Tag Archives: magic

Rocks Fall Everyone Dies

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For those who enjoy the supernatural and magic, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies is a page turning, suspenseful mystery about a teenaged boy who can reach inside people and steal their memories, fears, sadness, and even their love.

The lead character, Aspen Quick, comes from a family who also has these powers, and who have used them for centuries to hold back the cliffs above their village from falling down into the valley. But as is often the case with power, it can be misused, and is in this story.

A coming of age novel that deals with addiction, handling power, and deciding what kind of a person one should be, complicated by the magical power his family welds, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies is best suited for high school aged readers, rather than middle school, due to swearing and sexual scenes (mostly making out).

The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root

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The debut novel by Christopher Pennell,  The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root,  is a perfect read-aloud or a read alone for the intended audience. It is a tale of magic and friendship that captivates from the very first sentence:
“In a small town called Whistle Root, rats play music in the moonlight.”   From that beginning, nothing that comes later can be too strange to be believed and really makes for a fun, refreshing fantasy.

The rats play music from the rooftops so the owls can dance. There are vegetables appearing on rooftops, of which one character comments: “ I notice that you have a squash on your roof, dear. How lovely. I only have broccoli”.  Rats talk and fly on breezes, mysterious messages appear inside a hat that is in a wooden crib in the middle of the woods, strange whispers can place people in a deep sleep and an unique beast appears who likes to adorn himself with owl feathers. It may have been difficult to pull off the sorts of unusual happenings found in this book, but Pennell does it with entertaining ease. He presents the activities and events so casually and deftly that it becomes very easy for the reader to accept them as a natural part of this odd, wonderful world.

The main character is Carly Bean Bitters, a young girl who can only sleep during the day and no one knows why. She is lonely as all children are awake when Carly is asleep. One magical night that all changes when Carly becomes friends with Lewis, a violin-playing rat.  Lewis has lost two members of his musical trio. When a member is missing from the band a vegetable stands in “for you must always have exactly three members.” Lewis already has a squash on Carly’s rooftop but Lewis proclaims that “ it would be too embarrassing to have two vegetables in the band and (the squash is a lousy drummer)”. So he asks Carly to join his group.

Soon after, Carly and Lewis become friends with Green. He is a boy who lives with his grandmother underneath the school.  Green has a hidden door to his house in a little used, dark area of the school library – the reference section. The three friends set out to uncover the reason for the strange change in behavior among the owls in Whistle Woods.  They had always danced to the rats’ music, but now they hunt them instead. Also, Green’s grandma has fallen into a sleep from which she cannot be awakened. Carly and Green are willing to do what is needed to get Grandma back and restore the once peaceful owl and rat relationship. Unraveling the mysteries will help restore everything to “normal”.

The illustrations by Rebecca Bond are charming pen and ink doodlings that complement the text.  My first response at seeing the illustrations was disappointment.  In our flashy, colorful world I expected the same for the illustrations.  However,  I realized as I became acquainted with the book that the media choice really was perfect.  Pennell provides a wonderful description and Bond provides a nice framework for readers to use their own creative imagination to fill in the color and detail. In the end I thought it was a wise choice.

Others have compared this novel to  The Dreamstealer by Sid Fleischman with its storyteller’s voice and the extravagance of its imagination, and Kenneth Grahme, C.S. Lewis, E.B. White and  Kate DiCamillo for its well-imagined talking animals… just to name a few.

It has just the right blend of mystery and scary with a fairy tale ending.
I’m a truly hoping that this will be a series, as I would love to get lost in the world of Whistle Root again and again.

The Path of Names

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Thirteen year old Dahlia has a summer camp experience like no other.

As part of a bargaining agreement with her parents, she must attend Camp Arava for two weeks.  In trade she will then get to go to magic camp at the end of summer.  Dahlia wants more than anything to improve her magic skills, so she accepts the deal.  From the moment she arrives at Camp Arava unusual things begin to happen.  She sees ghost children and she suddenly has inexplicably mad skills for  understanding Hebrew.  She begins to have visions and dreams of a man that lived seventy years ago.  And then there’s the hedge maze; off limits and overgrown, but so enticing.

As the plot thickens so do the supernatural occurrences. A book of Kabala that mysteriously keeps finding its way back into Dahlia’s possesion, voices from the dead and a golem play key roles in unraveling this tale of mystery, spirituality, mysticism and adventure.

The author, Ari Goelman, has created a novel that fills a niche.  Religion, mystery and adventure is a combination that is not often seen in children’s books.  A component of the story revolves around spirituality and Kabala (Jewish mysticism) but Goelman handles the topic with finesse.   He does not overwhelm the reader with in-depth information about the subject.  He gives just enough information for a novice to understand and be engaged.  Goelman deftly weaves several story lines into one engaging tale.

I found myself caring for the characters and was left wanting more when the story ended.  This story might appeal to children who like mysteries, ghost stories, adventure or spirituality.  The story is strong enough that if a child did not care for one aspect, it would not be enough to make them walk away.  I feel this story could have a wider audience if certain items had not been included.  I believe upper elementary students could have enjoyed this book if the following was left out:

In the girls cabin, the girls were to choose between a song or a story, but they wanted “S.O.S.” (sessions on sex). It was quickly overruled by a counselor in training.  (p.173)  This brief episode added nothing to the story, seemed a bit forced and could easily have been left out.

When a girl gets disturbed while sleeping she blurts out an expletive that some my find offensive. (p. 237)

These two items may seem minor, but when I consider my community’s culture I know this would not be a good choice as it stands.  It is a shame too, because this well written, layered tale is one that upper elementary would also enjoy.

 

Some Magic Cuts Deep…Claws

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This chapter books is steeped in fantasy and magic.  Our herione, Emma, is on a journey to find her abducted sister.  The family is worn from doing everything they possibly can to locate the sister that they are desperate to find. Emma finds herself in a fantastical world of cats, being the chose leader of the pride of cats.  As she can’t control her cat-like impulses, she gets expelled from her school and is forced to attend one that has dangerous creatures.  Magic, suspense, betrayal await her as she works to locate and rescue her older sister, who under a faeries spell, doesn’t wish to be found and returned to her home.  Every chaper has a CragWiki.org fact of the day.  This is areal and functioning website, which coordinates with the story.