When Maya’s best friend Stephanie died from cancer, her world fell apart. When her father’s job became uncertain, he and her mother took the opportunity to give the family a fresh start and moved from Iowa to Oregon. There are a lot of different things about their new town, including the people who live in the apartment building next door (who dress strangely and stick close to home) and, oh yeah, there’s the fairy that flies into Maya’s room one night.

When Maya wakes up the next morning, she thinks it was a dream – until she finds gold sparkly dust on the sheets. And the strange just keeps on coming: she meets her next door neighbors, and they use words she’s never heard of; a strange boy keeps asking her where the portal is; her neighbors are able to smell the fairy dust on her. Finally, at the end of her first day in her new school, Portal Boy shows up again and gets her to agree to take care of something he’s stolen.

Now she has a magical egg in her wrist, which is going to hatch into…something. Her next door neighbors are the only people with the power necessary to help her: they are the guardians of portals to other worlds, including the one where her egg came from. They’ve opened a door to another world for Maya, and it is one that will change her forever.

This is my first Nina Kiriki Hoffman novel (and her first for kids), but it won’t be my last. I LOVED this. I think the best thing about this (besides the fantastic writing) is that it’s not really fantasy, and it’s not really science fiction. It is an incredibly cool mix of the two, very unlike anything else I’ve read and yet comfortably set in our modern world with a main character anyone can relate to.

Maya’s grief over Stephanie gently powers a lot of her actions, which gives the whole book an undercurrent that really showcases Hoffman’s writing. It’s an incredibly realistic portrayal of adolescent emotion, which is unusual in a book in this genre. I also loved watching Maya deal with her troubles partially through art, taking everything down in her omnipresent sketchpad. So not only do we have fantasy, scifi, wonderful writing, and compelling characters, but we also have messages of the importance of art in our lives and of the power of grief.

It’s a lot to fit into one middle-grade book, but Hoffman makes it look effortless.

Sequel, please.

In a season where dystopia is the new utopia and boyfriends (or girlfriends) either have demonic (or angelic) tendencies, THE GRIMM LEGACY is a welcome oasis of clever plotting and wonderful reimagining of old tales.

Elizabeth, our heroine, spends her days trying to please her stepmother and two stepsisters, and even must leave her beloved dance classes in order to help pay for her sisters’ college fees. When on the way to school in downtown New York, she encounters a homeless woman wearing only sandals in the brutal cold. Elizabeth gives the woman her gym sneakers, and this kind deed has unexpected repercussions: she is invited by her enigmatic history teacher to interview for a job at the New York Circulating Material Repository. Curious and in need of extra cash, Elizabeth goes to the interview, and is subsequently hired at the Repository, which she comes to learn is a library of sorts for magical objects. Some, as the title alludes, are from the Grimm fairy tales, but others have more sci-fi applications, including collections from Wells and Lovecraft. There are objects going missing from the Repository, however, and Elizabeth must choose which of her new co-workers are worthy of trust as they search out the thief.

There is something wonderful about reading a book that takes you away to a place you’d really like to go, and The Grimm Collection does just that. I can’t tell you how much I want to go to the Repository now (you know, provided it actually existed). Everything about it is so whimsical (and a little dangerous), and Polly Shulman did such a wonderful job choosing the objects to feature.

Elizabeth is a brilliant heroine, and I rooted for her from page one, but I also really liked the supporting cast: Marc, the hot African-American basketball star who’s keeping secrets; Aaron, the geeky-cool nerd who pretends to be cynical; and Anjali, the girl-who’s-so-pretty-you-want-to-hate-her-but-she’s-really-nice-so-you-can’t-and-also-may-have-a-secret-too.

The amazing thing about this novel is that it’s a perfect fit for so many ages. It would make a charming read for a savvy eleven or twelve year old, but older teens will enjoy the romantic possibilities between the characters as well as the magical rules of the world; you can borrow a magical artifact if you get clearance from the Repository, but you have to leave something of yours behind, which could be your sense of humor, your singing voice, or even your firstborn child. This is a must-buy for any middle school librarian looking for something original and—dare I say it—perhaps even a little sweet.

