As you might be able to tell, I have spent the last several decades rereading Betsy-Tacy, Anne of Green Gables and the All-of-a-Kind Family books for the 500th time, not straying far into the New Book aisle at the bookstore.  Which is one of the reasons why I have become a reviewer for this fine website, to get me out of that rut!

When I was at BEA, I was entirely overwhelmed and had no actual idea of what places I should go or people I should see, so I just started to get in any line I saw, because at the end of it there was a free book and an author wanting to sign it for me!  The first time I did this, at the head of the line I got Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw with Jeff Kinney, pen poised, asking me if the “Kymm” I wanted the book signed to was my daughter.  “Nope, it’s ME!”

Now, my OCD doesn’t usually let me start a series of books with any book other than the first, but trust me, it doesn’t matter a bit with Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I didn’t feel as though I was coming in in the middle of anything.  It’s the story of Greg Heffley, the titular wimpy kid, his parents, older brother Roderick, baby brother Manny, and best friend Rowley.  All Greg really wants to do is sleep, eat sweets and play video games, which seems like a reasonable goal to me, but his parents want him to do things like “get good grades” and “play soccer”, but Greg is pretty difficult to improve.  Will military school help?  Uh-oh…

This book is, to put it mildly, hilarious, with funny drawings and in an extremely realistic boy’s voice.  It is completely from Greg’s point of view, without any winking at the audience.  I really need to go back and read the first two books in the series, because Greg and his somewhat unusual world-view is definitely someone that I want to know better.

Lucinda Chapdelaine was born wealthy and upper-class, but one day, when she was five years old, her parents went off to a ball at the palace and that was the last she saw of them, therefor she was raised in poverty, a drudge for her kind but weak uncle and his cruel second wife.  After many years of misery, one day a mysterious woman leaves a mysterious jewel at Lucinda’s uncle’s goldsmith shop and that’s when Lucinda’s adventures begin.

The jewel is lost, found, stolen, sold, stolen back again, she discovers a mystery involving her parents’ death ten years before, she goes from the dungeon to the ball at the palace and everywhere inbetween, and no-one she meets along the way is quite what they seen, not the mysterious lady, known as the Amaranth Witch, not Peter the thief, not Prince Gregor, not even her aunt can be accepted on face value.  The author takes what could have been one or two-dimensional characters and gives everyone just that little bit of extra life to make them seem like actual people.  Actual people, in a fairy tale!  What will they think of next?

Lucinda has to go through an awful lot to reach her destiny, and she has help along the way, but mostly this is a female hero story, a fairytale about the girl using her own wits to find the end of the story.  If you or your child likes Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones or Gail Carson Levine, this book should be right up your alley.  This is Julie Berry’s debut novel, I flat out loved it, and I am really looking forward to reading more from this writer.

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