Showing posts with label fairy-tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fairy-tales. Show all posts

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Shalilly by Elizabeth Gracen, Luca di Napoli


Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this review is based on an advance review copy for which I thank the author and publisher.

I was so impressed with this novel that I began to think that the author had been through all of my reviews, made notes of the things which tick me off in YA novels, and then strove to avoid all of them in her writing. It was, frankly, a bit creepy! Obviously she didn't actually do that, but I have to say this was a remarkable read, and hit all the high notes for me (that's an inside joke - you'll have to read the novel to discover what it means!

Elizabeth Gracen has had an interesting history in film and print, and this is her debut novel. It's very good and refreshingly different - playful, inventive, humorous, original, and a truly engaging read. Illustrated with welcome insight by means of a few (too few for me!) delightful images from talented artist Luca di Napoli, this is written in an easy-going, quick-moving style if, I have to add, a little stilted on occasion in the conversations. It tells the story of young Filipina, heir not-so-apparent to the oracle Theano, and of Fippa's young friend Ision, a soldier.

It has a prologue which I skipped as I do all prologues (and I never miss them!). Chapter one launches us right into the middle of things, which is where I love to begin a story, with Ision being cast into another realm and Fippa electing to go after him in an effort to prevent the evil Timeus from succeeding in his plans, which rely on keeping them apart. The first thing Fippa does is to get drunk! How many times have you read that in a fairy-tale?! I was hooked.

Technically, Fippa isn't a fairy, but one of the butterfly girls known as Shalilly, and she really didn't intend to get passed-out drunk on the nectar. It was just so good! I mean come on. Tell me you've never drunk so much nectar you haven't passed out. I knew it! This episode does educate her and strengthen her resolve, however. It was honestly refreshing to encounter a young, leading character who quickly learns from her mistakes, and it soon becomes clear that Fippa is dedicated to her mission, and constantly re-evaluating strategies to achieve her aim. She has a lot going on upstairs and it was so nice to read of a female character written by a female author who had more on her mind than how studly her beau was (not that she didn't have that on her mind, too!). See, YA writers? It can be done! Elizabeth Gracen shows you how!

That's not to say Fippa is perfect though. She has a temper and a jealous streak on which she has to strive to keep a tight rein, and these are traits which do not help her circumstances. Fippa's experiences in Paradigm, the fairy-tale world which she volunteered to visit in order to save Ision are very entertaining, but she quickly becomes disempowered, and a prisoner - and a despised one at that. Now her job is all the more difficult, and she has only her wits to save the day, but she proves equal to the task.

In a page (or two!) taken from One Thousand and One Nights , she tells Ision, who is now ignorant of their critical past, a story in the hopes of educating him as gently as she can. I'm not a fan of flashbacks at all, but this was one way of doing this, and which didn't feel false. It didn't even feel like it was interrupting the story because it was an integral part of it. Nicely done! Some might find this section a bit long, and I confess I missed the Shalilly version of Fippa quite honestly, but never was there any point where I wanted to skip this part.

The humor was a delight, yet the story was also serious. I did find some unintentional humor, but more than likely it's just me being weird. One example I remember was at the beginning, where I read, "Ision felt the horse slow its pace as Fippa placed her hand on his." Now it's obvious what is meant here, but the way it's written, if you're as warped about writing as I am, it can be deemed that Pippa put her hand on the horse's hand. Hey, it's a fantasy - it could happen! And we know the horse was maybe fifteen or sixteen hands, so that's a lot of hands to go around! LOL!

Not that I'm going to downgrade a story for that kind of thing, but as a writer, it's worth keeping in mind that it's not only what you write, but also the way you write it. As it was, this novel was warm enough and such a joy to read that I could overlook more serious problems than this (not that there were any here), and that counts too: your readers will forgive you a lot more if you give them good reasons to!

Anyone who reads my reviews will know that I always find something to carp about, but it was really hard to find anything wrong here. Yes, there was the cliché of the heroic dude with the "gold-flecked green eyes" - gold flecks are way over done in YA literature - but it seemed like every time I experienced a growing fear that this story was going down to tropeville, the author took it in another direction and saved it. Hence my feeling that she'd been reading my reviews!

Sometimes the language seemed a bit overly modern for ancient Greece, such as when Ision says, "...chuck it all...", and other times there were questionable turns of phrase, such as when Fippa says, "What if they could care less if I am returned?" What she meant was "What if they couldn't care less..." Normally this wouldn't bother me because people really do speak like that in real life, but this was not modern life where that phrase has entered common use - it was ancient Greece (or a very near approximation to it), so it felt like this ought to have been more accurate.

The last thing I'd mention is that "I am a girl who has barely stepped foot..." is a pet peeve of mine. I don't like 'stepped foot' because to me it sounds odd and clunky. I know authors write this routinely, but in this particular case, I'd like to argue that the more traditional "set foot" would have been a better choice of words for a charming story like this. It's worth thinking about as a writer, but as a reader, none of this was worth down-grading a novel over, by any means, because it would be mean!

I've been to Greece more than once and I've actually been to the Delphi area. It was beautiful, and the writing really brings out the essence of the country and the scenery without going into excessive detail. The author writes it beautifully, and she depicts the ancient Delphi oracle to perfection in my opinion.