Note from Melissa: this is one of my favorite books of the season, and I am so glad Sarah reviewed it. It is absolutely delightful. Shulman’s a favorite of mine, and it will not disappoint you. I too am dying for the Repository to actually exist, and you will be too. Thank goodness we can visit whenever we want by reopening this book.

I could boil this review down to five words: 

THIS BOOK RULES THE WORLD.

or how about

THIS BOOK ROCKED MY SOCKS.

or

GIVE ME THE SEQUEL NOW.

or

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.

Any of those, really. I tore through this book today and am now completely obsessed. COMPLETELY. When a publisher puts the kind of push behind a book like HarperCollins has done with this book, it often ends up feeling like smoke and mirrors. This book, however, deserves the massive amount of hype that it has gotten.

Have I mentioned that it’s awesome?

Lorien is a planet three hundred million miles away from Earth. Its entire population was killed by another race (the Mogadorians) – except for nine gifted children and their guardians. The 18 survivors fled to Earth where they have been hiding among us, waiting to grow into their Legacies (special powers that many of the Lorien people possess), fight the Mogadorians, and return to revive their home planet.

A two-part charm was put on the children before they left: they can only be killed in a certain order, and because of their link, each instantly knows if one of their kind has been killed. Our protagonist is Number Four, fifteen years old, and at the beginning of the book, he has just learned that Number Three has died.  John (his new alias) and his guardian, Henri, flee their current home for a small town in Ohio. They move constantly, changing identities, locations, schools in their ongoing attempt to elude the Mogadorians who followed them to Earth.

Their life is one of constant vigilance, and it is a life that “John” has tired of as he has gotten older. At his new school, he clashes immediately with the football star and crushes on the star’s ex-girlfriend, which leads to a series of events that threaten to expose him for who he truly is. As his Legacies finally begin to develop, as does his new relationship, he becomes less and less certain that the way he is leading his life is sustainable. And every day, Henri becomes more convinced that the evil they are fleeing is growing closer.

This is one of those novels that you can’t describe in too much depth because one tiny spoiler could ruin everything. So I can tell you this: it’s a long book (440 pages) yet there’s not one wasted word. The characters are flawed and believable and familiar in the best of ways. The twists surprised me and the bad guys are both original and scary. And the writing is SO GOOD.

Imagine my surprise when I Googled Pittacus Lore and learned that he is two people: a writer named Jobie Hughes..and JAMES FREY. Yes, that James Frey. People are surprising me every day in the world of young adult fiction; today is no different. Like the best of collaborative works, I have no idea where one author begins and the other ends.

I am, it must be said, a little desperate for the sequel to I AM NUMBER FOUR. I recommend joining me in my obsession as soon as possible. After all, there are still eleven days left until the release of MOCKINGJAY.

(or, rather, what we read to her)

Molly is used to having many, many books a day read to her. We knew that we’d need to take quite a few with us when we recently went away for five weeks. We knew that they’d need to be paperbacks. We knew we’d need a mix of old favorites and new things to keep it interesting. I’m going to do a few posts about some of the books that she requested over and over again.

MR. PUTTER AND TABBY FEED THE FISH by Cynthia Rylant with illustrations by Arthur Howard. I often forget, while selling picture books, that many early readers make excellent read-alouds for the toddler set. I’ve been selling Mr. Putter and Tabby books forever, but it had honestly been quite awhile since I read one and I had forgotten just how darn charming they are. In this adventure, Mr. Putter and Tabby decide to bring home some fish. However, Tabby becomes obsessed with the fish, going BAT. BAT. BAT. on the bowl and staying up all night to do so. Eventually Mr. Putter gives the fish to a neighbor, and he and Tabby are able to relax once more. Tabby has such personality, and her quirks are so well offset by Mr. Putter’s steadfastness. Howard’s art is the perfect lively compliment to Rylant’s usual lovely, fun writing.  I’ll be bringing many more books in this series home soon and will be selling them with renewed joy.

