Warren the 13th and the All-Seeing Eye by Tania del Rio and Will Staehle

Warren the 13th and The All-Seeing Eye by Tania del Rio

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Review copy provided by Netgalley

What a delightfully strange journey this book has been! Warren the 13th is an odd yet endearing child who lives in and loves the hotel that has been in his family since its creation twelve generations before. His parents are dead, and so his Uncle Rupert runs the hotel until Warren turns eighteen. The trouble is that Uncle Rupert has no business dabbling in hotel management. He's lazy and not too bright, and he's madly in love with an evil witch who is using him to get to a magical treasure that will restore her to her former glory. All the while, poor young Warren is forced to act as bellhop/repairman/maintenance crew for the entire hotel, which is understandably hovering in a state of decrepit disrepair brought about by Uncle Rupert's slovenly mismanagement.

It's hard not to love Warren. He's industrious, resourceful, and kindhearted, spending all day trying to do the impossible and keep things working. He has few friends, but they are steadfast and noble. His tutor and the hotel chef are odd characters as well, but they are noble and honest through and through. His evil Aunt Annaconda is the only person actively trying to make life more difficult for Warren as she attempts to uncover the secrets of the All-Seeing Eye, a possibly magical devise that she believes is housed somewhere in the hotel grounds.

The style of this book is certainly unique, from the column style of the writing to the illustrated text and odd illustrations, everything about this book screams quirky (which is an appropriate statement to make considering the publisher). The thing is, it all works so well together that you can't help but enjoy the experience. This is a great adventure with a healthy dose of mystery and magic heaped on top. I'll certainly be adding this to my school's collection. If I can say nothing else for the story, the fact that the book is so odd will sell a large segment of students on it, no questions asked. Add to that the fact that the story is well told and heartwarming to boot, and you know you're dealing with a winner. Well done.



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Over the Underworld (Book 2 of The Unbelievable FIB) by Adam Shaughnessy

The Unbelievable FIB, Book 2: Over the Underworld by Adam Shaughnessy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A year ago, I was provided with an ARC of a book called The Entirely True Story of the Unbelievable FIB. It was an odd looking book with an equally odd title. It didn't appear to be a part of a series, and I had never heard of the author before. It just looked strange, and I wanted to know more about it. That book turned out to be the best book I read all year. I voted for it to win the middle grade category of the Goodreads choice awards, I bought it for my school library, and I recommended it to every colleague, friend, and family member that I caught in another boring conversation about the books I was reading. Sadly, I thought that was the last I'd have to do with The Unbelievable FIB.

So you can imagine my excitement upon learning that The Unbelievable FIB was coming around for another adventure. There was a new cover for the first book (nice, but I'm still a fan of the original cover), and a second book was on the way. Once again, I applied for an ARC from Netgalley, and after a week of hoping and waiting, my request was granted. I was in the middle of reading a few other books, and I tried to tell myself to wait until they were finished, but the part of me that remembered the last book wouldn't let me put it off.

Yesterday, I began reading Over the Underworld, and I have to say that I kind of let the world stop as I dove in. This time around, the cast of characters were all back, and the adventure started as soon as the book began. I was transfixed. I read and read, until much to my dismay, my e-reader simply ran out of battery. Curses! I was 82% through, and I was forced to a sudden and complete stop. Reluctantly, I let myself be drawn back into the world of people and batteries that don't last long enough to let me finish what I am reading. I plugged in my device to charge, and went on a walk with my wife, who I had been neglecting for the past couple of hours. Fast forward to this morning, 7 A.M. on a Sunday morning, and where do I find myself? Exactly where you'd expect an obsessive reader like me to be, lying in bed with my e-reader propped on my chest devouring the last 18% of Over the Underworld!

This book finds ABE and Pru, a year removed from their previous adventure, feeling neglected and forgotten. Life in Middleton has returned to sleepy small town boredom, and Mister Fox, Thor, Loki, and Odin have all been no shows since the mess with the giants has been sorted out. Pru is angry with Mister Fox for not returning. She feels used. ABE has a cooler head about everything, a theme that runs throughout this second story. In fact, an unexpected twist to this second book is that ABE has seemingly become the lead character. Pru is still significant and a good deal of the story is still focused on her perspective in everything, but ABE is the featured character here. Seventh grade is beginning and he is seemingly more focused on that going well than on reembarking on madcap investigations into the doings of the Norse gods and giants.

Still, when the two receive a summons to a council in Odin's home, they immediately comply and find themselves in the presence or more god-level turmoil. Baldur, Odin's favorite son, is dead and all signs seem to point to Loki being the murderer. Mr. Fox arrives on the scene soon early in the council meeting though with every intention of investigating the murder and possibly prove Loki's innocence. Pru and ABE soon find themselves investigating Baldur's death from the magical Hen House headquarters. Meanwhile, Thor and Hilde have been dispatched to round up the number one suspect, Loki, who has predictably gone into hiding.

Just as in book one, the investigation revolves around finding uncertainty, the real key to magic according to Mr. Fox. ABE receives visions wrapped in riddles that he alone can decipher the answers to. Pru, meanwhile, is coming to terms with her rocky start in seventh grade and the feelings of abandonment that being left in the dark about FIB business for a year has brought about. No one is above suspicion in this volume, just as in book one. Ragnarok is coming undoubtedly on its way, and time is of the essence.

This book is less focused on Middleton, with most of the real action occurring in the worlds of the gods and Middleton only being the place that the children return to regularly to attend school and interact with family. The real climax occurs in the world of the dead where once again there is a significant clash between the gods and the giants. The last few chapters offer up enough twists, both devastating and shocking, to leave you reeling and ready for what's to come in the next book. This book felt more like a part of series with a larger unresolved story arc rather than a book that just knocks you out with its greatness and leaves you wanting to reread to scoop up all the bits you missed on your first run-through.

I liked this second book in the series, though I was more impressed with the first book. It was certainly a compelling adventure, but certain elements were curiously light such as the bits of puzzling wisdom that Mr. Fox was so generous in serving up in the first adventure in Middleton. It seemed that every other line in book one was designed to bend the reader's mind just a little bit further, while in this book the adventure and the characters' intentions were fairly straightforward. I'm still on the hook for the third book in the series, which is a virtual certainty at this point, but I hope that in book three, some of that mind-bending, thought-provoking dialogue makes its return.

