Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare I pulled this off the returns cart, labeled new… and discovered only later that it’s a 2010 book that just gone out so much that no one here had a chance to take the New sticker off.
This is a prequel series to a series that I haven’t read, Mortal Instruments, and, as it’s described as horror, probably don’t want to. Also, the original series doesn’t seem to have the Victorian and mechanical elements that make this series Steampunk, the element that first attracted my attention.
It is the early 1870s. Our heroine, Tessa, sails from New York City to join her brother Nate in London after her aunt’s death. He’s sent the tickets and a letter in his hand inviting her, so when she is met by a pair of creepy women – the Dark Sisters, aka Mrs. Black and Mrs. Dark – she is shocked. They tell her that Nate is being held hostage based on her good behavior, and teach her to change shapes, mostly into recently murdered people. All of her attempts to escape are useless, however, until the night before she is scheduled to marry the otherwise undescribed but certainly evil and powerful Magister. Then, a handsome and roguish young man appears in her room and takes her away. Will is a Nephil, a Shadowhunter, whose work on earth is to keep it from being overrun with demons, vampires and the like. Here, unlike in Madeline L’Engle’s Many Waters, the Nephilim are not fallen angels, but angels who live on earth to carry out God’s work. Tess doesn’t necessarily trust the Shadowhunters at the London Institute, either, but she’s willing to work with them as long as they will help her find and rescue her brother.
The Institute is populated mostly with young people of about Tessa’s age. In addition to Will, a stereotypical cad if there ever was one, there’s sweet and open Jem and rebellious Jessamine, as well as two young serving people who are humans with a touch of Sight. Even the director, Charlotte, is only 23. (Her husband is officially co-director, but is a genius type who spends his time building clockwork devices of dubious reliability and is generally unaware of the real world.) There’s definitely a love triangle with Jem and Will both vying for Tessa’s attention in a way that was for me strongly reminiscent of Fruits Baskets – but really all the single young people have a tangled web of unrequited feelings for each other. Unlike Fruits Basket, though, (slight spoiler alert) there is actual kissing in this book. Tessa, a proper Victorian girl, then has to deal with her feelings of having done something so very inappropriate which she knows she doesn’t actually regret. In a modern novel, I’d find this inappropriate, but here, I found it appropriate to the time period, and Clare does a fantastic job with things like the tension of just sitting close to someone you’re attracted to. Despite not getting very far on an overall scale, those kissing and even not-quite kissing scenes were steamy hot. I am not prone to swooning over book boys, but I was here, both over the dark-haired poet boy and the half-Chinese violinist. There’s also politics – both between various factions of Shadowhunters and different types of magical beings – and lots of action, including battles with vampires and clockwork automatons. There were a few instances where the dialogue felt a bit anachronistic, and I wished that Will were not so very clearly pretending to be a bad boy, as usually one should believe people who say they can’t be trusted.
Only after I gobbled the first and the second fat book in quick succession to each other (three days each, maybe?) did I notice that it’s on the children’s and YA’s Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists. The second book’s ending was decidedly bittersweet, and I find myself once again waiting anxiously for a sequel.
An Undone Fairy Tale by Ian Lendler. Illustrated by Whitney Martin. Once upon a time, a beautiful princess was trapped in a tower. Her wicked stepfather, the king, locked her away so that she could bake her famous pies only for him. “Not even her mother could help her.” Naturally, princes and knights came to rescue her, but they all failed the three impossible tasks her stepfather set for them. Up until this point, straightforward fairy tale, told in a fancy typeface. And then, things start to go wrong. The brave, famous Sir Wilbur arrives to meet the king – and finds that he is wearing a doughnut instead of a crown. This, we are informed in plain sans-serif typeface, is because we, the readers, are reading too quickly, and the artist didn’t have time to fill in a proper crown. The artist is right there, in fact, hanging from some scaffolding trying to paint the wall behind the king. Now we are begged not to turn the page – the artist hasn’t gotten his delivery of horses or armor yet. But of course we do, and in the subsequent pages, poor Sir Wilbur is forced to fight a dragon which turns out to be a pretzel, riding on a fish and wearing a pink tutu. Things get more and more out of hand, with the drawings looking less and less polished, until the princess takes matters into her own hands, for a very silly happily-ever-after ending. 
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett. Illustrated by Jon Klassen. “On a cold afternoon in a cold little town, where everywhere you looked was either the white of snow or the black of soot from chimneys, Annabelle found a box filled with yarn of every color.” She starts to knit. She knits a bright sweater for herself and for her dog. People start finding her brightness distracting, so she knits sweaters for them, too. When she’s knit sweaters for every person and animal in town, she starts knitting cozies for the buildings. The illustrations show the change in the town as it gradually fills with color and warmth. All the while, the box stays full of its beautiful yarn, which seems to be magic both in never running out of yarn and in allowing Annabelle to knit with amazing speed (that last isn’t commented on in the book, but really… she knits a cathedral cozy.) Then, an evil Archduke comes from across the sea to take the box for himself. Annabelle says no. The Archduke is powerful and used to getting his way. What will happen to the box? 
