I wrote of the first two books in this series that they were confusing, violent, headache-inducing, and fascinating. I want to like Mr. Wilson’s series about a boy named Sam Miracle and his sidekick(?) or maybe companion(?) or maybe better half, Glory Hallelujah. I want to understand or even just appreciate the books. But I just can’t keep up. And I can’t decide if that’s my fault as a reader or Mr. Wilson’s failing as a writer.

This third book is about the fall and rise of the son of Sam Miracle and Glory Hallelujah, Alexander Miracle. I think. Or maybe it’s about a Korean American girl named Rhonda who learns to be brave and walk through darkness. Or maybe it’s about how Sam and Glory sacrifice themselves to save their son.

The thing is N.D. Wilson writes delicious prose. His sentences are at times mesmerizing. Examples:

“Darkness wasn’t possible with smooth blankets of snow on every horizontal surface, and jagged rime frost armoring every pole and wire and fence post. Light, any light, bounced and bounced and lived on in such a white winter, but it also arrived in stillness, with none of the traffic and chatter of day.”

“And when she and Sam were deep in that oily and foul nothingness, she even sang. And while it helped Sam’s memory when an unbroken song straddled two different times, he knew that Glory didn’t just sing for him. She threw her voice through that outer darkness as a call to the ones she had loved and lost, and she hoped they would hear it, and know her voice, and be stirred.”

“It was like a magic beanstalk of flame. How high could it reach? Where was the ceiling in this place? Would it walk away like a tornado or would it sit here growling until there was no more oily air to burn? And how long would that be? He could see tendrils of darkness being swept up in the cyclone, slithering across the stone floor and groping through the air like his own hands had been only moments ago. The spinning inferno slurped it all in as it grew.”

See, the man can write. He’s definitely got the word picture thing going.

But . . . I have time travel whiplash. And Death keeps happening in these books, but it gets undone, or something. People go back in time and die over and over again, but they manage to change the timeline. And they don’t die or they don’t stay dead? So. what use is it to try to kill the villains in the piece if nobody really stays dead? On the other hand, it seems as if some of the villains are really, truly dead and gone. Have I mentioned that I’m confused?

If you’re going to read these books, and if anything I’ve written about them intrigues you and even piques your curiosity, I’d recommend that you read them in order: The Legend of Sam Miracle, The Song of Glory and Ghost, and then this one, The Last of the Lost Boys. I don’t know if this book is the last in the series, or if there will be another book in which Sam’s and Glory’s son, Alexander, learns to travel through time and “wield power without rage.” But the ending does leave the latter possibility wide open.

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This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

The Inventors at No. 8 by A.M. Morgen

Sep10

George, the Third Lord of Devonshire and the unluckiest boy in London, has a number of problems. Everyone who comes near him seems to die or at least suffer some sort of tragedy. He’s an orphan with no family left. He has sold almost everything he owns, but he’s about to lose his home anyway. His last heirloom, a map that’s supposed to reveal the hiding place of a treasure called the Star of Victory, is stolen. And his only friend and caretaker, his manservant Frobisher, has disappeared, presumably kidnapped.

Then, George meets Ada Byron, his neighbor across the street, and life gets even more interesting—and dangerous. Ada introduces George to Oscar, whose father is a long-absent pirate, and to Ruthie, the orangutan who is Oscar’s friend, and the four of them set out to find the map, the Star of Victory, and Frobisher. Will George’s notoriously bad luck jinx the entire quest? Is Ada really able to fly—and land—her own self-invented flying machine? Are Oscar and Ruthie a help or a hindrance in the mission to find the Star of Victory? Where and what is the Star of Victory, and can it help them rescue Frobisher? And is Ada like her estranged father Lord Byron, “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”?

At the end of this rather extravagantly nonsensical story, the author quotes Ada Byron Lovelace herself, who was a real person, really the inventive and talented daughter of Lord Byron, the poet. From a letter to Ada Byron’s mother:

“P.S. I put as much nonsense as I possibly can in my letter to you because I think it compensates you for the grave dry subjects of your letters, but I suspect the truth is it gives me pleasure to write nonsense.”