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Fires of Invention by J. Scott Savage

Fires of Invention by J. Scott Savage

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Review copy provided by Netgalley

This was a most unusual mixture of science fiction, dystopia, and fantasy. In the underground city of Cove, where technological advancement has been brought to an utter and complete stop, Trenton is at odds with himself. He is a mechanical whiz with a penchant for seeing potential improvements to his city's machinery and equipment, but also a devout believer in the city philosophy that curiosity, creativity, and inventiveness brought about the downfall of mankind everywhere except for Cove.

Trenton deals with a heavy sense of self-loathing as his mind continues to create while his sense of duty tells him that he should be able to suppress his creative urges. Into this mix comes Kallista Babbage, the only daughter of infamous inventor, Leo Babbage. She's not an easy sort of personality to be around, having lived most of her life as a defensive loner. She is a strong individual, hellbent on vindicating her father's work and restoring his reputation, which is is in ruins after an explosion that supposedly killed him and a number of residents in an apartment building where he was fixing a water heater.

Though their initial meeting is brought about by happenstance and Trenton is understandably resistant to being associated with Kallista, the two characters begin to work together when Trenton's mother prevents him from receiving an assignment to become a mechanic and he finds himself unable to pursue the career path that he has aspired to for as long as he can remember. What ensues is whirlwind adventure wherein Trenton and Kallista discover information that breaks down their previously held perceptions about their city and its beliefs. There is great risk and dire consequences for their behavior, but as information leads to inspiration and inspiration leads to invention, they both realize that there is no turning back for either of them.

This is a beautiful story, one that will leave readers both reeling and thoughtful. Characters are complex and multi-dimensional, and themes such as trust as friendship are as central to the plot as the "steam-punk" mechanical drive of its protagonists. I was more than a little impressed with this story as a whole. I can't wait to get my hands on the next volume in this middle grade series. This is sure to be a hit with the upper middle grade crowd as well as the young adult audience.



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Scrap City by D.S. Thornton

Scrap City by D.S. Thornton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Review copy provided by Netgalley

This book sucked me in and stole hours of sleep, something I don't get enough of as is, but I don't hold that against it because it gave me hours of pleasure in return. It was hardly typical of the fantasy genre with the overabundance of robot-like characters called Scrappers, but this was a worthwhile read in the fantasy genre.

Jerome Barnes is a protagonist that comes with a lot of baggage. His mother and his younger brother, Max, died tragically in an accident and Jerome blames himself. As a result, he isolates himself from others as he has lost all faith in the dependability of relationships. His father is dealing with the loss by throwing himself into his work as a real estate agent, making Jerome feel even more isolated.

The story springs out of Jerome tagging along on one such real estate deal, as his father attempts to convince the town junkman to sell his junkyard to a developer. While at the junkyard, he meets a mechanical boy named Arkie and is drawn into a secret world that exists at the junkyard.

This book really had me hooked from fairly on. At times, Jerome was hard to take since he puts on such a flinty exterior, treating Cici, a girl who tirelessly tries to be friends with him, like a nuisance, but you can tell through it all that he is just a kid dealing with a bad situation in the only way he knows how.

The Scrapper world of Smithytowne is definitely the most alluring part of this story. It has a Hogwarts-like appeal,a world that exists alongside the rest of the world, yet remains entirely undetected. There is a magical element in what brings the Scrappers to life, but it's a minimal piece of the story. Mostly, the story is centered on equal parts mystery and adventure as Jerome becomes more entangled in the world of the Scrappers and the effort to save the junkyard that Smithytowne lies beneath from what turns out to be an evil developer.

While I don't read stories like this often, I was impressed by this from start to finish, and I am certainly going to add it to my library collection as soon as I can. I recommend that elementary and middle school libraries all do the same. If you don't, you're missing out. This was a real pleasure to read.



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The Blood Guard by Carter Roy

The Blood Guard by Carter Roy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Review copy provided by Netgalley

If I was looking for a new series to bring me back to the middle grade fantasy genre after polishing the latest Rick Riordan or Eoin Colfer book, this would be the perfect choice. It has all the characteristic unrelenting action and sarcastic banter that have come to be genre mainstays of late. This is the story of boy whose parents lead secret lives while he leads a life of preparing for a destiny that is secret to him. I could probably write that same sentence to describe the beginning of a dozen different series written in the past dozen or so years, but it strangely doesn't mean that this book was any less satisfying for it.

This series is bound to have a fairly massive audience, and the best news is that it will leave that audience fairly satisfied so long as what comes next is as good as this first book was. One concern I have is that there is a noticeable lack of variety in the encounters with the villains. Maybe it's the fact that most of the villains are soulless thugs that behave in a predictable manner, but when the heroes have escaped from the same group of brutes over and over again, the concern becomes whether the experience remains fresh. It wasn't much of a problem in this one, but I see how it could become redundant in future volumes.

All in all, this was a good start to a series that could the next big one in the genre. It maintains an unrelenting pace and the characters are all fairly relatable. The banter is fun, lightly sarcastic, humorously oddball, and consistently action-driven. It will leave you hanging in the end, wanting the next book so you don't have to pause in your ravenous consumption. Maybe you'd be better off not starting this one until the next book is out if you're the reader that I just described. Nothing worse than having to wait to find out what happens next.



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Nobody Likes a Goblin by Ben Hatke

Nobody Likes a Goblin by Ben Hatke

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Review copy provided by Netgalley

This is one of those books that completely turns a genre on its head, and I just loved it. In this story, the goblin is the protagonist and the adventurers that invade his home are the antagonists. They come to his, pillage it for treasures that include his best friend, Skeleton, and leave. It makes the usual hero into the heartless villain essentially.

Goblin, of course, goes on a rescue mission to get his friend, Skeleton, back. He is mistreated by nearly all the other characters he meets on his journey, which pulls at your heartstrings because this goblin does nothing to earn the mistreatment that he receives, and you find yourself rooting against the cruel humans and elves of his world. They are bullies it turns out, driven by fear, that wish to destroy Goblin just for who he is.

This book could offer a great character lesson for any teacher that shares it with a class. This book, with its innocent approach, allows readers to confront the wrongness of discrimination head-on through fantasy. Therefore, you don't have to concern yourself with the awkwardness that sometimes arises out of trying to have this same discussion with more realistic examples. It offers readers a chance to think about a situation from a new point of view and should really invite a lively discussion.