The Knitter’s Life List by Gwen W. Steege. More than once, I’ve heard that knitting is a hobby you can never get bored with (assuming, of course, that you like it to start with.) But what all is there to do with knitting? Steege sets forth a list of knitting-related things to do that could easily take more than one lifetime to accomplish. It includes things like techniques from beginner to advanced, from making a gauge swatch to learning to knit backwards. It includes lists of all different kinds of things to try – fiber types, sweater and mitten styles, ethnic traditions. There are famous knitting people to meet, like Cat Bordhi or Jared Flood, and places to go – yarn stores, historic mills, conventions, fiber festivals, and cruises. It’s divided into chapters: yarn; know-how; sweaters; socks; scarves & shawls; hats; gloves & mittens; bags; kids; home decor ; fiber lovers. Each one starts off with a checklist, with room for the reader to add a few more items. Each check-list includes people to meet, places to go, things to knit, techniques to learn… and I’m sure more that I forget. I found these lists – basically notes on what’s covered in the following chapter – unfortunately a little tedious, given that the whole notion of the list was what drew me to the book in the first place. I did enjoy that Steege put so much effort into making the lists diverse, not just ways to become a more advanced knitter but also ways to enjoy your knitting more and find more knitting delight in the world around you. And if the list gets long, the chapters expand on everything in it, explaining why you’d want to include that item on your personal life list. I’m currently at a point with the very active, not-sleeping two-year-old and the job that I feel like being less ambitious with my knitting is probably happier for me – but even I can look for knitting in art or for the books, classic and modern, that involve knitting. The appendix includes bibliographies and current websites mentioned in the text for easy reference. If you’re the ambitious knitting type, afraid of getting stuck in a knitting rut, or just want to learn more about the broad world of knitting, this is a book to look for.
Ivy’s Ever After by Dawn Lairamore Princess Ivory, who prefers to go by Ivy, is the unconventional princess of the tiny, rural and isolated kingdom of Ardendale. Her nurse and tutor would like her to settle down and learn how to be a proper princess, of course, but her father – always a bit spacey since Ivy’s mother’s death at her birth – insists that she needs time to be a child. So Ivy explores the countryside, makes friends with the servants, and reads just the exciting books in the library. Then she discovers that it’s the ancient law and tradition that the oldest princesses of Ardendale be locked up on their fourteenth birthdays in a special white tower guarded by a dragon, until a prince can kill the dragon. That prince then gets the hand of the princess and the kingship of Ardendale. (The dragon kingdom gets the assurance that only that one dragon in every human generation will be killed.) Ivy, just a few months shy of fourteen, is horrified at the whole business. Things get even worse when the first contestant prince turns up months before her birthday in a bone ship. Prince Romil is a mighty, power-hungry and cruel second son, except that Ivy is the only one who hears his dastardly schemes. In desperation, Ivy sets out to save the kingdom without the help of the adults she’s always counted on. She befriends the peaceful and bookish dragon guarding the tower, Elridge, and the two of them escape to find Ivy’s missing fairy godmother, Drusilla, in hopes of saving the kingdom. On the way, they encounter trolls, fairies, an enchanted swamp, and a crusty Dragon Queen. This is a delightful romp of a fairy tale, perfectly suited to elementary school-aged kids, probably from about 9 years independently and younger as a read-aloud. I also very much enjoyed the second book of Ivy and Elridge, Ivy and the Meanstalk, which as 
Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier. Translated from German by Anthea Bell. 
Despite the dangers of time travel and the potential evil nature of the Guardians, the book never gets bogged down in heaviness. (I think the German cover conveys this better.) There’s the romance, more fun than fraught; Lesley and Gwyneth’s friendship, and – I really loved this part – costumes. The Guardians hire a full-time French costume designer, whose sole job is to make historically accurate clothing for each of the trips back in time, which are all described in detail. I really liked the original German covers, but I guess you can’t have everything. This is the first of a trilogy, all of which are now published in Germany but which I guess are taking some time to be translated. The translation is done by the inestimable Anthea Bell, who also translated the Inkheart books as well as tons of others. The time travel, romance and history combined to make this a quite lovely book for me, and I’m now anxiously waiting for the next installments to arrive.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente. This is now my second Valente book, after last year’s 
Pirate King by Laurie R. King This series has been getting good reviews for years, but this is my first try. It’s set in the 1920s, and Sherlock Holmes has married the much younger Mary Russell. Mysteries of course still ensue. This is the eleventh in the series, and I was finally encouraged to pick it up because it is about pirates. Not just any pirates, but the Pirates of Penzance, the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta which I have adored ever since I didn’t make my high school production of it. So: Fflytte films is a film company famous for filming the real thing. Now, there are two mysteries around it that Mary Russell is investigating: a missing secretary and surges in illicit items like arms and cocaine after Fflytte films does a film about such a subject. The easiest way to investigate is to apply for the missing secretary’s job, which Russell does. The current film – get ready for convolution here – is about a film company making a movie of the Pirates of Penzance (set in Portugal and Morocco instead of the actual Penzance in Cornwall), which gets overtaken by real pirates. Naturally, as the film company in our book heads off for Portugal and Morocco, they too are taken over by real pirates. Dun dun DUNNN!!! Despite the action, Russell felt developed enough as a character to keep the book from being a cardboard-character thriller. This was a mystery that hit the perfect balance of fun and literary without ever getting into the gory. It had plenty of both G&S and classic Holmes references to satisfy geeks of both varieties. 
alibrarymama 