Snow

Snow by Tracy Lynn

Ok, I read this one a REALLY LONG time ago and have never gotten around to reviewing it, despite how much I liked it.

This is part of Simon and Schuster's wonderful Once Upon a Time... series (I wish they'd do more of these!) and takes on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Jessica's father is devastated when his wife dies in childbirth. Not only is he heartbroken, but the surviving baby is a girl, leaving him without an heir.

When he remarries, the new duchess comes to hate her step-daughter, driven to madness by the fear that her only value to society is her beauty--something that's fading as she ages.

Jessica flees to London where she meets up with an unlikely band of creatures-- humans that are part animal, and a Clockwork Man, and it takes a pretty awesome turn to steampunk. But even in London, she is not safe from her stepmother or the allure of the comforts of her old life.

This is what I remember about the book-- the "dwarves" are super cool. I love Victorian Steampunk London as a setting. I loved the way the Duchess's treachery manifested itself-- very, very cool.

Book Provided by... my wallet

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Scarlet

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

When I reviewed Cinder, my main comment was:

My big complaint is that I figured out all the twists about 1/3 of the way through. However, I liked the world enough that I kept reading. Only to find that nothing really resolves, the stage just gets set for the next big adventure.

Some of that "no resolving" is still true. I think this series will end up more like being one long book instead of four separate ones. The world-building and politics involved just keep getting MORE awesome and I did not figure out everything going on with this one.

You guys, it's sooooooooooooooooooooo cooooooooooooooool. We have a few storylines going on here--

1. Scarlet's grandmother has disappeared and the police have closed the case, refusing to see the foul play that Scarlet does, so it's up to Scarlet to find her. She gets help from a street fighter called Wolf.
2. Cinder has escaped from jail with an annoying American who happens to own a spaceship, which is helpful. Of course, the spaceship is stolen, which is why he was in jail in the first place.
3. Queen Levana is not happy about Cinder's escape and gives Emperor Kai three days to find her and hand her over. Kai doesn't understand what the queen wants with her, and grapples with his own feelings at betrayal at Cinder being a Lunar. But he must do what he can to stop a Earth/Luna war, which Earth would surely lose.

I love that Cinder put Iko's personality chip in the spaceship. I love Iko's take at suddenly being a ship. (Also, the ship is called the Rampion, and the next book is Cress which both make me think Rapunzel, but Rapunzel with a spaceship? Very, very intriguing.)

Scarlet lives in France, so we get to see more of Meyer's futuristic world, and get a broader sense of the international politics at play, as well as more the Luna threat.

Cinder is learning to use her Lunar mind-control and glamor gifts, but they always make her feel squeamy and guilty. Until she uses them, which just feels right. This is an interesting issue and I'm curious to see where it goes.

This one also has a lot more action-- more fights, more jumping from trains, more crazy spaceship rides, just a lot more action and movement than Cinder does.

While the immediate story gets (some) resolution, it really just opened up many more questions. This world is so intriguing and Meyer's take on fairy tales is so fresh, I really can't wait for the next one.

Book Provided by... my local library

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The Rumpelstiltskin Problem

The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde

A few years ago, the blogosphere was excited about, and in love with, Vande Velde's Cloaked in Red, a book thta poked all the holes in the story of Little Red Riding Hood and then filled them in and new and interesting ways. It's a fantastic book.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I was in the stacks and discovered that Cloaked in Red was not the first time she had done this! The Rumpelstiltskin Problem came out in 2001 and takes a good, hard look at the many, many holes in this story.

1. Why the #%$! would the miller tell the king his daughter could spin straw into gold?
2. Why did the king believe him? If she really could, wouldn't the miller and his daughter be super rich?
3. If Rumplestiltskin could spin straw into gold, why would he accept a simple gold ring as payment for creating a lot more gold than that?
4. Why would the miller's daughter agree to marry a guy who kept threatening to behead her?
5. If someone is guessing your name, why are you dancing around a campfire singing it loudly?


Vande Velde has many possible explanations-- a troll who just wants to eat a baby. A father and king who've had a little too much to drink. An ugly, bitter woman who is lonelier than anything. A queen who just wants the king to notice their daughter...