I, for one, love this book, and I hope it makes a huge impact on the market when it is released. Really impressive story that will make readers empathize with a traditional enemy. Outstanding.

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The Night Parade by Kathryn Tanquary

The Night Parade by Kathryn Tanquary

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Review Copy provided by Netgalley

This is a thrilling read that is sure to engage readers from the moment the magic of the first begins. Set in a mountainside village in Japan, this is the story of Saki, a sullen teen from Tokyo forced to leave her beloved city for a family visit to her grandmother's home and the annual celebration of Obon. Sami starts the story as a rather unlikable character, more interested in her phone than her family. She has awful friends that are the very embodiment of the mean girl mentality, and she thinks there is nothing more important than impressing and appeasing the worst of them all, the manipulative leader of the group, Hana.

Neither Saki, nor her younger brother Jun, nor even her parents seem particularly thrilled with having to go, but they are going out of a sense of familial obligation. Saki's grandmother is probably the most likable character of all in the beginning. However, Sami soon falls in with the wrong crowd in the village and sets in motion a curse that she can only undo by traveling into the world of spirits known as the Night Parade. Over the course of three nights, she must find a way to lift the death curse she brought on with the help of the guides. However, her task will be none to easy as she soon discovers, and the consequences of failing are too great to risk.

I loved that this was a children's fantasy set in the world of Japanese folklore. It was such a refreshingly new angle. As a reader, I was entirely unaware of the celebration of Obon, and everything about this story seemed invite another unexpected chance to gain further insight into Japanese culture. While this is a highly appealing title for readers of the fantasy genre, it will hold equal appeal for YA teen readers. Along the way a reader will inevitably gain a deeper appreciation of Japanese cultural customs, which is a nice bonus. Certainly a worthwhile read that should make a big splash in fantasy market this year. Well done.



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Season Greetings and a Few Season's Readings

I'm beginning to think I should rename this blog something like The Sporadic Reviewer or A Reader Writes Every So Often. After all, looking back on my posting history, I write in bursts of fervor that are immediately followed by dry spells that would leave the average reader wondering if I've been abducted by aliens (provided that they believe in that sort of thing). Here I am, back for another post, and it's been about six months since my last foray into the blogging universe. I hope you weren't holding your breath.

I suppose the irony of these blogging lulls is that they very rarely coincide with reading lulls. This summer and fall have been great reading times for me. I've read well over a hundred books since my last post. I've previewed easily three hundred more. That's something I've been doing a lot lately. I have a Nook Color e reader and I use the thing constantly, though I don't buy many books on it. Instead, I shop the Barnes and Noble marketplace for new and interesting fiction and I download the preview for books that I like. After reading the preview, I decide if it's a book that I'd like to buy a print copy of. The previews are free, so I get to do what I would do if I were allowed to spend all the time I'd like to browsing a bookstore.

For every misunderstood
super villain, there is a
chance for redemption.

I have a favorite book of the year. It was The Cloak Society by Jeramey Kraatz, a book about a super villain in training and the dilemma he faces as he comes to terms with the idea that he's been fighting on the wrong side his entire life. The young super villain is part of a collective of super villains that includes his parents, and his internal struggle of loyalty versus following his conscience is a emotionally charged roller coaster. Kraatz is a new author for me, but his debut blew me away. There's a second book in his Cloak Society series already, and I've been looking forward to picking it up for a while. I kind of can't believe that I have already.

A great Veteran's Day read.

I've read a few picture books that were equally impressive in the past few months. The Poppy Lady is the Veteran's Day picture book that I've been looking for for years. It tells the story of Moina Belle Michael, an obscure historical figure whose efforts to honor the efforts of WWI and WWII veterans resulted in the sale of poppies on Veteran's and Memorial Day to this day. I have to admit that when I read this, I didn't know anything about poppy importance and I'd certainly never heard of Moina Belle Michael. This one of those circumstances where I read, I called my fellow teachers up, and by that afternoon I had a lesson planned that involved reading The Poppy Lady to an entire grade level.

I wish I had the determination
of the bird in this story.

More recently, and on a far less serious note, I thoroughly enjoyed How Rocket Learned to Read by Tad Hills. Here is a book that every teacher can appreciate. Rocket is a dog that enjoys the dog life. He is simple-minded, content in his routine, and happy. Then he meets a bird that messes all of that up, and he's a lot better off because of it. The bird is what really won me over in this book. He's truly unflappable (excuse the awful pun) in his mission to make Rocket a reader. Rocket turns out to fit the prototype of reluctant readers to the letter. The bird wins him over with great literature that Rocket just can't ignore, which is usually the best way. For anyone who's ever met the kid that that just didn't want to like reading, no matter what you try, this book is here to reinforce your beliefs and reassure you that your efforts are worth it. It's a simple ten-minute read, but you won't regret it. I didn't.

Anyway, if this is the holiday season for you, have a good one. If it's not the holiday season, I hope that  these books brighten your winter months. Of course, if you're reading this in the southern hemisphere and the temperature is approaching that of boiling water, maybe an air conditioner is a higher priority at the moment. Give these books a look when you get a chance. Happy reading, everyone.

Oz, the Book and Movie Monster

I'm one of those oddballs who has read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and a couple of the sequels in the Oz series. Now, I know that in the world at large that hardly makes me unusual. Those books have been read by a lot of people. I'm not going to pretend that I have any idea just how many people that might be, but I know I'm in good company. However, among the people I spend my time with, I'm kind of alone in that capacity. Because of that, when I went to see Oz, the Great and Powerful with my wife and a friend, I was the only one who was quietly drawing comparisons between the book characters and the characters they'd developed for the movie. I knew being the guy that voiced all those comparisons to an unappreciative audience wasn't cool, so generally I tried to keep my thoughts on the matter to myself. In the case of this most recent movie adaptation, I was actually very happy not to bring it up. I was already aware that Oz, the Great and Powerful wasn't intended as an adaptation of one of the original books. If anything, I suspected this movie would do more to reignite interest in the books than draw comparisons to them. With that thought in mind, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It was a beautiful film with astounding visual effects and a heartbreaking love story carefully woven into the plot.

