Category: Reviews

Movie Review: Muppet Treasure Island

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews4 Comments

Muppet Treasure IslandThere was a year or two in high school when I knew many of the songs from Muppet Treasure Island by heart—and my group of friends may have broken into spontaneous singing on a semi-regular basis. I hadn’t watched the movie in years, but a recent re-watch was as delightful as I remembered. I may have been helped along by the memory of many in-jokes and oft-quoted lines, but I can recommend this even to those without that advantage!

The movie follows the essential story of Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Young Jim Hawkins obtains a treasure map and sets out on a sea voyage to look for buried treasure on a distant island. Along the way he meets ship’s cook Long John Silver, who soon is at the heart of a pirate mutiny. The Muppets’ chief variations are to send Jim to sea with his two friends, Gonzo and Rizzo, and of course to cast Muppet characters in key roles: Jim and Long John are human, but Kermit plays the ship’s captain, Miss Piggy is castaway Benjamina Gunn, and that crew of pirates has some very strange members (my favorites? Old Tom, Very Old Tom, and Dead Tom).

This movie is a long parade of funny moments and silly songs. There are heaps of one-liners, those pirate shanties are still pretty great, and Kermit has the most entertaining facial expressions you’re ever likely to see on a frog. You have to like your humor pretty absurd, but if you do this is enormous fun. Continue reading “Movie Review: Muppet Treasure Island” →

Book Review: The Riverman

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult1 Comment

I recently read The Riverman by Aaron Starmer, an intriguing story that plays with the question of whether it is, or isn’t, a fantasy novel. I liked the book a lot, hated the ending—and feel better after discovering that there will be a sequel. Which, conveniently, is out in mid-March!

Twelve-year-old Alistair is baffled but intrigued when neighbor girl Fiona asks him to write her biography. Fiona has always been a bit odd, but she unfolds an impossible story about her journeys to Aquavania, a world made of water where she has the power to create anything with her thoughts. Many others go to Aquavania too, but children are disappearing, victims of the mysterious Riverman. Despite his growing feelings for Fiona, Alistair doesn’t believe the story, and searches for another explanation, sure that this must be an elaborate cry for help in response to a real-life threat Fiona is facing.

Most of the book is fascinatingly ambiguous. With Alistair as our narrator, we only know what he knows, and when he doesn’t know if Fiona is telling the truth, the reader can’t know either. I really enjoyed that element of mystery, and for most of the story I could have seen it going either way—either a fantasy story, or a darker story about a very troubled girl. Continue reading “Book Review: The Riverman” →

Book Review: The Boy Who Lost Fairyland

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult1 Comment

I have been waiting (and waiting…) for the fourth book in Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland series for over a year now–and it’s been my most anticipated book all that time.  So I am very happy to say that The Boy Who Lost Fairyland was delightful.  Not at all what I would have imagined for Fairyland 4!  But delightful.

I reread The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland in February, anticipating this one’s release, and that was a delight too.  The books in this series are packed so thick with wit and wisdom and whimsy that I knew I wasn’t taking it all in on a first read.  This is a rare book that was even better on a reread–and I also could be more patient waiting for some beloved supporting characters to turn up halfway through the book.

Patience may be a virtue needed for The Boy Who Lost Fairyland too.  Instead of returning to our heroine September and her dreadful plight from the last book, we instead find the story of Hawthorn, a troll abducted by the Red Wind and sent off as a changeling to the mysterious, mystical land of Chicago.  Although Hawthorne forgets his trollish past and believes himself to be Thomas, human boy, he’s still Not Normal, neither at home nor in the perilous realm of Public School 348.

Never fear, our charming narrator interrupts with an interlude after Chapter Two, to assure us that she knows we’re wondering about September, to beg patience and to invite us to “journey off the main road for a bit…[to] find a path through the snow to those little pockets of story which happen while the Hero is off doing other things.”  And how could I resist an invitation like that? Continue reading “Book Review: The Boy Who Lost Fairyland” →

Book Review: Unbound (Libriomancer Series)

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, ReviewsLeave a comment

Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines was one of the best books I read last year, the sequel continued strongly, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the third book, Unbound.  Continuing the adventures of a magical librarian, the third book lived up to the first two–and the awesome potential of a series about a magical librarian!

The series centers on Isaac, a libriomancer born with the ability to reach into books and bring out objects described in the text.  I discussed the magic system in more depth in my review of the first book, so suffice to say here that it’s possibly the coolest thing ever, not the least because Hines and I seem to have read many of the same books.  Isaac frequently reaches inside books I recognize or love, which adds a whole other meta-level of awesome.

I’ll try to avoid too many spoilers for the first two books in the series, but some are unavoidable to discuss the plot of Unbound…  The third book opens with Isaac thrown out of the Porters, a 500-years-old organization defending the world from magic.  He’s reeling from recent magical destruction to his hometown, and from having his own magic locked away by Johannes Gutenberg (still very much alive, and the founder of the Porters).  Isaac channels his depression and grief into an obsession with finding his missing student, Jeneta, believed to be abducted by a mysterious magical being who plans to, well, conquer the world. Continue reading “Book Review: Unbound (Libriomancer Series)” →

Book Review: Sons from Afar (Tillerman Cycle)

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult2 Comments

I’m continuing my reread through Cynthia Voigt’s Tillerman Cycle with Book 5, Sons from Afar.  Books 1 and 2 focused on oldest sister Dicey, Books 3 and 5 spun out to focus on supporting characters, and Book 4 was a prequel.  This one finally brings us back into the heart of the Tillerman family, but shifts focus (as the title suggests) onto Dicey’s two brothers.

Six years have passed since Book 2.  James is sixteen and Sammy is twelve, both struggling with identity, how they fit in (or don’t) and where they’re going in life.  James latches onto the idea that he can learn about himself by learning about his father, who left the family before Sammy was even born.  James drags Sammy along on a quest (mostly metaphorical, but there’s some travel) trying to find answers about what kind of man their father was.

This is another book that’s more about character than it is about plot.  The search for information gives it some thread of focus, but mostly it’s about the character of the two boys.  Trying to find out about their father is, not very subtly, really about finding themselves, and I think James at least even knows that. Continue reading “Book Review: Sons from Afar (Tillerman Cycle)” →