Princess of Glass

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by Jessica Day George
ages: 11+
First sentence: “‘Perfect,’, the Corley said, lips stretched wide in a smile.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy sent to me by the publisher.

Ah, fairy tale adaptations. Round whatever. In one corner: Cinderella. In the other corner: Jessica Day George’s newest. And how does the new book hold up against the original? Surprisingly, quite well.

It helps, I think, that this is a sequel, of sorts, to Princess of the Midnight Ball. Our main character is Princess Poppy, one of the sisters forced to dance through the night for the evil King Under Stone. In the aftermath of that, the various countries relations are falling apart, and Poppy’s father and King Rupert of Briton devise an exchange program. Poppy is sent to Breton, but not to stay in the castle. Instead Rupert invites Prince Christian of Danelaw to stay in the castle. And, then becomes obsessed about getting him married off, preferably to a Breton.

Poppy is a delightful character: not your typical princess (it’s best when they’re not, you know): she prefers to play cards and talk rather than dance, for obvious reasons. It makes going to balls uncomfortable, so she doesn’t have much opportunity to meet people. But meet Christian she does, and they fall into a nice, happy, casual relationship.

Enter Ellen. She was once nobility, but then her father got in over his head with gambling debts, her mother died, and then her father sold off everything and died himself. Left alone, she was force into being a maid in the house Poppy’s staying at. Which she was absolutely horrible at. Then The Corley contacted her, told her she was Ellen’s godmother, and offered to make her wishes come true. This is where the story takes some interesting twists; instead of wicked stepsisters, the readers dislike the Cinderella figure, especially as Ellen goes to the balls, upstaging both Poppy and her cousin Marianne. The only problem, I think, is that as Ellen goes in, under enchantment, to steal and get Christian to marry her, there isn’t much reason to not let her. Sure, Poppy and Christian are friends, but there’s not enough of an attachment to make the reader terribly worried.

On the other hand, one of the more interesting parts is watching Poppy — with the aid of some family friends — unravel The Corley’s enchantment, while finally coming to terms with the after-affects of her own. She’s singularly determined to make it work, and while the ending is a bit rushed, it does work.

Which is to say, this is one fairy tale adaptation that does its job quite well.

Where the Red Fern Grows

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by Wilson Rawls
ages: 10+
First sentence: “When I left my office that beautiful spring day, I had no idea what was in store for me.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

First things first: I didn’t cry at the end this time. That’s really the only thing I remember from the first time I came across this book. It was fourth grade (or maybe fifth), and I remember everyone (including the teacher) bawling at the end.

But, you know: it was sad, but not really a tear-jerker. Maybe it would have been if I’d read it out loud.

Some other things that struck me:

  • It has a mood much like the movie of the Snowman. It’s an older man, reflecting on his past, remembering something good — or eventful, a time that was better. Neither has a truly happy ending; it’s more bitter sweet, but then again, what childhood isn’t?
  • It’s really quite religious. Billy is convinced that God helped him get his dogs, and on other occasions he speaks of miracles and Divine guidance. Interesting. Not something I remembered.
  • You can’t help but love the dogs. I’m not necessarily the world’s biggest dog lover (they’re okay), but I was taken with Old Dan and Little Ann. Almost made me want to get a dog. Almost.
  • The amount of freedom and determination Billy had was amazing. Granted it’s a different time, but I’m sure my girls would love that amount of freedom to wander. On the other hand, poor Billy’s mom. She must have done some worrying and a lot of trusting.

There you have it: I’ve tackled one of the great classics. This time, it stood up to the test of time, and the reread. It wasn’t depressing, and it’s incredibly well-written: descriptive and evocative. Very, very good.

10 Questions for: Janette Rallison

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I’ve only recently discovered the happiness that is Janette Rallison’s books, and only because her editor, aka Tim the Bow Tied one, has up and sent them to me out of the blue (most recently, My Double Life), each time with a lovely little letter. I’m telling myself that I need to go read the ones I haven’t read, and I will. As soon as I get a spare moment… In the meantime, enjoy the interview.

MF: I’ve heard this story, but I’m not sure how widely it’s known: how did you come up with the idea for My Double Life? JR: My editor asked me to send him a dozen plot ideas so he could choose the storyline of my next book. The reason Putnam does this is that they don’t want their authors to inadvertently write the same kind of book.

I sent Tim (AKA The Bow Tied One) many well thought out and complete plot ideas. I also sent him a one line premise that I honestly don’t even remember writing: A girl who doubles for someone famous. That was the one he chose. So then I had to go about figuring out who this girl was and why she would want to double for someone famous.