Short, fun, and thought-provoking, you'll never look at the story of Rumplestiltskin again.

I do, however, wish they had kept the paperback cover. It's a little young, but must more appealing.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Beauty and the Beast: The Only One Who Didn't Run Away

Beauty and the Beast, the Only One Who Didn't Run Away Wendy Mass

I was so excited to see that Mass's Twice Upon a Time series was getting a reboot-- new covers and releases for the old ones that were out-of-print AND a third book for the series. For those unfamiliar, this series takes fairy tales and retells them, but gives us both sides of the story, with the guy and the girl getting alternating chapters.

Beauty's story starts off more or less the same as always. A girl named Beauty who is smart and resourceful, but not beautiful. A spoiled and silly sister (although her sister was ditzy and shallow, she's also really nice and always has the best intentions.) The Prince is a bit different. He's the younger son and interested in chemistry, astronomy, and the bagpipes, but not balls and court life. Their family comes across an evil fairy, gives the youngest some good natured ribbing and poof! He's a beast and they're all invisible.

But, before the two meet, Beauty and some friends have to go on a quest. In fact, there's so much set-up and Beauty's odd quest storyline that the two don't actually meet until page 212, and there's only 282 pages in the entire book. The quest does vaguely relate, as it involves the same evil fairy but, overall, it felt like that was a separate story for a separate book.

Also, it was a bit insta-love-y. While insta-love is a frequent complaint in fairy tales and romances, I've never seen it happen before in Beauty and the Beast. Maybe it should get a pass, because if you insta-love with the Beast, it's because you stayed up all night talking and you do rather like the insides, rather than the hotttt outsides, but insta-love is still insta-love.

That said, I loved the comic relief the Beast's invisible family provided. Especially as the invisible queen kept chiding her husband that just because they were invisible didn't mean he didn't have to wear pants. Or shower. Also, older brothers who are invisible are that much more annoying. I liked Beauty and her sister and I liked the touch that Clarissa was a good person, even if she was a bit preoccupied with shiny objects.

So, overall, it was fun and I'm still glad the series is back and I do really hope for more installments, but this was not my favorite.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Enchanted

Enchanted Alethea Kontis

This is one that came across my radar on Amazon last winter. Fairy tale retelling! YAY! Of course I wanted to read it.

Then the reviews started coming in and they all said it was really, really good. They said it was awesome. There was a lot of hype for me when I picked up this book.

Look, y’all, I know you said it was awesome, but OMG IT IS EVEN AWESOMER THAN YOU LED ME TO BELIEVE.

Monday’s child is fair of face
Tuesday’s child is full of grace
Wednesday’s child is full of woe
Thursday’s child has far to go
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath day
Is blithe and bonny and good and gay.

Sunday can see how the rhyme is true for her sisters, but “blithe and bonny and good and gay” feels more like a curse than anything. Sunday’s not dark and gloomy like Wednesday, but she’s not ALWAYS happy. There is more she yearns for than her too-full house, built around a doorless tower that has an uncanny resemblance to a shoe.

Then she meets Grumble, a talking (enchanted) frog. She’s not around when her kiss does its thing, so she doesn’t see that the man he turns into is the Prince, a man despised by her family. In order to see Sunday again, to get her to know him as a man and not just a frog, the newly returned Prince Rumbold decides to hold 3 balls, inviting every eligible girl in the land...

*whew* how many fairy tales and nursery rhymes did you pick out in that brief introduction? Because there are even more. Some are major, and some are minor but all are deftly woven together in something much, much more.

For Arilland is a kingdom where faerie blood runs through the veins of many. Where immortality is a dark seductress of the wealthy and two faeries, Joy and Sorrow, have played with other’s lives for far too long. And Sunday is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, Joy and Sorrow are her aunts, and Sorrow is Rumbold’s faerie godmother...

Sunday and Rumbold each have secrets in their past that they need to discover and wrongs that need to be righted before things can work out.

It’s so well done and perfectly paced. There is so much going on without it ever being cluttered or confusing. I want so much more about this family and this world (Thursday is a Pirate Queen-- surely there is more to be told!) And Sunday is so wonderful. She’s the right balance of strength and weakness, of confidence and doubt. She’s so real and believable.