Talking of essence, this novel made me wish I could bottle the essence of how she wrote it so I could unleash it on my own writing! The novel is so good that it almost makes a fellow writer wish for its author to fall on her face in her next outing just so he can feel better about his own efforts! But since I fell in love with the Shalilly (shamelessly and inappropriately so, I confess) I'm going to be bigger than that, and instead congratulate Elizabeth Gracen on a really good novel, and wish her all the best. Grace-n is the perfect name for this author! I recommend this novel highly, and I now I must endure the agonizing (<-Greek roots word!) wait for her next novel! O the Phates! (<-Greek joke word!)


Wednesday, August 3, 2016

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot


Rating: WARTY!

This officially marks my flat refusal to read another thing written by Meg Cabot! I've read her Ready Or Not and found it a not ready. I read Haunted and found it more ghastly than ghostly, and I read Size 12 and Ready to Rock and found it ready to rot!

Perhaps this novel should have been titled "The Princess Diarrhea", since it both runs to more than ten volumes, and the main character, Mia, runs off at the mouth with an endless bitch and tedious moan about everything. What a nightmare she is. The novel is nothing like the movie, and bland as that is, the movie is far better. The movie has heart. All the novel has is spleen. The novel is as washed out as the Genovian flag, but it did make me want to watch the movie again.

The audio book is read by Anne Hathaway, who played the role of Mia in the movie. Her reading actually isn't too bad, but her voice tends towards mumble here and there. That's all I have to say about it, other than that I ditched it in short order, and I've now sworn off ever again reading anything by Meg Cabot!


Saturday, July 2, 2016

Winter by Marissa Meyer


Rating: WARTY!

This is the last of the Lunar chronicles, and a case in point as to why I no longer read series with 'Chronicles' in the name (or 'Saga' or 'Cycle' or any of those other trope pretentious buzzwords), and certainly an excellent example of why I typically dislike series. I loved the first volume ion the series, Cinder and reviewed it positively. I even reviewed Scarlett positively though I had some major issues with it. By the time I got to Cress it was time to say, "Enough is enough!" I wrote some 45K of reviewing material on these three volumes explaining what I saw in them (or failed to see!).

After Scarlett and particularly Cress, I wasn't as willing to spend so much time on Winter as I had on the previous three. If it failed even after a couple of chapters, I was out of there. And after a couple of chapters I was out of there. There are over ninety chapters and almost 900 pages in this tome, and from what I've gathered from other reviews, and from what I saw myself, all of it is a waste of perfectly good trees and bandwidth. It turns out it was exactly as I feared it would be and exactly why I'm not a fan of series.

The first problem is right there in the blurb: "... despite the scars that mar her face, [Princess Winter's] beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana" How is this a qualification for anything? What does beauty have to do with it? Is she a runway model? No! She's a princess in line for the throne, so what, I ask again, does beauty have to do with anything? She's apparently admired for her " grace and kindness" but nowhere do I see competence, integrity, diligence, advocacy or anything else like that listed here. Grace has nothing to do with it, and kindness is relative in a totalitarian society like the one which she exists, but at least she's in love with " the handsome palace guard," so what else could possibly matter? The beautiful people are together. The hell with everyone else! Excuse me while I barf profusely.

Winter turned out to be the most limp of all four "princesses" in this story (which is, from other reviews I've read, nothing more than a litany of one "princess" or her lover after another being captured and held prisoner. Seriously, that could have been taken care of in a few pages. Well over eight hundred is completely self-indulgent and is what happens when you have some success with earlier volumes that you're allowed to get away with anything in later volumes. Another reason to despise series, the writers who religiously vomit them up, and the publishers who so avariciously beg for them from writers. And why I shall never, ever, ever write a series. And why I refuse to grace this garbage with the kindness of a positive review. It's ugly!


Friday, June 10, 2016

The Bitches of Everafter by Barbra Annino


Rating: WORTHY!

This is without a doubt the most hilarious and best-written (with a couple of amusing exceptions I shall point out) novel I've read in a long time. It's humbling to read something like this and distressing to think I might never write one this good, although Femarine, which came out this month, would give it a good run for its money on a level field, I'll warrant!

In a lot of ways, it's like the TV show, Once Upon a Time, which I used to watch, but gave up on because it became boring and repetitive. There were no worries about that here until I discovered that the ending wasn't. There are two more planned volumes. This annoys me, and it means I did have a problem because I am not a fan of series. They rarely end well. Having said that, there are some series I've read and enjoyed throughout. The horns of this dilemma are: dare I pursue this one and risk disappointment or should I quit while I'm ahead?

This novel also got away with breaking a rule which I normally like to see enforced: don't start chapter one in the future and then flashback in the rest of the book. In this case it was done perfectly, which just goes to show that some authors can write and others can't. We quickly meet the main characters, which is another good thing about this since they're far too good to keep them waiting in the wings. A third wonder about it is that it's written in third person. Far too many stories of this nature are in first person, and I am ever after grateful to the amazingly-named Barbra Annino for giving that route the derision and disdain it so richly deserves. Twit to all YA authors: you can write a brilliant novel in 3PoV! Rilly! Wed this and Reap!

