Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Once, in a letter, Neil Gaiman misspelled the name Caroline and thought to himself, "Coraline. That almost looks like a real name."  (Don't believe me? Watch the video.  Then, again, watch it anyway.  It's an awesome speech.)

And a real name it is, if you're paid, in his words, to make things up and then write them down.

What Mr. Gaiman made up and wrote down is a story about a young girl who has moved into a new house and begins to explore.  Coraline's family doesn't have the whole house--just one flat on the middle floor.  Two ladies with theater in their pasts live on the bottom floor, and a crazy old man who claims to be training a mouse circus lives on the the top floor.

Coraline and her parents have moved in a bit before school starts, so Coraline wonders around trying to entertain herself during the last days of vacation.  Both of her parents work from home, but that doesn't mean they have time to entertain their daughter. Instead, Coraline goes off exploring.  She explores their flat.  She explores outside.  She explores downstairs, where the ladies call her "Caroline" and upstairs, where the crazy old man calls her "Caroline".  But he also tells her that the mice warn her against going through the door.

Actually, they warn against going through THE DOOR.

See, when Coraline was exploring her family's flat she found a door that opens up onto a brick wall.  Her mother explains that the door, probably, formerly, connected one side of the house to another.  Now that the house is broken up into flats, the brick wall separates Coraline's family's flat from the empty one next door.  Despite the obvious obstacle of the brick, Coraline is convinced, after a few strange things start happening, that she can get into the flat on the other side.

And, as you might suspect (or this story would go nowhere), one day when Coraline is exploring, she opens the door and the obstacle is gone.  She can walk through and into the next flat.  Now, a disappearing brick wall sounds odd, but once Coraline walks through things begin to get odder.  She meets her "other mother" and her "other father."  She meets a talking dog and a talk cat.  Her real parents disappear, and she learns to dislike black button eyes.

It's a good thing that
Coraline is both brave and clever.

Coraline has managed to land in a major spot of trouble.  Her "other mother" isn't as she seems, and in order to save herself and her parents, Coraline must be brave and clever.  She has help from the talking cat and a charm the theater ladies once gave her; she also gets advice from the spirits of three children who once were where Coraline is now.

Coraline is a fabulous tale (and it was made into a stop-motion 3D film in 2009), but it's not a a shallow or simplistic one.  I'm calling it PG because is might be frightening to suggestible readers, but there's no adult content.  My library keeps it in the children's collection, and I suspect the ideal reader is somewhere between my genius fifth-grade niece and her precocious first-grade brother.

Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep

I love a good series,
but this one didn't make my Top 10 List.
Sorry, Mrs. Allen.

For those of you who read my reviews at The Family Addiction, you know I love a good series.  You probably also know I REALLY love a good fantasy series.  There's nothing quite like getting to know a group of characters that you can joyfully check in on again and again.  (Alas, the Saxon math series, pictured above, didn't quite have the character development I look for in a good series. Maybe there just aren't enough words in word problems for that to happen. ;D)

So imagine my delight, last week, when I discovered the first bok of a a new series already in motion.  

Happy dance!  I read the first one and then IMMEDIATELY bought the next two so I could have hours of uninterrupted time in the Mythos Academy world.  

Bliss.

I will say I was a bit slow to warm up to the Mythos Academy in Touch of Frost .  At this school just outside Asheville, North Carolina, 16-22 year old descendants of the famous warrior classes (the Amazons, Valkryies, Spartans, Roman, Celts, Ninjas, and Samurais) study and train together. While the students are legally minors, they're constantly faced with the very adult threat of Loki's return and the evil machinations of his supporters.  The basic concept seemed a little to close to Harry Potter for me, but once I got settled into the world I could focus on the story itself instead of constantly making comparisons between the Mythos Academy and Hogwarts.  J.K. Rowling didn't invent the "magic kids goes to school together" concept, so it was probably more my own hang up than anything else.

(Let me stop a minute and say, definitely, that the Mythos Academy books are written for an older audience than Harry Potter, so please don't hand these to any 9-year-olds.  The main character is 17 and is faced with real-time high-school aged problems.  There is discussion of sex, drugs, and alcohol, as well as war, death, and torture, so these are truly meant for a PG-13 crowd.)

The first of a series
The first of a GOOD series!

The main character in Touch of Frost (and the rest of the series) is Gwen Frost, a Gypsy girl with touch magic.  If she touches you or your belongings she can see your emotion-laden past. Gwen only learned of the Mythos Academy after the death of her mother, and she wasn't raised in decadent wealth like the rest of her classmates.  She's more comfortable in hoodies than Gucci or Prada.  It's safe to say that Gwen has a steep learning curve when it comes to figuring out the world of the Mythos Academy.

Touch of Forst centers around Gwen reluctantly tackling that learning curve while she tries to solve the mystery of the death of a Valkryie that no one seems to mourn.  She encounters a really cute, but troubled Spartan boy and an even more troubled Nemean prowler, she might, JUST maybe, have started to make friends, and she puts herself in peril just to figure out what's going on.

