The Scorpio Races

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Katy K.

The Scorpio RacesThis is me, resolving to read more books by authors I like, rather than trying to explore the maximum number of authors. Here, I continue my love affair with Maggie Stiefvater with a book that I didn’t quite get around to when it came out in 2011.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. Read by Steve West and Fiona Hardingham.
In this standalone book, we travel to the remote British island of Thisby. There, every November, people train and race the deadly water horses called capaill uisce (pronounced “kapull ishka”) on the beaches. The narration alternates between Sean Kendrick and Kate “Puck” Connolly. Sean Kendrick, 19, effectively an orphan since his mother left for the mainland when he was tiny and his father was killed in the races when he was 10. Now he’s a four-time winner of the Scorpio Races, working for the breeding stables of rich Benjamin Malvern, and longing more than anything for a chance to own the red capaill uisce, Corr, that he’s ridden since his father fell off during the race. Puck, a couple of years younger, lives with her two brothers since they were orphaned when a capaill uisce took both of their parents from their fishing boat a year ago. Now they are barely making ends meet, as older brother Gabe has the only real job among them, working at the hotel, while Puck paints pottery for tourists and Finn bakes cookies for local stores. When their situation suddenly gets worse, Puck decides that the only solution is for her to race as well. It doesn’t even occur to her that she is the first girl ever to attempt it, or that the men who manage the races will do whatever they can to stop her.

It’s a dark and bloody story, filled with the crash of black water on cold, rocky beaches, the desperation of people determined to survive on the inhospitable island, the love of horses both natural and supernatural, the thrill of the race, and a wee bit of romance. Stiefvater has built a whole island culture around the sketchy existing myths, with rituals, charms, costumes, music, and food (there’s a recipe for the tantalizing November Cakes that appear in the books on her website. And while there, I found that the German version of the book is titled Rot Wie das Meer or Red Like the Sea – poetic but quite different.) Once again, I was drawn in by the audio version, featuring her original music and two narrators, just as she had for Shiver. She says in her author’s interview that she has music for every scene in her head, but she only writes down one tune for each book – surely I’m not the only one who wants them all. I think that when I get around to reflecting soberly on the matter, I might find that I prefer Raven Boys to this – but while caught up in this one, there’s no room for comparisons. Just go read it.

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Dragonbreath

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Katy K.

I’ve been waiting for a couple of years now for my son to be old enough to read this series, which I keep hearing about from Charlotte at Charlotte’s Library. Finally, I thought, we might be there. I brought it home from the library – but not quite yet. The handy Scholastic book leveler says that it’s a grade 4.3 or Guided Reading level R book, and my son is reading on target for late grade two. I read it aloud to him instead, and he gave it an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Dragonbreath

Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon.
Danny Dragonbreath, 5th grader, is “the only mythical creature at a school filled with reptiles and amphibians.” He can’t breathe fire yet, though he practices frequently. This is the first of his adventures with his best friend, Wendell the iguana. He’s got some troubles at school with Big Eddy, a Komodo dragon who resents Danny says he’s a dragon, and keeps stealing his lunch. This time, Danny might be saved by a rogue potato salad. But he’s on to bigger problems – the report on the ocean that he made up in the bus on the way to school got an F, and Danny needs to rewrite his paper with some actual research fast. Wendell, a cautious critter prone to do things the traditional way, suggests a trip to the library, but Danny isn’t interested. Instead, he decides to pay a visit to his Uncle Edward, a sea serpent. Taking the handy bus that goes from their town to the Sargasso Sea, they are soon ringing Uncle Edward’s doorbell on the docks. He provides them with some breathing mints so they can join him underwater, and they are soon on their way, exploring a coral reef, skirting the guards around Atlantis, and visiting a shipwreck and the dark deep sea. Except for Atlantis, the information is realistic, and could inspire some trips to the nonfiction section of the library. It’s all exciting fun with a big sense of humor, perfect for grade school boys. (Not that girls wouldn’t enjoy it – I did – but for those looking specifically for books for boys, this is a good one.) In addition to spot illustrations, there are comic panels interspersed every so often – a little like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but with segments that will go for a page or three, showing the most exciting parts of the story before switching back to prose. The blend of regular school mishaps, science adventure, and fantasy was a potent one for my boy. It made for fast reading aloud. We finished off the last half in under an hour while he was in bed with a fever, perfect entertainment for the situation. It’s a great choice for reluctant or beginning readers, and I’ll add it to my list of First Fantasy Chapter Books.

