The False Prince

by Jennifer Nielsen
Scholastic Press | 2012
Buy it here!
And pre-order the 2nd in the trilogy!

Sage is an orphan, stealing to fill his belly and keep himself going for another day at the orphanage where he'll soon be put out for turning fifteen. One day he steals a roast, and when he's caught, a mysterious stranger pays off the merchant and takes Sage away. Along with two other boys, Rodan and Tobias, Sage is trained as part of an intricate plot to take over the throne of Carthya. One of the boys will pose as Prince Jaron, lost four years ago when pirates overtook the ship he was on. Each boy has attributes that make him a good choice, and they must vie to be chosen, or die.

I favor realism. I stay away from most books involving princes, princesses, and castles. I am rarely impressed by medieval-like world-building, even when those fantasy fans around me are doing a jig with glee. This book is a rare exception (along with The Graceling Realm and a few select others). Nielsen builds her world carefully, to be sure, but also in a realistic manner. For me, this is the mark of an excellent fantasy novel.

What marks The False Prince as an excellent book, regardless of genre, is the way in which the plot and characters are so deeply created. I feel like if Sage turned up tonight in my living room, I would know how to have a discussion with him. And I'd ask him what happened that time when he was in Conner's estate's tunnel, and how on earth he ever got the knife back to the kitchen when he was bleeding so much. That's how awesome the plot is.

This is the first in a planned trilogy, and the second is coming out in March. I'll be first in line to read it. You should be second.

Guest Reviewer Sian Gaetano: Me and My Dragon

Written and illustrated by David Biedrzycki

Charlesbridge Publishing | 2011
Buy now!

“Some kids want a dog. Others would like a cat.” But Hameer wants… “a dragon!” And Hameer is smart enough to know that getting a dragon is just like getting any other pet: you have to choose which kind you want carefully, bring him to the doctor for his shots, name him (Sparky!), give him a home, feed him, and bring him for walks. And, just like any other pet, if he’s a naughty dragon, he might have to go to obedience school. Unlike other pets, though, Sparky can act as the campfire on camping trips, melt all the snow in the neighbor’s driveways, and may accidentally terrorize the kite-flying community. He’s also a great friend to have around in case of bullies or Brussels sprouts.

I cannot begin to express how very much I love this book—the joys are too many to count. The story is endearing, quirky, fast-paced and just so incredibly funny. And the play of text and illustration! Biedryzycki masterfully builds text that needs illustration and illustration that adds so many layers to the book. Each page has tons of things to look at and enjoy from the intraiconic text, to a mouse living in Hameer’s room, to the reactions of pets and people near Sparky. Both Hameer and Sparky, through text and illustration, are exciting, active, and completely round characters. And, for the love of all things children’s book related, check out the endpapers! In general, a joy. And a book I’ve been reading three times a day.

Siân Gaetano is, before all else, a reader. She is currently pursuing an M.A. in Children’s Literature at Simmons College (to be finished in  Summer 2013) and working evenings serving the good people of Boston food and beverage. She was an editorial intern at Charlesbridge for the Fall 2012 semester.

Zoe's Tale

by John Scalzi
Tor | 2008

Zoe lives on Huckleberry, a planet that's part of the Colonial Union. She has her adoptive parents, John and Jane and two Obin, Hickory and Dickory, charged with making sure she's safe, because she is actually the lynchpin in universal peace. When John is chosen to command a new colony on the new planet of Roanoke, Zoe leaves with him, Jane, and 2500 other colonists and heads to their new home. What they don't know is that the Colonial Union has sent them purposely off course to a different planet to hide them from the evil Conclave. And it ends up that only Zoe can save them all in the end.

Scalzi's Old Man's War trilogy, published for adults, ended with The Last Colony, the story of the group's trip to Roanoke, told from John's (Zoe's dad) perspective. He returns to the same story to tell it again--from Zoe's perspective. Zoe's Tale works as a stand-alone novel and there's no need to have read The Last Colony to love it. And, the best part is, even though Zoe's Tale was also published as an adult novel, it is really a YA novel. It's protagonist and storyteller is a teenage girl, and the story is just as concerned with teenage problems as it is with interplanetary warfare.