I suspect it gave Ms. Morgen much pleasure to write this fantastical adventure story, and it gave me some pleasure to read it. I did have trouble following the logic of the story, but that may be due to the lack of logic in some parts. The children, as children and adults are wont to do, often make assumptions and jump to conclusions that are unwarranted. If you are looking for a Poirot-type logical and sensible mystery story, this adventure isn’t it. But it is a romp. And the characterization is lovely:

George, the 3rd Lord of Devonshire, is a Puddleglum, pessimistic, superstitious, wary of Ada’s flights of fancy, and untrusting (with reason). But he works himself up to bravery in spite of his fears, and he begins to believe in impossible adventures by the end of the book.

Ada Byron is the Pied Piper, luring George into adventure, danger, and belief in the impossible. She is inventive, intelligent, and confident, everything that George isn’t and doesn’t believe he can possibly become. In the author’s note, Ms. Morgen tells us that twelve year old Ada Byron really did dream of building a flying machine, but it never quite got off the ground.

Oscar is bit less well-developed as a character, but he does add “character” to the ensemble, especially when he talks to Ruthie the orangutan using semaphore sign language.

Anyway, for the enjoyment of this particular fantasy, you will need to suspend disbelief and judgment and maybe logic and just go with the flow. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

The Splintered Light by Ginger Johnson

Sep4

Giving thought to how the world, the universe, we live in was created with so many varied elements of sound, light, taste, smell, invention, and shape is not a bad exercise in gratitude and appreciation for the vibrancy and diversity of our world. Ginger Johnson’s The Splintered Light leads the reader on a journey of pondering the immense creativity and inventiveness of a God who could create this world ex nihilo, out of nothing. And yet it’s a story, not a sermon, as Ishmael, the protagonist of this story, learns more about the Commons, a place where the different halls (schools) of Color, Sound, Gustation, Manufactory, Scent, Shape and Motion work together to create posticums, worlds for the colonization of their creators.

“Posticum means ‘back door.’ It’s a room for creation that opens up in the stone wall of the Commons. Back home is a posticum, too, but you’d never know it. Color Master told me it was one of the first. All the oldest posticums are worn out and run-down and only have oval sheep and round chickens. The sheep and chickens in the newer posticums are more refined. Plus, they have all kinds of other creatures as well. That’s how you know the age of posticums.”

Ishmael only left home to find his brother Luc and bring him back to help Mam and the family on the farm, but when he does find Luc in the Commons, Luc is unwilling to leave. And Ishmael himself is fascinated by the new sights and possibilities he glimpses in the many halls and schools of the Commons. The Hall of Hue, where Luc lives and works, also welcomes Ishmael as an apprentice of exceptional promise, but Ishmael is determined to return home and to bring Luc with him, after just one more day, and then another, and then another . . .

It’s hardly an insult to say of this debut novel that when I reached the end I was disappointed that there wasn’t more. I really would like to know what happened to Ishmael and his friends after the posticum closed and the stones rested. Maybe I should use my own creativity and imagine it for myself.

At any rate, I’m looking forward to whatever might come next from this talented new writer, and I really like the fact that she sprinkles lines from one of my favorite poems throughout this book about the diverse and variegated world(s) in which we live and breathe and move and have our being:

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manly Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

And this TED talk that I saw the other day seems to serendipitously belong alongside The Splintered Light:

Oh, today is the official publication date for The Splintered Light.

The Dragon of Lonely Island by Rebecca Rupp

Jul30

Hannah, Zachary, and Sarah Emily are spending the summer at Great-Aunt Mehitabel’s house on Lonely Island. Only Great-Aunt Mehitabel is not home. She does send a note, however, encouraging the children to enjoy their stay and to explore Drake’s Hill when they have the opportunity. She also sends them a key to the mysterious Tower Room. Where is the Tower Room, and why is it locked? What will the children find when they hike to Drake’s Hill? And what could they learn by seeing the world’s through someone else’s eyes and someone else’s stories?

