Recommended by: Meloukhia

This is a fairy tale, but no child’s story. It starts with incest and pregnancy and abortion, and continues with gang rape. Then Liga is magically placed in a world that matches her heart’s desire, peaceful and safe.

While examining the consequences of assault and the consequences of avoiding trauma, the story sings [...]]]>

Recommended by: Meloukhia

This is a fairy tale, but no child’s story. It starts with incest and pregnancy and abortion, and continues with gang rape. Then Liga is magically placed in a world that matches her heart’s desire, peaceful and safe.

While examining the consequences of assault and the consequences of avoiding trauma, the story sings along, full of prickly, kind characters and vivid details.

Recommended, for a true look at life in fairy tale guise.

An interview with Margo Lanagan.

Jody Hewgill (the cover artist)’s portfolio.

Available at Powell’s Books.

Subtitle: 10 Stories of the Human Heart

Recommended by: laughingrat.dreamwidth.org

Moto Hagio is one of the most renowned Japanese artists of shojo manga, high-quality comics for teen girls. She was one of only a few women in the genre in the seventies, and she continues creating art today.

This is a chronological collection spanning 1977-2007. The elegant [...]]]>

Subtitle: 10 Stories of the Human Heart

Recommended by: laughingrat.dreamwidth.org

Moto Hagio is one of the most renowned Japanese artists of shojo manga, high-quality comics for teen girls. She was one of only a few women in the genre in the seventies, and she continues creating art today.

This is a chronological collection spanning 1977-2007. The elegant art conveys emotion and movement with fine pen strokes. With a light touch and few words, the stories address the emotional nuances of abandonment, nonconformity, abortion, conjoined twins, abusive mothers, dead mothers, loving mothers, love through time, gossip, friendship, and marriage.

The words are translated into English, but the pages and the panels run right-to-left, and the sounds emanating from the art are unfamiliar. Instead of “BAM!” and “lub-dub” we see “P-P-PAM” and “TMP!” Each panel invites careful attention, revealing more layers at each reading.

I highly recommend this collection.

Available at Powell’s Books.

As much as I loved some of McKillip’s early books, I think I’ve aged out of her target audience. This book seemed put together from bits and pieces of past books, with many cookie-cutter characters and an emphasis on the young adults falling in love and pairing off at the end – heterosexually, of course.

The [...]]]>

As much as I loved some of McKillip’s early books, I think I’ve aged out of her target audience. This book seemed put together from bits and pieces of past books, with many cookie-cutter characters and an emphasis on the young adults falling in love and pairing off at the end – heterosexually, of course.

The steampunk trams and cars are new. The princess who goes on archaeological digs is new. Harpists, towers, plains, schools, robes, riddles, shape-shifting, and power tied to the land are all familiar themes, and they seem tossed in piecemeal rather than woven together as they were in the Riddle-Master series.

Several beautiful, musically talented women characters are almost indistinguishable, and they’re all responsible for cooking on top of their other duties. The queen is solely focused on her archaeologist daughter’s “improper” clothing, and an older princess is solely focused on her upcoming wedding.

The book is interesting enough to read to the end, and has some themes around failure and success worth thinking about, but overall I was disappointed.

Available at Powell’s Books.

The Wild Wood is part of the same series of books based on Brian Froud’s illustrations as Something Rich and Strange.

Charles de Lint is a well-known fantasy author, but the writing in this book is distractingly amateurish, with overly detailed descriptions of people’s clothes and exact measurements of snowfall, along with cardboard characterizations.

For example, [...]]]>

The Wild Wood is part of the same series of books based on Brian Froud’s illustrations as Something Rich and Strange.

Charles de Lint is a well-known fantasy author, but the writing in this book is distractingly amateurish, with overly detailed descriptions of people’s clothes and exact measurements of snowfall, along with cardboard characterizations.

For example, the main character Eithnie is described as “spacy” several times without context, possibly to make it more plausible that she twice forgets plans with her friend Joe as she’s swept along by the plot. Joe himself is defined by his Japanese heritage as being both inscrutable and magically able to be in the present moment.

I found the ending anti-climactic as well, and wished Eithnie’s skills as an artist could have played a bigger role.

The book is out of print in the original illustrated hardcover edition, but is available at Powell’s Books as a trade paperback.

Some 30 years ago, I picked up an unassuming paperback copy of Patricia McKillip’s “The Riddle-Master of Hed” at a library book sale. When I finished it, I held the closed book in my hands, paused, then turned to the first page to begin again. I’ve been a fan of that series, and of [...]]]>

Some 30 years ago, I picked up an unassuming paperback copy of Patricia McKillip’s “The Riddle-Master of Hed” at a library book sale. When I finished it, I held the closed book in my hands, paused, then turned to the first page to begin again. I’ve been a fan of that series, and of standalone “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” ever since.

Sadly, “Something Rich and Strange” doesn’t live up to that high standard. Most of McKillip’s books are dreamy and impressionistic. This one is too, but the dreaminess is forced to serve a moralistic message about environmental pollution. Even though I agree with the need for awareness and action, it was unsatisfying to see characters manipulated into acknowledging it.

The book was written as a response to macabre woodland faerie illustrations by Brian Froud. Since this book is set beside and in the Pacific Ocean, the illustrations interrupt rather than support the narrative. The cover is pretty, though.

The book is out of print in the hardback illustrated edition.