I also LOVED the omnipresent 3rd person narrative. The focus shifted between Sunday and Rumbold without being too much in their heads and it worked so well. We don’t see a lot of 3rd person in YA and when we do it’s usually 3rd person limited, but 3rd person omnipresent is the *perfect* choice for this. We need to see what’s going on in the cottage and in the castle.

You guys, not only did this live up to the hype, it blew the hype away.

I know you said it was awesome, but it was even better than that.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Cinder

Cinder Marissa Meyer

Cinder is a cyborg-- a cross between android and human. She's a rarity and a freak, and hides her robotic parts when she can. She's also the best mechanic in New Beijing and the main source of income for her family. A large part of this story is Cinderella (Because you couldn't guess from the title.) The other part involves the Queen of the Moon (who is way freaky and evil) coming to Earth to attempt to marry the prince and TAKE OVER THE WORLD. There are missing princesses, a deadly plague, creepy medical testing, a lot of questionable motives and alliances, PLUS! Evil stepmother + ball.

New Beijing is the capital of the Eastern Commonwealth, which seems to include all of Asia. As such, there is a mish-mash of Asian touches-- a character with the last name of Nguyen (Vietnamese) and a street called Sakura (Japanese). This is TOTALLY on purpose-- as the capital of all of Asia, of course different Asian cultures would blend in this way. As someone who's used to seeing bad Chinese settings, it initially set off some warning bells until I could talk myself down. But that's totally my own issue. I think Meyer was very deliberate in how she combined cultures and created a whole new world.

My big complaint is that I figured out all the twists about 1/3 of the way through. However, I liked the world enough that I kept reading. Only to find that nothing really resolves, the stage just gets set for the next big adventure.

Several people have complained that there's not a lot of spark between Cinder and Prince Kai. There's not. There's some "oo hot guy that I oddly respond to" but no swoon or insta-love. I'm ok with that, because it's not like we're being TOLD that they lurve each other and not seeing it. They're attracted to each other but don't really know each other and I can see this turning into a slow burn that ratchets up over the next few books.

BUT! I loved the world building. I loved the politics. I loved Kai being unexpectedly thrust into power and having no good solutions or answers to very big problems facing his people. Plus, it's a fairy tale retelling. You know how I love those. The titles of the next 3 books have already been announced-- Scarlet, Cress, and Winter. I have ideas where those names come from based on this story, but I'm also hoping for Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow Queen. Too bad we have to wait until 2013.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Cinderella (as if you didn't already know the story)

Cinderella (As If You Didn't Already Know the Story) Barbara Ensor

The cover also claims that this is "a quick read for smart girls." And it is. It's a pretty straight-forward telling of Cinderella, stretched into 112 pages and heavily illustrated with paper cut-outs.

I really liked Ensor's Thumbelina: Tiny Runaway Bride. But this one didn't resonate with me the same way. I wanted a little more from it. The voice and the use of paper cut-out illustrations reminds one of a less-whimsical Lauren Child. There's a slight snark there that I think, if it had been brought out more, could have made this book really hilarious and something very awesome.

Not that there's anything wrong with it as it is. It's perfectly lovely. I especially liked that there was a chapter AFTER the Prince finds her and a little bit about variations on the story from around the world. But, in the end, it's a very basic Cinderella without much added to it.

I do like the cut-outs though.


Book Provided by... my local library

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WIldwood Dancing

A review that originally ran in the Edge of the Forest:

Wildwood Dancing Juliet Marillier

Jena and her four sisters live in a Transylvanian castle, on the edge of the Wildwood. Villagers have always told stories about the Wildwood and who lives there. Jena has seen them herself—that awful day, years ago, when the creatures in the deadwash took her cousin. She also sees them every full moon when she and her sisters joint the fairy court for their revels. But this is a hard winter. Jena’s father has taken ill and gone to the coast, leaving Jena in charge of the household and his business. Jena’s cousin, Cezar, starts taking over, slowly but surely wresting all control from Jena, leaving the family completely at his mercy.

In the Other Kingdom, Night People have come to the valley. Jena’s older sister, Tati, has fallen in love with one of them and is wasting away. Cezar is growing suspicious of the sisters’ relationship with the Wildwood and threatens to embark on a campaign to destroy it, and all who live there. Old promises are coming due, and and it’s going to take all of Jena’s strength and courage to see her family to spring.