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Cold Fire

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Katy K.

I actually bought this book for myself. It was sitting on the shelf waiting for the flow of library books to slow down enough to read it. Then my friend L asked for a steampunky book to take home right then, and I had nothing to give her but the first book in the series – so I had to start the second right away so I could be ready to loan it to her when she finished the first one.

Cold FireCold Fire by Kate Elliott.
This is volume two in the series. When last we left our friends… well, honestly, it was a while ago and I didn’t have the first book on hand to look through and it took me a little while to get back in the swing of things. Cat, our heroine, her beautiful cousin Bee, and her half-brother (and saber-tooth cat) brother Rory are on the run from the mage house she married into. They take refuge in the law firms of some trolls that Cat befriended in the last book. Cat and Bee are initially hoping to find a job there, but things do not go as planned. The former and would-be future emperor Camjiata (who seems much like Napoleon, though he is from Spain) tells Bee that his now-deceased wife had told him of her. She, like the dead wife, walks the dreams of dragons, which shape the world. To walk the dreams is both to have knowledge of the future, and to be targeted by the Wild Hunt. He, of course, wants Bee and Cat to help him. But as Camjiata and his party hide, Cat’s husband, Andevai, comes, followed by a party of soldiers. Mass chaos and chasing ensue, followed by an interlude of prophetic conversation at the University Cat and Bee used to attend – and then a trip to the Underworld. When Cat resurfaces, she’s in the Caribbean. She has found out – to her horror – who her actual sire is. A lot of time has passed on Earth and she now has only a few months to figure out how to save Bee from the Wild Hunt. In Elliott’s reimagined Earth, most of the Caribbean is still the Taino empire, with European ownership limited to the sprawling city of Expedition.

There is really too much going on here to summarize it all. There is lots of excitement, both political and personal, and we learn more about the various people and cultures of the world, all interesting. In the hot Caribbean, the cold mages that rule in the cold north are considered mythical, and power goes instead to fire mages. Cat has some very close encounters with a fire mage who works for Camjiata. Cat and Andevai meet again, and I’m happy to say that their relationship in this book is much more satisfactory. In the first book it was all cruel words and thoughts of undeniable attraction – because men being deliberately unkind always make women want to kiss them, right? Here they’re able to avoid the love-hate relationship, and while the path to true love is still fraught with difficulties, it’s much more Cat trying to avoid attachment to Andevai because she’s on a dangerous quest. One of the cool things about this series is that while Elliott has mixed the cultures up in new ways, except for the troll culture, they are all real historical cultures. There isn’t much room for Cat’s religion, but she follows the traditional religion of the people who call themselves Kena’Ani and whom the Romans call Phoenicians. She prays to Ba’al and Astarte, gods whom I’d been familiar with only from the Bible where they are the Evil Enemies of all Good Israelites. You know, as opposed to the gods of Greece and Rome and the Norse, who don’t really figure in the Bible and whose mythology we read straight up. This perspective shift fascinates me, though it was really a tiny part of the book. Elliott still does an amazing job with keeping a large cast of characters and multiple plot lines straight, in this series, all told from Cat’s perspective. Even though there’s plenty of darkness what with constant danger, threats on people’s lives, and emotional uncertainty, I found this deeply satisfying to read.

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Crewel

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Katy K.

