Month: August 2005

School of Wizardry (Circle of Magic, Book 1)by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald

The blurb: Determined to become a wizard, twelve-year-old Randal is delighted to be accepted into the famed School of Wizardry, but his apprenticeship is marred when he realizes that one of the master wizards is using evil spells to destroy the school and gain supreme power.

My review: Last night I finished reading School of Wizardry. The storyline slightly resembled the Harry Potter series…hang on, I just checked the publication date and School of Wizardry was published in 1990, which was prior to Harry Potter, so let me change my line of thought to Harry Potter slightly resembles School of Wizardry.

How do the resemble each other? The boy has no training but suddenly finds himself a wizard’s apprentice. There’s the “can’t do the spells” thing, the fiesty girl and the nasty master wizard, but other than that School of Wizardry had a different feel to it – more medieval. I liked the way we got inside the boy’s head and although this was book 1 of 6, I liked the way it ended too. It was obvious what the next book will be about, but with the addition of a couple of paragraphs, I felt satisfied with the ending and don’t have to read the next book. I hate being forced to do so, so this gave the book an extra point.

The book was entertaining. I enjoyed it.

The Children of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The blurb: L. M. Boston’s thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, have been entertaining readers for half a century.

There are three children: Toby, who rides the majestic horse Feste; his mischievous little sister, Linnet; and their brother, Alexander, who plays the flute. The children warmly welcome Tolly to Green Knowe… even though they’ve been dead for centuries.

But that’s how everything is at Green Knowe. The ancient manor hides as many stories as it does dusty old rooms.

And the master of the house is great-grandmother Oldknow, whose storytelling mixes present and past with the oldest magic in the world.

My review: This is a classic from the 1950’s. Before reading the book, I had read a few reviews that compared it to The Secret Garden.

This book didn’t do much for me. In fact, it annoyed me greatly.

It was a spooky type fantasy story, with ghosts of children from many years past visiting a child from the present. There were lots of wild animals and birds that came right up to people to be fed (this was the bit that really got to me) and then the story just ended. I didn’t feel as if there was a plot or a satisfactory ending.

Obviously, things have changed over the last 55 years and the kids of today would expect more – not to mention the publishers. I believe this was a good “what not to do” experience.

Clockwork by Philip Pullman

The blurb: Fritz, the writer, spins a spine-tingling tale to cheer up Karl, the apprentice clockmaker. But rather than helping matters, the story begins to come true….

The stories of Karl, the apprentice; Dr. Kalmenius, his nefarious “savior”; Gretl, the brave daughter of the town innkeeper; and a young prince whose clockwork heart is in danger of winding down come together in surprising and magical ways in a story that has the relentless urgency of a ticking clock.

My review: Yesterday, I started and finished reading Clockwork : Or All Wound Up by Philip Pullman. Sounds like a great feat, doesn’t it? There was only 81 pages so I can’t imagine anyone taking too long to read a book that thin.

This was the typical “Once upon a time…” type story. In fact, that’s exactly how it started. Those words alone told me not to take the story seriously, and although the story was put together well, in my opinion it wasn’t the best book on the face of the earth.

There was a page at the beginning that claimed that the book was based on an old German story. The surprising thing about this book was that, although it was written for children, the main characters were all adults, which is unusual. There were two children in the story who ended up having the roles that “saved the day” but they were really minor roles up till the end.

The other surprising fact about this story was the way the author included gory details. Remember, this book is read by children and I thought it was strange that the publishers allowed characters to be splattered, chopped up, sewn together and dead on their feet. It proves that it’s all in the wording and the tone and I felt the way the author did this was acceptable.

My recommendation? Hmmm. I can’t say I recommend it but it was a good distraction for a cold Saturday afternoon.

Drowned Wednesday by Garth Nix

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The blurb: On the third day, there were pirates.

Wednesday has rolled around, and Arthur Penhaligon has an invitation to return to the House that he can’t refuse. Drowned Wednesday has sent a ship to pick him up from the hospital…even though his hometown is miles away from any ocean.

From hospital room to the high seas, Arthur finds himself on an adventure that will pit him against pirates, storms, explosions of Nothing-laced gunpowder, and a vast beast that eats everything it encounters. Through it all, he is drawn deeper into the central mystery of the House. Arthur must find the third part of the Will and claim the Third Key – not just for himself, but for the millions (if not trillions) who will suffer if he doesn’t.

The first step? Surviving life aboard a ship on the Border Sea…

My review: Well, what can I say, I’ve outdone myself and managed to read Drowned Wednesday (Keys to the Kingdom, Book 3) in under two weeks. Not often does that happen. 🙂

As I said before, Garth Nix has let his mind run wild with this series but in my opinion it works well. The story is fast paced and fun to read. The entertainment value is high. There was no talking eye brows in this book but I lived, as I’m sure most readers will. Strangely, the very last paragraph didn’t make sense to me. I suppose it was a set up for the next book – Sir Thursday (The Keys To The Kingdom, Book 4)– but maybe I missed something in the storyline – I’m really not sure.

No matter, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to all young at heart readers who enjoy wacky stories.

The Little Country by Charles de Lint

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The blurb: When folk musician Janey Little finds a mysterious manuscript in an old trunk in her grandfather’s cottage, she is swept into a dangerous realm both strange and familiar. But true magic lurks within the pages of The Little Country, drawing genuine danger from across the oceans into Janey’s life, impelling her–armed only with her music–toward a terrifying confrontation.

Come walk the mist-draped hills of Cornwall, come walk the ancient standing stones. Listen to the fiddles, and the wind, and the sea. Come step with Janey Little into the pages of…The Little Country.

My review: You would have noticed by the sidebar that I’ve been reading The Little Country by Charles de Lint. Last night I finished it.

What did I think?

It started out really well, very interesting. There are two stories running parallel with each other. At first, I enjoyed one story more than the other but I was eventually taken over into the other story. However, the middle seemed to drag on a bit. By the end it all made sense but I sort of lost a bit of interest – not much, just a bit but I’ve had worries and that could have contributed to this.

The pros for the book was that the author used his imagination and touched on things that I’ve thought about but never said out loud. You’ll have to read the book to know what I’m talking about but the way our memory works was the main thing I found interesting…and the possibility that there is magic in our world, if only we could “see” it.

The cons were that there were several scenes that I felt were there for shock purposes. This book certainly is not recommended to under 18 year olds. Then again, that might be me being a bit of a prude. That aside, there were some awkward sentences that broke the flow and a fair bit of head hopping (which I find annoying).

Overall, this was a good read. I feel that if I had given the book more time and read it quicker then I would have gotten deeper into both stories and would have loved it but time is something I don’t have a lot of so it took me a couple of months to read the 630 pages. It was worth it.