So the eponymous dragon is a three-headed dragon, one body with three separate personalities. And all three dragons have a story to tell, one for each of the children that suits his or her need for growth and wisdom for the summer. It’s not overtly preachy, but it is well-written with suitable lessons in character development for each of the children. The book reminded me of Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Starry River of the Sky, except that I liked Rupp’s dragons-that-tell-stories better than I did Lin’s folklorish stories interspersed with a realistic narrative. I found Lin’s books confusing, even though they are award-winning and favorites with many readers. Maybe Rupp’s book appeals to a younger audience, say third and fourth grades, and maybe my mind is stuck there, too.

Anyway, there’s a sequel, The Return of the Dragon, and I’m looking forward to reading it as soon as I can get my hands on a copy. I looked up the author, Rebecca Rupp, and she has a PhD in cell biology. How does a person with a doctorate in cell biology end up writing children’s fantasy? Now, that would be an interesting story. Oh, she’s also a homeschooler and has written some books about homeschooling. From a National Geographic contributors bio:

Rebecca Rupp: “I prefer Mac to PC, fountain pens to ballpoints, vanilla to chocolate, and almost anything to lima beans. When not writing, I garden, bicycle, kayak, volunteer at the library, and sit on the back porch of our house in far northern Vermont and gaze longingly at Canada, particularly after listening to the evening news.”

The Six by K.B. Hoyle

Jul26

This first book in the Gateway Chronicles, a fantasy adventure series by author K.B. Hoyle, The Six definitely contains echoes of Narnia and Tolkien: a gateway to another world, gnomes, fairies, elves, talking animals (sort of), and war against The Shadow, to name just a few. But it’s a good story in its own right, not overly derivative and full of world-building detail and creativity that make the novel a delight to read.

Some of the more creative aspects and characters of the land of Alitheia:

A god-like being, Pateros, who incarnates as a huge bear or sometimes an eagle or sometimes a stag.

Narks, creatures with double personalities, one person in the daytime and another during the night.

A magical teacher whose cottage stays in one place while the door is able to be moved about to provide access wherever the bearer might go.

Silent, telepathic communication with animals.

Gifts of discernment, camouflage, and musical finding of lost things for the teenagers who travel to Alitheia. Oh, and a quill that prophesies.

Actually, there’s rather a motif of camouflage and hiding and keeping secrets and how that “gift” can be used for good or for evil. Also, the importance of honesty and trust and how trust can be broken is another theme that runs through the story. The Six are a group of six thirteen year olds who find themselves thrown together at a family summer camp. Their difficulties and successes in initiating and maintaining friendships among the group are another theme that weaves through the action in the novel.

Don’t be worried, however, that this book is all heavy philosophical themes and sermons. The action and plot elements are certainly adequate and intriguing enough to carry the reader along to the end. And I wanted more by the time I came to that end, so I’m looking forward to reading Ms. HOyle’s second book in the Gateway Chronicles series, The Oracle.

Mr Yowder and the Train Robbers by Glen Rounds

Apr24

I just read through Mr. Yowder and the Train Robbers, a book I ordered on impulse from a used book seller online. What a delight! Mr. Xenon Zebulon Yowder, “the World’s Bestest and Fastest Sign Painter,” gets a summer job painting elephants on the sides of buildings, and when he goes for a vacation after completing the job, he gets mixed up with a bunch of rattlesnakes and with some ornery, thieving outlaws. The story ends in a surprise, and it’s all done in less than fifty pages, so it’s the perfect book for reluctant or beginning readers who need a quick pay-off.

And did I mention that it’s funny? Mr. Yowder reminds me of a western McBroom, the protagonist of a series of tall tales by Sid Fleischman. And I also thought about Mr. Pine and the Mixed-up Signs by Leonard Kessler, maybe just because of the sign-painting and the humor. Mr. Yowder and the Train Robbers is a bit fantastical—Mr. Yowder can talk to snakes and teach them tricks—but it’s mostly a Western tall tale with a dry humor that will tickle the funny bone of those readers who have the same sense of humor as the teller of the tale.