Look! It’s a fiber-related dystopian fantasy/sci-fi novel!
CrewelCrewel. Crewel World Book 1. by Gennifer Albin.
Albin takes some modern teen dystopia tropes and mixes them up with her own take on Greek mythology. Arras is an extremely patriarchal world, where most women are assigned work as secretaries, teachers, or nurses, with male bosses. They are assigned beauty routines and told how many children they may have. Marriage is required by 17, strictly through marriage profiles, as families live in gender-segregated neighborhoods to help enable the strict purity standards. The lucky few who escape this life are called Spinsters. They never marry and are given the best in clothing, food, and up-to-date beauty procedures as a reward for their work, weaving the world of Arras on their looms. Adelice has known since she was eight and started seeing the weave of the world around her that she had the skills – but her parents have trained her to fail at the tests that would take her away from them forever. Except that, during the last test, she can’t make herself fail and is taken anyway. Her father is killed trying to cover her escape, her mother and sister taken captive, while she is still taken to the Coventry to be trained as a Spinster.

Once at the Coventry, Adelice quickly learns both that her talents are unusual even among Spinsters, and that those in power at the Coventry will stop at nothing to gain her cooperation, even wiping out an entire girl’s school when she refuses to pull out the thread of a life that is starting to fray. But not everything is black and white. The woman in charge of recruits, Maela, is sadistic and power-hungry, while her mentor, Enora, is kind if reticent. Very oddly, there are two boys on staff – the gardener/valet Jost and Maela’s personal assistant and pretty boy Erik, both of whom befriend Adelice. Jost is both kind and seems to know about underground resistance to the powers that be, while Erik charms Adelice despite her belief that he’s nothing but Maela’s lap dog. Adelice knows from the beginning that her parents must have had good reasons for trying to keep her out of the Coventry, but finding out what those were and what exactly is rotten in Arras is difficult. She must be trusted enough that she can continue her Spinster training, and despite everything, she is deeply attracted to the beauty of the weave. But the more powerful she shows herself to be, the more tightly she will be controlled. And they have her sister.

I was first attracted to this because of the fiber arts aspect. She does mix her fiber metaphors a bit, as Spinsters ought to produce thread, not weaving – but I can forgive her that, as the conceit seems to work, for the most part. Both Adelice and the reader have to ask what is real, if Spinsters can pull out the thread of a person, give them different memories, and weave them back into a different family. It came off as fairly light most of the time, which made the few moments of unexpected violence that much more powerful. I could have done without the obligatory love triangle, especially since her attraction to Erik seemed dubious at best. As far as appropriateness, there’s nothing to make it inappropriate for younger teens or advanced middle grade readers in the way of sex or violence. I’ll note that there is a lesbian couple, mostly as this is still relatively rare in genre fiction like this, but sadly, we don’t really get to see much of that couple’s romance. For those who like their series complete, this does end with a jolt, and the second book is not due out until October. It probably won’t go on my all-time favorites list, but this was a quite enjoyable dystopian-with-romance.

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Potty Training Favorites

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Katy K.

It’s time for my once-a-month Sunday booklist.
evenMy most recent request along those lines has been from my sister-of-the-heart, M. She was looking for toilet learning books for her two-year-old. As it happens, I have some potty training experience under my belt. Those of you happily past that time, feel free to move along or share your favorites.

This time, instead of first making my list a regular post and later converting it to a page for easier reference, I’ve made it a page right away. Here it is: Best Potty Training Resources. Please let me know what you think!

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The Last Dragonslayer

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Katy K.

This was on the Cybils middle-grade sf/f shortlist (though my library shelves it in teen.) It’s the next-to-last book for me to read on that list, and I finished the last one, The One and Only Ivan, yesterday.