I thought  Touch of Frost was a great introduction to this series by Jennifer Estep. I devoured the second two (Kiss of Frost and Dark Frost), and I'm looking forward to the fourth (Crimson Frost, which comes out in December). The book has all the elements of a good fantasy series, but set in a world of teenagers and young adults who are struggling to learn about themselves and their boundaries.

(If this review has confused you more than helped you, there is a 99-cent introduction available in e-format, First Frost.  It, however, isn't a story on its one--only background information that gets repeated in each of the subsequent tales.)

The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman

What if your mom had died, and your dad remarried a woman with two older daughters? What if he had to pull you out of your school so that he could pay for the step-sisters' college tuition? What if the step-sisters were not so nice? You might really really relate to fairy tales, for one thing...

Meet Elizabeth Rew. She is a high school student in NYC. She attends a private school, but not the one she used to attend - Dad moved her to pay for the wicked step-sisters' tuition. Step-mom herself is a fairly absent, but not terribly benevolent figure, and Dad no longer pays much attention to Elizabeth. She's lonely, not just because of the new school and feeling awkward there, but also because there's not much family life to speak of.


One bright spot in her life is her social studies teacher, Mr. Mauskopf. He assigned a research project, and Elizabeth chose the Grimm stories as her subject, because they were a link to a happier time with her mother. He was impressed, and recommended her for a job at the New-York Circulating Material Repository, where he himself used to be a page.


The Repository is, in Elizabeth's words, "like a library," but rather than loaning out books, they loan out objects. They have everything from, yes, books, to furniture, clothing, sports equipment, instruments, fondue pots...and everything else under the sun. Elizabeth is told that some objects are historical, like Marie Antoinette's wig, and a lot of objects that set designers and the like would borrow, but some, like the fondue pots, are more for the occasional party host.


Also working as a page at the Repository is her high school's star basketball player, Marc (tall, dark and handsome!), sourpuss Aaron, and a beautiful and friendly girl named Anjali. Pretty soon, the other pages let slip about the "Grimm Collection" that is housed in the basement of the Repository. The collection houses the actual magical items from fairy tales. Snow White's step-mother's mirror, for example, is pretty rude, but has to tell the truth. Only some patrons can borrow the items, because they do still contain magic. The Collection can be dangerous, but how cool is that?

However, something is awry at the Repository. One previous page was fired, and another has disappeared completely. Items from the Grimm Collection are missing or aren't working properly. An enormous bird has been spotted following Anjali.


Dr. Rust, the Repository director, quickly realizes that Elizabeth is trustworthy, and she's given access, both as a page and a borrower, to the Grimm Collection. Aaron, however, is not quite as convinced of her worthiness, particularly since Elizabeth and Anjali both seem to be helping Marc do something not strictly by-the-book.


The pages must try to figure out what is happening to the Collection, protect themselves, and generally save the day. I loved that they have to do it while not quite trusting each other - it gave an element of realism and truth, rather than just being an "everyone's great to each other" fantasy world.


I can't overstate how much I enjoyed this book. I  picked it up off the desk of one of my favorite 6th grade teachers, to read while the class was in French. I didn't want to put it down to go retrieve them, and I came straight home and bought it so that I could continue to read it as soon as possible.


The characters are believable (particularly for being in a fantasy novel) and the writing is tight and has a great voice. The author knows how to keep up the suspense - again, the fact that the four kids don't become instant best friends helps both with the realism and the suspense - and she is very good at description. The ending is nice and satisfying without being totally cloying or expected.


Ms. Shulman has some subtle fun with the Grimm stories, too - at points along the way, Elizabeth both becomes shoeless and has to hurry home to do chores. Those little tie-ins that might not be noticed by the youngest of readers really amused me.


Anjali has a sister, Jaya, who is 10 - the rest of the group, obviously, is in high school - and Jaya is a great addition, both for comic relief, and for bringing the book to the younger audience. She doesn't just stand by annoying the older kids, which, I think, would make younger sisters everywhere feel vindicated. ;)


The vocab and content are NOT high school age. The back cover recommends the book for ages 10 and up, and I totally agree, giving it a PG rating. Though the main characters are older, the book is definitely written more for the tween crowd. There is a bit of romance (characters kiss more than once, about along the lines of Ron & Lavender in Book 6 of the Harry Potter series) but there isn't anything overly graphic, and there is no language. There is more "creepiness" than "violence" within the book, as far as scariness.


I think my boys will love this book, even though the main character and point-of-view are Elizabeth's. I highly recommend it for the 10-13 year-old crowd.

Powerless by Matthew Cody

Sometimes I dream I can fly.

I suppose, really, that I'm actually floating in my dreams.  I'm always on the "wrong" side of a balcony, and when I let go of the railing, I don't drop.  It's a relief, in my dreams, that losing my hold on the railing doesn't lead to imminent death.  I don't know if flying or floating is really a super power I'd be interested in.  (I suspect I'd get tired of running into all the bugs.)   I'm afraid, left to my own devices, I pick out a pedantic super power like forcing everyone to see the illogic of their arguments.  I could be the Syllogism Sister.  I'm just a nerd like that.