We do get the story mainly from the perspective of Snow White, who has committed some crime over which she holds no regret, but for which she has a ninety-day psych eval to endure. She's not confined to a hospital ward, but is living in Granny's Home for Girls, along with Aura Rose, an ex-car-thief and burglar, Cindy Glass, a non-recovering drunk, and Punzie Hightower, who can currently be seen stripping at the Fairest of Them All club downtown. All of whom are corralled and controlled by the estimable Bella Bookless, whose dog is named 'Beast'.

These girls were all put there by Judge Redhood, aided by the surprisingly deep and self-motivated Tink, and these villainous vamps are watched over by parole officer Robin Hood and psychiatrist Jack Bean. So far so good, but what is happening in this house when Snow finally gets settled in? What are the odd lights she sees? Do patterns on the walls really move? What's behind the forbidden doors? Why is the fearless Aura suddenly and inexplicably terrified of a spinning wheel?

I devoured this and loved it until the last page when I was a bit disappointed to see that it ended on a cliff-hanger because it was part of yet another trilogy. I know trilogies and series are very lucrative, but how about doing we readers a favor now and then and fitting it all into one volume? I was tempted not to pursue this purely out of spite, despite enjoying volume one, but having thought that, I can’t deny that for as much pressure as Amazon megacorp is putting on book prices to squash them down to next-to-nothing, maybe the only option we authors have anymore, is to revert to the way novels used to be published: in installments.

The unintentionally amusing portions of this book were few. There was the common one of thinking biceps has a singular form: "spearing through his bicep." I had an online discussion with a friend about this, and yes, technically you can use 'bicep', but my point is that does anyone honestly think that your typical author knows anatomy well-enough to specify that one muscle? I'd have a hard time believing that! No one uses the singular form - unless it's an anatomist!

I've never seen a novel where someone was wounded through the triceps, so I'm guessing authors who do this are not actually being anatomically precise but simply don't know the difference between bicep and biceps any more than they know the difference between stanch and staunch. My guess is that they think 'biceps' refers to the muscles of both upper arms, so the muscles of one upper arm must be 'bicep'! Who knows? OTOH, Barbra Annino isn't just any author as her writing chops demonstrate, so maybe I'll give her the benediction of the doubt here and dedicate a song to her (not original with my I hasten to add):

My analyse over the ocean
My analyse over the sea
My analyse over the ocean
So bring back my anatomy....

The other mistake was one that I personally have never seen before in a novel as far as I can recall, and for which even I can offer no excuse: "Not that she was opposed to murder, per say." The Latin is per se, FYI! Some of us writers fear for the English language the way it's going with all this self-publishing, texting, and tweeting. OTOH, language isn't what you see in a dictionary - it’s a living, morphing, growing thing, so we can only guess at what we'll be reading in fifty years, but with this kind of thing getting loose, I fear for the language Dear Hearts! Fear for it I tell you! It's enough to make my tricep twitch....

Anyway, that aside, I recommend this as a worthy read.


Saturday, March 12, 2016

Spooky Tales Vol 1 by Bill Wood, Vicky Town


Rating: WARTY!

This was a library audio book I picked-up when I was going through my audio fairy tales binge recently, and it was awful. Bill Wood and Vicky Town takes turns telling moderately scary stories, but they were really not that great, and the voices they used for reading were just tedious. Kids might be less discriminating, but I don't want my kids to be less discriminating when it comes to good stories. I cannot recommend these.


World Tales Volume 6


Rating: WORTHY!

In earlier reviews of volumes in this series, I've railed against the lack of female readers, so I was happy to find one in the library which featured one, and despite my plan to move on from the series, I had to review this. Susan Sarandon's reading of The Firebird (the Russian for that, Zhar-ptitsa sound remarkable!) was elegant and charming. It is based on the Slavic tale, The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa. It has similarities to Stravinsky's opera, but differs in many ways. Archer Ivan and his trusty companion, The Horse of Power, were traveling in the forest one morning when they find a golden feather of the firebird. Despite a warning from the wise horse, Ivan proceeds with his plan to present it to the Tsar in hopes of receiving a reward for the valuable and rare gift. His reward is to be ordered, on pain of death, to capture the entire firebird alive.

This is the start of a downward spiral for poor Ivan, who demonstrates that the joke 'no good deed goes unpunished' really isn't a joke in his world. After he captures the bird, the Tsar demands he bring him a bride - the Princess of Never - but the princess proves to be every bit as feisty as the Tsar, and so Ivan finds himself on a quest to find her bridal dress which is hidden away somewhere odd. The story has a predictably happy ending, but it takes a twist and a turn, and another twist on the way there. This combined with Sarandon's reading made this story wonderful and I recommend it.

I've been a big fan of Raúl Juliá for some time, particularly in his more comedic roles such as in Street Fighter (where I also fell in love with Ming-Na Wen who is now as enjoyable as ever in Marvel's Agents of Shield), Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, The Addams Family, Moon over Parador (featuring the ever excellent Richard Dreyfuss), and also in The Gumball Rally which is where I first saw him. Juliá reads The Monkey People which is a Columbian story about the laziest people in the world, who live by a lake and one day become curious about the puffs of smoke appearing on the other side of the lake.

