The redeeming aspect of being sick is that I get lots of time to read. So while nursing a rotten cold, I finished off two very different books today. The first involved an evil queen, a princess with a fairy’s curse, a troll with a penchant for mangled cliches, and a young hero who doesn’t know who he really is but is about to discover who he wants to be. Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris made me smile, and that in itself is worth the time I spent reading it. If you enjoy fractured fairy tales, you should try it. You’re still wondering about the mangled cliches? Here are a few examples:
“That didn’t amount a hill of figs.”
“Don’t you know we’re up against a creek with no paddles?”
“Personally, he thought Chris was barking up a dead tree.”
“I hate to be a wet blanket in the mud.”
And my favorite, “it’s always darkest just after the lights go out.”
Oh, and the princess and the hero communicate via p-mail (pigeon-mail). I like that, too.

The other book was also a YA novel, a bit more on the serious side. Shadowmancer by G.P. Taylor is chock full of very obvious Christian symbolism and doctrine, and at first I didn’t know how it got to be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a mainstream secular publisher. However, this from the author’s website seems to explain:

Mr Taylor, 43, from Cloughton in North Yorkshire, did not begin to write until he was middle-aged.
When he completed the manuscript for Shadowmancer, he was advised that no publisher would be interested in a parable about Christianity and black magic set in the 18th century.
He decided to ignore the doubters and published it himself for £3,500.
The novel’s popularity spread by word-of-mouth as parishioners, friends and neighbours recommended it to fellow readers.
The film rights for Shadowmancer were recently sold for £2.25m, taking the vicar’s total earnings to £6m.

As for the book itself and my opinion of it: it takes place in 18th century Yorkshire, along the coast. The world of Shadowmancer seems to be rooted in reality; the author mentions smugglers and dragoons, John Wesley, the names of real towns and villages in Yorkshire, Africa. But this world is also populated by boggles and witches, thulak and hobs, and other even more dangerous and evil creatures. If you’re uncomfortable with a book that includes, practically celebrates, the supernatural, both demons and angels, skip Shadowmancer. That’s not to say that the demons are glorified in any way; in this book good is good and comes from God, and evil is evil, even though Satan (Pyratheon) may be disguised as an angel of light. Three young people struggle against the powers of evil and darkness, and eventually, of course, the Light overcomes the Darkness. As the angel Abram says to Pyratheon (Satan):

“. . . your own anger deceived you, your lust for death engulfed you. A light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never overcome it. See, he is coming, the bright morning star shines upon the earth and your days are numbered.”

I wouldn’t say that this book rises to the level of Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, but it is well written and action packed. And it does embody truth.
Raphah, the main Christian character, on demonic powers:

“It’s as if they are on loan. He (the evil priest Demmurral) can use them, but they do not belong to him. He is deceived into believing he has the power, when in reality he too is a puppet. People who use these forces never really understand the true energy behind them. They think they are the masters when in reality they soon become the slaves. Pyratheon gives them what they want . . . until he wants them.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. May we all be protected from the deceptions Satan uses to enslave.
(By the way, the title for this post comes from a poster I saw in my Children’s Book Council newsletter. Wouldn’t that be a great name for a blog?)