MF: Your book has been accused by some people of being another book that “[seems to encapsulate a formula of romance novel plus high-concept commercial hook plus glamorama cover art.” What do you think makes your book stand out from the others?
JR: This book is definitely teen girl wish fulfillment. Who wouldn’t want to experience the celebrity life of fame, fortune, and a hot rock star boyfriend? But this book is also more than just that. If Alexia had only wanted to be Kari’s double so she could be rich and famous, it would have been a very shallow book. She wants the job because it will allow her to do the one thing she’s always wanted, and that is to find and meet her father. When you come right down to it, this book is really about family and how the choices we make affect others. Alexia isn’t searching for fame and money, she’s trying to figure out who she is.

MF: Very true. And because of that, I found that I adored Alexia throughout the book; she was just such a grounded, yet interesting, character. Do you have a favorite scene or character in the book? JR: I love a lot of scenes in this book. When you have two people who look alike in a story, it’s almost a mandate that you’ve got to have a funny scene where they’re in the same place with people who can’t know there are two of them. But my favorite scene is the one where Alexia finally meets her father. I nearly cried when I wrote it.

MF: How long did this book take from conception to publication?
JR: It took a year for me to write the manuscript and go through three drafts of revisions. Then it was about a year more until it came out in stores. It’s always a long process, but that’s for the best—it gives you more time to catch your mistakes. I’m working on the sequel to My Fair Godmother right now and the publisher is rushing to get it out next winter so it’s only going through one set of revisions—which scares me to death. I know I won’t catch all the problems.

MF: What kind of research did you do for this book (assuming, of course, that you’re not a rock star’s body double)? JR: I’m always amazed at the amount of research it takes to write contemporary novels. For this one I was constantly calling West Virginia (where the novel starts off and finishes) to find out details like: What floor is the housekeeping office located in the Waterfront Park Hotel? And do people in West Virginia have sprinklers in their lawns? But the hardest things to find out were the stuff about celebrities’ schedules, employees, and fees. You can’t call up Hollywood people to ask those kinds of questions. Hollywood is like the homecoming queen of cities and she avoids meeting your gaze in the hallway and ignores you when you say, “Hi.” I had to comb through a lot of reality and entertainment shows to find out the information I needed. Also, Taylor Swift had her schedule on her website. I lifted her schedule and used it for my character.

MF: So, since the book revolves around rock stars, have you put together any kind of playlist? Or picked a theme song for the book? JR: I don’t usually do playlists although there is always a song or two that remind me of the story for some reason. For this one I have two: Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me—partially because I envisioned Kari as a cross between Taylor Swift and Jessica Simpson—but also because during the music video Taylor puts on a brown wig and it completely changes her looks. I had wondered if just changing Alexia’s hair from brown to blond would be a dramatic enough change—but after watching that music video I stopped worrying. I couldn’t tell she played both the nice girl and the mean cheerleader. I’m sure Taylor did that just to make me feel better about my book. Thanks Taylor!

The second song is Missing Me Crazy by Jonnie and Brookie. It’s a little known, but great song. As soon as I heard it, I knew I wanted it for my book trailer because the words are so perfect. The lyrics say: “You’d be missing me crazy if you only knew my name.” That’s Alexia’s problem. Her rock idol boyfriend doesn’t even know her real name. Can it be true love if your boyfriend thinks you’re someone else—someone rich and famous?

MF: You’re a mom of five kids, correct? How do you juggle writing with being a mom? How to you find time to write? JR: Now that my kids are all in school, it’s a lot easier, but it used to be that I would only write during nap time. I would only get a page or two written every day—but those pages add up and I could get a book published every year.

MF: Who, or what, inspires your writing?
JR: My kids inspire my writing. When I was writing the sequel to My Fair Godmother, every day my daughter came home from school she asked what I’d written on the story. Then she would go read it off the computer and tell me to write faster. I’ve also had moms tell me that their daughters will only read my books, and not too long ago at a signing a girl told me that it was my books that taught her to love reading. You can’t get a better compliment than that.

MF: Are there five books that you think everyone should read?
JR: No, there are ten—all of my books. Oh, you meant besides mine? Some of my all time favorites are: The Princess Bride; The Phantom Tollbooth; Pride and Prejudice; The Amulet of Samarkand; and Hunger Games.

MF: If you don’t mind me asking, what can we expect next from you?
JR: I’ve got a plethora of books I’m working on. (Which is why my house is a mess, weeds are taking over the backyard, and it’s been so long since I got my Westie’s hair cut that she looks like the abominable snow dog.) I’m finishing up the revisions for My Unfair Godmother, then I have to do revisions on a dragon book I’ll be doing under a pen name (Don’t worry, I’ll let everybody know about it when it comes out.) Then I have to finish a paranormal romance that I’m 200 pages into, and I have to write another book for Putnam. (I will not be sending one sentence premises this time!) And I have to get all that done this year. (Sigh, the poor house, yard and dog.)