A wonderful and complex retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Marillier has kept the feel of Transylvanian folk lore and written an excellent addition to the genre. It is sure to be enjoyed by fans of such books as Robin McKinley’s Beauty and Shannon Hale’s Goose Girl. It also includes excellent historical notes, as well as a glossary and pronunciation guide.

Updated to add: This might be my favorite fairy tale retelling ever. It's more than just Twelve Dancing Princesses, but telling you the other story involved is a massive spoiler. It's so lushly done and Mariller adds so much to the story, it's so much more than just Twelve Dancing Princesses and there is real meat to this story, especially with the power struggle between Jena and Cezar. I can't go on enough about how well done this is.

Book Provided by... Edge of the Forest, for review.

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A Tale Dark and Grimm

A Tale Dark and Grimm Adam Gidwitz

Once upon a time, fairy tales were awesome.

I know, I know. You don't believe me. I don't blame you. A little while ago, I wouldn't have believed it myself. Little girls in red caps skipping around the forest? Awesome? I don't think so.

But then I started to read them. The real, Grimm ones. Very little girls in red caps in those.

Well, there's one. But she gets eaten.

So begins Gidwitz's tale. He retells some of Grimm's more obscure fairy tales but manages to string them together in one over-arching coherent narrative. The main way he does this is by casting the same kids in each tale-- Hansel and Gretel and what happens after they escape from the witch.

Throughout, the narrator frequently breaks in with warnings to send little kids out of the room and help hints on German pronunciation or other commentary on the story.

It works really, really well as a package. Gidwitz (obviously) keeps in all the blood and gore* and the humor of the narrative interjections really help balance it out so it's not completely bleak and violent.

I really liked how the stories combined to make one story. It wasn't nearly as episodic as it sounds (or could have been). Hand this one to your older fans of fairy tales or those who think that fairy tales are all about pink, glittery princesses. If nothing else, there is a bloody sword on the cover! That should garner a few fairy tale converts.


*Of course, what doesn't get discussed is that although the original Grimm versions are much more dark and violent than the ones we tend to tell children today, the Grimms did a fair amount of sanitizing of the stories as they collected them!

Book Provided by... my local library

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Reckless

Reckless Cornelia Funke

Jacob and Will grew up with an absent father and a mother who slipped into deep depression after her husband disappeared. Shortly after his father's disappearance, Jacob found the mirror that led him into another world. However, this world is changing from one populated by fox spirits, gingerbread houses, and other fairy tale tropes. Our world is coming in with trains and machinery. To top it off, the Goyl have come from the underground and are fighting a war with the Empresses--a war she can never win.

As the years have passed, Jacob has spent more and more time in the mirror world, leaving the pain and misery of his life in our world behind. Until, one day, Will follows him. Before Jacob can get him back, they're attacked by Goyl and now Will is turning into one of them. Jacob, Will, Will's girlfriend Clara, and a fox spirit called Fox are now on a mission that will take them to witche's houses, faerie islands, dwarf cities and the heart of the Goyl kingdom itself, all in an attempt to save Will before it is too late.

It's an exciting adventure with many recognizable characters and settings, but Funke manages to make them different than what we'd expect. There is a princess asleep in a tower, but she's covered in dust, her dress is faded and old-fashioned, and her skin has gone dry and papery over the centuries.

But, what I really appreciated about this book was the structure. We get to Will in the mirror-world very quickly (page 8). The back story of how the boys grew up, of how mirror world is changing, of the Goyl and their war, of Jacob's exploits, they're all told in bits and pieces strung through the adventure. It's a life we get to piece together with deeper meanings as we follow Jacob's quest to save his brother-- the only thing tying him to our world.

It was dark and wonderful.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Grimm Legacy

The Grimm Legacy Polly Shulman

After writing a paper on the Grimms for history class, Elizabeth gets a job as a page at the New York Circulating Repository Library. This library circulates objects instead of books-- Elizabethan clothing or Marie Antoinette's wig. It's an odd assortment of collections, but what's really interesting are the special collections on the lowest level. There lies the Grimm collection-- with the magic mirror from Snow White, mermaid combs, seven league boots, or twelve sets of worn out dancing slippers.*

The problem is that many magical items have recently been flat-out stolen or replaced with fakes. A large bird is stalking users and employees of the Repository. When suspicion starts to fall on the pages (although the pages themselves are starting to go missing) Elizabeth and her new friends are out to uncover the mystery because it becomes deadly.

