Placing an autistic or Asperger’s boy in the middle of a fantasy novel is a great idea. Although Oscar is never labeled, it’s clear that his love for, almost obsession with, plants and herbal remedies and his lack of understanding of people place him somewhere on the autism spectrum. He sometimes wonders whether he’s really human. Maybe he’s made of wood (something like Pinocchio). But, of course, by the end of the book Oscar finds out that he is a real boy.

I wanted to like this story of a magician’s apprentice (or “hand”) as much as I liked the author’s earlier middle grade fantasy, Breadcrumbs. But something about this one felt forced. The plot sort of meandered along and never really held together tightly. I liked Oscar as a character, and his friend Callie was a good foil and helper to Oscar. All of the other characters in the village and in the city on the mountain sort blurred together and never really became vivid in my mind. The point or theme of the story was never really clear to me either.

Maybe you should just try another review of The Real Boy, from someone who actually liked it. This story just didn’t grab me.

Sonderbooks: “I’m not sure I was satisfied with the ending — not sure I understood clearly enough what had actually happened. But the book itself, the world, and especially Oscar, were delightful to spend time with.”

Rhapsody in Books: “By the time I got to page 15, I had a problem. I knew I was so hopelessly in love with this book that I couldn’t bear to read any more, because then it would be over, but I also couldn’t bear to stop reading, because I wanted to be immersed in this magical world created by Ursu!”

The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia: “. . . the prose was quiet without being boring, and encompassed Oscar’s narrow world and its truths while also describing the confusing complexity of humanity. And let’s not forget Erin McGuire’s illustrations! She made Oscar’s experiences come to life.”

So, the moral of my review is : when in doubt, let other book bloggers do the heavy lifting for you.

Jinx, apprentice to Simon Magus, is forced to explore and tame his own magic in an attempt to rescue his mentor, rescue Simon’s wife, Sophie, defeat the evil Bonemaster, stop the destruction of the trees in the Urwald, and learn KnIP (Knowledge Is Power) magic to strengthen his own. The themes are good vs. evil and using people (and trees) vs. helping and listening, but it’s hard to say whether the worldview is going to come out loosely Christian in the end or more dualistic, like a universe in which good must be balanced with evil. Jinx himself is “the balance” and “The Listener,” whatever those terms mean.

I thought this was a better second book in a trilogy than most. The first in the series, is called simply Jinx, and I wrote about it a few months ago. You should read the first book first, and if you like it as much as I did, then go on to read Jinx’s Magic. I did get some answers to my questions from the first book about the Urwald, Samara, Simon Magus, the Bonemaster, and generally the way Jinx’s world works. I also added a few more questions:

What does it mean that Jinx is “the balance” and “The Listener” and “a wick that burns”?

Are Jinx and the Bonemaster opposite sides of the same coin, so to speak, good and evil in eternal conflict and balance? (I hope not because I don’t really believe in that dualistic philosophy.)

Who are the elves and what is their role in the story of the Urwald?

Can Jinx defeat The Bonemaster and save the Urwald?

Definitely a cliff-hanger ending, and I’m definitely up for the third book in the series. Oh, it might be of interest to some people, in light of all the diversity talk around the kidlitosphere, that Jinx is a “person of color.” His skin color doesn’t really matter to the story, but it is there, for what that’s worth.

QOTD: Speaking of color, Jinx has the magical ability to see a shapes and colors around other people that indicate to him what they are feeling. For instance, when the girl he cares about is feeling admiring and romantic about someone else, Jinx sees pink fluffy thoughts and feelings surrounding her. Another character’s feelings are grey and sharp like knife blades. If we could see what you are feeling right now, what color and shape would your feelings be and what would that color/shape indicate?

This middle grade fiction book is an odd little ghost story about a girl who finds herself unexpectedly transported into the past and about her little brother Lucca, who’s three years old and doesn’t talk.

Siena’s family is moving from the city, Brooklyn, to coastal Maine in hope of jolting Lucca into talking again or somehow helping him. Lucca, when the story begins, hasn’t spoken a word for over a year.

I liked the story. Siena is a sympathetic character, fourteen years old, obsessed with abandoned things, a little prickly and stand-off-ish because her old friends in Brooklyn think she’s weird. As a matter of fact, she is weird: Siena sees visions of the past and know things about past events and places that she shouldn’t know. Since all of us feel a little awkward and weird at times, especially at fourteen, Siena’s visions and Lucca’s silence can be stand-ins for whatever is making the reader feel out-of-place and misunderstood. That aspect of the book worked really well.

I also liked that (minor spoiler!) we never do find out why Lucca quit talking. He simply tells Siena, eventually, that he just doesn’t want to speak. Sometimes, contrary to our psychologically fixated society, kids just do stuff and make decisions for reasons that make sense to them but to no one else. And if they make bad decisions or crazy decisions or even inexplicable decisions, it’s not always someone’s fault. I liked that Lucca just didn’t want to talk. Actually, I had a child who was not totally silent, but who didn’t want to talk to anyone outside our house for a long time, so she didn’t. She grew out of it.

One thing bothered me about the book: SIena, when she is in the past is able to talk to a young man named Joshua who is suffering from PTSD or depression or some combination thereof and get him to “come back” to his family who are suffering because of his illness and withdrawal. She says:

“What will happen if you don’t is what I told you: all the people you love are going to fall apart. Their lives will be full of the darkness you’ve brought home. They will remain faceless to you. But if you get up, if you try to let a little of it go, if you make new happy memories, you can have them back.”

So Joshua “comes back.” The same thing happened in another middle grade novel I read recently, The Absolute Value of Mike by Katherine Erskine. Mike gets mad at his great-uncle, an old man who is depressed and guilty because of the death of his adult son, and the words Mike says to his great uncle Poppy somehow snap him out of his lethargy and depression and bring him to full recovery.

It’s unrealistic and puts a lot of pressure on kids to imply that if they just talk to a loved one who is depressed or grieving and say the right words and tell the person to snap out of it, they can bring that loved one back from the brink. Yes, sometimes people who are experiencing a mild depression can bring themselves back and recover with the help of wise words from another person who loves them. But sometimes, often, it takes more than a good talking-to. It takes medication or time or therapy or many talks or prayer or?

Nevertheless, I liked Listening for Lucca, and I recommend it with the above caveat. It was a sweet book. (I liked The Absolute Value of Mike, too, but I never managed to get a review posted. Great book, quirky misfit characters, good story-telling, even though a bit unbelievable.)