The smoke is emanating from the pipe of a craftsman who (he claims when they finally meet him) is liberating monkeys from the large leaves of plants by carving them out. These monkeys can do anything a human can, which delights the lake people, who demand the artist gives them all of the monkeys he creates so they can have them do all the work, allowing the people to continue lazing around in their hammocks. This is not a wise decision, as they soon discover!

I recommend both of these stories. Highly entertaining, beautifully read. The music is, as ever, annoying, but not too intrusive.


Monday, March 7, 2016

World Tales Volume 3


Rating: WORTHY!

This one was another delight despite the music. Again it was one disk, two stories, each a bit under thirty minutes. The reading was excellent, the music not so much. I like UB40, but not when it's mixed in with a story so that you can't focus on either one. Denzel Washington read Anansi, which is a spider who is the owner of all stories. The idea of Kwaku Anansi seems to have arisen in Ghana, but has been well preserved in Jamaica, to which all-too-many Africans were shipped during the hellish slavery years.

I like Anansi, because he's not always guaranteed to win, so you never can be quite sure what will happen. In this double story, he first outwits a snake by means of a sneaky ruse, and simultaneously proves you don't need a carrot and a stick - just a stick! The other part of the story sees Anansi not faring so well as he dishonestly pretends he's fasting after his mother-in-law died.

Neither Denzel Washington nor UB40 hail from Jamaica, and I can't help but wonder why a Jamaican actor and a Jamaican band (if they must have music!) were not employed here. Washington does a fine job of sounding Jamaican, and UB40, a phenomenally successful band named after a British unemployment benefit form, do a fine trade in reggae and have a string of classics behind them, but if they could afford Denzel Washington, surely they could afford Sean Paul or - and here's another issue: why is this all guys doing the reading? - Roxanne Beckford, or Audrey Reid or someone like that? Jamaicans are not a scarce commodity! That said, Washignton has been a favorite of mine since movies like Fallen, Courage Under Fire, and Much Ado About Nothing, and he does a fine job.

Max von Sydow has been a favorite of mine ever since The Exorcist and Three Days of the Condor, and he takes East of the Sun, West of the Moon (not to be confused with the A-ha album!) to grand heights. This is very much a story in the mold of Beauty and the Beast, but it's different enough for children, and it has a charm all of its own. I recommend this brace of fairy-tales.


Sunday, March 6, 2016

World Tales Volume 1


Rating: WORTHY!

This is my second of three forays I am initially making into the audio books for children published by Rabbit Ears. I wasn't thrilled with the first, but the second one was much better. I suspect a large portion of this was because of the narrators, who are several steps above Danny Glover in delivery! Again there were only two stories, the first was Aladdin and the Magic Lamp read by John Hurt, and the second was The Five Chinese Brothers read by John Lone. Both stories are just under thirty minutes each. I've been a huge fan of both of these men for a long time and their delivery was exquisite.

I'm not familiar with the story of the five brothers (well, I am now!), so I can't speak for how well that adheres to the original, but it's a story of Chinese super heroes versus the villainous emperor! Aladdin was very much what I expected and very well told by John Hurt (aka The War Doctor!). John Hurt was born just ten miles from my home town, and I've been a fan of his for a long time, since well before Harry Potter and Alien! In movies such as 10 Rillington Place, Watership Down, Nineteen Eighty-Four, as well as TV movie, The Naked Civil Servant, I've enjoyed his performances. His retelling of Aladdin is wonderfully done, and his cadence and intonation a pleasure on the ear.

I've been a big fan of John Lone since The Shadow, and I've enjoyed his work in other movies, too, such as M. Butterfly and Rush Hour 2, both of which I recommend. His easy relation of this story of five brothers, who all look alike, but who have very different, and rather strange supernatural powers, and how they help each other when one of them falls afoul of the god-like emperor, is as engaging as it was soothing to listen to. My kids, who normally don't pay much attention to what I'm listening to in the car, insisted on hearing this one out after we got home and the story will wasn't finished! I recommend this disk highly, but I wish Rabbit Ears would realize that there's no rule which says that only men can read children's stories.


Tales of Brer Rabbit


Rating: WARTY!

I found a set of audio disks at the local library which are produced by a publisher called Rabbit Ears. At first I thought they were all stories about rabbits, but they're not. They're a bunch of old folk tales and fairy tales which are read by celebrities, but there are only two stories per disk and a lot of music which you may or may not like, so you get little for your outlay, which is why the library is so wonderful!

The first story is Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby, and the other one is Brer Rabbit and Boss Lion, both of which are read by Danny Glover. Both stories are about twenty minutes listening time, but would have been a lot shorter with no music! I'm guessing that's why the music was added. I'm not a huge fan of Danny Glover, but I liked him well enough in the Lethal Weapon movie series and the second of the Predator movies. Unfortunately, in this, he's acting more like a stereotypical actor from one of the seventies Blaxploitation movies, and for me this was not remotely entertaining.

