Category: Juvenile

The Magician’s Nephew

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews6 Comments

I have been meaning for ages to reread C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series…in part because Jessica keeps reviewing them!  I have such a stack of other books, though, that I kept not getting to them, until I finally hit on the idea of audiobooks–which should have been obvious to me, considering my first Narnia experience was when my dad read them to me as a kid.  So I just listened to The Magician’s Nephew, read by Kenneth Branagh, and am very happy to say that the story was even more delightful than I remembered.

Set chronologically before The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, this installment gives the origin story for certain elements of the later novels, and provides a Narnia creation story.  That said, it’s largely stand-alone, apart from a few references at the end along the lines of “and so this led to that and much resulted, but that’s quite another story…”  This story is about Digory, his friend Polly, and his Uncle Andrew, a rather nasty man who has been dabbling in magic.  Uncle Andrew has devised magic rings which he believes will send people to another world, and tricks Polly and Digory into taking the trip.  They reach the magical Wood Between the Worlds, and venture first into dying Charn, where they meet the evil Empress Jadis, and then into Narnia, on the day of creation.

Digory and Polly fit in amongst Lewis’ collection of child heroes, imperfect but basically good, generally courageous and honorable though apt to falter at times in a very human and believable way.  They provide a solid center to the story, while the surrounding characters are in some ways more complex.

Uncle Andrew is wonderfully painted in his egotism and cowardice, so sure of his own inherent greatness but so obviously a petty, narcissistic man.  Jadis shares some of Uncle Andrew’s narcissistic tendencies, but is clearly in a class all her own for sheer cruelty and coldness.  Once Jadis arrives on the scene, Uncle Andrew shrinks dramatically as a villain, so obviously upstaged by the real villain.  Lewis does something rather brilliant in that, as soon as Uncle Andrew loses power as a villain, he’s turned into a comedic figure instead, equally effective in that role.

I madly loved the setting of this book–all the settings, actually.  I don’t know how Lewis resisted doing an entire extended series just centered around the Wood Between the Worlds.  I mean, it’s an endless forest full of pools of water, and each pool goes to another world.  And we only went through three pools, counting the one to our world.  The untapped possibilities!

And then Charn was just fascinating.  Lewis has never before reminded me of Tolkien (though I hadn’t read Tolkien before either…) but Charn with its enormous marble edifices, apparently ancient history, and epic battles, reminded me of Middle Earth (less trees, though).  It had a similar quality of existing on an unimaginably epic scale.

I loved the creation of Narnia too.  How lovely to have a world spring into being through a song!

Just when everything was getting very solemn and epic and sweeping, when it might have become a little too much–it didn’t, because there’s a wonderfully funny episode of Narnia’s newly-created animals trying to decide what ought to be done with the raving Uncle Andrew.  They aren’t quite sure if he’s an animal or a tree…

If you’re thinking about starting Narnia, you could begin here (and if you’re thinking about the audio, Branagh was excellent).  It’s listed as #1 in a lot of editions, since it is first chronologically.  However, I think you’d be better off starting with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for the sake of all those “and then it led to other adventures” references.  But once you’ve read Lion, I don’t see any need to go through the next several books, in their original publishing order, before reading the very delightful Magician’s Nephew.

Other reviews:
The Bookworm Chronicles
Sonya’s Cannonball Read
Stray Thoughts
Here There Be Books
Kristina Yarn
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Magician’s Nephew

Growing Up Through a Ghost Story

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews2 Comments

Doll BonesI saw Doll Bones by Holly Black make the blog rounds recently, and I knew it would be a perfect one for RIP…because what’s spookier than a haunted doll?

Zach, Poppy and Alice love playing the Game, an ongoing adventure story full of pirates and magic.  But they’re coming right to that age where it’s not cool to play anymore–and Zach’s father puts an end to things by throwing all of Zach’s action figures away.  Unwilling to explain what happened, Zach just tells Poppy and Alice he doesn’t want to play the Game anymore.  And then Poppy announces she’s been visited by a ghost, sent by the Queen, a creepy antique doll they cast as ruler in the Game.  The Queen wants them to go on a quest…

One aspect of this book bothers me immensely.  I’m always annoyed when characters refuse to simply tell each other things, and instead create massive amounts of unnecessary confusion and conflict.  And I really don’t see why Zach had to keep his secret.  However.  Setting that aside…

I love the theme of coming to terms with growing up.  In a sense it’s a Coming-of-Age story, but not in a Hero’s-Journey way.  It’s more a struggle with Peter Pan, with being forced to grow up when there are things about childhood that you don’t want to lose.  Zach is the primary focus, but all three kids have that struggle.  Alice looks the most mature (and I love a moment when Zach sees her from a distance and realizes that, if he didn’t know her, she would look like a teenager) and that pushes her into having to deal with more mature interactions.  Poppy feels like Zach and Alice are growing up without her, while she still feels the same.

