin travel through the many kingdoms surrounding the closed borders of their country, experiencing first-hand the horrors that beset their exiled people. And their path takes them, at last, back home...where they must face the Unspeakable.

Just to make it clear, I think this is a good book. It is, however, a book that does not make things easy for the reader, for two reasons.

Firstly, there is a large cast of characters moving in and out of the story, and a huge canvas of countries and regions, not to mention the complicated back story and tricky plot, to which my summary does not do justice. For the first half of the book, I felt confused, unable to invest in Finnikin and Evanjalin, and not at all sure that I was going to make it to the end. It's not a book for the fast reader, accustomed, as is my own shiftless habit, to skimming lightly over the surface of things. However, as things sharpened in the minds of the central characters, and their purpose became more clear, things became clearer in my mind as well, and the pages turned faster and faster...

Secondly, bad things happen to people in this book. Although not gratuitously graphic, Marchetta doesn't pull any punches with regard to rape, murder, racial hatred, religious hatred, slavery, sickness, and random violence. It is not a comfort read. But as with the issue of my general confusion, the main characters gradually developed an intense reality in my mind that made their story one I truly cared about, despite the horrors they witness and experience.

Evanjalin in particular is a stunner of a character--in my opinion, she wins the award for strongest, most determined young heroine of contemporary YA fantasy and science fiction.

In the end, it's a powerful story. A memorable story, with flashes of the numinous--that shiver on the back of the neck when words on the page truly become magical. I don't think it's for everyone--it's not pleasantly escapist fantasy. On the contrary, I think I'd recommend it to anyone who loved Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Which I didn't, exactly, myself (I like this one much better) so here's what I like best about Finnikin of The Rock--the generous serving of what happens after they make it home and start rebuilding...

Here a few other reviews--at Oops...Wrong Cookie, Reversing the Monotony, Persnickety Snark, and YA Highway.

Finnikin of the Rock won the 2008 Aurealis Awards Best Young Adult Novel, and was the 2009 ABIA (Australian Booksellers Industry Awards) Book of the Year for Older Children.


(note--review copy received from the publisher)

In the Garden of Iden, by Kage Baker, for Timeslip Tuesday

I met Kage Baker, so to speak, this fall when I enjoyed her middle grade fantasy, Hotel Under the Sand, and looking around to see what else she wrote, I found one of her adult books, In the Garden of Iden (Harcourt Brace, 1997), courtesy of Leila at Bookshelves of Doom. Time travel, botany in Elizabethan England, romance, saving endangered species through the miracles of science--what was not to want?

Way off in the future, the Company was created when Dr. Zeus discovered the secrets of time travel and immortality. Both came with a catch. For the former, it was that travel past the point of your own present was impossible. The catch for the later was that immortality was a dubious proposition, coming, as it did, with psychological issues of an unpleasant sort. Dr. Zeus' solution was to make chosen people in the past immortal--they could then busily get to work, squirrelling away precious works of art, animals and plants that were doomed to extinction, and priceless treasures and clever investments that could be "found" in the future, and used to fund the whole processes. Agents of the Company, fitted with all sorts of cyborgian modifications, filled the past.

In late Medieval Spain, a little girl was saved from the Spanish Inquisition and became immortal. Now Mendoza, trained as a botanist, finds herself on her first field mission, in England during the reign of Bloody Mary. She and her colleagues have come there to find the Garden of Iden, a fabulous collection of rare plants assembled at a country estate.

The botany part is relatively easy for Mendoza. But she is, despite all her modifications, still a teenaged girl. In the Garden of Iden she meets Nicholas. Young, handsome, preoccupied by religion, he transforms her life...and maybe her eternity.

I would have liked a lot more botany and a lot less of Nicholas and Mendoza's relationship, which fogged over the windows of much of the book, as it were. I almost enjoyed it a lot, but didn't, in the end. Although the premise is as great a premise as has ever graced a science fiction book, and although there were many moments of wonder and humor (I especially liked the snippets of the Company Broadcasts, providing news and entertainment straight Bloody Mary's London), it wasn't quite my cup of tea. For this I blame Nicholas, who never quite convinced me, and who took up far too much of the book (and Mendoza's time) for my liking.

