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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Fairy Tales! and a calendar of events

It's June! Glorious, busy June!

I am back from Iowa--it was beautiful and sunny and I ran into Kelly at the coffee shop and am happy, sleepy, and sunburned. It's fun to see that the people I went to college with are fundamentally the same. We're happier and better dressed, and can now afford MUCH better beer, but fundamentally we're the same. And it's awesome.

We have some fun events coming up here in blog-land. Events YOU can all play along with at home.

First off, Weekly Geeks has declared this week's geekery to be "catch up on reviews week" which I think is something we all need to do, right? So this week (until Friday) I'm aiming for 5 reviews a day. (Even though I am way more than 25 books behind-- I currently have 39 unblogged books, but given I have issues blogging 5 books a week, I'll aim for 5 a day. It's like vegetables. 5 a day!).

This weekend is MotherReader's 48 Hour Book Challenge. Go sign up for your chance to turn X-treme Reading into an X-treme sport. Also, take a vote in my sidebar for which books you'd like me to read!

AND! At the end of the month (June 28-29) is the 24 Hour Read-a-thon to benefit Reading is Fundamental. More information on the event and to sign up is here. And information on how to sponsor my reading extravaganza is here.

Anyway, let's get started on that 5-a-day business, ok?

Ever Gail Carson Levine

As far as I'm aware, this is an original tale. Olus is the Akkan God of the winds (part of a pantheon that reminds one of Greek or Roman mythology. At 17, he's the youngest of the Gods by a few hundred years and is lonely. He longs for a mortal friend, but fails in his attempts to make friends.

Kezi lives in the land of the Admat, and omnipotent, invisible God more similar to the religions of Abraham...

In his longing for friends, Olus has become a shepard and rents land from Kezi's father and falls hopelessly in love. However, Kezi is doomed to die. Not in the way that all mortals will die eventually, but she has been promised as a sacrifice to Admat and will die in 30 days.

Olus knows of ways one can become immortal, but Kezi would have to realize that there are other Gods than Admat, and she must become a herione and Olus must become her champion. Only then can they possibly save Kezi's life.

Told in short chapters of alternating viewpoints, this is a bit of a departure from such Levine classics as Ella Enchanted and Fairest but Levine knows how to tell a story. The language is more sparse than I'm used to and it lacks her usual humor, but Levine can paint a scene with a minimum number of words . I liked the illustrations used above the chapter numbers-- the numbering system looks like an ancient form of writing and it was fun to realize what was going on there. I think Levine fans will still love this. I also think it will really appeal to fans of Julius Lester's Cupid: A Tale of Love and Desire.

Book of a Thousand Days Shannon Hale

Once again Hale turns to the Brothers Grimm for inspiration, this time, not Rapunzel as the tower suggests, but Maid Maleen.

Set in a land inspired by Ancient Mongolia, Dashti is mucker, a nomad, looked down on by the city dwellers. But she is also an orphan and must find work to survive and becomes the maid to Lady Saren, only to find that Saren is about to be locked up in a tower for seven years after refusing the match her father has made.

Dashti goes to the tower where it is dark and foreboding. Although they have been left enough food to last seven years, that's only if they can keep it from the rats. Lady Saren is spoiled and given to tantrums. She is also completely helpless. Lord Kasar, the dreaded fiance appears frequently to taunt the captives. But Khan Tegus, Lady Saren's true love also visits and brings small comforts in the form of a branch that smells of the outdoors and a cat to help with the rats.

Shannon Hale is still on the top of her game. She can paint a culture and a people with just a few sentences. This book is also illustrated, which is nice. I'm reading it in ARC form, so I think some illustrations are missing but the ones that are included are nice. Most are made to look like the illustrations Dashti herself has drawn in her diary, but there is high artistic quality.

There is much to the book besides the days in the tower, although there isn't much to the Grimm tale, and that's where Hale's magic lies-- when she takes the tale way beyond its original borders, while still staying true to the source material.

full disclosure: I got the ARC from the publisher last summer at ALA, but I would have read it anyway, I mean, it's SHANNON HALE!

The Swan Maiden Heather Tomlinson

Doucette has always been jealous of her older sisters. Beautiful and haughty, they're able to work magic, while she is plain and stuck at home learning how to be a chastelaine. Embroidery and running a household is nothing on her sisters who can fly.

But then she finds the swan skin her mother has hidden from her, the swan skin her mother would give Doucette's future husband in order to keep her from running.

But, the true story comes when Doucette falls in love with a shepherd boy. In order to gain the right to marry her, he must perform 3 impossible tasks. But that might not be enough to keep them together...

Doucette is a character that's easy to identify with, but more so. Not only are her sisters perfect and beautiful, which is bad enough, but dude! They can fly! And Doucette is always falling down and tearing her clothing and always left behind.

And then when she gets what she thinks she wants, it doesn't necessarily help.

A wonderful addition to the genre that should be read by everyone who likes Shannon Hale or Juliet Marillier, but will also appeal to those who aren't already converts to the new breed to fairy tale retellings or original tales that maintain that old timeless quality.