Archive for February, 2008
Monday, February 18th, 2008
The Great God Pan, by Donna Jo Napoli
Donna Jo Napoli is a linguistics professor at Swarthmore College, and she writes children’s books. Over the last few years, she’s been retelling fairy tales and myths in a group of short novels for middle-grade or YA readers, including retellings of Beauty and the Beast (Beast), Rapunzel (Zel), and the legend of the Sirens (Sirena). [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in book reviews, children's lit, fantasy by Stephanie
Friday, February 15th, 2008
Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine
Levine, as many readers of children’s fantasy know, is the author of Ella Enchanted, a Newbery Honor book that got turned into a wholly inaccurate movie starring Anne Hathaway. One of the minor characters in that book and movie, named Areida (played by Parminder Nagra), is the sister of the main character in Fairest — [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in book reviews, children's lit, fantasy by Stephanie
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
The Trouble with Kings, by Sherwood Smith
[Happy V-Day to all (two of) my readers! --Stephanie]
Sherwood Smith is one of my favorite authors, both for her writing in novels and her writing in her blog. She’s been posting random excerpts on her personal website (see sidebar) for many years, and a long time ago I remembered reading an excerpt that involved a [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in book reviews, fantasy by Stephanie
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
The Amulet of Samarkand (Bartimaeus Trilogy, book 1), by Jonathan Stroud
Stroud is apparently better known as a horror writer than as a children’s author, but his YA trilogy about an alternate England and a boy magician has been quite popular. This book, and its two sequels, form the Bartimaeus Trilogy, and I’ve got it on good authority (IMDb) that at least the first book is [...]
5 Comments » - Posted in book reviews, children's lit, fantasy by Stephanie
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner
This novel, a 1997 Newbery Honor Book, is the first in a trilogy about a semi-Grecian world. There isn’t a lot of magic, but there are gods, and it’s set in a time that never was, so it occupies that misty land between fantasy and children’s literary fiction. If you wanted, you could call it [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in book reviews, children's lit, fantasy by Stephanie
Monday, February 11th, 2008
Midnight Alley (Morganville Vampires, Book 3) by Rachel Caine
This, the third entry in the Morganville Vampires series, follows Glass Houses (here) and The Dead Girls’ Dance (here). The books all follow Claire Danvers, age almost seventeen, as she starts college at Texas Prairie University, in Morganville, TX. In the first two books, we learned that the city of Morganville is completely run [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews, children's lit, fantasy by Stephanie
Friday, February 8th, 2008
Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, Book 1), by Richelle Mead
Richelle Mead is a relative newcomer in the Urban Fantasy field (as she labels her works), but she’s got three books out already and will have five out before the end of this year. Vampire Academy is the first in her Vampire Academy series; it’s also her only YA-intended work to date. The author describes [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in book reviews, children's lit, fantasy by Stephanie
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Heat Stroke (Weather Wardens, Book 2), by Rachel Caine
This, the sequel to last Thursday’s Ill Wind, follows within a day from where the first book leaves off. Considering book 1 ends with a cliffhanger, I appreciated this. If you’ll recall, Joanne Baldwin lives in a world with Wardens who keep the weather and other geological processes from killing us. Due to the fact [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in book reviews, fantasy by Stephanie
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1), by Scott Westerfeld
Scott Westerfeld is an American, married to Justine Larbalestier, who is Australian, and they split their time between the two countries (and a few others). Uglies is certainly not his first book, but it appears to be the most popular (or part of the most popular series) at the moment.
Tally Youngblood is just a few [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in book reviews, children's lit, science fiction by Stephanie
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Promises to Keep, by Charles de Lint
This novel is a slender volume (under 200 pages) published by Subterranean Press, a small specialty publisher that has been putting out amazing editions of de Lint’s older works and collections of his short stories. If you have never seen a Subterranean Press edition, I’d recommend finding or buying one. They’re amazing, from the full-cloth [...]
