In Bookstores Next Week - Witchlings by Caribel A. Ortega

 

I did not expect this package, an advance reader's copy of Witchlings by Claribel A. Ortega. I approached it warily. Would I like it? Would I not? Was it about an elderly or quirky sleuth? NO! Is it about bookstores, booksellers, authors or librarians? Not really.

Welll????? 

The pandemic has made me ultra fussy about trying new things. It takes me so much longer to dive into a book these days. I read a few pages and then, sigh, I put the book down. During the next read I go further, and then further into the plot. On my third attempt, I have to force myself to put the book down - IF the book is good enough.

Witchlings IS good enough!  YAY!

Seven Salazar enters the Black Moon Ceremony to find what coven will be hers. The one thing she does not want - or expect - is to become a Spare, one of three 12-year-old witches who are NOT chosen for a coven.

Right there, you know what is going to happen, right? That Seven's fate is shared by her worst enemy, Valley Pepperhorn and the new girl, Thorn LaRoux, does not make this terrible fate any better. Spares never become witches. If they are lucky, they get jobs that don't require magic. If they are NOT lucky, they are little better than slaves. Oof!

UNLESS!!! There is always an "unless". If I tell you what the "unless" is, I may be telling you too much. The book checks off a lot of boxes; transforming friendships; suspending judgment; accepting differences; learning to trust. Then, there are the adventures, the forays into extreme danger, the endangered family members and the unfair treatment of Spares. Plus a seriously creepy mystery derails the Spare coven's attempts at earning their witchdom. Just when you think you see the light at the end of the tunnel, everything changes.  Make NO assumptions, readers. This is a kaleidoscope ride.

But the story is NOT finished. Seven, Valley, and Thorn may have prevailed but evil is still out there...waiting. 

                                                                (Mwahahahahaha!)

(On sale on February 1, 2022.)

Book Report

I decided to re-read some of Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness mysteries and found a recent addition that I never read! The Last Mrs. Summers!

Georgie (Lady Georgiana etc, etc, Rannoch, of late 34th(?) in succession for the throne until she married Mr. O'Mara in a Catholic ceremony and gave up her place in line) and Darcy have been married for three whole months when he is "called away". He is some sort of undercover agent in the service of the Crown. Bored and lonely, Georgie goes to London and finds that no one is available to cheer her up. Even her old Granddad -(not a royal AT ALL) - has a volunteer job.

She arrives home at Eynsleigh, the estate that one of her step-fathers has "given" to Georgie and Darcy, to find Belinda, her best friend arriving. Belinda has been left a cottage in Cornwall so off the girls go to check out the property.

Note: Bowen opens the book with a tribute to DuMaurier's classic suspense novel, Rebecca. If you ever read that book or watched the movie you will appreciate the setting.

Anyway, the cottage is a wreck and they go into town to find a hotel. Belinda meets a childhood friend (she spent her summers in Cornwall) who invites them home to a large and possibly haunted estate. A gruesome murder takes place. The ladies are suspects. There is some sort of tomfoolery at a nearby stately home. Smugglers? Ghosts? 

And was that Irishman really Darcy? 

Bowen knows her audience so well!

____________________________________________________________________________

I have read Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity and have found a few that I know I never read. Ngaio Marsh and her lovely Inspector Alleyn has gotten me through some hot days. And Patricia Wentworth's endlessly patient and serene Miss Silvers continues to unravel startling mysteries. 

But what about the Kids' Books?

Most recently - The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm finds Bell living in the American station on Mars. The station has cut itself off from the other stations on Mars for the past 10 years. Bell takes us through his routine with the other young people and their mentors. When a stow away mouse brings a virus that attacks only the adults in the station, the children and teens have to get help. Help from earth can take 8 months! Bell and his former best friend head out in the train tunnel and they discover that the other stations are filled with lively, generous people. Why did the Americans cut themselves off?  I will not tell you who or what the LION is in this book.  Read it.