The Last DragonslayerThe Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde.
Fforde is the author of the Thursday Next books, beginning with The Eyre Affair, which I have very much enjoyed. This is his first book for kids. Jennifer Strange, 15-year-old indentured foundling, runs Kazam Mystical Arts Management in the absence of its owner. In the old days, magic was plentiful and strong, and people lived in fear of dragons. Now, though, magic is hard to come by, and the proper forms must be filled out before performing any spells. Those gifted in the mystical arts are reduced to using magic to clean drains and rewire houses, while magic carpets are used for pizza delivery. Even those jobs are getting harder and harder to come by as magic dries up and drain cleaner becomes cheaper than magic. And then things change. Generations ago, the wizard the Mighty Shandar created the Dragonlands and set up the treaty that would keep humans and dragons separated, as well as establishing a Dragonslayer to enforce the treaty on both sides. Now, there are sudden surges of magic and multiple people having dreams and visions of Big Magic. They say that the last dragon is about to die, and that the last Dragonslayer will be the one to kill him. But when Jennifer finds out that she is the Last Dragonslayer, she doesn’t want to help the large corporations who are greedy to claim the Dragonlands for their own, and she especially doesn’t want to rush in and kill an aged dragon who’s never broken the treaty and who seems ready to die of old age anyway. Something must be done, and it’s up to Jennifer Strange, her fearsome pet Quarkbeast, and her new assistant and fellow foundling Tiger Prawns to figure out what. Continue reading →

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Will Sparrow’s Road

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Katy K.

I’ve submitted this as part of the 13th Kid Lit Blog Hop:

Kid Lit Blog Hop

[Edited 4/3/13 to add Kidlit Blog Hop link.]

Will Sparrow's RoadWill Sparrow’s Road by Karen Cushman. Read by Katherine Kellgren.
This is the most recent audio book that my son and I listened to. I was excited for this books on two counts – a main character I thought he would easily identify with from historical fiction favorite Cushman, paired with narration by our favorite Katherine Kellgren. I was not disappointed. Young Will’s mother ran away when he was very young, and his alcoholic father has since sold him to the innkeeper for beer. When the innkeeper says he’s selling him as a chimney sweep, Will runs for his life. Life isn’t easy for a homeless and penniless boy in Elizabethan England. After quite a while of trying to make it on his own, having his few possessions stolen and living in turn mostly off of stolen green apples, Will discovers the Fair. Not only do the food booths there provide easier targets, but the many performers there offer a means of earning actual money. He’s gotten a job passing the hat for a juggler and met a kind man with a trained pig named Duchess when the juggler unexpectedly leaves, sending him to a Master Trumball, owner of the Oddities and Commodities stall. Master Trumball travels from fair to fair with his combination mini-museum and freak show, which includes a baby mermaid in a jar, a girl with a furry face like a cat’s, and a foul-tempered and ugly dwarf named Lancelot FitzHugh. Will travels England, getting to know the colorful regional fairs, which is quite a lot of fun. But as he gets to know the people he’s traveling with, he also learns a lot about himself, about prejudice and that a person’s nature isn’t necessarily matched to his or her appearance. He goes – slowly, with some painful lurching – from viewing the cat girl as a mostly cat monster, to seeing her as a friend and helping her in her quest for a human name (she decides to go from Graymalkin to Grace Wise) and a life apart from being an Oddity, for example, and has similar revelations about his other companions. Although some of the character revelations came sooner to me than to my son, we were both waiting anxiously to find out what would happen to Will Sparrow and Grace Wise. It’s told in energetic, language that strikes a graceful balance between being easy-to-understand and having the flavor of Elizabethan language – both my son and the three-year-old now frequently go around saying, “Nay – ne’er!” from listening to this. Real Elizabethan songs (mostly of the tavern variety) appear frequently, of course sung beautifully and accurately by Kellgren. (What to make of my boy being old enough to cover his face in embarrassment when Will sang his own variation on “Greensleeves” to Grace Wise?) I also noticed my son being more appreciative of always having enough to eat, even if he’s still a very cautious eater, as Will is always hungry, and lovingly describes every good thing to eat that comes his way. Cushman concludes with an author’s note about English fairs and provides historical background for the people and acts at her fairs. Will Sparrow’s Road is a tempting mix of an exciting historical setting and plot with strong, likeable characters and a not-medicinal dose of thoughtfulness.

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The Diviners

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Katy K.

divinersThe Diviners by Libba Bray.
Libba Bray comes and goes for me – I loved Going Bovine, but tried and mostly failed with more than one of the A Great and Terrible Beauty. I wasn’t quite sure which way this new book would go, especially since so many other people did love her first fantasy series. Still, I heard so many things about it that I thought I’d give it a try, even though it is a commitment at almost 700 pages – the audio version is 15 discs long.