A new movie is hardly a revolutionary incarnation for the series though. Oz stories have been produced in nearly major medium in existence, dating all the way back to the days of L. Frank Baum who dabbled in plays, silent movies, and various other formats for his famous series. Not every attempt to present the series in a new way worked even then, at the peak of Oz's popularity, and Baum was dealt many failures during his lifetime. Luckily, setbacks didn't stop his writing. He wrote the first fourteen volumes in the Oz series. That's twice as many books as J.K. Rowling wrote for Harry Potter. Essentially, Oz is the series that keeps on giving. And I like that. I also like that the series didn't end at the time of Baum's death. As terrible as it is to lose the original creator of any series, the decision to keep the series going with Ruth Plumly Thompson assuming the author role meant that by the time I came along to read the books, I had an overabundance to choose from.

This is a wonderful series to pick up today. Despite its being more than a century old, Oz is still highly readable. The text hasn't become so dated that casual readers wouldn't understand what was happening, and the plots of the original books are right on par with the popular fantasy series of today. Better than that, if you are among the growing number of readers that read electronic books, most of the Oz series is available for free online. Be aware that not every book will revolve around Dorothy Gale, Toto, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion. While those characters do return to the series time and again, new characters become the focus in every volume. The Marvelous Land of Oz, the second book in the series, does not incorporate Dorothy at all. New characters have their own quests, ambitions, vices, and allegiances. Also, realize that the land of Oz won't always by the setting. Ozma of Oz, the third book, is set almost entirely in another magical land called Ev. Despite it being just across the desert from Oz, Ev is its own land with its own creatures and leadership. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz starts in an underground fairy world populated by vegetable people called the Mangaboos. Their city is called the Glass City.

All in all, this is the sort of series that you should try. If you're like many of my peers, the Oz you'll find in the books is a land that can allow that moment of escape when you need it. Not unlike Dorothy, you could probably use an occasional escape from the otherwise gray monotony of your lives. I know I do sometimes.

Book 10: Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers

-from Pilkey.com

Well, I've finished book ten and I'm confused. The first piece that baffled me was the title. Other than the fact that Captain Underpants rips the robo-pants off of the third and final incarnation of Tippy Tinkletrousers, leaving him to give chase in a pair of boxers for a couple of chapters, robo-boxers weren't much more than a footnote. I suppose the "Radioactive" might have referred to the abundance of nuclear bombs used in this particular epic novel. The "Revolting Revenge" part might refer to the crazed acts of the three Tippy Tinkletrousers when they each discovered that in order to beat Captain Underpants they might have to blow themselves up and seriously effect the fabric of history in the process.

I hope that by now you're as confused as I was. If you've been reading along in my challenge up to now, you know that in my last post I mentioned the sudden and rather graphic demise of Tippy Tinkletrousers. Well, like many readers, I was tricked. I bought into the red splatter explanation for the end of Tippy. I thought things were looking bleak, not only for the world of Captain Underpants, but for the tenth epic novel. His creativity and cleverness were back, but his plot was running into one roadblock after another. Well, Dav Pilkey has a new trick up his sleeve. What I call retraction he calls misdirection. I'm not sure most magicians would agree with his label since most of them have made their entire career by building an act around real misdirection, but if he wants to call what he does misdirection, who am I to judge?

Anyway, it turned out that the world of Captain Underpants hadn't rid itself of Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) just yet. He still was out to seek his revenge with some more robotic-man-to-superhero-man combat, all courtesy of more outlandish and contradictory time travel loopholes. If you're familiar with book nine, you're aware that a major undertaking of the plot was not to violate the Banana Cream Pie Paradox. If you're not familiar with this paradox, basically it means that you can't go from the present into the past and somehow change that past without seriously messing up the present that you left behind; furthermore, if you mess up the present you left behind, that messed-up present might mean time traveling to the past wouldn't have happened and time and all the events connected to time make no sense anymore. If that explanation confuses you, read the comic strip in chapter two of book nine and it will all become clear…or not. Bottom line, time travel is really messy business no matter how you look at it. So bring on the comic hi-jinx and throw logic into another dimension because this epic novel is intended to blow your mind.

from scholastic.com

Pilkey decided that the best way to make things really interesting was to have Tippy continually jump back and forth through time as he tries to avoid destroying the world while still attempting to destroy his arch-nemesis, Captain Underpants. Along the way, he meets up with a past version of himself who eventually multiplies through more time travel into a third version of himself. All three then set out to complete their task. The funniest part of the work of these three is that they don't work well together. Throughout most of their time together, they are their own biggest obstacle on their road to successful destructive behavior. They regularly attempt to one-up each other, slight each other, sabotage each other, and basically prevent each other from being the one that experiences the joy of finally defeating Captain Underpants. In a lot of ways, they beat themselves. By my calculations, their collaboration is also a complete violation of the Banana Cream Pie Paradox. However, if you look past that, it's not too hard to spot the better qualities of the story.

This is the first Captain Underpants epic to incorporate Ook and Gluk's cave people, thanks to some more time travel. This is also some of the more creative Flip-O-Rama in the series. You have the cave people to thank for that. I liked that he dabbled in alternative history, though the explanations for the start of the universe, the end of the dinosaurs, and the ice age were a little bit redundant. Nuclear bombs and ray guns can't be responsible for every important event in our history. Well, they can, but that gets boring after a while.

The ending was kind of predictable for anyone who had been reading all of Captain Underpants past encounters with Professor Poopypants/Tippy Tinkletrousers. He did go out with a bang at least. I won't say that I think he's really gone since that really seems to depend more on whether Dav Pilkey needs to squeeze a bit more mileage out of the villains he already created. At least Tippy is gone for now, and another adventure involving Melvin Sneedly seems to be in the works. Who knows what the future holds? For now, I'm all caught up.

Book 9: Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers

This was a refreshingly wild ride. Never mind the fact that the first chapter of book nine was basically a retraction of the final chapter of book eight. Never mind that the second chapter was a strange and comical demonstration of a time travel paradox titled The Banana Cream Pie Paradox. (By the way, I thoroughly enjoyed that demonstration.) Maybe it's the fact that I took a two-year break from the series, or maybe it's the fact that Dav Pilkey took a six-year break, but book nine has seemingly given the series new life.