I love the uncertainty that persists through most of the book, as we don’t really know if there’s actually something magical going on, or if Poppy is making a last bid to hang onto her friends and the Game.  Even while we don’t know if it’s true, a thoroughly creepy ghost story is revealed in bits and pieces as the book goes on.

I found all three kids likable and believable, and all of them had real, relatable problems–without this ever turning into a “troubled teen” book.  It stays upbeat and positive, but with real-world trouble as undercurrents.  I’d really like a sequel about Poppy, as I feel like there was more to explore with her especially.

The book winds up very satisfying…and while I won’t give the details away, the kids did reach a good place about growing up–and realizing what you don’t always need to let go of in the process.

Author’s Site: http://www.blackholly.com/

Other reviews:
Assorted Leafs
Never Ending Stories
Reading Rants
Slatebreakers
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Doll Bones

Dark and Grim, Indeed

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews6 Comments

Tale Dark and GrimmI think my reasons for reading A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz should be fairly self-evident in the title…Brothers Grimm-inspired, and dark and spooky for Readers Imbibing Peril!

The premise is very clever, promising to tell the true story of Hansel and Gretel, and then setting off through several Grimm fairy tales.  When Hansel and Gretel’s father learns that his faithful servant, previously turned to stone in his service, can be restored if he chops his children’s heads off…he goes ahead and does it.  Hansel and Gretel are restored to life, but (quite understandably) decide it’s time to run away from home.  They encounter the wicked witch with her candy house, but also go on adventures through other fairy tales, struggling against dangerous magic and frightening or fantastically irresponsible adults.

With the exception of the original Hansel and Gretel story, these are not the best-known Grimm fairy tales, like Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella.  I recognized most of the stories, but I’ve read a good bit of the original Grimms…and considering my audience here, you might recognize them too!

There’s definitely constant excitement in this novel, with a new twist and villain at every turn.  It actually didn’t feel as episodic as you might expect, though.  With the constant thread of Hansel and Gretel as the main characters, the different tales wove together surprisingly well.  There’s also an amusing narrator who occasionally stops the action to make remarks to the reader about the story.  I might have liked a little more subtlety in weaving the narrator into the story…but that’s a choice, and once I got used to the narrator, the device worked well.

For all that’s good here, I do have one BIG reservation–I really don’t know who the target audience is meant to be.  The style of the writing is clearly juvenile.  There’s a simplicity to the language, Hansel and Gretel seem to be about 10 or 12, and there’s just a very strong juvenile feel to the book.  However–there is a LOT of blood.

I feel a little strange pointing that out, because the narrator points it out too, in a very sarcastic, tongue in cheek kind of way.  Early on, he keeps advising that little kids should be kept out of the room because they’ll be disturbed by upcoming sections.  Those remarks read like jokes…but they’re true!  The blood and the violence are told in the matter-of-fact style of the original Brothers Grimm, and there’s probably nothing here that wasn’t there…which still leaves you with blood, beheadings, dismemberment, two (unrelated) severed fingers, and all in all quite a bit of nastiness.

As far as I can tell from Gidwitz’s website, the blood is supposed to be a large part of the appeal.  All the same, I haven’t the slightest doubt that if I had read this when I was actually the target age suggested by the writing style, I would have been thoroughly disturbed.  There’s a bit in here about skinning a monster that I find slightly disturbing now.  Conclusion: although I liked aspects of this, apparently I’m not the target reader.

So…I guess the natural reader is either a kid who doesn’t mind gore (and I’m sure there are ones less squeamish than I was), or an adult who doesn’t mind a simplistic writing style.  If you pick it up, there’s plenty that’s well-done, but be warned that this really is inspired by the Brothers Grimm, not Walt Disney!

Author’s Site: http://www.adamgidwitz.com/

Other reviews:
Here There Be Books
Rex Robot Reviews
The Mountains of Instead
Anyone else?

