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A really awesome post about designing an ebook suitable for both screen and print. Love it!
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“Richard Nash will step down as editorial director of Soft Skull Press and executive editor of parent company Counterpoint March 10.”
Feb 272009
Creepers by Keith Gray
Publication: Putnam Juvenile (1997), Hardcover, 139 pages / ISBN 0399231862
Genre: Fiction, Children’s/YA
Rating: 4.5/5
Find @ Amazon
Challenge: Read Your Own Books 2009 (#11)
First sentence: A dog was barking.
I read a review of this on Chicklish and thought it sounded really good, so I got it from BookMooch last December. For some reason I didn’t read it ’til now, but I got a nice surprise once I did. This is a really excellent book!
Summary from Amazon:
Jamie was the best Creeper at school. He could sneak through more yards than anyone else without being caught. He was fast and hardly made any noise. I was surprised when he wanted to Creep with me. I was pretty good, but with Jamie I felt like I could climb over any fence and never get caught.
Then we decided to do Derwent Drive–the longest Creep in the village. You had to move so fast, most of the way along you didn’t have time to think. We were halfway down when it happened. I went Haywire. I just freaked out. I don’t know why. I’d handled big dogs before, but this time I lost it. I can’t believe I did that. I got away, but Jamie was Snared! The police came! What am I going to do now? And what’s going to happen to Jamie?
I was hoping it wouldn’t be too depressing, considering the inside flap says “A brilliant first novel about friendship, courage, and loss” and THAT means something depressing will probably happen. Well, yeah, something depressing happened, but it was balanced out by the happy(ish) ending and the writing was so awesome I didn’t even really mind the depressing thing.
I can’t really talk about the depressing thing without giving away massive spoilers, but I will say that there’s immense character growth (which you should know by now I absolutely love) and some learning-what-life-is-about situations. Not that it’s cheesy, or preachy. It’s quite subtle, actually, yet sharp and to-the-point. Lovely!
Creeping sounds like a really fun thing to do, doesn’t it? And I also love that Creepers have their own vocabulary and rules and such. I love me some secret kid society! Unfortunately I think if I creeped around here I’d be shot, but I can dream.
There’s two very different covers for Creepers (that I’ve found, at least). One’s the hardcover copy, up there, and then there’s this paperback cover:
I actually like it better than the hardcover one. It’s got two people on it, rather than just one, and it shows them in the act of helping one another over a difficult obstacle. The hardback cover just looks like the kid is getting chased by searchlights or something. What do you think? Which cover do you prefer?
Other reviews: Chicklish
Feb 272009
Septimus Heap #2: Flyte by Angie Sage
Publication: HarperCollins (2007), Paperback, 544 pages / ISBN 0060577363
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Rating: 4/5
Find @ Amazon
Challenge: Read Your Own Books 2009 (#10)
First sentence: It is night on the Marram Marshes; a full moon shines down on the black waters and illuminates the nighttime Things who are going about their business.
Series: Book #1 | Book #2 | Book #3 | Book #4
I love the first Septimus Heap book, Magyk, and so I was super excited to read this one. I had just as much fun reading it as I did Magyk, yet I felt slightly disappointed.
Summary from Amazon:
It’s been a year since Septimus Heap discovered his real family and true calling to be a wizard. As Apprentice to Extra Ordinary Wizard Marcia Overstrand, he is learning the fine arts of Conjurations, Charms, and other Magyk, while Jenna is adapting to life as the Princess and enjoying the freedom of the Castle.
But there is something sinister at work. Marcia is constantly trailed by a menacing Darke Shadow, and Septimus’s brother Simon seems bent on a revenge no one understands. Why is the Darke Magyk still lingering?
The main problem was, I think, that it seemed like the plot started off very quickly, with a lot of movement and excitement and then BAM. Stopped short. And then it never really picked back up again. It felt more like a transition between two events than an event of its own, and though I enjoyed reading it I wanted something a little more.
There is some character change/growth, which was nice, and the various subplots were quite sweet: Septimus meeting the rest of his family, for instance, and the thing with the (dead) Queen and her (alive) husband. The adult characters were pretty much the same, except maybe more annoying because they wouldn’t listen to the kids. If they had ever read a Diana Wynne Jones book, they’d know that’s a dangerous thing to do.
There are some exciting, action-y parts, of course, plus lots of interesting magic, new characters and places that I grew to love as much as the old ones. I especially liked learning about the people who became friends with the main characters after the first book– it kept things from getting too enclosed.
However, there were some other things that didn’t seem to be fully explored (not yet, anyway. Maybe they’re explored in the next few books). Septimus’ new, er, “pet” kind of just appears, then doesn’t really serve a purpose until the end and yet still seems mostly a sideline thing. Like many other things introduced in this book, it seems like it won’t find its place in the narrative until the next book or later.
Overall, it feels very transitory, and somewhat jumbled. Not bad, but not entirely like the first book, either. The parts I liked I really liked, and the parts I didn’t were just meh. Still, I look forward to reading the rest of the series and seeing where everything ends up!
Other reviews: Cindy’s Blog of Everything
The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch
Publication: Little, Brown Young Readers (2008), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 384 pages / ISBN 0316113697
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Children’s/YA
Rating: 4/5
Find @ Amazon
First sentence: WARNING: DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS PAGE!
So, yeah, this is a Series of Unfortunate Events rip-off, only it’s less depressing, has less moody characters, weirder villains (if possible), and codes to decipher. I liked it!
Summary from Amazon:
Warning: this description has not been authorized by Pseudonymous Bosch. As much as he’d love to sing the praises of his book (he is very vain), he wouldn’t want you to hear about his brave 11-year old heroes, Cass and Max-Ernest. Or about how a mysterious box of vials, the Symphony of Smells, sends them on the trail of a magician who has vanished under strange (and stinky) circumstances. And he certainly wouldn’t want you to know about the hair-raising adventures that follow and the nefarious villains they face. You see, not only is the name of this book secret, the story inside is, too. For it concerns a secret. A Big Secret.
It’s not entirely like Lemony Snicket’s books, of course, but it does resonate heavily of them. However, like I said, there’s practically no depressing parts and the writer is willing to actually tell us things, although very grudgingly. What he does’nt tell us are things that aren’t really important anyway, like Cass and Max-Ernest’s real names, where they live, etc. The author also a) isn’t on the run and b) hasn’t lost someone important in his life, so he isn’t whining all the time about them. This is very refreshing.
Besides the author and his writing style, there are fun characters, a fun mystery full of hidden codes and dangerous baddies, secret societies, and a sad story about twins who wanted to be magicians. I thought it was well done, and I enjoyed reading it once I stopped comparing it to the Lemony Snicket books.
I’d recommend it for those who didn’t like the Series of Unfortunate Events but want to read a quirky kid’s book with some interesting characters and a fantastic reveal.
The cover is pretty nice, eh? It’s the US version. Here’s the British cover:
I’m not sure which one I like better. Which one do you prefer?
Get your own copy from Amazon.
Other reviews: Becky’s Book Reviews | The Book Bark! | A Fort Made of Books
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