Max and the Midknights: The Battle of the Bodkins by Lincoln Peirce is a quick, heavily illustrated fantasy by the author of all the Big Nate books. Max and her fellow knights in training must battle an outbreak of Bodkins - evil spirits that look exactly like people already in the kingdom. The real people are imprisoned while their evil twins destroy the kingdom. It's a romp through a Middle Ages-ish landscape.

Stefan Bachman returns with another delightful fantasy, Cinders & Sparrows.  Zita Brydgeborn receives a letter - delivered by a scarecrow - telling her she has inherited a castle, Blackbird Castle the ancestral home of a long line of powerful witches. Zita is the last.  And, of course, she must quickly learn all she can to fight the forces of Evil. It is much richer than this formula promises. Zita and the reader struggle to see who is a friend and who is a foe.  Spritely written, this book is classic fantasy.

Keep cool and READ ON!

Magic for Liars

We sailed away for a week. Here is one of the books I read at sea.

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey.  Not for the squeamish at all!  Ivy is a private investigator and completely devoid of any magical talent.  When an "accidental death" occurs at the private school for magical teens, Ivy is called in.  Her twin sister teaches at the school. 
To "fit in", Ivy lets the students and teachers believe that she has some magical talent.  That is her first lie.

My take?  I knew who was responsible for the death fairly early in the novel and could not resist skipping to the end to see if I was right.  What I discovered was not what I expected, so I backtracked and read the whole book.  This is a book that is steeped in family tensions, envy, and a studied lack of envy.  There are two sets of siblings that take center stage in this book.  The teen siblings are wonderfully portrayed . all the drama, posturing, insecurities of that stage of life are writ large.

This book is intended for adults.  Older teens will enjoy the teen drama and a chance to view tmselves as an outsider might.  It's a good mystery, too. (I read the ARC.)

Ronan boyle - Harry Potter/Artemis Fowl??

Does this look like a mashup?  I plan to read it because - well, leprechauns and Tir Na Og!

Click through the the website.  You can get a leprechaun name, should you so desire.  Also, watch a trailer. 

It reminds me very much of the announcements that came with Artemis Fowl - the nemesis of leprechauns all over the world.  Ronan's cadet-ish-ness makes me think of young Harry swept off to Hogwarts.  With predecessors like those, this book has a very good chance of success!

Brangwain Spurge - the journey from what!!?? to "I see!"

Please, do NOT name your next child Brangwain - unless you and your offspring are elves.  Even then, the name may not be fortuitous.  It was not lucky for Brangwain Spurge.

In an attempt to broker a lasting friendly peace between elves and goblins, the archivist Brangwain Spurge is catapulted into goblin territory, carrying a priceless jewel.  His host is the goblin historian, Werfel, the Archivist. Werfel's delight to be chosen as Spurge's guide to all things goblin knows no bounds.  He takes great pains to amuse and please his disapproving guest while they wait to approach the mighty Ghohg, Friend of the People.

You can find these details on the publisher's page or Goodreads.  The title,- The Assassination of Brangwain Splurge, the author, - M.T. Anderson, the illustrator, - Eugene Yelchin - and his detailed, black and white, drawings are enough to have readers of YA fantasy buzzing.

I don't fall into the demographic most publishers shoot for when producing books for teens and young adults.  Teens tend to be people approximately 12 through 15-ish.  YA? anywhere from 14 to 22, depending on the publisher. When I fell into those age ranges, phones hung on walls or sat on desks and some of my friends shared their phone lines with their neighbors.  So...

My first reaction to the wordless opening pages was, "Meh." Even when the story began - I think of stories being made up of words -  I scratched my head and sighed.  A snobby superior elf and an overeager lumpish goblin - hasn't this been done before? Was all the fuss merely a reaction to the partnership of stellar prose with excellent artwork?  Was this just a novelty effort to attract readers?

Brangwain's duplicitous contact back in the Elf Kingdom did not surprise or interest me.  BUT, this is M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, so I read on.

The drawings made sense to me. After all, goblins are horrible creatures with strange and awful habits.  EXCEPT, Werfel was so very, very nice.  Brangwain is a supercilious prat. As he levitates and sends brain pictures of all he sees back to Ysoret Clivers, his elvish contact, his host tries again and again to please him.