He was significantly less animated in the second story, but it still did not entertain me. Obviously these days, stories about Brother Rabbit are not aimed at people my age, but historically, these stories including, believe it or not, the Tar Baby story, have a long tradition. Some commentators tie the stories to slavery, but there are traditions of such stories among American Indians and other peoples. Note that 'tar baby' is considered to be a racial slur.

If you really like these two stories, or you really, really like Danny Glover, and you're desperate for something for your children to listen to, then this might work, but I can't recommend it for as short as it is or as poor as it's told.


Sunday, February 7, 2016

Baker's Magic by Diane Zahler


Rating: WORTHY!

This story grabbed me from the start and wouldn't let go. It's an amazing fairy tale about a young girl, Bee, who runs away from her obnoxious foster parents and heads for the big city. On her journey, she finds a new father, meets a princess, sails with pirates, and discovers two of the most interesting islands ever to appear above sea level. This story read like it was written for middle-grade, although the main characters were all in their mid-eens. That said, however, this is really a story for all ages, in the classic mold of fairy tale telling.

All this in a land where trees won't grow, a mage rules in place of a king, and something Bee does seems to put magic into everything she bakes. Not that that's always a good thing, but there is a recipe at the back for one good thing: the famous Bouts buns! I enjoyed this, and as important, I felt that the writer had a great time writing it, which all-too-often doesn't come out, even in stories I've enjoyed. In this novel though, the fun she had in the writing came through just as powerfully as anything which Bee baked into her breads and pastries.

As if the story so far wasn't quite wonderful enough, Bee is asked to deliver some of her pastries to the castle, wherein lives the reclusive mage, and a princess who hasn't been seen in years. What's going on here? Why is the princess an orphan just like Bee? Why is the only tree in the land sitting in the palace garden? And what's with the hedgehog?

The novel is set in a fantasy version of The Netherlands, which caused a couple of hiccups for me, since it was written from a very American point of view. At one point, johnnycakes put in an appearance, but they're known only in North America, not in Europe - at least not in medieval times. The same goes for pecans.

There were a couple of missteps like that, but nothing your typical American reader would notice. The primary focus of my blog isn't about books per se, but about writing books, so it would be remiss of me to pass over what I found to be a delightful trip into English - not England, English - and Dutch! Naturally since this is a well-baked story, there is mention of cookies, but this, again, is a North American term. Like soccer versus football, the rest of the world calls them biscuits, which is also the Dutch word for them (although they have more than one word). However, the Dutch also have a word for cake, which is koek, so it's not so bad to be caught in possession of koek in Holland! LOL! The diminutive of koek is koekie, from which we get cookie, so it's not such a leap as it seems. Note that it's pronounced more like cook than coke, so you can discount my cookie joke. Confused yet?! I know I am.

I really liked this story, and despite it being rather lengthy, I blitzed through it in short order. It's very, very readable, and I recommend it. In fact, I'm prepared to guarantee that it won't burn your biscuits...!


Monday, December 21, 2015

A Small Pony Tale by Lily Lexington


Rating: WORTHY!

A Small Pony Tale, in addition to being a pun worthy of a horse laugh, is a story about a pony, and thereby hangs a tail. All the pony's brothers were saddled with some talent or skill, be it strength or speed, but the one thing those horses didn't have? Well, that was this pony's great strength, and it wasn't even the mane thing abut her! This is a very short review for a very short and very adorable story!


The Little Duck and the Great Big Pond by Lily Lexington


Rating: WORTHY!

I'm not talking about a pond which put on a bit of weight over the holiday season. I'm not talking about your typical overly large pond. I'm talking about a great big pond. This pond was huge. It was resplendent in its massive pond-i-ness. If Doctor Who said, "Come along, Ponds," this pond wouldn't even be able to move an inch. It was that grand. At least that's how the Little Duck saw it.

Can I just say a word about overly generous families as long as we're banging on about largeness? This momma duck had twenty ducklings. I am not egging you on. This was a sizeable, yellow, fluffy ball of a ducklings. Unfortunately, there was only one girl and she was hydrophobic to the max, like totally!

Told poetically, this story of the huggable duckling is very sad, no mater how cute she is. She's hardly unflappable since she so wants to get into the swim of things, but entreaties from the rest of her family are like water off a duck's back. I kid you not. It looks like a stuck duck. A duck stuck in a tree. How will this fluffy duckling ever get down?(!) Call me quackers, but I loved this story.


Princess Maddie Mouse by Lily Lexington


Rating: WORTHY!

Moving into the second day of my Lily Lexington Retrospective, today I feature the mouse princess! Maddie Mouse lived in a hole in the side of a red barn with her mom, the queen, her dad, the king, and her kid sister, the Princess Molly, and her two older brothers, Mitchell and Mark. My word! There goes the throne! Each of the children was the royal heir of something. Mark is in charge of the crops. Not the riding crops, but the growing crops. Mitchell is in charge of the animals. Not the five-member pop group from Newcastle of swinging 60's in Britain, but the farm animals. Maddie was in charge of the bugs. Not the Volkswagen's, but the insects and other creepy crawlies. Young Molly was in charge of the flowers...okay, I got nothing. Let's move on!