MF: Thanks, Janette, for your time!

48 Hour Book Challenge: Wrap Up

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And… I’m done!

Starting time: 7:35 a.m. Friday
Ending time: 7:35 a.m. Sunday
Books read: 6, plus one graphic novel of a play, plus finishing one I had started before, and starting one that I’ll finish later.
Time spent reading: 19
Time spent blogging/on social media: 3 hours 45 minutes
Total time: 22 hours, 45 minutes (I should have read for 15 more minutes!)

How does it stack up to last year? Read less time — but then I discovered that it really does make a difference to have Hubby and M around; while they were gone, I only read 2 hours and blogged for a half hour. My time didn’t really start ticking up yesterday until they got back. But I read more books — I chose shorter ones, and didn’t read any adult books for the challenge this time.

I also realized that starting the challenge after having a bad night’s sleep (K went into the emergency room on Thursday night for stitches; she’s doing just fine, but I didn’t get to bed until late) makes a big difference in how I managed the rest of the challenge. My brain got fried, and I’m not sure that’s happened in the past.

That said, it was fun, as always. Thanks, Pam!

Ash

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by Malinda Lo
ages: 13+
First sentence: “Aisling’s mother died at midsummer.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy picked up at KidlitCon 09

Aisling lives in a world where there are fairies, but the belief in them — that they are dangerous, that they even exist — is waning. There’s still tales, healing women called greenwitches, and people who generally believe in both. But, the belief is fading.

Aisling also has lost both her parents, and, because of her father’s death, is forced to be a servant in her step-mother’s home. (Yes, this should sound familiar.) She has been moved away from her own home, to the south of the country, near the king’s City. Whenever she can — which isn’t often — she sneaks away to walk in the woods. Which is where she meets the fairy Sidhean, developing an interesting, if somewhat uncomfortable — she mostly just wants him to take her away from her miserable life, but he says it’s not time — friendship with him.

Then she meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress. It takes time, it creeps upon Ash slowly, but she eventually finds a reason to live. And a will to love. Except that, to get there, she indentures herself to Sidhean (he plays the role of fairy godmother). And the trick is, figuring out what she really wants.

There is much good going on in this retelling of Cinderella. It’s similar enough to the fairy tale that you can recognize it for what it is. But Lo has created a world that is unique on it’s own, from the weaving in of original fairy tales and folk wisdom, to the twists on the love story. In a sense, it does try to do too much: is it a story about the repercussions getting involved with the fairy, or is it a story about a girl realizing that she can, and does, love another woman? It’s really both, and while it worked for me last night, it does seem to undermine each of the story lines. The ending in particular, while it was satisfying and the “right” ending, the getting there seemed a bit rushed.

It is a good book, well-written and well-paced: a excellent first novel, even with the drawbacks.

Manga Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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by William Shakespeare/drawn by Kate Brown
ages: adult
First sentence: “Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I decided to take a little break from fantasy novels and read this… fantasy play. Actually, C was looking through and pointed out that it’s essentially the worlds first chick flick. Very true. Romance, silliness, and everyone gets the guy in the end.

My opinion hasn’t changed in the three years since I read it last. It’s all a bunch of silliness. Oberon’s a bit of a jerk (in fact, most of the men are). It’s still better seen, rather than read, but reading it in Manga form was fun. The drawings were interesting — a cross between ancient Greece and modern (they were wearing togas AND ties). It was a little disconcerting: it’d have been nice if Brown had decided which to choose. But on the other hand, it worked with the silliness of the play; it was almost if they couldn’t decide what on earth to do with themselves. But, it wasn’t too distracting. I did wish it were in color, though. But that’s just me.

Not as good as seeing the play, but it works. I’m finding I like Manga Shakespeare. It’s a good way to access the plays.

Silver on the Tree

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by Susan Cooper
ages: 10+
First sentence: “Will said, turning a page, ‘He liked woad.'”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

This is one of those high fantasy novels, replete with adventure and magic and time travel. It’s got every single person (practically) that we’ve met over the course of the sequence, playing various roles towards a ultimate end. It’s got a Tolkienesque feel — what with swords glowing blue and a Grey Havens bit at the end, not to mention a Quest to end all quests and a Battle to end all battles (though Cooper’s not as bloody as Tolkien). It’s a perfect ending to the series.