Subtitle: Yet Another Troll-Fighting 11-Year-Old Orthodox Jewish Girl

Recommended by: Barry Deutsch’s Alas, A Blog

A graphic novel set in an Orthodox Jewish town called Hereville, in a blended family with many girls and one little brother. The facial expressions and other details in the drawings are captivating – I read the book twice and noticed a [...]]]>

Subtitle: Yet Another Troll-Fighting 11-Year-Old Orthodox Jewish Girl

Recommended by: Barry Deutsch’s Alas, A Blog

A graphic novel set in an Orthodox Jewish town called Hereville, in a blended family with many girls and one little brother. The facial expressions and other details in the drawings are captivating – I read the book twice and noticed a lot that I’d missed the first time. The characters are realistic even while engaged in unrealistic adventures.

The strict rules of Orthodox Judaism are included in the story, with only the occasional pictorial editorial comment, such as the bored expressions of the youth having “vibrant, passionate discussions” on Shabbat. Yiddish terms are translated in footnotes.

The fantastic elements of witch encounters and troll fights contrast oddly with the Orthodox background, sibling arguments about reputation, and a step-mother’s efforts to manage a large family. The ending is decidedly unexpected.

Mirka is portrayed as reaching for a knife, sword, or tree-branch to violently solve her problems. She is also portrayed as being so immersed in Jewish culture that she didn’t recognize a pig when she saw one.

I’m not sure what to think of the book. It draws me in, and at the same time leaves me wondering if the author’s message is subtly derogatory toward Judaism. While I wouldn’t want to live in an Orthodox community myself, I don’t want to see one exposed to ridicule, either.

Barry Deutsch is a cartoonist in Portland, Oregon.

Available at Powell’s Books.

I received this book, originally published in 1935, with a childhood gift of six classic Young Adult novels. I’ve carried the set from home to home ever since, but hadn’t reread any of the books in many years.

Before I send the set off to my niece and nephew, I decided to reread “National [...]]]>

I received this book, originally published in 1935, with a childhood gift of six classic Young Adult novels. I’ve carried the set from home to home ever since, but hadn’t reread any of the books in many years.

Before I send the set off to my niece and nephew, I decided to reread “National Velvet,” since the image of Velvet struggling with her unruly stomach had been coming to mind.

I remembered the essence of the book – horse-mad young Velvet rides and wins a steeplechase race – but had forgotten most of the details, including that the story takes place in England.

The writing is gorgeously evocative. Here is the opening paragraph:

Unearthly humps of land curved into the darkening sky like the backs of browsing pigs, like the rumps of elephants. At night when the stars rose over them they looked like a starlit herd of divine pigs. The villagers called them Hullocks.

I paused there in my reading to imagine the Hullocks, reminded of a village I visited in southern England, ensconced in a narrow valley dropping to the sea.

It turns out that Velvet grows up in just such a village with her three older sisters, much younger brother, solid parents, and butcher’s assistant Mi Taylor. Their cramped living quarters are attached to her father’s slaughterhouse. Mi lives in an outbuilding, and their old horse has a rickety barn.

The girls seem young for their ages by modern standards. At fourteen, Velvet prances about pretending to ride paper horses. Her seventeen year old sister has her first beau. The girls can ride alone for miles among the Hullocks, but their mother tells them what to wear to the village fair. The family shares few words but much love.

I recommend reading this book for the layered details of village life and relationships. I was less interested in the wish-come-true plot, although to be fair I’m considerably older than the target audience of the book. There are sub-themes about news and fame and innocence which provide food for thought.

Available at Powell’s Books.

Recommended by: Tess Alfonsin

A hard-edged book for teens that takes on multiple tough issues:

While I applaud the author’s courage in addressing all these important issues, I think the book would have [...]]]>

Recommended by: Tess Alfonsin

A hard-edged book for teens that takes on multiple tough issues:

• Children’s cruelty to each other for being fat or disfigured
• What it’s like to grow up fat or disfigured
• Surviving parental abuse and abandonment
• Abortion
• Hypocrisy
• Religious intolerance by some Christians

While I applaud the author’s courage in addressing all these important issues, I think the book would have been stronger with at least one fewer sub-plot and more attention to characterization. The major teen characters showed some complexity, but the adults were either all-good or all-bad.

I was caught up in the plot and characters until the book suddenly turned into a thriller with a violent climax. I felt tricked into reading something far more violent than I expected or enjoyed.

I’m glad teens are reading and thinking about all the issues in this book.  I wish the issues weren’t packaged with a violent, all-good/all-bad wrapper.

Available at Powell’s Books.

This story of young Bod Owens growing up in a graveyard sparkles with inviting details and action on every page, drawing me into reading it while I was supposed to be doing other things. I enjoyed the gradual revelations about his caretakers, and the sturdy, matter-of-fact ethics that Bod learns from them.

Like any good fairy [...]]]>

This story of young Bod Owens growing up in a graveyard sparkles with inviting details and action on every page, drawing me into reading it while I was supposed to be doing other things. I enjoyed the gradual revelations about his caretakers, and the sturdy, matter-of-fact ethics that Bod learns from them.

Like any good fairy tale, this book’s underlying themes are about how to be a good person, how to recognize those who are not, and what to do about them when you encounter them.

Available at Powell’s Books.

Narrated by oddly mature sixteen year old Leila (“Lee-la”) Abranel, this coming-of-age novel shows her both grappling with her much older sister’s suicide, and embarking on her second romantic relationship. The story is absorbing, but harrowing events and difficult emotions are described so quietly that the characters seem flat and distant.

My favorite theme [...]]]> Recommended by: Marissa Lingen

Narrated by oddly mature sixteen year old Leila (“Lee-la”) Abranel, this coming-of-age novel shows her both grappling with her much older sister’s suicide, and embarking on her second romantic relationship. The story is absorbing, but harrowing events and difficult emotions are described so quietly that the characters seem flat and distant.

My favorite theme is Leila’s mother encouraging her to trust her self and her instincts. In turn, Leila says, “My body is the one thing in life I completely trust.” I wish I had learned that as a teenager!

Available at Powell’s Books.