Buy it here: A Tale Dark and Grimm

A Trilogy of Non-Oz Oz Books

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews4 Comments

I’ve been doing a slow reread of the Oz series by L. Frank Baum, and blogging on subsets of books as I go.  If you missed them, you can read my reviews of Books 1-3 (The Welcome to Oz Trilogy) and Books 4-6 (The Aimless Journeys Trilogy).  Today, I’m skipping past Book 7 until a later grouping, and looking at Books 8-10–as I like to call them, The Non-Oz Oz Trilogy.

It’s known history that Baum didn’t really want to keep writing Oz books.  He wanted to write other magical adventures, but the public (and I assume his publisher) kept insisting they wanted Oz.  I blame this lack of interest on Baum’s part for the so-so quality of The Aimless Journeys Trilogy.  Fortunately (in my opinion) he found a different solution later in the series, by writing Oz books…that aren’t really Oz books.

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Oz 8Book 8, Tik-Tok of Oz, begins in a backwater corner of Oz with Queen Anne of Oogaboo, who decides to gather all the men in her kingdom (eighteen) and go conquer the world.  Meanwhile, Betsy Bobbin and Hank the mule are victims of a shipwreck, which lands them in the magical Rose Kingdom.  Betsy eventually meets the Shaggy Man, who is on a quest to find his lost brother.  They’re joined by Tik-Tok and Polychrome, and eventually the group meets up with Queen Anne and her party, and the whole lot of them go to confront the wicked Nome King, who is holding Shaggy’s brother captive.

The plot is made to sound more complicated than it is by the wide ensemble of characters, but apart from the difficulties of getting everyone together, it’s basically a quest story that quickly becomes an extended confrontation with the Nome King–and features a side-journey through the center of the Earth to a land of Fairies.  Random though it may be at times, I love that there is a goal, and a valid one.  Rescuing a long-lost brother is a much better focus than journeying to Ozma’s birthday party (Book 5).  The confrontation with the Nome King also presents a real villain, and one who interacts with the characters throughout the book instead of merely appearing at the end, as happens in other volumes.

I quite enjoy this installment–there are some lovely images and magic, especially in the Land of Fairies, and the Nome King is an effective villain (more so here than at other times).  Betsy is a perfectly acceptable “sweet girl heroine” (a character-type Baum used often) and I always enjoy Polychrome.

But is this an Oz book?  Well…after the first chapter, we don’t get back to Oz until the last two chapters.  Tik-Tok and the Shaggy Man are the only familiar characters who are from Oz (Polychrome isn’t).  Really it’s more of a Nome King story…with some Oz accents.

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Oz 9Book 9, The Scarecrow of Oz, is really a Trot-and-Cap’n-Bill story.  Baum wrote two previous books about little girl Trot and her sailor friend Cap’n Bill, and then decided to send them to Oz.  The two are sucked down into a whirlpool while out sailing, and find themselves trapped in a cavern.  A series of adventures gets them out of the cavern and leads them to join up with the flying Ork (one of Baum’s stranger creatures) and old friend Button Bright.

They eventually reach Oz–but land in Jinxland, which is cut off by mountains from the rest of Oz.  There they get involved with local politics, fighting King Krewl and an evil witch who stole the throne from…well, either Princess Gloria or gardener Pon, depending how you look at it.  Ozma sends the Scarecrow along to help, and to lend his name to the title.

This is one of my favorite books in the series.  I like Trot and Cap’n Bill quite a bit.  Their friendship is sweet and Cap’n Bill, with his wooden leg and past sailing life, has a little more depth than you see in most Baum characters.  They also tend to have adventures that feel genuinely hazardous.  Not too hazardous–Baum is always light and whimsical–but when they’re trapped in the cavern and low on fresh water, it feels like real danger, unlike when Dorothy fell through the earth in an earthquake (Book 4).

This book also has the benefit of one of the very few romances in Oz, between Pon and Gloria.  It’s not one of the great romances of literature…but hey, it’s there!

But like Tik-Tok of Oz, this isn’t really an Oz book.  Technically Jinxland is in Oz, but for all intents and purposes it might as well not be, meaning we don’t properly get to Oz until the last few chapters.  Really it’s a Trot-and-Cap’n-Bill book, with the Scarecrow in a guest appearance.

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Oz 10Of all the non-Oz Oz books, Rinkitink in Oz is the most strikingly non-Oz.  The story is about Prince Inga, whose tiny island country was conquered and his parents and people taken away to be slaves.  Fortunately, Inga possesses three magic pearls–one that gives great strength, another that grants invulnerability, and a third that speaks wisdom.  With his friend King Rinkitink, Inga sets off to rescue his people, running into a series of dangers along the way, and is eventually forced to confront the Nome King to rescue his parents.