I have the book Mr. Yowder and the Steamboat. Now I want to add the other Mr. Yowder books to my library:

Mr. Yowder and the Lion Roar Capsules
Mr. Yowder and the Giant Bull Snake
Mr. Yowder and the Bull Wagon

Ooooh, I see that there’s a collection of three of the Mr. Yowder tales in one book: Mr. Yowder, the Peripatetic Sign Painter: Three Tall Tales. I need that one, too. I love that the title uses the word “peripatetic”—an excellent word.

My library system has none of the Mr. Yowder books, and only three books by Glen Rounds, an excellent author of tall tales and stories of horses and of the old West.

The Danger Gang and the Pirates of Borneo by Stephen Bramucci

Mar12

I really didn’t think this was going to be “my type of humor” as I began this book, but the more I read the more I enjoyed it. I even chuckled out loud a few times, and for me that’s major.

When Ronald Zupan’s parents are kidnapped by Zeetan Z, the world’s most ruthless pirate, while they are exploring the jungles of Borneo, Ronald and his rather unadventurous butler, Jeeves, are called to the rescue. Ronald’s fencing opponent, Julianne Sato, and his pet cobra, Carter, are also enlisted to form the Danger Gang, a fearless foursome indeed.

Ronald learns some lessons in humility and respect for others. Jeeves learns courage and perseverance. Julianne becomes a leader, and the snake, Carter, saves the day once or twice. All in all, this fantastic and perilous story is rather frothy, but worth the ride nevertheless.

A few quotes to whet your appetite for this fun-filled adventure:

“‘Julianne, you are possibly the sharpest sidekick that I’ve ever met,’ I said.
‘That’s because I’m not a sidekick,’ she called over the noise. ‘I’m your partner.'”

“There are times in any master adventurer’s life when all eyes are watching him and he has to do something bold and brilliant.”

“Doubtful friends are worse than enemies, and fire ants are the worst of all.”

“The more people you care about, the more there is to scare you in the world. And yet, if you didn’t care about people, there would be nothing worth protecting.”

“He who endures will conquer. So will he who never gets stung by a blister beetle.”

“That’s what partners in dazzling schemes and grand adventures do. They stick together.”

“That’s the thing about thrilling adventures. They change you, whether you know it or not.”

The Ice Sea Pirates by Frida Nilsson

Mar8

According to the author blurb in the back of my book, “Frida Nilsson is a leading Swedish author who won the Astrid Lindgren Prize in 2014. Her books have been translated and published worldwide and nominated for multiple awards including the prestigious Youth Literature Prize in Germany. The Ice Sea Pirates has been nominated for five major awards, including the August Prize, and won of [sic] three of them.”

Well, I can see the virtues of The Ice Sea Pirates. The plot hangs together well. The characters, especially Siri the heroine and protagonist, are engaging and believable. The themes of courage and compassion for all living things are woven into the story and into the journey that Siri makes to rescue her little sister, Miki, who has been kidnapped by evil pirates. The ending is good, even if it is somewhat ambiguous and bittersweet.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that something is lost in the translation. Siri, although she is mostly a brave and likable character, goes on long crying jags at crucial moments in the story:

“I cried. I cried so hard my chest hurt.” (p.80)
“A woman came past as I sat weeping by the water.” (p.83)
“But I just carried on crying and for a long time we just sat there, me sobbing and Nanni with her hand on my back. She tried to comfort me several times but it didn’t work.” (p.100)
“And I wept about everything, about the boxes and the hat and the dice, about people who made purses out of mermaids, about everyone who took more than they needed.” (p.197)
“I burst out crying. It went on and on; I didn’t even try to hold back the tears.” (p.230)
“It made me so sad and angry that a huge lump grew in my throat and I gritted my teeth against the tears.” (p.266)
“Watching this made me feel ill and I wept to see the wounds on the wolf’s hide. . . I couldn’t stop crying.” (p.292)
“That night I lay in bed and wept.” (p.302)
“I didn’t answer, just went on crying.” (p.303)

I probably missed or skimmed over a few crying episodes. Not that crying isn’t the proper response to many of the cruel and sad experiences that Siri has in the book, but the frequency seems excessive. Maybe it’s a Swedish thing?

