Plain Kate

Plain Kate
by
Erin Bow

This book was not what I expected. I received a newsletter saying that it was a good teen fantasy read. It won a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults at the 2011 ALA Midwinter conference. It is published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic.
When I checked the book out, the cover had a unicorn sticker on it and it was in the YA fantasy fiction section. The image on the cover of the book is of a girl and her cat on a roof of some pre-1900 city.

A) I read the book and don't remember her walking on any city roofs.
B) Most of the book is not set in a city, but in small villages and gypsy camps.
C) This is not a cutesy unicorn book.
D) I would not call this a fantasy book but a horror book.

By the time I got 1/3 of the way through the book about an orphaned girl who can carve wonderful figure the book had clearly taken a turn into a horror book. There is black magic with lots of blood letting and nasty ghost/demons and a twisted warlock. The book is pretty well written, but I couldn't get past the wicked parts. I skim/read the last 2/3 of it to find out how it ended. There were some unexpected twists. It is an original work and the talking cat character is great, but it is more for the Twilight vampire crowd than for the "unicorn" reader and I would not recommend it to readers under the age of 16.

Witch of Blackbird Pond

Witch of Blackbird Pond
by
Elizabeth George Speare
Newbery Award winner
copyright 1958

Kit is new to a New England town in the late 1600's, having been raised in Barbados. Her relatives and the townsfolk are shocked at her dress and behavior. Kit sees that New England is drab and dreary and the people do not have fun. It is work, work, work, then church, church, church. Can this tropical bird find a home in Connecticut? Is joy and laughter really prohibited by the Bible? It is dangerous times, politically, in the not-yet United States. It is also dangerous to depart from the normal. If a woman does stand out, she may be accused of practicing witchcraft. This is not Salem, Massachusetts, but it might as well be.
I have read this book numerous times and when I found out that I was going to be visiting Barbados this year, I had to read it again.
I highly recommend this book to 9-16 year old girl readers. I don't think most boys would get into the fashion, etc. very much.

Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Classic Comics Retelling)

Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Classic Comics Retelling)
by L. Frank Baum, Eric Shanower and Skottie Young
children's fantasy fiction, ages 6-10

I have read the original Wonderful Wizard of Oz many, many times, as well as at least 40 other Oz books and comics, saw the Broadway musical, Wicked, viewed the MGM movie and other movies about Oz, and watched the television show, so I am VERY familiar with this story.
In this case, Eric Shanower has condensed the plot to make this an accessible read for voracious readers and reluctant readers alike. Skottie Young's illustrations are NOTHING like the previous illustrations I have seen in Oz books, although there have been so many different comic book takes on Oz (some of which are not at all true to Baum's original intentions) that I can not say if other comic book illustrators have given Dorothy and friends a similar treatment.
The results are the old shown and told in a fresh way. Fans of Baum (and Shanower has his fans as well) are in for a treat with this book and the bonus feature - a sketchbook in the back of the book showing different ideas that the illustrator toyed with in developing the book. Graphic arts students would enjoy that part. I recommend this book for public and school libraries across America (and other countries as well). I am not sure if I would put it in the juvenile, or YA sections of the library, though. It can be enjoyed by many ages of audience. My library has it under "Y, graphic novels".

Son of a Witch

Son of a Witch
by
Gregory Maguire
audiobook read by the author
12 hours long
adult fantasy fiction
second in a trilogy
1. Wicked
2. Son of a Witch
3. A Lion among Men