One day Molly's crying was so bad it woke the sun early (!), and all day, everyone was tired. This wouldn't do at all. Maddie set herself to thinking how she could help her sister sleep. I wonder if it had anything to do with her little six-legged charges? Well don;t let it bug you! Buy the book! I loved this story. A kid who cries so loud she wakes the sun early? C'mon! That's treasure that is! And Princess Maddie ought to be arrested for gratuitous cuteness.


Saturday, December 19, 2015

Princess Tiffany Tooth Fairy by Lily Lexington


Rating: WORTHY!

Princess Tiffany rides a royal cart pulled by two ponies as bright as the moon. Not only does she fulfill all the usual royal duties, she also had to collect teeth. it;s hard work, but it's not like pulling teeth, since these have already fallen out and have been placed hopefully under pillows by young children.

Do you have any idea how heavy teeth are when you’re a tiny fairy and you have fifty seven of them in a huge bag? I thought not. Well, neither do I! But it has to be something that makes you grit your teeth, right? It’s especially onerous if the young child wakes up right as you’re carrying our such an important duty, and rudely traps you in a glass jar. What a royal pain!

This little girl greatly underestimated Princess Tiff, however. The princess is not only cute, she’s also smart. The princess would give her eye teeth to get free, but unfortunately she has none, so she tricks the girl into letting her go. Actually it’s not even a trick. It's more like a brush off as she offers some really good advice that all children would do well to heed, and escapes by the skin of her teeth. Delightfully told and warmly illustrated, this is a fun and inventive story you can really get your teeth into. If it made an old codger like me smile, it can probably work wonders on your child!


Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Monstrovia by Mark H Newhouse


Rating: WORTHY!

"I’m so cared! Really scared!” I don't think the author meant the first one to be 'cared', but you never know!

Everyone knows the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Do beans talk? Well if you eat enough they will find a way of expressing themselves. But do you know the real story? What if Jack wasn't a hero. What if he was a murderer, hacking down the beanstalk knowing that the innocent giant would plummet to his certain death? That's the premise presented to the courtroom here, and Brodie's uncle is the only person standing in the way of Jackson Bordenschlocker and doom!

I read the advance review ebook version of this story. I understand the print version will have illustrations by Dan Traynor, but there were none in the e-version. This marks the third of an odd trilogy I am going through right now, featuring Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, Camp Midnight, an advance review graphic novel by Steven Seagle, and this one. While Bradbury's novel turned out to be merely wicked gnarly, the two ARCs are curiously parallel in some ways in that they both feature a child packed-off for the summer by their primary parent, and the child finds him/herself stick amongst monsters. I'm not a fan of first person PoV novels, and I had some difficulty getting comfortable with this story to begin with, but it grew on me as I read and in the end it was a truly worthy read.

Brodie Adkins's mom is going to China, and for reasons unknown she doesn’t want him along, so he's sent to stay with his crazy uncle, who’s a lawyer. What Brodie doesn't know is that his uncle works in Monstrovia - a parallel monster and fairytale world and there, he's considered a hero, and known as Doofinch the Defender, who stands up for downtrodden monsters. All Brodie wants to do is go back home, but he finds himself drawn into this world against his wishes and better instincts when Emily Beanstalk, aka Bordenschlocker shows up worried about her brother Jack, who's accused of murdering this giant, Eugene Bulk.

After having climbed the beanstalk with Emily to find Jack and bring him down to earth - so to speak - the latter two disappear, and when they're found, Jack's mom and key witness Annabelle Goose go missing! Jasper Doofinch feels they’ve been had - that Emily used them for the sake of rescuing her brother, but Emily turns out to have more going for her than you might think at first. She's strong and feisty, self-determined and self-possessed. She didn't seem like the kind of person who would require a boy to help her with anything.

Emily is evidently smarter than Brodie, too. At least she knows that while spiders may be poisonous, the correct word to refer to their ability to inflict painful and potentially dangerous bites, is 'venomous':

“Are the spiders poisonous?” I am reaching into the back of my shirt for a good scratch. I’m all itchy.
Emily looks serious. “Oh, Monstrovian spiders are very venomous. One bite and they turn you into a scratching post!”
Quite clearly Emily knows that poisonous refers to what might happen if you ingest an animal that's not good for you. Venomous refers to that thing's ability to inflict damage if it bites or stings you. Mushrooms can be poisonous for example, but they're never venomous. Snakes are venomous, but not poisonous judged by how many get eaten, even by humans....

The beanstalk is also an interesting character. Despite being cut down, presumably by Jack, it can regrow - and does well on lawyer jokes. It evidently has feelings. I started wondering if it would end up as a character witness for Jack! Jasper is more interested in taking a gander at the goose, but when she gets on the stand, she lays an egg - and not in a golden way. Can Jasper, his nephew Brodie, and Brodie's new friend Emile save Jack from the juggernaut jaws of giant justice?

This novel was hilarious, and an easy, fast read. I highly recommend it.


Saturday, September 26, 2015

Alice The Fairy by David Shannon


Rating: WORTHY!

This was an amazing book, amusingly drawn and nicely colored, with some great little doodles that augmented the main story, such as the 'W' in a word turned into a crown, and strawberries and cookies appearing as other letters on other pages.