Brangwain's actual mission, unknown to him, is one of the oldest plots known to man.  When it fails and the elves that show up on the border have no intention of rescuing Brangwain, the two scholars, goblin and elf, find themselves on the run.

That got my attention.  Once on the lam, the pictures sent back, even now, to the elves, change in tone and detail.  Spurge's attitude gradually softens, while Werfel becomes less and less eager to please. 

The conclusion is cataclysmic! Unexpected! Fitting!

So, now I see what the fuss was all about - not the novelty of the graphics - not the setting of the fantasy.  If you want to see what I see in this book, read it.  It's on your library's shelves right now.

MunMun's the Word

MunMun by Jesse Andrews.
When I read that this book came out this month I was soooo excited.  Jesse Andrews is a brilliant writer.  I expected madcap humor and razor sharp wit.

I mean, here's the set up.  In an alternate world, the amount of wealth you have - Munmun - determines how BIG you are.  The poor are as small as rats.  But the very, very wealthy are as tall as skyscrapers.  How cool is that!

I was game.  Warner, our narrator is a littlepoor, the poorest rank or class of citizenry.  Since his father was killed when a boy - probably a Middlerich because he was normal sized - running from a bully stepped on Warner's dad, Warner, his older sister, Prayer, and his crippled mother, must come up with a way to get Munmuns and up their scale.

Plan 1:  Meet a nice Middlerich or even Middlepoor fellow in Dreamtime and get him to marry Prayer.  Confused yet?

See, in Dreamtime, everyone is the same size regardless of their size in Reallife.  PLUS, Warner makes the BEST dreams and he can include all kinds of people.

Plan 2:  Go to Middlerich Law School and get a law student to fall in love with Prayer.  So, off they go.  So does Usher, a Littlepoor fellow who is so in love with Prayer.  Usher can read; Usher is strong; Usher has a terrible stutter.

So when Plan 2 explodes in pieces, I stop waiting for the storyline to become funny.  Do you know why?  Because Warner's situation was just too real - as in REALLY real; as in change size to color or other differences and you have our life, right here, right now.

Littlepoors are our inner city residents, black, hispanic, just not WASP.  Everything is stacked against them and every time they find a way out, it gets blocked or taken away. (I know - huge generalization!)

So around the time that Warner gets into the home of a Big where he will go to school with MiddleRich's, I turned to the ending in hope....

I don't even remember what I was hoping for.  I am curious as to how Warner got where he ends up but I think I need a lot of sunshine and silliness before I can dive into the Yewess (their country) again.

People are going to be talking about this one, fersure.  I can't stop thinking about it and I didn't even read the whole book.

A Year's Worth of Books - Jane Yolen

With the publication of A Bear Sat on My Porch Today, Jane Yolen reached the amazing goal of writing 365 books!  That's a book for every day of the year.

Someone should attempt to read a Jane Yolen book each day for an entire year and then vlog about it.  Some of the days will just be the vlogger reading a picture book.  Other days can be book reports or cosplay - Yolen books offer lots of cosplay opportunities - or even "travelogues".  Oooh, this is a great idea for someone with lots of energy.  I want a cut if the idea goes viral.  Just saying.

A YEAR OF YOLEN.  You are welcome.  Oh....wait....over on Jane Yolen's website, they already have plans for a year of Yolen.  My ideas are almost as good.

With the huge success of the How Do Dinosaurs Say... franchise, Yolen cemented her place in picture book lore.  The Dinosaur books are not my favorite Yolen picture books.  I preferred the Piggins books with illustrations by Jane Dyer.
The poetry of Owl Moon earned a Caldecott Award for the paintings it inspired illustrator John Schoenherr to create.

Yolen's fantasy novels delight middle grade, YA and adult readers.  Her poetry is contemplative, or funny, or sprightly, or inspiring.  She writes biographies, collects and rewrites stories from the bible, and the spiritual traditions of other cultures.  She even composes cookbooks!