This is a book of contrasts, with the bright fun of the flapper culture in New York of the 1920s contrasted with the grim realities of life for the poor and immigration, bound together in a tale of a doomsday cult tying into magic that is darker and stronger than they realize. A group of diverse older teens comes together almost accidentally, but bond over their similar dark dreams and an assortment of occult powers that they keep secret, things like reading history in objects, healing, and prophetic dreams. We are introduced to one after another of them, most coming together gradually as the story goes on, including a would-be happy-go-lucky Evie from Ohio; her serious best friend and the daughter of political reformers, Mabel; an African-American poet and numbers runner named Memphis; and Ziegfield girl Theta and her gay composer roommate Henry. Evie comes and tries to shake things up at her uncle’s struggling museum, popularly known as the Creepy Crawly Museum, and quickly gets drawn into more serious things – a series of clearly ritual murders that look like the work of a Doomsday cult trying to raise the Beast. This is much more horror than I usually read – Bray gives us third-person narrative from the perspective of nearly all of the murder victims, to maximize the fright. She has one of the hallmarks of good horror, which is that though there are plenty of creepy supernatural elements, the scariest parts are all real, things that people really have done or believed. I had to keep reading for the characters, but this really was too scary for my sensitive soul, and I had to stop reading it at bedtime. The plot wraps up fairly tidily, but it’s clear that this is the first of a series. I’ll hope for a more cohesive knowledge of the team that’s implied in the name Diviners than actually came about in this book. This is a solid teen book – maybe a bit too scary and suggestive for younger kids, but nothing to make it inappropriate for teens. If you like atmospheric historical fantasy on the dark side, this is an excellent choice.

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Dragonsinger

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Katy K.

DragonsingerDragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey. Read by Sally Darling.

I love Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, of which the Harper Hall trilogy was my favorite. Dragonsinger is my favorite of that trilogy. It doesn’t have the big sweeping drama of some of the other books, but it is a deeply satisfying coming-of-age story with lots of music and fire lizards. Menolly, our introverted, shy but extremely talented protagonist, has just arrived at Harper Hall as an apprentice. She was recruited by the Master Harper of Pern and brought on the back of a bronze dragon – but she quickly learns that things aren’t going to continue on that triumphant note. She’s housed with a group of snooty girls who are there as paid students, mostly with very low musical skills. The mistress of the cottage, Dunca, is terrified by Menolly’s fire lizards and sets out to humiliate Menolly and make her feel inadequate and unwelcome at every turn. The Masters who are assigned to test her skill levels seem convinced that she can’t possibly be as good as all that, and try to shame her out. Despite these barriers, Menolly has support from the beginning. The Masterharper, Robinton, tells her that the masters will be tough on her, but she just has to go through formalities. His journeyman, Sebell, is also supportive, and the headmistress of the house, Silvina, is a motherly figure. Menolly is also befriended by the youngest Harper Hall apprentice, Piemur, a curly-haired young scamp with an interest in fire lizards and talent for trouble. Over the course of a single week, Menolly navigates the social world, finds her musical place, and gains friends and self-confidence. She doesn’t have to win over the whole hall; she needs to comfortable herself and know that she has enough allies to make it.

There are a few things that felt off for me – I have always wondered why, for instance, Menolly’s Harper in her home hold would have considered proper breathing too difficult to teach himself. The treatment of Camo, the “half-witted” kitchen drudge, has always made me uncomfortable as well. It’s rare, of course, for people with serious mental disabilities to show up in fiction at all, and maybe some treatment is better than complete silence. Still, I have trouble figuring out why he’s there and how it benefits the story or the reader to have a character who can’t do anything but the most basic of jobs with close supervision and who is described as a “numb-wit” “half-wit” and “lack-wit.” Sally Darling I think had a bit more trouble reading this book. Harper Hall is a largely male establishment, and Darling does not quite manage to establish unique voices for all of the male characters, so they can run together a bit. Also, I know it’s harder in a book with made-for-the-book songs like this, but I really would have appreciated Darling actually singing the songs that appear at the beginning of each chapter and sprinkled throughout the book. I know not every reader can be Katherine Kellgren, but something like her reading of Bloody Jack, with all the songs appropriately sung would have been just perfect here. Despite these shortcomings, it’s still an excellent book, one I’ll keep rereading and recommending.