Anyone who likes YA lit will likely love this. Anyone with a child who likes fantasy books will also love this. It's well written and a really well-paced and exciting story. It's one of my favorites I've read this year. (Don't dismiss it if you usually don't go for Sci-fi--you'd really be missing out!)

Double Helix

by Nancy Werlin
Dial | 2004

Eli lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is graduating as salutatorian of his class. His girlfriend, Viv, is the valedictorian. He's not going to college next year--his mother is dying of Huntington's Disease and he and his dad have a pretty tense relationship. He's going to take a year off and work at Wyatt Transgenics, just down the street, where the famous Dr. Quincy Wyatt is doing amazing things with genetics.

But Dr. Wyatt takes an odd interest in Eli, Eli's dad is angry about it, Viv is wondering what's going on, and then beautiful Kayla comes on the scene, staying at Dr. Wyatt's for the summer. Soon, Eli is caught up in trying to find out his history, why his father hates Dr. Wyatt so much, and what went on more than a decade ago that he thinks he can remember.

This fantastic science fiction novel now published with the tagline: "a mystery" is more rooted in the real world than a mysterious one, in my opinion. Eli's search and desire to know more about who he is makes a lot of sense. And the end leaves room for you to think, and to wonder. What's right? What isn't? Who is Eli? What makes us who we are? 

Just about anyone might love this story, but for anyone who has recently asked for an appropriate book for middle school aged boys: this is it!

Little (Grrl) Lost

by Charles de Lint
Viking | 2007

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth is a Little. You know, those tiny 6-inch-tall people that you know from The Borrowers or The Littles books. She lives in the walls of fifteen-year-old T.J.'s house with her family until the day she runs away, right into T.J.'s room. All she has is a tiny dufflebag full of clothes and her attitude. She intends to make her way in the world.

Two weeks later, T.J. discovers Elizabeth in the garden shed, as far as she's made it in the wild world of the Bigs, rife with dangers such as cats and birds and other animals. Elizabeth reluctantly moves into T.J.'s room and they become fast friends.

In order to learn more about the Littles's heritage and to help Elizabeth trace her relatives (for her own family has fled the walls of T.J.'s house after Elizabeth exposed them), the girls decide to go to a reading of an author of children's books featuring Little-like people. But on the way to the bookstore, they are interrupted, separated, and both injured.

What follows is a fantastic story of two girls' journeys, told in both their first-person voices in alternating chapters. The others they meet will stay with you as reader for a long time and the choices each girl makes and how she makes them will leaving you wondering about and respecting each as a open-minded thinker.

This is one of the best books I've read this year (and considering I've read over 150 books so far in 2012, that's saying a lot). Fantasy and realism fans alike will love Elizabeth and T.J. and Charles de Lint's writing. I promise (and that's a big deal--it's important not to make promises in fairyland).

Graceling

by Kristin Cashore
Houghton Mifflin | 2007

I regularly bemoan the fact that I don't enjoy fantasy writing. I say bemoan because I know how much some people love it and that there are some really talented writers in this genre that I don't appreciate enough. Occasionally, a book comes along that lures me over into this genre; Graceling is one. I first read it in 2009 or so and just re-read it for class.

Katsa hails from the Middluns and she's graced. She has the mark--two different colored eyes--and her grace allows her to fight and kill with an acuity that makes her a commodity. Gracelings in the Middluns, regardless of their special skill, are feared. Katsa's uncle Randa, the King, has appropriated her life and uses her to punish citizens who have crossed him, sending her to maim, threaten, or kill them. When she winds up in the middle of a plot which involves kidnapping the father of the Queen of Lienid and rescues the old man, she meets his youngest grandson, Po, who is also graced. But Po is Lienid, and they revere their graced brethren. But alas, Po's grace is so threatening to others, he keeps it a secret from everyone but his mother and grandfather.

