Snow Day

With the day to myself, finally posting here was top of my at-home list.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Haunting, detailed pencil illustrations alternate with spare text in this suspenseful tale about an orphan who lives hidden away in a vast London train station, spending his days maintaining clocks and restoring a mysterious automaton. The text and illustrations supply just enough clues to keep the reader flipping pages as you would in an old "flip book." This cinematic experience is perfect for the subject as the orphan stumbles into the life of a former film maker. Told with tension and a certain creepiness, this illustrated novel makes a good "starter" graphic novel.

Letters from Rapunzel by Sara Lewis Holmes
Not yet released, I had an advance copy of this book by my friend, Sara! Written as an epistolary novel for 8-12 year-olds, a modern-day Rapunzel (whose true identity is not revealed until near the end of the book) sends letters from the captivity of the dreaded Homework Club to someone she needs to believe can help her father. Rapunzel is funny, smart, and determined. She stubbornly believes that her father is under an evil spell rather than accepting her mother's word that he is hospitalized with a dark and perhaps incurable disease. Sara writes with such clarity about the burdens of giftedness and sensitivity that Rapunzel and her father's fate really mattered to me by the end of the book.

Magyk by Angie Sage

Finally I got around to this book, and what a fun one for while I wait for HPVII! The Heap family is a loving bunch of so-so wizards whose seventh son dies on the same day that an abandoned infant girl is left in their care. Fast forward eleven years and Jenna discovers that her favorite ghost calls her Princess for a reason. Jenna, the Heap family and a kidnapped eleven-year-old soldier named only Boy 412, are pitted against a really scary wizard and his Hunter, so although the outcome is predictable, the story that gets you there is great fun.

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier

When fifteen-year-old Reason's mother tries to take her own life, Reason is forced to do the unthinkable: live with her grandmother. Reason's mother has spent fifteen years convincing Reason that there is no magic in the world and that her grandmother, who believes she is a witch, is dangerous and delusional. Now Reason finds herself in her grandmother's clutches and immediately plots an escape. The escape she finds is not one she planned as she opens the back door of her grandmother's house to find herself transported from summer in Australia to winter in New York City. The book has a kind of symetry to it, half taking place down under, and half in the frozen north and Reason pursued by dangerous magic and madness in both places. She's a strong, interesting character, and her situation is so precarious that the pace of the book is pretty relentless.

The point of view switches between three young people who have magical ability and are in great danger. There's the divided point of view, the oft-stated choice between madness and magic, the setting split ... and the trouble is, the book doesn't exactly hang together with all this division. I'll read the sequel, but I'm hoping that the Magic Lessons focuses more on Reason and her magic.