Do you have a favorite Jane Yolen book?  I have several and I read them so long ago, I can't remember the titles accurately.  I do remember Boots and the Seven Leaguers: a Rock and Troll Novel  and Wizard's Hall.  I like Yolen's fantasy best of all.

Let's Not Forget - Zilpha Keatley Snyder

My introduction to Zilpha Keatley Snyder came when I landed at the Parkland Community Library in South Whitehall, PA - 1988.  Her Green Sky books sat on the crowded shelves.   I started with Below the Root and LOVED it.  In 1984, Snyder adapted these books into a video game to allow the story to continue after readers objected to the conclusion to the third book, Until the Celebration.

 I was very much into science fiction and fantasy books.  These three books, about a race of people who lived their whole lives in, below, and on trees delighted me.

Then, I read The Headless Cupid, The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case, Blair's Nightmare, and  Janey's Private Eyes.  I have wanted another Stanley family book ever since.

Snyder died in 2014.  Her website still displays her last post, written right after the publication of William's Midsummer Night Dream.  She wrote 46 books and I read at least 20 of them.  Her books swung from complete fantasy to modern day tales of trial, and sometimes, mystery.  Some of her books had a touch of magic realism.  All the books that I read were page turners.

Two of her Newbery Honor winners, The Egypt Game, and The Headless Cupid were set in modern day, and absolutely radiated suspense.  The Witches of Worm, I hesitate to say, I never read.  What?  A fantasy, the story centers on a kitten that may actually be an evil demon.  Nooooooo!

It's time to revisit this acclaimed and talented writer.   I have about 26 books to catch up on.  Let's not forget Zilpha Keatley Snyder.

LBB Reviews The Wizards of Once

Hi!  Little Blue Bunny here!

I'm not much of a reader.  Turning pages is not so easy when you are only 4 inches tall.  But, wow!
That kid, Xar, is AWESOME!!  He is totally my favorite kind of hero.  Who needs to think before acting?  I mean, that's so over-rated.  Xar just jumps right in.

Like me, he is in trouble ALL THE TIME. So, if I met him, I think we would hit it off.  Also, a lot of his friends are little sprites and they are small.  I am small. See?  We have so much in common.

Oh, wait.  The book is The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell.  Nana says I have to put that in.  Blah.

This crow is a big know-it-all!

So, anyway, Xar's dad is this awesomely powerful wizard and the wizards and magical people live on ONE side of the Badlands forest-y area.  But Xar doesn't have any magic yet and he's tired of waiting.

So, anyway, he goes into the foresty area to try and capture a WITCH - whoa!  This dude isn't afraid of anything - probably because he doesn't waste time thinking about conchy?  consy kenc - you know, what MIGHT happen if you do something.  NANA!  Help me out here.

Nana:  Consequences.

Those.  Yeah.  Well, Xar has an older brother.  Me, too.  Looter makes my older brother look like an old softie - which he is - which is fine - because Looter - BLEECCHH!  Mean and bossy!

Oh, back to the book.

SO, ANYWAY!  Xar meets up with this Warrior girl, Wish - and her softy bodyguard, Bodkins.  I forget why they were in the woods but they shouldn't have been there either.  Warriors HATE, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate times a lot, any kind of magic.  But Wish has "borrowed" the Queen's Witch killing sword which is magic and iron and that never happens  - magic and iron mixing, I mean - and Xar takes the sword and something really scary happens and then Xar sort of kidnaps Wish and Bodkin but the Warriors kidnap Xar's giant friend.... 

(Deep breath).  And there are explosions - a bunch of explosions - and trickiness and meanness and some bravery and courage, too.

I was a little worried that Xar would become boring and goody-goody.  YAY!!!! He didn't.

Read the book.  The pictures are all scratchy and awesome, too.  I will read another book about Xar and Wish - because that girl has SKILLS! - when it comes out.

Tess of The Road - a review

Let's return to the kingdom of Goredd and the Dombegh family - both created by the author Rachel Hartman.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was always curious, always rebellious.  Meanwhile, her twin (not identical, of course) was always good.