But — and maybe this is time and exhaustion talking here — it’s really not as good as some of the other books in the sequence. There were some bits that I liked, sure: particularly Will and Bran’s quest into the Lost Land to get the crystal sword of the Pendragon (if you had any questions about how this fits into the Arthurian legend, Cooper answers them). That was a nice section, replete with high magic, and where Will was mostly operating on his own wits rather than relying on the power of the Old Ones. But, I felt like there was almost too much. Most of the characters were underdeveloped; it seemed that Cooper was relying on what we had learned of the characters rather than giving us anything new about them. It was also disconcerting when some of the minor characters up and changed on us; not drastically, but enough to make me scratch my head. This was more plot-driven, and yet the plot seemed disjointed. It was episodic, and yes it was leading up to a great whole, but the ending seemed rushed and unfulfilling. If you blinked, you would miss it; it was an excuse to get to the denouement, which Cooper seemed much more interested in.

That said, it’s a good series, a grand bit of myth and folklore and magic. If you haven’t read it, you should.

The Grey King

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by Susan Cooper
ages: 10+
First sentence: “‘Are you awake, Will?'”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Things that struck me while reading this book:

1. That this really is, so far, the tightest — and best (don’t shoot me; it’s better, in many ways, than The Dark is Rising) — of the series. It definitely deserves the Newbery sticker it sports.

2. I like how, so far, each book has a season: Over Sea, Under Stone is summer; The Dark is Rising is winter (which explains its moodiness); Greenwitch is spring; this one is autumn. It has a very autumnal feel to it. That mood is not as strong as the winter one, but it’s still very palpable, and still very there.

3. I like that Merriman is not really there. Yes, he does make an appearance, but it’s Will — and the Welsh boy, Bran — that really do all the work of the plot. It’s nice, for once, to see Will in his own element, exercising his own powers, without the guidance (or interference of Merriman).

4. The Arthurian legends are implied in the previous books — if you know they’re there, you’ll see it — but it’s explicit by this one, especially by the end. I liked that.

5. It bothers me that the cover has on it figures that don’t show up until the last chapter, and even then, don’t really do much of anything. Though, since there’s really no description as to what the Grey King looks like, and a picture of a mountain would be too boring, I guess this is what the designers are left with.

6. I like how Cooper uses prophecy: she writes one out, and it’s there guiding the book, influencing the book, but it’s not heavy-handed. You usually don’t notice she’s jumped you through a hoop of the prophecy until after the fact. That’s some good writing there.

It’s a good book; I like it as much, if not more, than The Dark is Rising, and I’m kicking myself for not realizing it sooner. It would also make a good stand alone: Cooper includes the most necessary information from the previous books (but it doesn’t weigh the book down), and while it’s always nice to read the whole series, this one would work well all by itself.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Halfway

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Just a quick check-in at the halfway point.

The stats:
Finished: 3 books (plus one that I had started before, but am not counting, and I’m 1/2 through The Grey King)
Read: about 10 hours
Blogged/Social Networking (I’m lumping them, since the bulk of my time is officially blogging): 1 1/2 hours

Total time (this is accurate): 11 hours 35 minutes.

I’m hoping to get at least 9 and a half hours today. Hopefully, I’ll get more, but since Hubby’s out of town this morning, I may not. Crossing fingers, though.

Greenwitch

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by Susan Cooper
ages: 10+
First sentence: “Only one newspaper carried the story in detail, under the headline: Treasures Stolen from Museum.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I found as I read this one last night, that I remembered it more than any of the others (save Dark is Rising). I think, upon reflection (such as it is right now), that it’s because Jane is the most crucial to the plot. She doesn’t do the most — that’s fairly equally distributed among the boys — but she is essential to the arc of the story in a way she wasn’t in Over Sea, Under Stone. And I liked that.

The Drew kids are back in Trewissick, mostly because the Grail (which they had found only the summer before) has been stolen. They know it’s the Dark that did it, because Merriman (or Great-uncle Merry; though Cooper stops calling him that about halfway through the book) is suddenly around again to solicit their help. Except this time, Will Stanton is along for the ride. There’s your usual twists and turns and adventures, but they all seemed a bit subdued (or was it me, reading this late at night?) compared to the previous two books. Barney gets captured by the Dark (again), Simon’s a bit bristly, Will is still his Old self (which puts both Barney and Simon off, the why of which I never quite figured out), Merriman still lurks and guides, and Jane — seemingly insignificant Jane — saves the day.

It’s partially up to Jane because the title character, the Greenwitch, is a local Cornish tradition that only women can participate in. And because of a wish Jane made, a nice unselfish wish (I could get into women’s roles here, and how it’s stereotypical for the girl to be unselfish, but I won’t; mostly because I’m not quite awake), she’s the one the Greenwich turns to, once the magic sets in.

It wasn’t as dull as I found Over Sea, Under Stone to be, mostly because it’s a lot thinner, and the plot moves more quickly. And, for some reason, because Will is mostly a side character here. I actually found I liked this book. And now, on to the next one.