The Mysterious Benedict Society
The Mysterious Benedict Society – Trenton Lee Stewart
An ad in the paper looking for exceptional children lures orphan Reynie Muldoon into a strange shadow conspiracy. With a band of other brilliant and bizarre children, they must overthrow an evil mastermind. Inventive and fast-moving, though personally I think a few fires would have solved a lot of problems for them.
The Children of the Lamp Series
PB Kerr
The Akhenaten Adventure, The Blue Djinn of Babylon and The Cobra King of Kathmandu.
Upon the removal of their wisdom teeth, twins John and Phillipa Gaunt discover they have strange magical powers. Sent off to their Uncle Nimrod, the Gaunt kids learn to use their djinn powers. With lots of historic background, this series is a cross between Indiana Jones and Harry Potter with touches of Arabian Nights (literally) thrown in. Not usually a fan of flash, I really liked Kerr’s site, too: http://www.pbkerr.com
The League of Extraordinary Gentleman
Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill
I know, let’s have a comic book. And lets have lots of villains, lifted directly from Victorian literature. Right, and since we lifted lots of villains, lets also lift a bunch of other characters and make them heroes – kind of. And let’s set it in Victorian London. And then when it sounds totally ludicrous, let’s illustrate it with fantastically well-drawn images. So there too. And then let’s sell the rights to make a completely awful movie. Oops, ok, the last one was a pretty bad idea. But the comics are great.
The Ice Queen
Alice Hoffman
Hoffman is herself a queen – of magical realism. While spinning her story, she dabbles a toe her in there in pools of the fantastic. You barely notice the ripples here and there, until suddenly the most fantastic things seem totally believable. Sure, I can believe the woodman cut off his leg and had it replaced with tin. Sure, I can believe he cut off his other limbs and had them replaced with tin too. So why not his head also? And suddenly a tin woodman seems rational.
The Ice Queen is by far one of Hoffman’s best in recent years (though I did really like The River King). Her story is of a woman who made a horrible wish as a child and had it come true. She become frozen in her own little world until a cataclysmic event shocks her...
Anansi Boys
Neil Gaiman
I am shocked and apologetic that I forgot to review this last month. Perhaps I forgot because I read it at the very beginning of the month – or perhaps my mind was going “wub wub wub” from having seen Gaiman/McKeen’s movie MirrorMask. SEE IT IF YOU CAN! Regardless…
I should state for the record that Gaiman’s American Gods is one of the 10 best books I have read. Rich and dense and intense and wonderful. Just right in every way. Anansi Boys is set in the same universe, though the only character from American Gods to appear is Mr. Nancy (the spider god) whose death starts the series of events covered in the books. As I started the book, I found...