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3 Dead Princes

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Katy K.

This one was recommended by Colleen over at Chasing Ray, and I had to interloan it from another library.

3 Dead Princes3 Dead Princes by Danbert Nobacon. With Illustrations by Alex Cox.

The subtitle says that this is an anarchist fairy tale, though the author’s idea of anarchy is different from mine. I wanted it for a novel of a strong and rebellious princess, because I generally enjoy that sort of book. I was a little put off at the beginning of the book by a number of misplaced apostrophes and overused all-caps, but these editing errors happily stopped and I was able to get into the story. Princess Alexandra Stormybald Wilson, or Stormy for short, is the only child of King Walterbald Wilson the Second of Morainia, a small mountain kingdom. Stormy does not get along with her stepmother, Queen Gwynmerelda, but it’s clear that this is more because Gwynmerelda is an authority figure and a Stormy newly a teenager than anything else. It’s a cozy, egalitarian kingdom where Stormy volunteers at the library and does scout training along with everyone else, while Gwynmerelda teaches yoga classes. As our story opens, King Walterbald is off to go exploring for ancient artifacts for the summer, leaving the Queen to manage the Princess, and the important state visit of the Queen and one of the three princes of neighboring and aggressive Oosaria. Just before they arrive, the court Fool initiates Stormy – the first female ever – into the Order of Accidental Adventurers, in which her father and grandfather are also members. Then the Queen and Prince arrive. They clearly intend to force Stormy into marriage to facilitate their takeover of peaceful Morainia (which they want for its rich mineral resources.) When Stormy retreats from the dance floor, the prince follows her into her bedroom, and he hits his head and dies when Stormy pushes away his Unwelcome Advances. But a dead prince is still a dead prince, so Stormy and the Fool make off to keep Stormy safe until things cool down, protect Morainia, find the king, and also investigate the strange and vivid dreams Stormy’s been having, involving giant birds and Giggle Monkeys. They meet the Witch in the Ditch and her daughter Glamour and the enormous black bird the Gricklegrack along the way, and learn many things about the creation of the world which goes against the official church’s orthodox opinion. Stormy’s first menses play a role (I mention this for Nobodyjones at Did You Ever Stop to Think and Forget to Start Again?) It’s illustrated with wobbly sketch-like pen and ink drawings that make the book more funny and casual.

3 Dead Princes is told as a slightly silly adventure, with the humor shading towards dark, as you might expect from the title, but not quite as dark as I would have expected, because Stormy only kills accidentally in self-defense and isn’t at all a bloodthirsty princess. It is not quite an allegory, but a story set out to tell a message (which is quite different from a story that ends up having a message along the way.) Nobacon has quite a long afterward where he explains his theories of anarchy and his post-apocalyptic fairytale world, though it’s not really clear until the end of the actual story that the world is post-apocalyptic as well as fairy tale. I have to agree with Colleen that the anarchistic message actually doesn’t come through nearly as strong as Stormy herself, not content to settle for what she’s told should be her happy ending and willing to do whatever it takes to find one that works for her and keeps her kingdom safe in the meantime. The story says it’s for all ages, but that’s a difficult target to hit – it’s on the simple side, plot-wise, for adults; Stormy is a bit young for most teen protagonists, though teens would probably best appreciate the idealistic message of anarchy; younger children (or their parents, anyway) probably don’t want to learn about rape, though the first dead prince doesn’t get far at all in his attempt and younger kids might read it as simple bullying. Maybe I’d say for middle schoolers and up, or somewhat younger with parental guidance? Checking in the state library catalog, it seems to be shelved in the adult collection, but has Juvenile Fiction as a subject keyword. At any rate, it was a fun and irreverent take on fairy tales, with some interesting thoughts on political systems for those who are interested.

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