It certainly wasn't the story I was anticipating. For one thing, I was expecting Tippy Tinkletrousers to take a larger role over the course of the story since his return was the focus of the title. Instead, his rampaging escape from prison and his brief quest for revenge against Captain Underpants were the focuses of chapters three through eight after which the reader could basically forget about him until he briefly reappeared in chapter thirty-one. He regained the spotlight in chapter thirty-two, but Tippy's role in the book (and presumably the remainder of the series) ended abruptly in the one-word chapter thirty-three. (I wasn't too crazy about the choice of illustration in chapter thirty-three.) He hardly seemed like a title character to me.

Anyway, the part of this story that I was able to get into was the flashback to five years ago, when George and Harold were in kindergarten and were confronted by an over-the-top bully problem. I read in another blog that this was Dav Pilkey's attempt to address bullying. I don't know if I'd call what he did addressing bullying as much as using bullying, which in a variety of ways has been an ongoing theme of the series, as a mechanism for driving the plot. He certainly doesn't recommend any positive strategies for dealing with bullies, though I wouldn't expect him to under the circumstances. Another running theme of the series has been a general dysfunction among the entire adult population forcing George and Harold to rely on themselves to solve their problems, so he certainly couldn't have had the two of them go to a grownup for help. I expect that if Dav Pilkey really wanted to address bullying in a way that would actually help children react and cope, this wouldn't have been his preferred method of doing so.

That said, I enjoyed the part of the story that dealt with George and Harold bonding and building a plan to fight back on the behalf of their fellow kindergartners. The combination of the intricate planning they went through to execute their plans and the comical reactions of their parents when they came upon the plans being carried out made for entertaining reading. The bullies gullibility and predictable overreactions to George and Harold's plans added to the fun. The intent of the series is absurdist humor and this volume achieves that goal with wonderful ease. It also fleshes out some of the back story of the boys' friendship, though I honestly never gave much thought to the origins of their friendship. All in all, I think it's safe to say that Pilkey is back on track with this installment. I look forward to reading book ten, though the conclusion of book nine touts ten as the final epic novel in the series. I don't know what to think about that. Is Pilkey looking for an exit strategy? Is he ready to move on, or is this just a ploy to leave readers like me wondering? We'll find out in the next epic novel, I suppose. 

My Terrifying Return to Captain Underpants, Renewing the Underpants Challenge

In April of 2011, I embarked on a quest to read every Captain Underpants book in existence. At the time, that meant eight books. I was able to complete that task at a one-a-day pace, a feat that I took great pride in at the time. To my surprise, the books weren't that bad. I recall concluding with the thought that  the series had received an undeserved bad rap. Sure, some of the humor had been rehashed and reused a few times too many, but the books were reasonably clever and funny in their own way. I went from being a librarian that scoffed at the books' literary merit to a reader that could, at the very least, understand and appreciate the books' popularity.

Well, fast forward almost two years and the long-awaited books 9 and 10 have finally arrived. There are rumors of a book 11 perpetuated by another last page teaser with a coming soon advertisement. I'm not going to believe that rumor until I can actually hold book 11, but since I have managed to fall behind on the series, I can't think of any better use of my time than to renew my Captain Underpants challenge and read books 9 and 10. If book 11 does happen to come out before Dav Pilkey sends the series into another six-year hiatus, I'll be sure to give that a review as well.

Anyway, this is bound to be interesting. It's been a while since I've given these books a close look. I'm curious about whether the books will seem as entertaining as they were before. I'm hopeful, but I won't know until I've given Tippy Tinkletrousers a fair shake. It took long enough to get here.

If you're new to my challenge and would like to catch up; below are links to my earlier posts in this series. Additionally, if you'd like to read along and join me in the fun, feel free to share your thoughts in comment section on my posts.

April, 16, 2011 Today, I Embark on Underpants
April 17, 2011 Book 1: The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey
April 17, 2011 Book 2: Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets
April 18, 2011 Book 3: Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies From Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)
April 19, 2011 Book 4: Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants
April 21, 2011 Book 5: Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman
April 21, 2011 Book 6: Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, Part 1
April 22, 2011 Book 7: Captain Underpants and Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, Part 2
April 23, 2011 Book 8: Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People

Where have you been all this time? The joy of rereading favorite titles.

I recently picked up my copy of The House with the Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs. Please understand, the books of John Bellairs have a special place in my heart. Maybe it has something to do with the memory I have of my father reading Bellairs year after year, to class after class of students. Maybe it has something to do with how identifiable Lewis Barnevelt has always been to me. Maybe I just have a strange addiction to the thrill of stories about social outcasts that regularly find themselves mixed up with supernatural forces that are out to get them. I didn't say it made sense, only that I felt it.

Anyway, I've read The House with a Clock in Its Walls, the first book in the Lewis Barnevelt series, at least a half dozen times in my life, and yet I still found myself drawn back into its pages recently. What is it about books like that? They sit on my shelves for months or even years, completely untouched, and then BAM! It's 12:30 A.M. on a weeknight and I can't stop reading because I'm in the middle of a chapter and I know a good part is coming up. The joy of a book like that never dies.

As an educator, I have a habit of reliving similar reading experiences many times. Anyone who stays at a job for more than one year consecutively will experience at least some degree of redundancy at some point. For me, that means reteaching the same concept more than once, rereading the same books, answering the same questions innumerable times, but knowing all the while that I might be the only person in the room for whom the experience isn't entirely new. If I'm teaching place value to the twelfth or twentieth different group of students that I can remember teaching place value to, it doesn't mean that class hearing it or experiencing it for the twelfth or twentieth time too. It would be wrong of me to teach it the way I'm feeling it. Sadly, that might mean I'm masking boredom around my students some of the time. And part of the time that I'm hiding my boredom might be while I'm reading a book that I've read enough times to recite it from memory. I don't want to mention any of the titles that float through my head when I write that, but some books are better off read once, but not twice.

That said, some books stand the test of time, and others don't. I've read the poem, "Homework, Oh Homework" by Jack Prelutsky, to enough students that I don't even need to pull out The New Kid on The Block to refresh myself on the order of the lines anymore. That's despite that fact that I am about as talented at memorizing as I am at bull fighting on the Moon. You would think "Homework, Oh Homework" would have lost some of it's former appeal, but I still laugh at the line about wrestling a lion alone in the dark almost every time. I can't prove that's to you in this medium, but trust me. It happens.