I loved the library and the mystery. I liked Elizabeth's friendship with Anjali and while I found Aaron's jealousy of Marc a bit annoying (especially how it spilled over into everything Aaron did) I liked that it was there. If that makes sense. I liked the real-world applications of many of the fairy tale items (using seven league boots to get from school to work to day care to pick up your brother? Excellent!)

I also really liked how Elizabeth had an distant father and a horrible step-family, but it didn't play up the Cinderella parallels. It was more there to provide context as to why she was so gung-ho about her job (before discovering the Grimm collection, I mean, once you discover that, that's enough reason to spend all your time at work, right?)

It's a great adventure with a bit of romance, an awesome little sister, and a lot of magic. Very much love.



*It's also where you have such things as the Wells collection (shrink rays and time machines) The Gibson Chrestomathy (computer viruses, artificial intelligence) and the Lovecraft Corpus (it's just bad news. Don't go there.)

Oh, a note on tags. Usually if something is "YA" or "Juvenile" I just tag it with where it's shelved at the library I work at. Many libraries have this in the kid's section. SLJ and Booklist both list this as Grades 6-9, which I very much agree with, so I'm tagging it YA, even though that's not where any of my local libraries shelve it. Not that it's inappropriate for kids (there's some kissing) but the main characters are all in high school and I think it'll just appeal more to the younger end of YA, rather than the older end of J.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Cloaked in Red

Cloaked in Red Vivian Vande Velde

From the introduction (after several hilarious pages deconstructing "Little Red Riding Hood"

Okay, think about this. What makes a good story?

1. Memorable characters

We've got a mother, Little Red Riding Hod, a wolf, a grandmother, and a woodcutter. It's hard to call characters memorable when the only one who has a name is, in fact, named after apparel that nobdoy wears anymore.

2. Vivid setting

The woods. Okay, are we talking Amazon rain forest here or a couple of trees in someone's backyard? It's sloppy storytelling if we aren't given enough information to picture where our memorable characters are.

3. Exciting plot

Try submitting a story to your creative writing teacher in which the main character bumbles cluelessly throughout the story, then gets rescued by another character who was never mentioned before. Go ahead and keep your fingers crossed for a passing grade.

4. Important themes--something about the subject to captivate our imaginations and connect with those who read the story.

It's hard to determine the theme of "Little Red Riding Hood." Don't go into the woods? Don't talk to animals who are capable of talking back? If you're going to make fun of your grandmother's appearance, make sure it truly is your grandmother and not a wolf who likes to dress in old-ladies' clothes?

However you look at it, "Little Red Riding Hood" is a strange and disturbing story that should probably not be shared with children.

That is why I've gone ahead and written eight new versions of it.

And eight wonderful new versions is what Vande Velde gives us. We have sinister wood cutters and bumbly blind ones. We have girls in the wood who are unsure of themselves and those who know exactly what they are doing. We have wolves of hunger, friendly wolves, werewolves, and wolves made of rags. We have cloaks that are smarter than their owners, cloaks that are altogether the wrong shade of red, and even one that is actually green.

Vande Velde takes us through several versions of the story, all of which make a lot more sense than the original. It's often funny and at times a bit scary. Each story focuses on a different aspect of the story-- Red's family, the woodcutter, grandmother, the wolf, the cloak... all with excellent results.

I love Vande Velde's take on the issues with the original and her ideas on how to fix the story. I enjoyed every version and this is a must-read for fairy tale fans.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Thirteenth Princess

The Thirteenth Princess Diane Zahler

This is a slightly different take on the fairy tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." There were twelve princesses, when the king wanted a boy. When the queen died giving birth to the thirteenth princess, the king demanded that she be removed from his sight and sent to live with the servants. When Zita was 7, she first learned the truth of her parents. After that, she gets to know her sisters, the princesses know Zita is one of them, but must hide their interactions in fear of the king. Shortly after Zita turns twelve, the princesses start falling mysteriously ill, and that's when we enter the familiar realm of the fairy tale. Zita works with her friend the stable boy, his older soldier brother, and a hidden witch to rescue the princesses from dark magic that makes them dance every night.