BEAR FEELS SCARED by Karma Wilson with illustrations by Jane Chapman. We are BIG fans of Bear; I think at this point we have the whole series. We’ve been reading these for well over a year and Molly still loves them. In this installment, Bear gets lost on a walk and becomes frightened. His worried friends form a search party and track him down, take him back to his cave, and snuggle up close…”and the bear feels safe.” These books have a lovely rhythm to them which makes them a delight to read aloud; the friendship between the animals is one of my favorite in picture books, ever; and Chapman’s art is always note-perfect. This is one series where I find it almost impossible to pick a favorite – you can’t go wrong with any of the Bear books.

I AM TOO ABSOLUTELY SMALL FOR SCHOOL by Lauren Child. I am not exaggerating when I say that Molly is completely obsessed with Charlie and Lola. The whole phenomenon began with this book and two others and ballooned into a TV show with accompanying merchandise. I was careful to hook her on the 3 originals (this one plus I WILL NEVER NOT EVER EAT A TOMATO and I AM NOT SLEEPY AND I WILL NOT GO TO BED) before ever letting her learn about the show. We now own the whole series on DVD (and it is actually wonderful), but the other books (all based on TV episodes) are for library checkout only in our house. Anyway. In this book, Lola is about to begin school and she is quite nervous about it. She comes up with all sorts of charming reasons why she doesn’t need to learn to count above ten (”I never eat more than ten cookies at one time”) or write letters to her friends (”I like to talk on the telephone. It’s more friendly and straightaway”). Eventually her long-suffering older brother Charlie convinces her to go so she can keep her imaginary friend, Soren Lorenson, company on HIS first day of school. Of course everything is fine – amusingly, charmingly, Britishly fine.

(Thanks to the TV show, Molly frequently talks in a British accent now. It is hilarious.)

If you have missed Charlie and Lola in your household, try one of the fabulous original three books. I’d skip the others in favor of actually watching the show, because it is absolutely delightful.

I’ll do another installment soon!

(review by Sarah)

When it comes to Cornelia Funke, I have no critical faculties.  I can’t lie; I love what she does.  I love her picture books, I love her middle-grade novels, and I love her young adult novels.  I marvel at how she writes in German and then really smart, clever people come along and translate her words, and then she reads the translations, which just boggles my mind.  I adore how she allows her novels to unfold, sometimes even somewhat slowly, which is the antithesis of so much of what I read in contemporary children’s fiction.  Cornelia will make you wait, but she will make the wait worthwhile.

Our dear Melissa very bravely stormed the crowds at BEA and snagged me a gorgeous hardcover ARC of RECKLESS, which is Cornelia’s first novel published by Little, Brown.  Although I was dying to read it, I chose to wait until a week arrived where I had ample time to not just read it, but to savor it.  Remember Charlie Bucket and the Wonka Bar he got for his birthday, and how he made it last for weeks?  Well, I’m not as patient as Charlie, but I swear I made myself dole out the last hundred pages of RECKLESS over several days, which took great self-control on my part.  Why did I love it so much?  What is RECKLESS all about?  Read on, but I may drop a spoiler or four along the way, so consider yourself warned.

The setting:  modern-day-ish Europe.  Doesn’t really matter where.  We meet Jacob, a young boy exploring his father’s study.  Everything is covered with dust; his father is long gone.  (’Gone’ is the operative word here, as his father is missing, not dead.)  Jacob examines a curious mirror in the study, and through the mirror, he discovers another world on the opposite side.  Funke fans may feel echoes here of the INKHEART books, where the world beyond ours seems all the more real, but just as the Inkworld was a dangerous place, the Mirrorworld holds its own temptations as well as nightmares.  We flash forward to years later; Jacob is now a very experienced treasure-hunter in the Mirrorworld (and has the scars to prove it), and his younger brother, Will, seeks to leave the real world to follow Jacob in the fairy-tale-esque land beyond the mirror.  Their time together takes a disastrous turn, however, when Will is attacked by a Goyl, a humanoid race made of stone.  The vicious blow starts a chain reaction in Will’s body; he is slowly turning to stone.  Jacob, who has always felt responsible for his younger brother, seeks to find a cure, but in the Mirrorworld, nothing comes easily, and everything has a price.

