children’s

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Thumbs up for The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson. Fantasy. Thumbs up for The River Bank by Kij Johnson. Fantasy.

Two drastically different books by the same author, but sprung from the same driving force: here is a world she loves, with the addition of female characters. In neither case is it necessary to have read the original works (Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, respectively).… >> Read more

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Thumbs up for Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani. Children’s graphic novel.

A girl whose mother won’t talk about why she emigrated from India discovers a shawl that transports her to a magical version of the land. Cute, but I wish the characters had been more deeply developed. (I think that would have been possible even granted this was marketed toward children.) This seems to be the author’s debut as a graphic novelist, which seems about right.… >> Read more

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Thumbs up for Benjamin the True by Claudia Paley. Children’s fantasy.

Benjamin discovers a witch, Ellenwan, in a cellar in his otherwise ordinary town. She teaches him witchcraft. There aren’t many books that really make you believe in magic while you’re reading them. This is one of them.

“I am not leaving you behind because I think you are afraid, or because there is nothing for you to do.

… >> Read more

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Neither thumbs up nor thumbs down for Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg. Children’s.

Hmm. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading it, it just seemed a bit pointless at the end. There are better books about magic, about imagination, about friendship, about school in the 1960’s, and there are better books by E. L.… >> Read more

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Thumbs up for Prince of the Godborn by Geraldine Harris. Children’s fantasy.

By all rights I should have been bored to tears by this, the first volume in a series about a spoiled half-God prince and his warrior half-brother traveling the world in search of seven MacGuffins. It also suffers a slight lack of commas. Yet, somehow, the characters and the world charmed me.… >> Read more