I did really enjoy this book. I'm a big fan of Twelve Dancing Princesses stories. That said, there was so much else going on to flesh out the book--Zita's friendship with Breckin, her relationship with her sisters and how Zita's relationship with the king is different than that of her sisters, the persistence of magic despite it's banishment... there's so much there, I think it would have been a lovely story with a slightly different, completely original plot.

Zahler's has another fairy tale coming out in February, A True Princess, which is a version of "The Princess and the Pea" that I'm looking forward to!

Book Provided by... my local library

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Nonfiction Monday: From the Beast to the Blonde

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers Marina Warner

Ok, this isn't a book for kids or teens, or even one with teen interest, but I think it is of interest to adults who work with children's literature, so I thought I'd share it for nonfiction Monday.

This is an fascinating, academic, and meandering history and case that, although most of the big names in fairly tales (Grimm, Perrault, Anderson) are male, fairy tales are women's stories.

Warner doesn't really get into the stories themselves until the second half the book. The first half mainly discusses women's speech and the role in played in society from the Greeks up though the mid-19th century. The relevance tends to become clear in the second half, although I loved her exploration of the changing meaning of "gossip" (originally it meant a christening feast, when women would gather to celebrate and help the new mother) and how words like "cackle" became associated with women's laughter and with the sounds of birds, how storks and geese came in the springtime which is when most babies were born, and how it all connects up to Mother Goose.

I also very much enjoyed her explorations of Bluebeard and its variants, where she points out that in a time when so many women died in childbirth, marriage could be seen as a death sentence. Also, the evolving nature of the Beast (from Beauty and the) as what scared us in the animal kingdom changed.

There are some points that she belabors to make and I still don't entirely buy, and there are some things where I was like "I GET IT ALREADY! MOVE ON!" It was a hard book for me to read because I don't have a huge background in literary criticism or gender/women's studies.

I also would love an updated version. This came out in 1996 and she only focuses on the work of Angela Carter for examples of modern tellings of fairy tales (although she does draw heavily from current-to-then movies and some TV shows.) While Jane Yolen gets a name-drop, she doesn't look at any of the work like the Fairy Tale series that Ace did in the late 80s/early 90s.  Also, there's been such an explosion of fairy tale reworkings, especially aimed at teens, in the last 10 years that I'd love to see that worked into her analysis.

I'd also love something like this for non-European tales.

Overall though, a really interesting look at fairy tales and their origins and their changes over the years and reasons behind them...


round up is over at Wendie's Wanderings


Book Provided by... my local library

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Palace of Mirrors

Palace of Mirrors Margaret Peterson Haddix

Cecelia has spent her whole life training to be a princess, because she is the true princess, hidden from her enemies, waiting until she can take her rightful throne. She spends a lot of time daydreaming about the reward she'll give the commoner who's been pretending to be the princess for her all this time.

When Cecelia finally sets out to the capitol to claim her throne, she finds Princess Desmia has spent her whole life being warned of pretenders to the throne. In fact, she has an entire dungeon full of girls who claim to be the real princess, who have stories exactly like Cecelia's.

Desmia and Cecelia live in Suala, the kingdom that Fridesia is at war with in Just Ella (And Ella makes an appearance here). Luckily Desmia's not a bad person and has Ella counseling her an they quickly realize that while the girls in the dungeon can't all the real princess, there are larger forces at work here.

I liked this one. Cecelia really annoyed me throughout most of the book-- she was a bit mentally spoiled. She didn't have a lot of material goods, but believing she was the true princess, she was more than a little high and mighty. I really liked Harper (crush on him!)

I don't think that court intrigue is Haddix's strong point (at least, not what I've seen with Just Ella and Palace of Mirrors) but I did enjoy both books, this one more than Just Ella.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Falling In

Falling In Frances O'Roark Dowell

You know her, of course. Isabelle Bean is the girl who sits in the back corner of the classroom near the pencil sharpener. She isn't invisible, exactly, but she might as well be. She hardly ever speaks unless spoken to (and then only in riddles), never makes eye contact, has bangs that hang down almost to her nose so even if somebody wanted to look her straight in the eye, they couldn't.