Alice is actually rationalizing that she's a fairy in training in order to explain away some of the, er, incidents in her life at home, such as her ability to turn her nice white dress into a red one. Juice may have been involved. She's only a temp because you have to pass a lot of tests in order to be a permanent fairy. She can't fly very high - namely as high as her legs can hold her, but she can fly (run) really fast. She can do real magic, too - well, she made a plate of cookies disappear....

She has fairy dust that she uses to turn oatmeal into cake. It looks very much like sugar, but I'm sure it's really fairy dust! Alice manages to avoid the perils of evil which beset her in the form of broccoli. I'm not sure about the up-skirt views we got on the double page spread showing real fairies flying off to fairy school, but that's a minor issue. Overall, this book was amazing, and sly, and funny, and inventive, and I recommend it.


Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, Nathan Hale


Rating: WORTHY!

This one appealed to me from the title, to a glance through the pages in the bookstore, to reading the entire thing cover to cover in one sitting. It was awesome. The art work was understated, but still colorful, lively, and playful. The writing was humorous, adventurous, easy to read, and thoughtful. The title character is an original, strong female character of the kind I really like to find in my fiction even more than I do in real life - because I know they exist in real life, but I have a really hard time finding them in fiction!

Rapunzel is kick ass, but not in a mean-spirited, or overly brawl-y way. She's smart, inventive, brave, and dedicated. The relationship she develops with the male she eventually hooks up with is realistic, and contrary to the way far too many YA novels would have it, Rapunzel doesn't wilt and fade away upon the arrival of a male. She takes charge and assumes a leadership role, and he goes along with it supportively as the cover makes crystal clear. I recommend this couple!

The setting of this German fairy tale in the wild west struck a sour note with me, but it worked out in the end, so I was willing to give that a bye. Rapunzel frees herself and starts determinedly to free her mother from the mines. She's derailed several times on this quest, but with her beau's help, and after some spectacular challenges along the way, she eventually gets there.

Note that this story preceded the Disney movie Tangled - which curiously appears to share a lot of traits with it (Rapunzel's facility with her hair, her hooking up with a thief rather than a prince, her being withheld from and in ignorance of her true mother, and so on). Disney's movie was fun, but this original is more fun.


Thursday, September 3, 2015

Princess Charlotte and the Pea by Sally Huss


Rating: WORTHY!

I've had mixed success with Sally Huss books. This is the fifth one of hers I've read, and now on balance she writes a worthy book, because I recommend this one. One Hundred Eggs for Henrietta, which I reviewed back in March 2015 was a good one, Who took my banana? from April 2015 not so good. Plain Jane reviewed in July 2015 was another winner, but What's Pete's Secret? from August 2015 was lacking verve, so batting .500 I went into another adventure and this brought-up the score to .600.

This one is obviously based on the Princess and the Pea, so I was curious to see what this author did with this venerable Hans Christian Anderson story. Written in poetry, the story begins with the prince demanding a sensitive princess. My problem with this was that there was no definition offered for children as to what sensitive means, and we jumped straight from that to the prince's lackey stacking-up mattresses without any discussion as to how they will discover if a princess is sensitive or not. We learn that the plan is to use a pea, but not how they arrived at this decision; there's also the not-so-subtle change in the definition of sensitive - from an implied mental state to a purely physical one. This is bait and switch! But it's the same as the original story (except that sensitivity isn't mentioned until afterwards in the original).

There is also no indication that the pea is a dried one in either story. I assume it was in the original - or at least a fresh one which is a lot sturdier than the peas most of the potential audience has likely encountered. My fear is that they will think the pea is just like the ones they eat off their plates - soft and squishy. There was a real potential for humor here, but we never saw it, which to me was a sad omission. Also, in this story the prince is the one obsessing on the princess's 'sensitivity' whereas in the original, it's the prince's mom. There's no word in either book on what the prince's dad - the king - was doing during all this time.

All of the princesses appear to be informed beforehand that their pea is there under the mattresses, which is also not in the original story. What's to stop them lying about what they feel when they're lying there - the mere fact of their royal birth? Plus the girls all fall in line with this prince's obsession. I felt that a dose of feminism would have been nice here, and I was pleased to see it pop up at the end in that the princess has a similar challenge for the prince. This elevated the story sufficiently for me to label this one a worthy read.

Kudos to the author for turning it around. I would have liked to have seen it turned around a lot more, but this will do as a start. I think it would be a fun thing to examine the original story (which I do on my website, if you're reading this elsewhere) and see what's wrong with it from a modern perspective. Meanwhile I recommend this book as an amusing take on the original.

Here is pretty much the original story (it's very short!):

There was a prince who wanted to marry a princess, but she would have to be a real princess. He travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to have a real princess.

One evening a terrible storm came on; there was thunder and lightning and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it. There was a princess standing at the gate, but good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. Water ran from her hair and clothes; it ran into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels, and yet she said that she was a real princess.

Well, we'll soon find that out! thought the old queen. She said nothing, but went into the bed-room and took all the bedding off the bed. She laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses. On this the princess had to lie all night; in the morning she was asked how she had slept.