Jacob is immediately likable; he, like his last name suggests, is reckless, and has a bit of an Indiana Jones/Han Solo thing going on.  He’s smart, charming, worldly-wise, and yet he’s tormented by a childhood without a father, and runs away from conflict.  Will, on the other hand, stayed in the real world with their mother until her death, and he blames Jacob for leaving them for months at a time with barely a word.  Will also is in love with a young woman named Clara, who is swept along by the Reckless brothers into the Mirrorworld, and she displays a remarkable amount of courage on the journey.  What’s interesting is that Jacob and Will aren’t really even teenagers anymore; they’re actually young men, and I was really impressed with Cornelia’s choice to make her characters a little older than one usually finds in a young adult novel.  Their ages suited the dark, strange Mirrorworld, and gave me confidence as the novel went along that Jacob especially had the chops to handle the hurdles he faces.

I will say I’m not quite sure what age RECKLESS is for.  I believe it’s YA at its heart, but that said, I know well-read twelve-year-olds who would read it and love it, and I think I could easily give it to twenty-or-thirty-something friends too.  It’s grim at times, and did feature a minor villain with knives for hands that scared the crap out of me.  RECKLESS takes its fairy tale inspirations very seriously; there are indeed witches who eat children, there are spells that will turn you into a tree for hundreds of years, and the unicorns will gore you if you get too close.  Beyond that, there’s an entire political struggle (i.e. war) going on between the humans of the Mirrorworld and the Goyl, which culminates in a climactic battle scene for the throne, and even Jacob’s connection to a powerful Fairy may not be enough to save his brother.  Will’s situation, that of slowly turning into a Goyl, is painful to watch, as he slowly loses his memories of those he loves, as his heart is gradually turning to stone (jade, in his case).  I was entirely invested in Jacob’s journey, and Funke’s gift for writing supporting cast (particularly Fox, who really intrigued me with her motivations) really shone in RECKLESS.

Here’s my bottom line:  nobody writes like Cornelia Funke, as far as I’m concerned.  I love her voice because it doesn’t sound like anyone else.  She has a remarkable gift for description, and I love how she uses iconic imagery to give insight into her characters (the black moths for the Dark Fairy, the Bluejay for Meggie’s father, etc).  I love how she makes me fall head over heels with her stories every time, and even though I never know what she’s going to do, I trust her implicitly.  I have been assured by our Little, Brown rep that a sequel is indeed in the works, and for that I’m very grateful, because I’m not ready to let go of the Reckless brothers anytime soon.

Note from Melissa: I was hoping Sarah would review this, because I consider her a Cornelia Funke expert in addition to being a super fangirl. I didn’t love the INKHEART series, but I love her picture books and THE THIEF LORD and I really, really loved RECKLESS a lot. As an indie bookseller I am very concerned about the price point – it’s $19.99, and I can’t afford to discount it 33% like the online retailer who would like to put everyone out of business can. $19.99 is a lot to ask a parent to shell out for a novel their kid will likely read in one day (the kind of kid who will read this is the kind of kid who plows through books like a freight train, no matter their length or complexity). Kids’ books seem to be increasingly creeping toward this price, and I think it’s a big mistake. I also didn’t understand Little, Brown’s decision to make this ARC a limited edition bound hardcover. Every single shop was going to carry this book anyway, and it was already going to be a bestseller. It’s Cornelia Funke. I wish if they were going to spend this kind of money they’d spend it on debut authors who get overlooked.

Imagine dropping your cell phone into a fountain, and when you get it back, it’s broken – except it’s not. Now instead of calling everyone you know, it only calls one person: you, at age fourteen.

What would you tell yourself?

Once Devi gets her younger self to believe that it’s actually her on the phone, she sees the connection as her chance to fix everything that’s gone wrong in her life. She convinces YoungerDevi to do everything from study harder (so they get into a better college) to convince OlderDevi’s former best friend to not get plastic surgery. And, most importantly, she convinces YoungerDevi not to go out with Brian, the boy Devi spent her entire high school life with; the boy she lost all of her friendships over; the boy who just broke her heart.

But there’s no perfect way to mess with time, as both Devis quickly discover. Even as the college acceptance letter tacked to the wall morphs into one from a better school several times, the tiniest actions on the part of YoungerDevi affect OlderDevi’s life in unexpected (and often horrifying) ways. Now she needs YoungerDevi to fix her present as well as her past – but how far is too far? Will she ever be content with things as they are?