Where, you ask, does Oz come into this?  Well, Baum originally wrote this as a non-Oz book, with no connection at all.  Then he changed it–and this is the one time I think the public’s preference for Oz harmed one of the books.  At the very end of the story, Dorothy shows up in a complete deus ex machina to scold the Nome King and solve all the problems.

I wish I knew what the original ending was, because the existing one is disappointing.  Inga was an effective and likable hero throughout the book, who deserved a heroic end to his story.  Instead Dorothy arrives…and all the tension leaves.  She’s blissfully confident she can handle the Nome King, she brings the Wizard along as back-up, and Ozma is keeping an eye out just in case.  This may point to one problem Baum was having writing Oz stories–he had made his characters too powerful to sustain plots.

Ending aside, Rinkitink is actually one of my favorite “Oz” books.  Prince Inga, his island kingdom, and his magic pearls are as delightful as anything going on in Oz–and like Tik-Tok, the book is driven by a real goal, Inga’s desire to rescue his family.

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Personally, I don’t mind at all if Baum wanted to give us non-Oz stories and stick Oz in the title.  I know some readers object that these books aren’t really about Oz characters (mostly) but I find the characters who are here to be just as engaging–and I can’t say I strongly miss the ones who aren’t present.

I’ve read Baum’s books that really aren’t part of the Oz series, and they tend to be very much the same–whimsical fantasies with strange creatures and kingdoms, and sweet boys or girls making their way through them.  That’s the case for the truly Oz books, and for these three too.  If you’re open to new landscapes and new characters, I find these three to be strong contributors to the series.

Other reviews:

Story Carnivores (Tik-Tok and Scarecrow)

Cavalcade of Awesome (Tik-Tok, Scarecrow and Rinkitink

Tor.com (Tik-Tok, Scarecrow and Rinkitink)

Anyone else?

Buy them here: Tik-Tok of Oz, The Scarecrow of Oz, Rinkitink in Oz

Feel the Power…and Beware the Groove

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews4 Comments

I recently re-watched an old favorite Disney cartoon that I thought would be fun to share: The Emperor’s New Groove, a wildly funny and absurd romp of a movie.

Emperor Kuzco devotes himself constantly to fulfilling his own every whim, with utter disregard for anyone around him.  One of his whims includes a new summer home (“My birthday present to me!”).  This is bad news for Pacha, whose ancestral village will have to be destroyed to make way for the Emperor’s new indulgence.  Kuzco makes a serious tactical error, however, when he decides to fire Royal Advisor Yzma.  She vows to kill him and, with the inept help of side-kick Kronk, accidentally turns him into a llama instead.  Forced to rely on Pacha for help, Kuzco has to find, well…a new groove.

The plot is absurd enough, but what really makes this movie fun are the wonderful characters and the hilarious dialogue.  Yzma is a seriously cracked villain, and so very funny in her wild speeches, hideous costumes and insane melodrama.  Check out this scene here as she plots destruction; it’s pretty much all quotable.  Trust me, I know this from experience. 🙂  I’m also convinced that Yzma is based on Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard.  Unfortunately, no one I know has seen Sunset Boulevard, so I can’t get a second opinion on that!

Kronk is a wonderful sidekick with a big heart, really big shoulders, and not enough brainpower to be evil.  He loves small furry animals and cooking, has a Shoulder-Angel and a Shoulder-Devil who confuse him, and he’s been known to formulate his own soundtrack.

Pacha is pretty much the nicest guy ever, with a really awesome family.  His wife, Chicha, is one of my favorite Disney women.  She’s smart, she’s capable, and she’s definitely the fiercer of the two in this partnership–while wearing a dress and taking care of her two kids–and did I mention she’s pregnant?  How often do you see a pregnant animated character?  Or, for that matter, a happily married Disney couple?  I love that Chicha is not a princess, or an action hero, or a fairy.  She’s just a really great, normal woman.  We need more of them in movies.

Kuzco is our narrator through the movie, and he’s goes on a believable arc of self-growth.  I particularly like the moment when narrator-Kuzco argues with in-the-action-Kuzco.  It’s an important turning point.  It’s not much of a spoiler to say that Kuzco grows from hilariously self-centered to a much more likable guy.

So we have fun characters, there are llama jokes, there’s also a very entertaining chattering squirrel…and there’s a nice message about consideration for others.  Though mostly the movie is about the funny lines.  This is definitely one of those movies where I’m going to wind up by saying–if you haven’t seen it, watch it!

Buy it here: The Emperor’s New Groove