In addition to the excess of tears, there’s a certain ambivalence about how animals are treated, how they should be treated, whether wild animals are dangerous or friendly, and just the attitude toward animals, especially wolves, in general. Are the animals in the story to be used for food or not? Are the wolves to be feared or tamed? Siri has a heart for the animals that she encounters that are being used or mistreated, but even though she doesn’t approve of what one hunter does to catch wolves, Siri eats the wolf meat when she is hungry anyway. She repeats the adage that one should never take more from “nature” than one needs, but there is no resolution in the end with the pirates and the hunters and the slavers, just an armed truce.

It’s a book worth reading, especially if you are interested in Swedish children’s literature or pirate stories or “northerness”, but in the end it’s one I would only recommend to a select few readers who have a special interest in those topics.

The List by Patricia Forde

Mar5

The List is a rather illogical ecological dystopian story about a future Earth in which the survivors of a disaster, caused by global warming/climate change, congregate in the city of Ark. In Ark, language is limited to an approved list of only 500 words, since the corruption of language and advertising and slick persuasion made Earth’s inhabitants ignore the warnings of eco-prophets who told the people that the planet was warming and apocalypse was imminent.

“Then came the Melting. The ice that turned to water and flooded the planet, the sea devouring everything in its path. Towns and villages swallowed whole. The old technology destroyed. Animals extinct. And all the written word gone.”

Letta, however, is apprentice to the official Wordsmith, the person charged with retrieving and preserving all of the old words, to hold them in reserve for a day when it will be safe again to allow people to use a multitude of words. When mankind has again learned to use words responsibly and wisely, then the Wordsmith and his apprentice will have the words, stored away where they can do no harm in the meantime.

The villain in this story is loopy; he thinks that taking away from people the power of speech will somehow make them wise and discerning, unable to be fooled by false persuasive speeches and writings. Or maybe he just thinks he is right, everyone else is wrong, and so taking away words will force the people to obey him. But if they have no power to speak, no words, how will they know anything? How will they obey if they don’t even understand what they are being told to do?

The ending of this one is a set-up for a sequel, so expect book two to follow shortly. The List is Irish author Patricia Forde’s debut novel. Fellow Irish author Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl series) blurbed The List as “the fantasy book of the year.” So, opinions may vary.

Skeleton Tree by Kim Ventrella

Feb27

This one falls into the category of really odd and quirky middle grade fiction, but readable, if you can get past the premise: a skeleton emerges from the soil in Stanly’s backyard. Only Stanly, his friend Jaxon, Stanly’s little sister Miren, and the Kyrgyzstani babysitter, Ms. Francine, can actually see the skeleton tree, at least most of the time, and Miren calls the skeleton Princy.

Weeeell, as Jack Benny used to say, that’s a lot to take in: a dancing skeleton who may or may not be making Miren’s illness better —or worse. And Stanly wants to take a picture of “Princy”, win a prize, and force his estranged dad to pay attention to his deserted family. Stanly’s and Jaxon’s friendship is a lovely bit of business: Jaxon has OCD, and Stanly simply accepts Jaxon’s fence-post counting and food pickiness as a part of his friend’s personality.

I really liked parts of this book: Stanly’s relationship with his little sister, protective even when he was annoyed with her brattiness; Jaxon and Stanly and their friendship; the total weirdness of having a skeleton growing in a tree in your backyard. However, the sadness of Miren’s illness, the dad’s neglect of his family, and Stanly’s mom’s very difficult financial and living situation finally got to me, and I really didn’t want to finish the book, even though I had to know what would happen to Stanly and Miren and Princy.

Also, I know it’s so minor as to be nitpicking, but I really think Stanly should be spelled with an “e”, “Stanley”. It just looks wrong the way it is in this book.

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

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Outlaws of Time: The Last of the Lost Boys by N.D. Wilson