I love Oz books and have since I was about 7 years old. I have read many, many Oz books and seen just about all the movies except for a few silent films. I read "Wicked", the first in this trilogy and thought it was an insightful look at a much travelled path. I saw the musical based on "Wicked".
In this case, I opted to listen to the audiobook instead of reading the print book. I knew I would be in the car quite a bit and would have the time to read it. The book is read by the author who does a commendable job at giving voice to different characters. One has a British accent, another a Southern accent, another is as old as dirt with a shaky voice. The big problem that I had with this book, however, is that it dragged on and on and on. I do not anticipate EVER AGAIN listening to 12 HOURS of a book. It seemed like it would never end! Twelve hours is longer than a mini-series and about as long as an entire season of a BBC television program. My library has shelf upon shelf of audiobooks LONGER than this one. I have seen some on the shelf that are up to 30 hours long or so. Who can listen to something that long? I think I have a fairly good attention span and have read books that are 650 pages long or so, but now I find that I can not STAND audiobooks more than 6 hours or so.
I think the only time I might contemplate listening to something this long again is if it has a full cast of characters, an orchestra, and recaps the previous night's episode at the beginning of each disc. Even then, I don't think I would want more than 8 hours at best. I have found that I much prefer the 1 hour radio dramas to these drawn out productions. I am going to stick to the young adult and children's sections of audiobooks for a while - but even there I see that there are extremely long volumes of 10 hours or more. Yikes!
Back to the content:
I am fairly certain that I would have enjoyed this book more in the printed format. It was a mere 337 pages long. That is just an average size for a book. It did have some drawn out philosophical parts that I probably would have skimmed or read quickly. As I reached the end I realized that the author had no intentions of tying up loose ends as he intended this book to be number two of three books. That was also annoying.
Here is the plot:
Liir lives his life as a drifter. He doesn't know for sure, but he and some others suspect that his mother was the Wicked Witch of the West and his father was a statesman who cheated on his wife. After the witch's death Liir eventually finds himself joining the National Guard for something to do. He finds a sense of belonging there, but still has serious gaps in his education, his sense of morality, and sense of being. Animals come to him hoping that he will help fight for their rights like his mother did. He is constantly insisting that he is not magical like Elphaba and he can't help - or can he? He learns to fly on her broomstick and becomes a revolutionary like the witch.
I don't think this is the Oz that L. Frank Baum imagined, but it is thoughtful and original. I wish the author would have resolved some more mysteries in this book, but instead he lives the audience in suspense for book three. Eventually I will get around to reading book three IN PRINT.

100 Cupboards

100 Cupboards
by
N. D. Wilson
children's fantasy fiction
narrated by Russell Horton
an unabridged CD production

This audiobook was exceedingly dull for the first 4 out of 5 discs. The narrator described in great detail the wood grain, color, etc. of cupboards in an attic bedroom. I hated this in Tolkien and Steinbeck's works and it was boring in this book. Sure, the cupboards were magic and gateways to other worlds/dimensions, but MORE ACTION AND LESS DESCRIPTION, please. The plot itself is good - go to other worlds through cupboards, but this begs to be ABRIDGED!
Henry comes to visit his aunt, uncle, and cousins in Kansas and discovers these gateway cupboards that were created by his mathematician grandfather. He is not an adventurous type, though, and hesitates to try them out. Fortunately Henrietta, his cousin, has more gumption. There is an evil witch from Endor and some good stuff. This would probably even make for a good movie, once the tedious parts are removed.
As a bonus, the author throws in some good baseball scenes demonstrating the magic of baseball in the good ole' USA.
The ending leaves room for plenty of sequels. I'll wait for the movies, though.

Pumpkin Smasher - now obtained

Pumpkin Smasher by Anita Benarde
children's fiction, ages 6-9
In my previous blog I lamented that this book was hard to come by. I finally received it through interlibrary loan in time for Christmas. This is, as the critics reported, a pretty good book. The children, that may seem to be troublemakers, come up with a great idea to thwart the mysterious stranger who has been smashing the pumpkins in Cranbury (somewhere in New England). The illustrations are simple yet effective utilizing only black and white and orange in a style that was retro even when this book was new in the 1970's. I see that this book was checked out by Mark and Julie S. back in 1997 from the Bryden School Library, Beachwood, Ohio and was purchased on May 30, 1973. I hope that Mark and Julie enjoyed this book. I did.

Sesame Street: Which Witch Is Which?

Sesame Street: Which Witch Is Which?
by
Michaela Muntean and Tom Brannon
Board Book ages 18 months - 5 years

Zoe and her monster friends all decide to be witches for Halloween. Can you guess which monster is which? Even though they are dressed as witches, this is not at all scary. Familiar characters and a simple plot make this a quick and easy Halloween read.

One problem: There is more than one book by this title and if you search a site like Amazon you might get the wrong book.