I thought this was a great read. Like OlderDevi, I have a list of things I’d like YoungerMelissa to go back and change – in theory. What would I give up from my present life in order to have some things I missed out on because of what YoungerMelissa chose to do? (What a great book club book this is.) The most interesting part of the whole thing, to me, is that I infinitely preferred YoungerDevi to OlderDevi, and definitely saw the merit in YoungerDevi getting to make changes in time to fix her future.

There’s a lot of humor here – sometimes YoungerDevi’s decision whips OlderDevi out of one life and into another with absolutely no notice, to hilarious effect. I wish that OlderDevi had had a more indepth realization that she really screwed up her life – that she did it to herself – rather than just insisting that YoungerDevi fix everything. There are moments of reflection, but I wanted them to go farther than they did.

Overall, though, this is a really good read (especially for summer) that will make anyone think about the choices they’ve made and are making in their life. And with the exception of a little underage drinking, it’s clean. I definitely recommend it.

I do not like it when people screw around with worlds and people that I love. WICKED? Literally threw it across the room about a third of the way through (although, inexplicably, I love the musical). Don’t write a sequel to THE SECRET GARDEN. Don’t make a horrible miniseries about Anne Shirley running off to war and kissing someone who isn’t Gilbert.

Despite all of this, when I opened the box of ARCs from my Little, Brown sales rep, I was compelled to crack open JANE first. JANE – a modern retelling of JANE EYRE, one of my favorite books of all time. I have no idea where this compulsion came from. Perhaps I wanted to get what I thought might be a book that would tick me off out of the way? Perhaps I wanted to read through it, nodding to myself about how right I was that no one should ever mess around with anything I love? Whatever my motivation, I picked it up earlier today and read through it in a couple of hours.

And, surprisingly, I really, really liked it. A whole lot.

Lindner repackages Jane as Jane Moore, a 19 year old college student forced to drop out of Sarah Lawrence after the death of her emotionally distant parents. Jane’s only real job experience has been babysitting, so she applies for jobs through a nanny agency. She accepts a job as a nanny at Thornfield Park, the palatial home of rock star Nico Rathburn. Recasting Rochester as a rock star works surprisingly well, as it gives built-in charisma to the hero and provides a credible basis for Jane’s attraction to him. The story tracks the plot of JANE EYRE pretty closely from there, with Lindner managing to give her characters enough of their own stories and personalities to keep the book from feeling anything even close to a tired retread of a classic. There are times during the book where minor plot points seem a little contrived in order to stick to the basic original story, but nothing large enough to overshadow my overall enjoyment of the book. I have read JANE EYRE upwards of fifty times in my life, and I hope that two things will happen with JANE: other fans like me will enjoy it, and people who have never read the original will after they finish this.

This is Lindner’s debut novel, and rumor has it that her next will be a retelling of WUTHERING HEIGHTS. I’m fond of that story as well, but Lindner’s writing is good enough that I’m looking forward to the day when she’s fully telling her own tale. Until that time, I can wholeheartedly recommend JANE – with a warning for those who have kids or students who are reading up: Jane and Nico are adults and their relationship does take a sexual turn. It’s not particularly graphic, but it’s impossible to mistake it for anything else. There’s also a little profanity, but it’s not overused.

A not so side note: the cover picture in the Little, Brown catalog says “not final,” which I think is really, really good news. I hope the cover is changed completely. Right now it shows a girl in a short jacket and a long skirt standing in a misty field and the title is in tall pink letters. It’s boring, boring, boring. This is a retelling of JANE EYRE set at least partially in a rock and roll world, and the cover looks like…JANE EYRE. There is nothing about this cover that’s going to make someone want to pick it up. There’s nothing about this cover that says “Jane Eyre in love with a rock star.” This cover says “generic girl-centric fiction, possibly set on the prairie.” Little, Brown: please, please change this cover; this book deserves better.

The school year is almost over. Summer is coming. Kids are going to reluctantly troop into the shop to buy their assigned summer reading, and most of them will be looking for something to counteract it. Something…lighter. More fun. Less…assign-y. Less…mandatory.