Every time I read Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, I laugh when the monkeys get Jay Berry drunk, and I cry at the end. I'm referring to the book, not the horrific Disney movie adaptation. I'm sure the Disney movie would make Wilson Rawls cry, but not for the reasons that Disney might hope it would. I've reread that book enough times that I could probably write you a pretty good Cliff's Notes edition, but I don't regret it even once. I love the predictability of knowing just how a chapter is going to strike me. I love the relationship between Jay Berry and his Grandfather and it comforts me to read something so familiar, genuine, and goodhearted. It's truly one of the finest books I've ever read. I don't want to hit you with any spoilers, but if you don't tear up at least a little in the last scene of that book, I would recommend that you get some therapy because you're probably bottling up your emotions in a dangerous fashion.

I'm not alone in this rereading habit either. My entire family, with the exception of my wife and my mother, rereads favorite books. I don't try to figure out why two of the most important women in my life don't reread. I suspect it has something to do with their questionable taste in reading material. Rereading can be a powerful experience. It can give us a powerful jolt of nostalgia. It can change our perspective on something we thought we knew pretty well before. Certainly, rereading books that we remember from our childhood can provide us with a different outlook on the text or our younger selves. I recently reread a book by Bruce Coville that I was enamored with as an eight-year-old. I worked through the entire My Teacher is an Alien series in late elementary school. Upon rereading, I discovered that I still enjoyed the book, but a character that I remember liking when I was younger now seemed flawed and cowardly. I don't know how I didn't see that the first time I read, but time changes everything, I suppose, including perceptions.

I feel like rereading has a bad wrap among many readers though. I'm not saying rereading is always great. Rereading can be a strange and unproductive experience too. I know someone who rereads the entire Harry Potter series again and again without taking a break for other reading in between. Last I heard, she was on her fifteenth broomstick ride through Hogwarts. I don't know what can be gleaned from a record number of consecutive loops through the same books, regardless of how good the story was a first, second, or third time around, but I have to admit that as I went through the books and then the movies, more than once I returned to some moments in the books that I really enjoyed. Rereading is like a second look at something to enhance the first impression.

That said, I'm moving back through the three series by John Bellairs right now. If you haven't taken a look at John Bellairs' writing before, I highly recommend it. The three series that he created are that of Lewis Barnevelt (my personal favorite), Anthony Monday, and Johnny Dixon. Because Bellairs died with unfinished work, two of his series were continued by Brad Strickland. The Strickland books are equally entertaining in my opinion, though my father and I have discussed the matter extensively and have never come to a complete agreement. They are all realistic fantasy, as though that label isn't entirely befuddling. They contain elements of magic, macabre, horror, mystery, and adventure, all while being set ordinary, small towns in the mid-1900s. All three characters are likable to the reader, though they are generally unpopular with their own peers. They are the sort of protagonists that you root for despite remaining acutely aware of their outsider status at all times. If this is the sort of story that sounds like it could worm its way onto your reading list, then don't hesitate, but don't be surprised if you find it making its way back into your hands a few times after that first read. Rereading is probable. 

The Free Lance Trilogy by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

Most readers know the author/illustrator combination of Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell for their Edge Chronicles series, and rightfully so. That series is truly wonderful. However, Stewart and Riddell have collaborated on far more than that, and Free Lance (also called A Knight's Story) is a great example. Though it only amounted to a trilogy, it's a very entertaining collection that would be perfect for that reluctant reader who yearns for a rougher breed of adventure. There's blood, frightening villains, and a certain lack of sentimental wandering that many readers find profoundly off-putting.

It follows the story of an unbonded knight and his horse as they make their way through medieval life without the support of a lord. The knight has a strong personality and takes great pride in his free lance status, insisting that answering to a lord would only prevent him from doing what he wanted to do. Despite his rough exterior and his business-like approach which makes him seem more like modern police detective than a medieval knight, he is a genuine character that will completely win you over even as circumstances push him into one difficult decision after another.

The first book, Lake of Skulls, is decidedly dark and gritty. After unwittingly wandering into a rural tournament and unintentionally offending the local lord, a series of double crosses by some locals and some run-of-the-mill thuggery leads our protagonist, the wandering knight, into a perilous agreement to retrieve a cursed crown from a haunted island from which no one has ever returned. Our knight is adamantly opposed to superstitious belief, and refuses to accept that the curse of the crown exists, but he does begrudgingly embark on the journey to retrieve the crown. This, of course, is where the story takes a turn for the dangerous. I don't want to spoil it for you, but his quest to retrieve the crown is no walk in the park, and despite the fact that he succeeds the quest doesn't wrap up as cleanly as you might expect.

Book two finds our friend, the knight, in a big jousting tournament. He's the same bitter, independent character that we remember from his first adventure, but he's caught amid an entirely new crowd of deceitful swindlers. In this go-around, a money-hungry, corrupt nobleman is out to control the tournament through bribery and strong-arming the competitors into letting his champion win. In this book, there is a damsel in distress for the first time, not that the knight is all that excited to have to come to her rescue. In fact, he leans heavily toward letting her fend for herself. There's a whole internal battle for him about whether to do the right thing for him or for everyone else. I think the highlight of this volume is the squire that he takes on. He's kind of bumbling and goofy, but he's absolutely loyal and endearing.

The final book in the series takes us away from the jousting tournaments again. This time, our knight is hard up for cash and is escorting a skittish merchant from one city to another. His squire is laid up with a broken leg and Free Lance is on his own again. Of course, he's not transporting the merchant across your run of the mill countryside. Oh no, this is cursed land that is supposed to ensure untimely death to all who don't heed the warnings of an old legend. If you've learned anything about the knight though, it shouldn't surprise you that he doesn't buy the story despite his client's numerous pleas and warnings. After dropping the merchant off at his appointed destination, circumstances involving a new damsel in distress and some excessively superstitious townsfolk lead Free Lance back into the fabled field of death and an unintentional face-to-face encounter with the dragon creature from the story. Not surprisingly, a perilous battle ensues. Sadly, this encounter also brings about the conclusion of the series. Free Lance decides to give up the wandering knight life and settle down with the damsel and the newfound wealth he fell into during his fight with the dragon lizard.

We can hope for a series of stories revolving around the squire, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart have both moved onto bigger series since then, so these three books have to stand on their own. While they could support a few more volumes or at least a spinoff series involving the squire or the knight's child, I'm willing to give my vote of approval to this series without that. It's brief and bold, but also brilliant if you are the reader that holds out hope for a tough adventure with real grit. Free Lance is a singular sort of character in the genre, a medieval version of the Lone Ranger.