S is for syllogism.

In Powerless by Matthew Cody, twelve-year-old Daniel is forced to ruminate on the topic of super powers when his family moves across the country to live with his fatally-ill grandmother.  One of the neighbor kids is crazy fast, so fast you don't even see her move, and one of his classmates ends up saving Daniel from a drop like the ones I almost dream about.  This classmate doesn't passively float, but actually flies AND he's super strong.  Daniel's just a normal twelve-year old from a normal family trying to deal with the sadness of his grandmother's illness, but he becomes close friends with a small circle of kids who all some super power.  Daniel is a bit of an interloper in this group; he alone is powerless.

His limits don't make Daniel bitter, because he is quickly focused on trying to save his friends.  Being powerless doesn't preclude him from being a hero.  It seems that something happens to all the kids with super powers when they turn 13.  They completely lose their powers.  They lose their memories of what they did with their extraordinary capabilities during the 13 previous years.  They even stop being friends with their former super-powered confidants.  Growing up, in this new hometown of Daniel's, has very marked ramifications for the kids with unusual talents.

Daniel has a tall order to fill.  He needs to understand the genesis of these powers and discover if the kids lose their abilities through a natural aging progression or because of some sinister intervention.  Figuring all of this out leads to danger, the moral question of limitless powers in the hands of young people with a limited world view, the uncomfortable realization that not all super power are a welcome thing, and the acceptance of the fact that no set of super powers can fix a crummy home life.

As Daniel tries to figure out how to help his friends, he's guided by some old comic books kept in the kids' clubhouse.  Powerless intentionally keeps to a comic book-like plot.  (Author Matthew Cody is a big fan.)  So this book is great read for anyone drawn to super heros, comic books, larger-than-life characters, and memories of trying to tackle grown-up problems before the world thought you were ready.

I'm giving this one a PG rating because there IS violence, there is death, and there are heavy questions.   Just like real life.  (There is no romance beyond a school girl crush.)

I really liked this book, but a word of warning for the adults, Powerless opens with a really haunting telling of how Michael turns 13 and loses his power.  It really made me think of Wendy refusing to move out of the nursery in Peter Pan as well as all the things we give up in order to act like "grown ups."  For young readers, I think this is merely part of the story. For adults, I think the prologue resonates with something deeper.

The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch

My daughter's glasses would be much cooler.

 

 

This might just be the easiest review I will ever write.  Not only did I read this book, it is my soon-to-be 10-year-old daughter's most favorite series in the world.  (Aside from Harry Potter, that is).  When I told her in the car today I was going to review this particular book, her face immediately lit up and she said, "That book is full of magic and it makes me laugh.  It really is perfect, you know?" High praise from my future librarian (or pastry chef, she can't decide).                

So what is it SPECIFICALLY about The Name of This Book is Secret that appeals to my daughter and the majority of her friends (and me)?  It is the perfect escape for a 9-13 year old reader and yet realistic enough for any parent to enjoy also.   The book is silly yet relateable.  Max-Earnest (the boy with two first names because his parents could not agree what to name him) and Cassandra (his new friend with somewhat pointy ears who wears a backpack wherever she goes) begrudgingly collaborate when they find a notebook written in code leading them to the discovery of a box called "The Symphony of Smells."  The narrator leads us through their adventures of decoding and investigating but at the same time adds a just a hint of mystery.  Things like blank pages in the text and a character named Gloria who is a real estate agent for the dead only add to the intrigue.  Cass and Max-Ernest, although unlikely friends, unite to save another boy from what is sure to be tragic peril, race to decode The Symphony of Smells and find the magician it belongs to and eventually return home to their unsuspecting families. 

Did it remind me of Lemony Snicket and The Series of Unfortunate Events?  Yes.  But what this book had that Lemony's series did not was the awkwardness of 11-year-olds of a different sex working together for a common goal.  The fact that the goal was actually to try and save someone that they thought was in danger was an added bonus.  I think it is SO important for kids to have appropriate friendships during their pre-teen years and was happy to have such a relationship highlighted in this book.  Yes, they had the initial "you're gross because you are a boy/girl" feelings, but as they worked together and the book progressed Max-Earnest and Cass became friends.  Not boyfriend and girlfriend...just friends.  It was refreshing. 

The other refreshing part was the silliness.  So many books for young readers right now are about middle school cattiness or teen/tween drama I was happy to read something that was mostly make-believe.  The full-on belly laughs coming from the backseat and the reading nook in her room were a nice change.  I haven't heard those since our days of Ramona Quimby and they made me smile. 

This is the first in a series, of course.  And like a good mother, I have passed on the "you must read all books in order" gene.  My daughter has torn through them like no other series (again, except for Harry Potter).   And if this is any indication of how good they are, she does not want to read the last one because she does not, "want them to be over."  I think we can all smile about that.