That being said, I've joined Leila in putting in a library request for book number 2--The Sky Coyote. And then we'll see about seven books that come after that...

Note on time travel: this is an oddish one time travel-wise, because the main characters never travel through time, yet, because of their up-bringing in the Company's enclave, they are products of a different era. So Mendoza is both a late Medieval Spanish teenager, and an ultra-futuristic hyper-educated cyborg in one person (which I think is cool). It is also a rather refreshing change to have time travel facilitated by technological conveniences and a large support staff, thereby avoiding the anachronistically awkward moments that plague most young time travelers.

Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, by Laurel Snyder

If you are looking for a nice (in all the good meanings of that word) fantasy adventure type book to give to an 8 or 9 year old kid, Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, by Laurel Snyder (2008, but just reprinted as a Yearling Paperback) is one I'd recommend. It is a lovely quest fantasy for the beginners, with little Darkness but lots of fun.

Lucy, a milkmaid, and Wynston, a prince, are best friends. But suddenly one day Wynston's life as a prince interferes with their friendship, and Lucy takes off in a huff (accompanied by a young cow named Rosebud--one of those things that just sometimes happens). She's going to climb the Scratchy Mountains, and find her mother. No-one has actually come out and said she's dead, after all.

But what she finds up in the mountains isn't all fun and games...her path leads to the village of Torrent, a strange dystopia whose strict rules may mean the end of the small wild animal Lucy befriended on her journey. So even though Lucy is as tough a young heroine as they come, it's a good thing Wynston has taken off after her. Two friends working together can do things that one person can't...and adventures are much more friendly with two!

Snyder tells her deceptively simple story with verve and zest. Sprinkled with amusing tidbits, the action swings along swingingly. It is a book that a moderately confident reader could read to themselves, and it also is a great book to read out loud, to boys or girls (tip on reading out loud to your boys-- if you make sure you are holding the book you want to read face down as you approach them, they might not notice covers that look like girl books).

But I think it is more than just a good story, well-told. In a non-preachy way, and almost as an aside, it has messages of the sort I, for one, want my children to internalize. Things like "don't judge people by their status in society," "Question idiotic laws and governments that think themselves perfect," "Have the courage to go off and look for things that are important to you." Things that I want my kids to do (as long as they don't take the cow up the mountain with them).

(my copy provided by the author)

The Results of the Newbery et al.-how fantasy and science fiction fared

Here are the results of some of the awards just given out by the American Library Association (and here's the ALA official announcement of all of them):

The Newbery Award:

Honor Books:

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick

Winner:

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Two years in a row of a fantasy/science fiction book winning! And a lovely fantasy book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, being honored!

The Batchelder Award (Foreign book translated to English)

Honor Books

Big Wolf and Little Wolf

Eidi, by Bodil Bredsdorff

Gaurdians of the Darkness (Moribito II), by Nahoko Uehashi

Award Winner:

A Faraway Island by Annika Thor

Guardians of the Darkness is the second book of a great fantasy series. (I'd thought Eidi had fantasy elements, but thanks to a commenter, I've learned that it does not)

The Printz Award (YA)

Honor Books:

Charles and Emma, by Deborah Heiligman

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Punkzilla by Adam Rapp

Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes

Winner:

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Only one here that's truly fantasy--The Monstrumologist. Although Going Bovine certainly has its fantastical elements!

The Morris Awards (for debut authors)

Finalists:

Ash, by Malina Lo

Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

The Everafter, by Amy Huntley

Hold Still, by Nina LaCour

Winner

Flash Burnout by LK Madigan

Ash, Beautiful Creatures, and The Everafter are all fantasy!

And special congratulations to my blogging friend Tanita Davis, who is now a Coretta Scott King Honor Author, for Mare's War!