It goes without saying that very few people want to look Isabelle Bean straight in the eye.

It's not that she smells bad. She doesn't. She takes a bath every night. And it's not that she's dumb, although it's true she has a bad habit of not doing her homework except when she really feels like it, which is almost never.

And it's not that Isabelle Bean is a bully. She's never beat anyone up or even made the smallest threat. No one is physically scard of her, except for a few of the very nice girls in Mrs. Sharpe's class, girls whose hair smells like apple blossoms and whose mothers still read them bedtime stories. These are the girls who sharpen their pencils at home so they never have to walk near Isabelle's desk.

Isabelle is pretty sure she's a changeling. It's the only explanation. Then, one day at school, she falls into another world. But on the day she falls in, she's wearing bright red lace up boots. So, the children who find her think she's a witch, the same witch that goes from village to village eating children. The witch has a schedule, so when it's their village's season, they run to another village and set up a camp to wait it out. Isabelle goes off to find the witch, because that sounds more exciting. Of course, what she finds is a healer woman who lives alone in the woods, who's had stories made up about her...

This one didn't really do it for me, which is sad. It has things I like--great writing, a narrartor that frequently addresses the reader, and a fairy tale feel. But over all the plot was kinda... eh. It touches however, on some really dark things and I think it would have worked better if Dowell hadn't just skated around and over these very dark possibilities and hints and instead aged up the book to YA and tackled them full force-- the reason why the witch is supposedly seeking revenge, what actually happens at a children's camp, and the ramifications of multiple villages living in fear of having their children stolen. In order to keep the book solidly middle grade, she finds these bruises and points them out, but doesn't really poke at them, and it would have been much more interesting if she had.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Fables: The Dark Ages

It's Fables week here at Biblio File!

I love this series and the various spin-offs. I'm also really, really behind in reviewing it, so let's take the entire week to head down to Bullfinch Street and up the farm and maybe even back to the Homelands to see how things are going ok?

First up is...

Fables Vol. 12: The Dark Ages The Dark Ages

I just cannot talk about this book without MASSIVE SPOILERS. So sorry, but. I'm also not going to hide the spoilers because this book has been out for a year now, longer if you read them issue by issue instead of omnibus form, like I do.

So, if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? I've read other reviews that didn't like it that much, while I absolutely LOVED it, so... go read it and then come back.

Now, down to business...

So, we have 4 stories in this one, but I'm really only going to talk about the 5-issue "Dark Ages" arc which sets up Fabletown's next crisis-- with the Empire fallen, dark forces are loose and Fabletown's in more danger than ever. We also say goodbye to some pretty major characters here.

1. Prince Charming's funeral. Interestingly, there's no talk of him coming back, although he's a very important fable, having a staring role in many very popular stories.

2. KAY! Poor Kay. He was never a major character in the series, and I'm not sure he's entirely dead, because Mr. Dark is pretty scary and weird, so... I'm more than a little worried about what it means that Kay's now under his control.

3. Blue. Blue dies horribly and it's sad and awful. There is a lot of talk about him coming back-- everyone's worried because while he was very important to Fabletown, in the mundy world, he just got 1 minor nursery rhyme. No one knows if it will be enough.

With everyone now living on the farm, there is also more to the discord that led to the problems in Fables Vol. 2: Animal Farm. There is also a lot of discussion on who gets to come back and why.

Sadly, none of these issues has been touched on again in what's come out in the last year. (To be fair though, we've only gotten 1 volume of Fables proper since then, and it was a cross-over with Jack and solves Jack's major storyline. But I'm hoping we'll see more in Fables, Book 14: Witches, which comes out in December.)

So many interesting questions raised in this issue concerning the nature of the Fables.

Because, looking back at the series, we never see any Fables come back from the dead, the popular ones are the strong ones and they're just really, really, really, really hard to kill. So they never die in the first place.

So, what do we think? Are Charming and Blue gone for good? Or will we see them again? And what about Kay?