And so starts the story of Tess, Seraphina Dombegh's half sister, and the twin of beautiful, virginal Jeanne.

We meet her when she is just 7 or so, investigating how babies happen by insisting that her young uncle and her twin kiss in a bed.  Tess gets a beating for that.

8 or 9 years later we meet Tess again.  She is deep in negotiations to insure that her sister will make a splendid marriage to a man who loves her.  She is also in deep disgrace with her bitter, angry mother.  Their father - whose first wife was Seraphina's dragon mother - is in disgrace with the court as well.  He married a dragon, after all.  All Tess wants is to marry Jeanne off safely and happily.  Then, Tess will be free.

Oh, Tess.  Did you really think it would be so easy?  The wedding is just the beginning of Tess's troubles and her adventures.

And what adventures they are!  It takes some unraveling to find out what young Tess did to anger her mother so very much.  Her headstrong ways endanger her at every turn but they also give her the courage to do what is right.  She rekindles her friendship with her best childhood friend, a quigutl, - a creature that is looked down on by both humans and dragons; -  and with him/her, she discovers ancient powers under the soil.

The ending feels more like a beginning.  I'd like to read more about Tess.   But this ending has a happy-ever-after feel to it, without the Prince, or the wedding or even romance.  You will be proud of how much Tess has grown.  Read Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman.

Let's Not Forget - Diana Wynne Jones

The summer before I turned nine I didn't get to the library nearly enough. I read the books my parents had saved from their childhood since we were not really book buying people. (Hint: we couldn't go very many places since child #6 was an infant. It's hard to travel with five rangy kids and an infant. Also, buy books? That's why we have libraries. 'Nuff said.) And I read ONE book* 22 times.

I still re-read books but more than three times? Ha! There are too many books in the world for that!  EXCEPT.... for The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones. 19 times and counting.  Every so often, I remember that scene in World (I forget which world it was.  Is it time to re-read the book?) when Christopher must stand firm and haughty in order to save Tacroy's life. And I ask myself, "What did he say? How did that scene go?" Because, that scene is truly wonderful. Every detail means something.

Proud and haughty!

Fantasy lovers everywhere; raise your water bottles high in praise and remembrance of Diana Wynne Jones.  Her plots are so complex that re-reading is never a waste of time. She was the almost first fantasy author I ever read that moved fantasy into the modern world. (I keep forgetting Edward Eager's books and E. Nesbit's Sand Fairy.) OK, so Dianna Wynne Jones was the first fantasy author that I NOTICED had moved fantasy into the modern world.  Witch Week!  The Homeward Bounders! Howl's Moving Castle!  The exclamation marks are mine, not part of the titles.  I could read them ALL again. 

Four (or more) books follow the career of Christopher Chant, Chrestomanci.  One, my favorite, (see above) shows how he became the administrator of all magic in his world - a job his arrogant nature is not well-suited for. He plays pivotal parts in the The Magicians of Caprona  and Charmed Life. In Witch Week, Chant arrives to smooth out magic gone awry - still a pivotal part but you don't get a feel for his personality.  I only read Conrad's Fate once but Chrestomanci had influence there as well.

Oh, the Goddess!  And those Milly books! Yes.  Just thinking about her books makes me break out in happy memories. 

She left this world in 2011.  We might find her impression as a time ghost in Time City (A Tale of Time City), should we be lucky enough to travel there. 



*That 22 times-read book was Little Men by Louisa May Alcott. 

The Glass Town Game

The nice Riveted rep that sent me a box of ARCs (for the KUCLC event about a month ago) referred to Catherynne M. Valente's The Glass Town Game as a brick.  It is that - over 500 pages.  But, oh, what a brick it is!

When Emily and Charlotte Bronte are sent back to Cowan Bridge school, the boarding school where their older sisters died, their brother, Branwell, and youngest sister, Anne, walk them to the train station.  It is the Beastliest of Days and they play one of their favorite games on the way, the Game of And.  Not as complicated as the Glass Town Game which employed all of Branwell's wooden soldiers, the Game of And was played by imagining the most delightful or nonsensical things and challenging the other players to match or top them.

