translated books

The Wildcat Behind Glass

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by Alki Zei
Translated by Karen Emmerich
First sentence: “Winter Sundays are the most boring days of all.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s a little long and talks bluntly about fascism. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

It’s 1936 in Greece and all Melia wants is to run and play, listen to their grandfather tell stories about his “ancients”, and hang out with her sister, Myrto. But, it’s 1936, and the adults are all concerned about the rise of fascism and the overthrowing of the king. It really doesn’t help when their older cousin Nikos ends up in hiding because he’s wanted by the government. Or, when, in the fall, they go to a public school for the first time (they were homeschooled before), and Myrto gets sucked into their school’s phalanx, which is kind of like the Hitler Youth Program. Melia doesn’t quite know how to process everything.

And, honestly, after finishing this book, neither do we. It was initially written in 1968, and you can feel that when reading it. It’s a lot of everyday stuff happening, and not a lot of conflict and resolution. In fact, the book just kind of ends, and peters off without any real resolution. (Well, spoiler: Nikos gets away, but that’s about it.) Also, a bone to pick with the marketing: the back reads as if the titular wildcat- a taxidermied cat in Melia’s house – was magical and took them on adventures. It’s not. I wanted it to be. But there is no magic adventures here. I think the author wanted to tell Nikos’s story, but someone told her that it would be better if you made a young girl the protagonist and so she did that. Nikos was a much more interesting (and less whiny!) character. Oh well.

At least it wasn’t terribly long.

Brightly Shining

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by Ingvild Rishøi (Author,  Caroline Waight (Translator)
First sentence: “Sometimes I think about Toyen.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: November 19, 2024
Content: There are four instances of the f-bomb, and some very bad parenting. It will be in the Christmas section of the bookstore.

Melissa and Ronja’s father can’t seem to hold a job. When he’s sober, things are going well, but all too often, he falls off the wagon and into the bottle again. This time, after he gets a job at a Christmas tree lot and ends up drinking again, Melissa decides to take matters into her own hands. She bargains with the miserly lot owner to take on her father’s job for him (and work off the big advance he took). That leaves Ronja alone, but she’s unhappy that way. So, she joins Melissa at the lot. Everything goes well… until it doesn’t.

Much like the Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Little Match Girl”, this one is hopelessly sad. It’s a reminder that not everyone gets magical Christmases and that there are those for whom the holiday is not wonderful. (And that some of those people are children.) There are brief moments of hope, and Ronja narrating the book helps, but it’s really just… sad.

The writing is gorgeous, though, and Rishoi knows how to be evocative. But, mostly, this was a bleak Christmas tale. Maybe it’s a reminder to be thankful you’re not spending your Christmas Eve under a tree in a tree lot, in the middle of a storm, with a drunk father who doesn’t even bother to come and find you.

So very sad.

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit

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by Nahoko Uehashi
translated by Cathy Hirano
First sentence: “At the moment the royal procession reached the Yamakage Bridge, Balsa’s destiny took an unexpected turn.”
Sadly, it’s out of print.
Content: There’s some fighting and the main character is 30. It’s in the teen section of the library.

Balsa is a warrior woman, who is a bodyguard for hire. She saved the life of the Second Crown Prince — he had fallen into a river — which lead her to her most recent job: guarding his life because the prince — Chagun — is carrying the water demon egg inside of him. His life is in danger, partly because his father, the Mikado, is supposed to have descended from the gods, and having a son with a demon egg inside of him isn’t the best thing for public morale. And there’s also the Rarunga — the egg eater — who will do everything it can to stop the egg from hatching.

Okay, that sounds really weird, doesn’t it?

Honestly, though, it worked. It’s a good little fantasy, ripe with adventure and fighting, mysticism, a bit of friendship-turned-romance (but just a small bit), and a crazy old lady. It was kind of like reading a novelization of a manga; not terribly linear with the storytelling, but entertaining nonetheless. Not sure I would have ever picked this up without the class I’m taking (and because this was one of a very few on the reading list; not many works in translation for kids are in my local library) but I’m not sorry that I read it. It was fun, in the end.

A Winter’s Promise

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winterspromiseby Christelle Dabos
Translated by Hildegarde Serle
First sentence: “It’s often said of old buildings that they have a soul.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: The main character is engaged, but other than that there’s nothing “objectionable” (at least that I read). It’s in the teen section (grades 9+) but if a 6-8th grader is interested, I’d give it to them.

When my rep for Europa pitched this book, the first thing I told him was “the cover is awful”. Yes, it fits with the other Europa titles, but, really: what kid is going to want to pick up this book?

But it’s a huge deal in France, he countered. And it’s supposed to be sweeping and epic. So I picked up a few for the store, if only to support Europa’s first foray into young adult fiction. And then I nominated it for the Cybils, so I’d force myself to read it.

And…

Well…

I’m sorry. It’s awful.

I liked Dabos’ world building: she’s imagined a world where there are a bunch of floating “arks” populated by different families with different magical skills. I really  liked our main character, Opheilia’s, magical skill at reading items — she can tell the history of the owner through their items, and she wears gloves so she doesn’t accidentally read other people’s histories without their permission. But, Opheila herself was a huge pushover. I think she was supposed to be cheerily mousy, but instead I just got annoyingly wimpy. She’s been given in an arranged marriage (arranged by the heads of her family, I assume?) to Thorn, who is from the Polar ark (I think), and whose family’s skill has to do with illusion. Except, once on their ark, Sophie finds out that everyone is at each other’s throat and she’s in the middle of it.

At this point, I was more than 200 pages into a nearly 500 page book, and I bailed. It was just going nowhere too slowly for me. The only thing that was holding my attention was the world, and there wasn’t enough of that to make me care enough to keep reading. (And I thought Rowling was overly wordy!) So, I bailed.

But, I suppose, if large, very French, fantasies are your thing, then this one will be perfect. They’re just not my thing.