Book Provided by... my wallet

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Toads and Diamonds

Toads and DiamondsHeather Tomlinson

It's a tale that's not told very often (although Gail Carson Levine did it in The Fairy's Mistake.) Two sisters meet a fairy by a well. The good sister is rewarded so that every time she speaks, jewels fall from her lips. The bad sister is punished so that every time she speaks, snakes and lizards fall from hers.

Tomlinson's version is set in a mythical kingdom with many parallels to India during the Mughal era. In this version, both sisters are good (and how refreshing is it to get a fairy tale with a step-mother and step-sister who are good and nice and the entire family is extremely close despite their lack of shared blood?) In Tomlinson's version, both sisters find their abilities to be both curses and blessings.

Diribani's deepest desire was for beauty, and she started speaking diamonds and flowers. A prince took her back to his castle, collecting her jewels and sending them back home, keeping some for the royal treasury. He did it because Diribani kept starting a riot as people scrambled to pick up her jewels, while others tried to kill her for being a witch.

But she thought the goddess gave her the gift so she could use her wealth to help the poor, to improve life for her people. Now the bulk of it is going to the corrupt governor of her home province, probably to buy bigger guns.

Tana loves her sister, but has always be jealous or her effortless beauty and grace and goodness. Her deepest desire was to protect her family, but got snakes and lizards. Her neighbors like the the influx of good ratters, but her true curse becomes apparent when she tries to answer a marriage proposal and a cobra falls between them. The ruling class is afraid of snakes. Tana is driven away from town and on the run for her life when she sees just how corrupt her government really is, and how her curse can save her people.

So much wonderfulness. I loved the tensions between the foreign ruling class and the bulk of the people, and the religious issues. I liked how not all of the Believers were bad, not all of the Followers of the 12 were good. Tomlinson builds a world without too much explanation, it never gets in the way of the story.

Tomlinson doesn't change too much of the story (the main exception is that she makes the both sisters, and the mother, good people and realizes that in more complex story, there are greater repercussions to spewing jewels every time you talk.) But she still manages to make the story fully her own.

Love love love love love. A wonderful example of what a fairy-tale telling can, and should be.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Just Ella

Just Ella Margaret Peterson Haddix

When happily ever after isn't all it's cracked up to be...

Ella thought her life was made the day the prince came and slipped that glass slipper on her foot. She was leaving her Step-Evil's house forever, no longer an abused servant.

But life in the castle is confining. She's not allowed to see the sun, or hear unpleasant things. She has to be mean to the servants because "that's what they're there for." She can't even properly talk to her fiance. And everyone would rather believe that she has magical powers, or a fairy godmother, than the truth about how she got to the ball in the first place.

She took control of her life once, but she's not sure if she can do it again.

A really interesting and fun look at what might have happened next. The royal life isn't as magical once you're on the inside, when you know what lies just outside the castle walls. I also really liked the twist on the original story.

The writing and characterization didn't blow me away, but I did really like the plot and ideas on what happily ever after might actually look like.

A great book for fans of fairy tale things and of girls saving themselves.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Poetry Friday

Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse Marilyn Singer

There are always different ways to look at things-- whether there's a different perspective to take on a story, or a different way to read a poem...

In this book, Singer uses a the reverso form-- a poem that can be read in the normal fashion and mean one thing, or you can read it up to bottom, change some capital letters and punctuation, and you get an entirely different poem. And these reversos tell two sides to some familiar tales...

I give you "Bears in the News"

The first way it's presented:

ASLEEP IN CUB'S BED,
BLONDE
STARTLED BY
BEARS,
the headline read.
Next day
Goldilocks claimed,
"They shouldn't have left
the door
unlocked."
She
ate the porridge.
She
broke
a chair.
"Big deal?
No!
They weren't there."

And now, just by flipping the order of the lines, a very different side of the story:

They weren't there.
No
big deal?!
A chair
broke.
She
ate the porridge.
She
unlocked
the door.
"They shouldn't have left,"
Goldilocks claimed.
Next day
the headline read:
BEARS STARTLED
BY BLONDE
ASLEEP IN CUB'S BED.


Round up is over at Paper Tigers!

Book Provided by... my local library. A big thanks to Lauren for demanding I read it!

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.