Even though Katsa has declared she will never marry and never bear children, she falls in love with Po as they depart Randa's court and work together to rescue Bitterblue, the Princess of Monsea and daughter of the evil King, Leck. Katsa also learns, through trusting Po like she's never dared trust another person that her grace isn't what she thought it was--it's actually far more nuanced and more powerful than she thought.

One of the most awesome parts of this book is Katsa's resolve to remain single, which Cashore shores up continually with passages like this one: "She couldn't have him, and there was no mistaking it. She could never be his wife. She could not steal herself back from Randa only to give herself away again--belong to another person, be answerable to another person, build her very being around another person. No matter how she loved him...She loved Po. She wanted Po. And she could never be anyone's but her own."And, true to her word and desire, she remains her own--managing to both love and live freely (unlike another favorite hero of mine with a name that starts with "Kat").

Graceling is the first in a trilogy, called The Graceling Realm, with the other two as companion books rather than sequels. The second book, Fire, follows another girl and shares one main character from Graceling, and the third book focuses on Bitterblue, now Queen of Monsea. All three have been met with critical acclaim (check out the NYT Review of Books from this past summer). Kristin graduated from the Simmons Center for the Study of Children's Literature where I'm a student, so perhaps you'll think me biased. You'd be wrong, though. She's not good--she's great. She writes these epic books (Graceling is 471 pages) longhand on legal pads and then edits them by hand as well. This astounds me, considering the intricate plots and details that link together to unwind into the brilliant stories.

Do you consider yourself to be uninterested in fantasy? Join the club. And then go get Graceling.

A Greyhound of a Girl

Because it was first published
elsewhere, there are loads of
different covers - this is
the one I have.

by Roddy Doyle
Amulet Books | May 2012

I have loved Roddy Doyle since I first discovered him while I was travelling abroad. I fell in love with the family in the linked stories The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van. I fell in love with his writing. So imagine my delight when I discovered this new American publication of a new Doyle children's book this spring. It can be your delight as well.

Twelve-year-old Mary O'Hara's best friend Ava has just moved house and Mary's none too pleased about it. On the first day after Ava's left, Mary meets Tansey on her way home from school and assumes she's moved into Ava's house. It soon becomes apparent, though, that Tansey isn't a normal woman. Soon, it becomes apparent she's not even a woman at all--she's a ghost.

Mary's mother, Scarlett, and her grandmother, Emer (who's deathly ill in hospital) soon get involved and an adventure of a lifetime begins. Something very special happens to these four generations of women (and girl).

Doyle's Irish sensibility and wry wit come through beautifully in all the characters, but especially Mary. Her most oft-repeated refrain, "I'm not being cheeky," is met with some excellent replies by her elders. How these women interact and why is a fantastic story to remind us to appreciate each other every day.

For a quiet treat on a lazy afternoon or a starry night, join Mary and Tansey on the stone wall for a spell.

Underworld

by Meg Cabot
Point/Scholastic | May 8, 2012

Pierce is back in this second novel of the Abandon series. (Having not read the first, I can say this one will stand alone with enough back story filled in to get most of the important pieces to enjoy it.) She's been taken by John, the lord of the Underworld, which happens to be under her small Florida town of Isla Huesos. The story is a loose re-telling of the myth of Persephone set in modern times. Pierce is in love with John, her grandmother is possessed by a fury, and Pierce and John must return to the real world to save her cousin Alex and foil the bad guys before they return to rule over the Underworld.

I know. It sounds insane. And it sort of is. But because it's Meg Cabot, it's well written and the storyline actually somehow seems plausible. The series will continue with the third book, Awaken.

For fantasy fans or mythology fans, this is the perfect choice. For a fresh look at an age-old tale of young love and the lengths young people will go to make unlikely relationships work, this is also a good choice. Enjoy it!