And just in time, along comes Miss Lucy B. Parker.

Charming, flawed, sympathetic main character? Check. Lighthearted writing that nevertheless has some substance behind it? Check. Squeaky clean without feeling babyish? Check. Available in paperback? Check.

Lucy B. Parker sends emails to tv host Dr. Maude (presumably a Dr. Phil-esque advice giver) about the trials and travails of her sixth grade life, and the emails are scattered throughout the tale of same. As if it wasn’t hard enough starting sixth grade without her two BFFs, who friend-dumped her – on the phone – from the mall – right before school started! – her mother is now dating the father of the most famous young actress/singer on the planet (think Miley Cyrus early in the Hannah Montana years). Lucy’s been going through one embarrassing time after another and now she’s facing life as the far less attractive, appealing and talented stepsister of the most famous girl on the planet. How much worse can her life get?

This novel is charming as all get out and a complete no-brainer handsell. I’m predicting it will be a summer bestseller for me.  Over the last couple of years I have very much enjoyed selling Robin Palmer’s fairy-tale based contemporary YA novels, which I have happily been selling to tweens due to their lack of very older content. Now it’s lovely to see Ms. Palmer turning her hand to novels truly aimed at the tween market, which just seems to be exploding. I love having books that I can hand to anyone without a second thought – reader, mom, grandmother, aunt, birthday gift giver. I love having paperback original series. I love tweeniness.

I can’t wait for Lucy’s next adventure!

Lois Lowry has been writing books for children for a long, long time. She has won many, many awards. I think we can all agree that Lois Lowry is a wonderful writer, one of the best who’s ever written books for kids. She even has a blog. Her most famous book is probably The Giver, and I adored it when I first read it back in the summer of 1997, and it blew my mind, and it deserves all the attention and love it’s received the world over. It is a phenomenal, important book that shook me down to the core of my being. And Lord knows I loved all of the Anastasia books, and I made “Things I Love” and “Things I Hate” lists throughout my entire childhood, all because of Anastasia.

But the first book I ever read by Lois Lowry was Taking Care of Terrific, first published in 1983, and of her many books, it is still my favorite. I still have the tattered copy I bought in elementary school. The pages are yellow and brittle and worn. (That’s a picture of it.) I’ve read this book at least once a year my whole life. And here’s why.

This book tells the story of Enid, who wants to change her life, and how she does it.

Enid is 14 and takes a job for the summer babysitting a four-year-old boy named Joshua Warwick Cameron IV, which seems like an ordinary thing to do, but she definitely sets her sights on a more-than-ordinary summer.

I decided that I would spend the summer meeting new people and maybe becoming something of a new person myself. I decided that my life was going to have elements of romance, intrigue, danger, and pathos in it.

And she decides to do it in the Public Garden, saying this:

If that sounds foolish to you, it only means that you don’t know Boston.

Well, I didn’t know Boston, but after that introduction, I sure wanted to. Chapter One sets the stage: Enid is looking back on her summer, thinking about the new friends she made, and she is in big trouble, but we don’t know why. By page three, though, we know that something amazing happened, if only for an hour:

… on that night we were all together, and a thin slice of moon was shining; there was music playing, and the green was all around us so green that you could feel it down inside your soul, and everybody’s life was changed. At least for one hour. Maybe that is all you ever get in this world, one hour like that.

I am fairly certain that when I first read this book at the age of eight, I’d probably never had an hour like that, but I’ve had plenty since, and they are some of my favorite memories. I think that when I first read that passage, I might have held my breath a little, wondering what had happened, wanting an hour like that.

Reading on, we learn that Enid is one of those painfully aware girls — aware of herself, aware of the details of the world around her. Enid is the sort of person who reads books and between the lines, and I’ve always liked that about her.

Enid hates her name. This is the book that taught me about all of those adjectives that end in “d” …

Maybe you have never noticed, but the most hideous adjectives end in the letter d. Pick up any one of Stephen King’s horror novels and open to any page; you’ll find them: horrid, putrid, sordid, acrid, viscid, squalid. And the very worst: fetid. Probably you don’t even know what “fetid” means; it isn’t a word you hear people use very often. But if you read a lot, the way I do, especially horror books, you come across that word, usually describing the breath of creatures who have returned from the grave and are covered with green slime. They all have fetid breath. Enid isn’t a repulsive adjective, as far as I know. But it sounds as if it should be … You can see why I decided to change my name.