Wolven by Di Toft, OR I Conquer the Wilds

It was a weekend worth remembering; a disastrous attempt at building a fire with wood that just wasn't having it; a carefree jaunt through a flea market that redefined rockbottom pricing; an opportunity to dive headlong into a British paranormal adventures series about that most overdone of angles, lycanthropy. I couldn't be much happier. Okay, in certain respects my weekend camping trip could have gone much better. In others, it was pretty near perfect.

Let's choose to accentuate the positive though. That boils down to the number of stars that are visible in central Pennsylvania, good company making for good times, and Wolven by Di Toft. Before I dive into the depths of joy that Toft's book of a boy and his dog boy brought me, let me just thank my wife and my sister-in-law for pulling me along with them on their trip to the wilds of central Pennsylvania. I don't normally go for the whole roughing it angle. Don't get me wrong. I have no aversion to nature but, as Jim Gaffigan so eloquently put it, "I'd like to keep the relationship professional." You really don't get to see so many stars in my small suburban town. That was hardly the case in the pitch black of the campground I spent a few days in this week. The trick was finding a patch of sky unobstructed by the abundant trees to view the spectacle overhead.

In the daytime, between wrangling with an energetic niece and nephew (a nephew that could run even an olympic marathoner ragged), I read Wolven and what a pleasant reprieve it was. No vampire romances to be found in this one. In fact, neither of the characters are old enough to have any interest in that, though there was the one scene where the two of them were entranced at the carnival by a girl with a swirly gown and wild hair. Instead, this was more akin to Shiloh if Shiloh had been partially human. Toft writes a fair adventure, though I feel somehow uncertain after this first book. I know that there's a second adventure in store for those brave enough to plow forward, but I was kind of expecting the villains to be more lasting. You see, she killed all the baddies by the end of book one. Now she's going to have to introduce a whole new batch of rotten toads for book two. I suppose that's the way it works for some series. Each volume would stand on its own well enough that it wouldn't need a series to back it up.

We'll have to wait on that second one as I haven't seen it in any of my local bookstores, though it claims to be out and ready for reading already. In the meantime, I'm going back to the land of the shrouded night sky. I'll miss the constellations, but home is where your stuff is after all.

A Little Something Unbearable…

Two o’clock on a Saturday and where do I find myself? In a women’s clothing store, waiting for my dear fiancée to try on a few pairs of brown dress pants. What does a man do in a women’s clothing store? He waits, occupying himself with anything that he can find to distract himself from the misery that is sitting in a women’s clothing store on an otherwise beautiful spring day. And so, the time had come for me to acquaint myself with Miss Sookie Stackhouse. You see, my fiancée is a True Blood fan, one among a legion of fans by my understanding, and so like many True Blood fans, she has decided to read the series from which True Blood was derived.

Now, if you are among the few who has read some of my earlier blog entries, you’ll remember that the last unbearable thing that my fiancée dropped upon my lap was equally paranormal, and equally cringe worthy. I am speaking, of course, of the Twilight books, Stephanie Meyer’s saga of strange creatures with strange addictions to sorry excuses for humanity. That’s right, Bella Swan, I still think you’re a dimbulb. I was never much for the Team Edward versus Team Jacob argument. I was always on Team You-Both-Could-Do-Much-Better. But this is a new beast altogether. Sookie Stackhouse has her own skills, her own vampires, her own dog man, her own messy home life. And I am not reading the entire series. It’s enough for me that I have passed by the television a few times while she was watching an episode.

No, my meeting with Sookie is due to an acute oversight on my part: leaving the house without sufficient reading material. I make a point of always keeping something to read from or write upon whenever I go out. This is primarily to prepare me for just such a situation as this one, the unplanned visit to pick up a pair of pants, or shoes, or a blouse, or just to browse for the sheer joy of it. As long as I have something to occupy myself with, I know I can persevere through whatever is thrown my way. Yet, on this particular Saturday, as we pulled into a parking space and prepared to disembark, what did I find behind me? Nothing. Well, the near equivalent of nothing. Just the volume of Sookie Stackhouse short stories that my fiancée recently checked out but neglected to remove from my backseat. Desperate times. I picked up the book and trudged into the store.

The book was in large print, not because my fiancée needed it, but because that was the only edition the library had available. That was fine by me though. If there’s one quirk I don’t take issue with, it’s the publisher that takes unnecessary pity on my eyes. Aside from that, it turned a 300 page book into a much more manageable burden should I become strangely enthralled. So I cracked it open to the beginning and dove in. Around me, my fiancée began draping pants that she wanted to try on. I become a human coat rack in stores. It’s okay. I’ve happily resigned myself to this lot in life. She’s more than worth the slight indignity.

I started reading a story about a trio of fairies who suspect that one of their own has been slain by a coworker at a strip club. This is not exactly my choice of material, but it’s better than price stickers and clothing labels. They’ve rounded up their collection of suspects and tied them up in various parts of the house. Sookie, who reads minds (but apparently doesn’t see the moneymaking potential therein, since she works as a waitress at a dive bar), has been brought in to interrogate the suspects. After cross-examining one after another, each with their own backlog of reasonable suspicion, Sookie uses her powers of deduction to piece together a plot that pins the club owner with premeditated murder by lemon juice. Oh boy, I think. Fairy murder by lemon juice doesn’t bode well for what’s to come.

The next story is of the vampire persuasion. It centers on the coming of who else but Count Dracula, and via a few slightly funny “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” references it builds a story around a vampire holiday, of all things. It ends with a vampire being staked by Sookie while other vampires, werewolves and werepanthers (that’s right, I said werepanthers) all look on. Oh my, maybe the clothing labels would have been better. But I keep reading, and horror of horrors, I am getting hooked. I manage to blow through the third story, a story centered on another vampire who killed Sookie’s long-lost vampire cousin, before my fiancee picks out her pants, and I am started on number four by the time we exit the store. Maybe there’s something to this paranormal escapade after all.

