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At age seventeen, Lei is plucked from her family and taken to live in the Hidden Palace of Han to lead a privileged life of service to the Demon King as a Paper Girl.  Tien, Lei’s surrogate mother, has told her that some families see great honor in their daughters being chosen, but for Lei, “honor is in family, in hard work and care and love, in a small life well lived” (55). In the world of Ikhara, three castes coexist.  Those in the Paper caste are fully human, while the Steel caste consists of humans endowed with partial animal-demon qualities—both in physicality and abilities—andRead More →

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Set in Kyrria, where fairies, elves, ogres, unicorns, and giants live among nobles and commoners, Newbery honor author Gail Carson Levine’s newest book, Ogre Enchanted, tells the story of fifteen-year-old Evie.  Gifted in the arts of healing, Evie is the kind of healer that “knows when to just mention a remedy and when to pry open a jaw” (3).  She has also been accused by her best friend, Warwick—aka Wormy—as seeing people as patients and nothing more. When the sensitive, sweet, and trustworthy Wormy proposes marriage to Evie and the lively, intelligent, single-minded healer with a sense of humor declines, the fairy Lucinda promptly turnsRead More →

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Fourteen-year-old Alyce Greenliefe is witch born and pursued by witch finders.  When her mother Ellen is executed in Fordham, Essex, in 1577 for practicing witchcraft, her dying desire is that Alyce should deliver a letter to John Dee at Bankside. On her journey to that destination, Alyce is caught and confined at Bedlam Royal Hospital, as a prisoner, not a patient.  When an unknown man and woman come to liberate her, Alyce escapes, but in running for her life, she nearly collapses from malnutrition and fatigue.  Eventually, she finds herself at Cripplegate on the northern edge of London’s shopping district.  Knowing it is wrong toRead More →

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Readers of Roald Dahl and Rick Riordan will likely enjoy The Storm Runner by J.C. Cervantes, a mixture of Mayan mythology, adventure, and magic featuring Zane Obispo and his three-legged dog Rosie.  Rosie is a half-boxer, half Dalmatian who is Zane’s best friend, loyal companion, and kindred spirit.  Together, the two explore the mesas in New Mexico, but their favorite turf is the volcano—aka the Beast—in their backyard. Thirteen-year-old Zane has one leg shorter than the other, so he walks with his warrior dragon cane, a gift from his mom to give him confidence.  Although his bum leg is a medical mystery that makes himRead More →

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In my reading of the first three chapters of book one in Julie Kagawa’s newest trilogy, Shadow of the Fox, I knew immediately that I was not from this discourse community.  Many of the Japanese words—such as shinobi, daimyo, oni, and kodama—were beyond my linguistic experience, so their meanings eluded me.  I would have appreciated a glossary, although other terms—such as tetsubo, Jigoku, kami, and yokai were translatable from context clues or were clarified through a character’s explanation, although some of these explanations occurred more than a hundred pages in. Adding to my frustration, I felt like I was reading three separate stories, until theRead More →

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Ellen Goodlett’s debut novel Rule is a fantasy-adventure story that recounts the tale of three sisters, each hiding a dangerous and treasonous secret.  When King Andros of Kolonya announces that these girls from vastly different backgrounds are his daughters, each struggles to adapt to new circumstances and expectations but eventually all three come to see being a bastard daughter of King Andros as an opportunity to make a difference and to change conditions for their people. Zofi, a Traveler from the North with a battle-ready stance, is built for a life on the move, not for one cooped up with haughty nobles. She has masteredRead More →

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Hoping to be the next great foreign correspondent, Viola Wynne Li plans to attend New York University Abu Dhabi when she graduates from Liberty Prep School in Seattle.  Intent on being a voice for the powerless and the homeless, Viola envisions herself as a truth-teller in a conflict zone, one who covers “the forgotten issues, the ones more convenient to ignore” (117). Also passionate about comics, Viola especially loves Firefly, and considers her own super power to be researching.  Not only does knowledge empower, but data prepares a person to make a good decision in difficult circumstances.  She and her friends Aminta and Caresse areRead More →

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Sheltered on a remote island and taught to think that the rest of the world has been destroyed by swelling tides and rising temperatures due to the effects of global warming and selfish, greedy people, Moss lives a nearly idyllic existence with her Pa and their dogs, Jess and Adder. On Flower Island, Pa experiments with magic since the storm-flowers that grow there have healing properties and their petals are capable of engendering a buzz of relaxation, happiness, and queasy-strange feelings—even hallucinations.  When Pa is “flower-struck,” his thinking buzzed, he dances and tells stories.  In this hopeful and happy state, he pushes healing pollen toRead More →

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To provide context and a back-story, Return to Fear Street by R.L. Stine begins in 1923 when phrases like “the bee’s knees” were popular, bobbed hair was vogue, the Yankees stadium opened in New York, and the stock market was booming. Two sisters—four years apart and as different from one another as possible—vie for attention and hope for happiness.  Rebecca, the favored daughter, is not only a princess in appearance but royalty in her father’s eyes, and Randolph Fear spares no expense when it comes to his eldest, more popular daughter. Propelled by both envy and resentment, Ruth-Ann Fear escapes into a little attic roomRead More →