Enid and Joshua Warwick Cameron IV ~ who decide to change their names to Cynthia and Tom Terrific, in the effort to become and feel like all new people ~ end up hanging around the Public Garden that summer with a saxophone player named Hawk, some bag ladies, and Seth Sandroff, a boy Enid knows from school and thinks she loathes. Of course, they end up having all sorts of unexpected adventures, big and small.

Part of what makes this book so wonderful is that Lois Lowry, as usual, treats her readers like they’re smart. There are references and ideas in this book that might have been a little bit too big for me at the time, but I hung in there because I knew that Lois Lowry knew I could. Not that this book is hard to understand or anything like that, but there is a humor and sophistication to it that must have taken me beyond where my mind was circa the third grade. Enid says she isn’t sure what transvestites are, and neither was I. This is the book where I first heard of Gregory Peck and Portrait of a Lady and Moby Dick, and this is the book that made me want to read Jane Eyre, because the housekeeper is reading it, and Enid tells her to just wait and see what Mr. Rochester is hiding in the attic.

Another thing I love about Lois Lowry: She tends to treat little kids — little boy kids, particularly — less as nuisances than the little charming bundles of smarts and cuteness they often are. Like Sam Krupnik, brother of Anastasia, and Joshua Warwick Camera IV. Sam and Joshua are very different characters, definitely, but they are characters, not caricatures. They are not depicted one dimensionally as pests or brats: they’re just little people. I think I fell in love with this book right around the time my own little brother was born, and I think I subconsciously appreciated that Anastasia and Enid were allowed to love these little boys — why wouldn’t they? These little boys were awesome! That’s how I felt about my little brother, too, and so I felt like I was a part of the Anastasia and Enid club, the best club on Earth, as far as I was concerned.

Like all my favorite books from childhood, this book had a big impact on me that has lasted for decades. I think in those years when I was first starting to become real friends with the boys in my neighborhood and on my school bus and in my class, I really absorbed the idea that boys who seemed utterly grody like Seth Sandroff might be secretly fantastic in their own secret Seth Sandroff-y kind of way. And whenever I accomplish some sort of goal, even now, I think about how Enid thought about how fun it was to win a battle and how fun it might be to start another one. I never hear Stardust without thinking of Hawk and his long legs, remembering how this book was the first time I ever heard of that song and learned that it’s special, and the way Hawk would say, “Long as she doan rain.”

When I would take a job babysitting some truly magnificent child, I would think, like Enid thought of Tom Terrific, “It sure doesn’t take long to start to love a kid.” The best kid I ever babysat was named Thomas, and I thought of him as my Tom Terrific.

This book is the reason I went to the Public Gardens when I was in Boston at the age of 31 and sat on a bench and watched the swan boats glide across the lake. It’s so I could feel close to Enid and Tom and the bag ladies and Hawk and Seth Sandroff and the whole gang.

This book is the story of one of those summers that starts out ordinary and turns into magic, and it is the story of how trying to transform yourself really just shows you who you were all along.

This book just taught me so much. It taught me how your life and your very self can be forever changed by people you would have never expected to change you. Perhaps most importantly, it taught me that people are often not what they seem.

Romance, intrigue, danger, and pathos ~ that summer, Enid’s life ended up having all of those things. And because of these characters, so did mine.

And so I’ll love this book forever.

One of my favorite spring books is the fantastic KNIGHTLEY ACADEMY by Violet Haberdasher. I read it in galley form, very early, and couldn’t wait for it to come out so I could sell it. It’s always so fantastic to read a fantasy that is more about strongly developed characters and intricate plot than it is about making up lots of crazy new magical words. KNIGHTLY ACADEMY has some fascinating things to say about class relations, too, and features an awesomely feisty girl right alongside the varied male characters. It is an excellent read.

So you can imagine my delight when I opened the mailbox one day and discovered that a visitor had come to see me, all the way from the actual Academy! Read more »