So you’d think that after leaving the store and returning home to my room-o-literature, I should be ready to set aside Sookie’s stories and get back to the high-quality books I normally read, but you’d be wrong. I keep on keeping on. In fact, I read the final two stories before dinner. Story four involves some simple detective-style storytelling focused on an insurance agent who dabbles in magic to increase his clients’ luck. I’d hardly even call it a story as much as an inconclusive yet colorful anecdote. Story five is a shameful attempt at paranormal harlequin writing. Basically, the story boils down to a lonely Sookie looking for a little lovin' and finding it in the arms of an abandoned werewolf. Then, because everything isn't odd enough, it turns out that the werewolf was only a shifter/actor hired to give the required lovin' by Sookie's recently discovered fairy great-grandfather as a Christmas gift. Yet I still manage to zone out everyone, everything, even through the fairy grandparent hiring his human granddaughter her own prostitute. Even my fiancée seems a bit peeved with me before I’m through, though when I read a book like this she does offer me some leniency.

So, I have fallen prey to Sookie Stackhouse. I don’t have any desire to read the other stories. I’ll leave them to the masses. But for one day at least I have to admit that I became a Sookie faithful. She helped me through something unbearable, even if the reprieve she offered might have been every bit as unbearable under other circumstances. I guess I owe her one.

Jim Dale Carries Me Through the Classics

Let me start by saying that I am not one of those readers who believes that reading the classics is a reader's rite of passage, necessary in order to qualify his or her opinions on other works. I've never read the endless tomes of Leo Tolstoy or the collected poetry of Emily Dickinson, and though I'm sure there are those who would disagree, I don't think my thoughts are any less valid for this lack of experience. Despite this, I recently polished off a book that I had been trying to read for quite a few years, and I managed it from start to finish in just a little more than a day's time. It was J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, a classic by most people's standards, but not the easiest story to grasp for a miserably incompetent American reader who gets caught on every dose of English wit and wisdom so liberally splashed onto every page by the renowned Mr. Barrie.

My secret to success wasn't anything brilliant. I'm not about to sell you on some stupid program guaranteed to make you a snooty reading snob in seven easy steps. Nope. I'm still the low-brow buffoon I've always been. I've just discovered a reading format that pushes me through the unattainable books that I never imagined I'd find myself finishing. The audiobook. Well, that, and I've found a reader who makes otherwise unbearable stories truly enjoyable. And that reader is Jim Dale. Now, I know that I'm not this man's only fan. In fact, in the world of audiobooks, Jim Dale has roughly the same status that Oprah has in the daytime television. He read the audiobook editions of all seven Harry Potter books, which one assumes would naturally catapult him to the forefront of the profession. The thing is, he did it really well. Every character received their own voice treatment. The man does voices, lots of them. And he wins awards for them, lots of them.

I didn't listen to the Harry Potter books though. I read them, page by sleep-deprived page. In fact, I came across Mr. Dale's talent thanks to Dave Barry and an awful daily commute. I was in the local public library wondering. That's something I spend an inordinate amount of time doing in libraries, wondering. I look and look, feeling strangely at home. Yet, that day I happened across the audiobook edition of the book Peter and the Shadow Thieves read by none other than Jim Dale. It'd been a couple years since I'd navigated my way through the innumerable pages of Peter and the Starcatchers, and I figured I'd put book two in the series off for long enough. Aside from that, I had to contend with two hours a day, five days a week of driving that I found about as bearable as most of the time I spent in college-level psychology courses. So I borrowed the audiobook, popped in disc one and settled into the most pleasant surprise I'd had in months.

If you looking for a real treat, I strongly recommend the aforementioned series in its delightful audiobook format. You'll find nothing better. I flew through the remainder of the books and found myself wanting more than anything to hear a little more. Jim Dale had brought Peter Pan to life for me in a way that no movie ever had, had renewed my interest in trying to finish the original Barrie book, had brought the wonder of Neverland into better focus. Now, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson did a wonderful job putting together a compelling series full of action and intrigue, mystery and suspense. Dale went that extra mile though and animated it with only the power of his voice.

Anyway, when I returned the materials I borrowed and I thought there was nowhere else to go with it, I found myself back at the audiobook section leafing through the other listening options. And wouldn't you know I saw an audio edition of Peter Pan read by none other than Jim Dale? I picked it up without another thought and hurried out to my car to start my next adventure. By the next day, I'd finished it off though. I listened to it again. I didn't know what I found harder to believe, that I'd gotten all the way through or that I'd understood it well enough to thoroughly enjoy the experience. Well, that was how it all started. I'd become one of the Jim Dale faithful. I went back to library looking again for something else he could pull me through. I found classics. Jim Dale reads classics. As I write this, I have A Christmas Carol  by Charles Dickens and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I'm nearing the end of A Christmas Carol right now, and it's been another excellent experience from the death of Jacob Marley up to now. I'm ready to descend into Wonderland as soon as I leave the snowy pre-Christmas streets of 19th century London. I have the strange feeling that it will be a lot of fun. Who knows where I'll go next? Maybe around the world in record time with Phileas Fogg? We'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, if you have the means and an otherwise horrific car ride ahead of you, stop by your local library and pick up an audiobook courtesy of Jim Dale. You won't regret it unless you have an aversion to quality entertainment. If you do, that probably explains your choosing to read this blog, but I can't account for taste. Thanks for taking a look. I've got to get back to the ghostly intervention of one miserly Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge.

The Wind Singer by William Nicholsen

I don't recommend the entire "Wind on Fire" series that this book comes from. I didn't enjoy the second or third book nearly as much, but the Wind Singer was different. It was an excellent piece of fantasy. I already wrote about my favorite book, The Phantom Tollbooth, in an earlier post and when I read this, I was reminded of that story. Both stories are great quest tales. Their plots aren't that similar, but they each have that something special in common. I really feel that I learned something from each of them, Mumpo included. Actually, Mumpo the most.


One of the charms of this story is that despite the constant peril for the characters, the author never falls in love with killing off characters. Unfortunately, he does just that with the rest of the series. However, The Wind Singer is practically perfect. I heard from another reader that they didn't care for the 'death chant' of the terrible Zars, but so long as the three of them managed to stay ahead of them and avoid confronting them, I was okay with that.


Now, I don't know if that was just the masterpiece Nicholson had up his sleeve because I was so put off by the books that came after that I kind of went cold on his subsequent series, but even if that was his opus it's fine by me. I loved The Wind Singer. It was a fun read and I've actually done a few rereads and it maintains its charm. That's something that not too many other books can claim.