When they get to the station, the things they imagined on the way, and things they imagined in the past, have become real!  All four children board the train, using buttons as tickets, and ride to Glass Town with the wooden soldiers, come alive.  Glass Town is at war.  The forces of Wellie (the Duke of Wellington) and Boney (Napoleon Bonaparte) fight and die and come to life again. 

When Anne and Branwell are stolen away by one of Boney's spies - made of magazines and newspapers - Emily and Charlotte must find them.  Meanwhile, Anne and Branwell find the kidnapped Princess Victoria, the cause of this awful war.

At first, everything they see comes from one of their play adventures. As the story progresses, the adventures spin out of control.  The four wonder if they will ever be reunited and if they will ever see their father and home again.

As I read, I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,  and The Wizard of Oz.  Each town in Glass Town has peculiarities and a specific type of resident.  The publishers and book sellers in Ochropolis deliver some of the funniest dialogue in the book.  Valente uses fanciful descriptions and eccentric language that adds a sense of time and place.  I can't wait to see the book when it comes out in September.  I hope for illustration - just a few - that are as whimsical as the story is.

I am giving this book away (with others).    Click here to learn more about this giveaway.   And to enter.

The Secret Destiny of Pixie Piper

 
Pixie Piper lives in a house that looks like an acorn.  Rhymes pop into her head unbidden.  Things that used to feel cozy and fun, like her Mom's job planning fun events at the senior residence, or her father's job as caretaker for a toilet museum, have become embarrassing and awkward.

Then a series of odd things happen;
1.  Her Mom tells her a secret about her family history.
2.  She hurts her very best friend's feelings, because a classmate thinks they are a "couple".
3.  She meets a most annoying fortune-teller
4.  She finds a goose egg in the woods.

Now, Pixie Piper has an enemy, a secret, and worse, someone is trying to hurt her pet goose!

The Secret Destiny of Pixie Piper by Annabelle Fisher is a fun, fantastic read for kids in grades 4 and up.

The Executioner's Daughter

In  The Excutioner's Daughter  by Jane Hardstaff, Moss is almost 12.  She has lived her whole life in the Tower of London where her father is King Henry VIII's executioner.  Moss's father told her that they must stay in the Tower as punishment for a crime he committed years ago. 

Moss is the basket girl.  She carries the newly chopped off heads from the block to the gates of the Tower where they will be on display.  When she is pressed into service in the kitchen ,she makes friends with the King's latest enemy, an abbot.  The day of the abbot's death, Moss runs away.

In her debut novel, Jane Hardstaff paints a realistic picture of the Tower and the river that flows by it during King Henry VIII's reign. The jacket blurb hints at a touch of fantasy in this otherwise historically accurate book.  The touch of fantasy adds suspense and terror to the sotry of Moss's coming of age.

Moss learns about the flawed nature of people who must struggle to survive.  She also learns about acceptance, love and forgiveness.

The Executioner's Daughter by Jane Hardstaff is a fine book. 

Evil Wizards

   The Evil Wizard Smallbone has some competition in the evil department in this book by Delia Sherman.  But Nick, the runaway who takes refuge with the old, smelly, grumpy and wicked wizard, has to do some heavy duty sleuthing - and endless chores - to get to the bottom of Smallbone's dastardly behavior.

The setting is backwoods Maine where the coyotes are numerous and the wolves rule the forest - some on motorcycle.  The small village of Smallbone Cove depends on the evil wizard for their protection against, what, exactly?  Here is part of the mystery.  Another part is why so many of Smallbone Cove's residents look so similar and how some of the residents can be as old as they say they are. 

An odd mix of werepeople, selkie legends, the reversing of spells, and ancient badness come together in a delightful fantasy.  I loved the ending.  And I thoroughly enjoyed the ride there.  I also liked the smart alecky books that plague Nick as he searches for answers.  That boy is too curious.

