Amulet, vol. 5
by Kazu Kibuishi
ages: 10+
First sentence: “You’ve never heard about the Great Erlking?”
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Others in the series:The Stonekeeper, The Stonekeeper’s Curse, The Cloud Searchers, The Last Council

To catch you up (this is as much for me as it is for you):

Emily and Navin’s father died in a car crash, and their mother has been kidnapped. They follow her into this strange world, and discover that their grandfather was a stonekeeper, a role that has passed on to Emily. In this world, the Elf King is a tyrannical ruler, someone who needs to be overthrown. Except he, too, is a stonekeeper, something which gives him unlimited power. It’s up to Emily, Navin, and the friends they collect to work together to overthrow the king.

Up until now, the books have been about Emily learning about her powers, and the kids making and collecting friends as part of the resistance. But (finally!), in this one, I felt like the plot was actually moving forward again. We’ve got an actual physical bad guy, rather than a distant one (kind of like the difference between Sauron and Saruman). We’ve got a battle. We’ve got a gorgeous two-page spread of a monster attacking a ship. (Seriously: it’s amazing.) We’ve got a backstory explaining how the Elf prince became exiled and how the bad guy became the bad guy. We’ve got (some) ANSWERS.

And, as always, my thoughts on the book are the same: gorgeously drawn, brilliantly plotted, and the next one can’t come out soon enough. (I think I need to break down and buy these!)