"Oh, very badly!" said she. "I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It's horrible!"

Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds. No-one but a real princess could be as sensitive as that, so the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.

This princess seems to be of extraordinarily high-maintenance to me - she's black and blue after sleeping on forty layers of bedding and the only thing causing her discomfort was the pea? Of what value would the princess be if she was so delicate? The prince (or his mom in this case) seems to be conflating fragility with sensitivity, yet he's hypocritically completely insensitive to putting all of these princesses through this nightmarish and precarious night on forty layers of bedding.

Plus he's insensitive to the feelings and condition of all of his female subjects if he's so insistent that not a one of them is good enough for his hand in marriage. Only a princess will do? What a royal pain he is! What an aristocratic snob! They drag the princess in from the pouring rain, and not a word about drying her off or offering her a warm bath? And what kind of princess is she if she's standing out in the pouring rain knocking on the door? There was no royal carriage for her to ride in? There were no footmen or servants to knock on the door? No one to hold her umbrella? That hardly strikes me as a real princess! LOL! So no, the original story made no sense to begin with, so anything has to be an improvement, but I think Sally Huss gave it a fair shot.


Thursday, August 27, 2015

Raven Girl by Audrey Niffeneggar


Rating: WORTHY!

Raven Girl is described as a graphic novel and was in the graphic novel section of my local library, but it doesn't fit any reasonable definition of a graphic novel. It isn't presented in comic strip form in a preponderantly graphic format with supplemental text. This is a short story with some illustrative full page pictures interleaved, just so you know! These are beautiful line drawings in sepia and green overtones executed by the author herself.

The story is about a mail carrier who falls in love with a raven - except that it's set in Britain, so he's really a postman. The two of them marry and have a raven girl child (how this is consummated is wisely left unaddressed by the author!) who grows up unable to speak anything but raven, although she can communicate in English by means of written notes. She looks just like a human, but has bird bones and so is extraordinarily light for her size.

Throughout her life, she feels out of place, but when she's in college, she meets a scientist who is doing physical augmentation on humans - giving them horns or a tail, or whatever they want. This is like an answered prayer for Raven Girl because she wants wings, so he kits her out with a functioning pair, and she learns to fly and eventually marries the Raven Prince. It's a weird story, but it was a real delight to read. Apparently Niffeneggar wrote it as a modern fairy tale for a dance company to perform.

The hardback version I got from my local library (in the graphic novel section!) was gorgeous, with grey silvery edging to the pages and a dark grey cover which in a way tells the whole story, but it seems to me that the cover tells the inverse version: the child is shown within the raven on the cover, whereas in the story, it is the raven which lurks within the child. I recommend this as a worthy read.


Friday, July 24, 2015

Garden Princess by Kristin Kladstrup


Rating: WARTY!

This book seems like it's written for middle-graders (9-12 years) but the main character is seventeen. I'm not sure how well that will go down, but the protagonist, Adela, is one who made me feel, at least at first blush, was well-worth reading about - or in this case, listening to - but although there were amusing and interesting moments, overall, I can't rate this as a worthy read.

Her mom, Queen Cecile, was a commoner who caught the king's eye, but who has evidently learned her 'royal' to a T and has become rather condescending, elite, and arrogant - character flaws of which Adela is well aware. Adela doesn't take after her mom; she's a princess, but it appeared, originally that she was not your usual Disney version. Later this version was revised. Adela at first appeared to be somewhat overweight, but later this was clarified to mean she was tall. She was supposedly not considered to be that great looking, but in the end all of this was practically retracted, and she turned out to be very much a Disney princess.

She had little time for fluff and fancy, but that was all she really had to set her apart, but that's all been done before. She's self-possessed, self-motivated, a bit of a rebel, and her interest is not in attracting a handsome prince in the bloom of youth to her bed, but in the flowers in her own royal garden beds. Sadly though, she ends up being your standard maiden in distress who has to be rescued by a man, and I rather lost interest in it at that point.

Given her horticultural interests - which are actually not that special in the end, it's no surprise that when she learns of a garden party being thrown by the Lady Hortensia, who is rumored to have the most beautiful plants in the kingdom, Adela is determined to go even though she has had no invitation. Garth, the son of the palace gardener, did receive an invitation even though he's never met Hortensia. Curiouser and curiouser! Adela invites herself, and is accompanied by her aunt Marguerite and by Garth.

Lady Hortensia, it turns out, is a witch who is still practicing in a kingdom where magic was supposedly either stamped out or simply died out, if it ever existed. Maybe it was just myth and legend? Adela is about to find out the truth, and it's really rather disconcerting to say the least. All of Hortensia's flowers are bloom though fall is well advanced. More curiously, there is a talking magpie named Krazo, which has an irresistible bird's eye view of the guests' jewels.

If the secret of the magpie is disturbing, then the secret of the flowers is horrifying, but in this world of secrets, maybe Krazo knows one of which Adela an avail herself, because there is no other help for her. If she's to resolve what's gone wrong here, she must do it on her own initiative so we;re told, but in the end she doesn't, and it's this failing - this starting out like this will be a different and female-empowering story and then ending up just another sappy love story that turned me off . I can't recommend this one.