Wrinkles and abandoned buildings

I finished You Were Here by Cori McCarthy the other night and it was so satisfying!  Told in alternating voices, this is a story of grief and stubbornness and the need to put the past to rest.  Serious stuff!  McCarthy's mix of characters, words and graphics spins this book right along. 
          I worried at first that this would just be another "dead family member" book.  Then it morphed into a book about meeting unrealistic expectations and then it turned into a graphic novel and the whole time this group of five teens are fighting, musing, obsessing, and engaging in risky behavior - lots and lots of risky, perilous, dare-devil behavior.  (Definitely Teen Readers!)

So read it.  It is emotionally manipulating, but most good books are.  And the resolution is realistic and, as I mentioned before, satisfying.

The Wrinkled Crown by Anne Nesbet is a wrinkled book.  Linny lives in Lourka where no trail is a straight line - or even the same from trip to trip.  Here stories can change reality.   When Linny breaks the most sacred taboo in the hills, her best friend and tether-twin, Sayra, is the one who pays the price.
Linny takes her forbidden lourka - a stringed musical instrument - and runs away to the Plains to find a cure for Sayra's fading away illness. 
Linny and her friend, Edmund, are caught up in a civil struggle between a faction that believes everything should be mapped, straight, smooth and mechanical - and a faction that honors magic and wrinkles of all sorts.
 I ended up skimming and, alas, skipping.  If I had more time I may have enjoyed the arguments and adventures and authoritarian quasi-villains.  The book is as wrinkled as its title.  But it is a solid beginning of a new magical trilogy(?) or series.  (Grades 5 through 7, though younger readers with skills and stamina will enjoy this book.)

The Luck Uglies by Paul Durham

I finished The Luck Uglies last night and I was satisfied to see that it promises a sequel.

When the (evil, disgusting, arrogant, cruel, etc.) Earl of Longchance captures a young Bog Noblin, he invites doom and terror to the village of Drowning.  Rye, her friends, Folly and Quinn, her mother, Abby and the mysterious tattooed man, known as Harmless, must save the village.  Spells, magical beasts, potions, and incredible escape acts, most occurring in the dark of night, keep the pages turning.

I admit I skimmed.  I often skim through battles because reading about swordplay and how the characters avoid decapitation or mangling makes me itchy.  (I am not an 11-year-old boy.)  I took the time to read one such scene and it was cinematically presented - the type of action/adventure sequence that the target readership will LOVE.

I love the cover and chapter illustrations.   I thought that one or two scenes were dragged out for suspense and action's sake.    Even the villains - except for the Earl, who is beyond the pale - have their not-so-awful moments.  So, yes, I think fantasy and adventure fans, boys and girls alike, will enjoy this book.

ASIDE:  Is there a running around the rooftops meme circulating through kids' fiction right now?  This is not the first, or even the second, book that I've read this year in which city rooftops are used as escape routes or roadways.  Just wondering.

The Scorpio Races

Surf and hooves!  It's my new exclamation.  Maggie Stiefvaters' The Scorpio Races deserves an exclamation all its own.  Teeth and Manes!  Could be another one, actually.  I like them both.

Imagine an island in the Northern Sea (I think).  This island loves its horses, the land-based ones we all know, and the water horses from the sea.  The flesh-eating wild water horses driven to land every Fall where they hunt anything with blood in its veins.

The Scorpio races bring tourists and money - and death - to the people on this island of Skarmouth.  The races have a history longer than memory.  Sean Kendrick has won four out of the last six races on the water horse he calls Corr.  Corr is as red as his father's mount was the year his father died in the races.

Puck Connelly and her brothers lost both their parents to the sea and to the water horses.  Now, her older brother is abandoning the family to go to the mainland.   Puck decides to win the Scorpio Races, on her own horse, or on a water horse, if she can find one, in an attempt to keep her family together.

There is the set-up, gentle readers.  And oh my, excuse the pun, but this book is a wild, wild ride! 

And I want to learn to ride a horse!!  Yes!  I want to race the wind on a horse that I love, on a horse that loves me.

And I want to be brave and alive, the way Sean and Puck are brave and alive.  But, if I can't be, then I am so happy that Maggie Stiefvater has written this book so I can imagine that braveness and alive-ness running in my sluggish veins.