Suzanne Collins

Gregor the Overlander
by Suzanne Collins
Recommended Age: 11+

In Scholastic’s “About the Author” blurb, Suzanne Collins explains her first novel as a 21st-century, New York City version of Alice in Wonderland – in the sense that instead of a rabbit hole, you might fall down a manhole – and what you would find at the bottom would be quite different too. What 11-year-old Gregor finds is an underground kingdom populated by purple-eyed people who live in harmony with giant bats (“fliers”). Their uneasy allies include giant spiders (called “spinners”) and giant cockroaches (“crawlers”). And their chief enemy is a race of man-sized, man-eating rats (“gnawers”).

Gregor lives in New York City with his demented grandmother, his emotionally wounded mother, and two younger sisters. Gregor has to be the man of the house. While his sister Lizzie goes to summer camp and his mother to work, Gregor takes care of Grandma and the youngest child in the family, a two-year-old girl nicknamed Boots who was born after their father disappeared. One day Gregor and Boots inadvertently find out where their father disappeared to when they are sucked down an air shaft into the Underland.

At first, all Gregor wants to do is get home to comfort his worried mother. But soon, he finds out that his father has been taken prisoner by the rats. And everyone thinks that a vague, centuries-old prophecy means that Gregor will be the warrior who saves the underland city of Regalia from the warlike rats. Soon, Gregor is on a quest of twelve companions, four of whom (according to the Prophecy of Grey) will not survive the journey. Even though he is only a child and knows nothing about war or the ways of the Underland, Gregor must find it in himself to bring peace to Regalia, and to bring his father home.

This is the first book in a proposed series of five called The Underland Chronicles, though at the time of this writing, there is only one other book in the series — Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane. Once you start reading this book, you will be sucked in for good. Hooray! Yet another series in progress, for which you can wait impatiently for the next book to come out!

Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane
by Suzanne Collins
Recommended Age: 12+

Somewhere or other, Suzanne Collins claimed that she conceived the Underland Chronicles as a modern, urban answer to Alice in Wonderland. To be sure, what Gregor finds at the bottom of a manhole in Central Park is jarringly different from the topsy-turvyland Alice found at the bottom of her English rabbit hole. It is so different, in fact, that I am inclined to think of Underland as more of an Oz for the twenty-first century.

Consider this: like Dorothy of Kansas, Gregor of New York is part of a loving family circle that suffers from horrendous poverty. This is not the sort of “ever after” you expect after Gregor’s heroics in rescuing his long-lost father from giant rats and bringing him home. Dad is still sick in body and mind. Grandma still thinks she is on the old farm in Virginia where she grew up. Mom can scarcely earn enough money to pay the bills and put food on the table. And with two beloved younger sisters to think about, Gregor is the one who goes hungry most often. Even with the help of a kindly, and suspiciously knowledgeable, lady from the apartment upstairs, you look at this family and think: “Gee, somebody should do something about this.”

Somebody does. Several somebodies. Unfortunately, those somebodies are giant rats, and the something that they do is to attempt to kidnap and murder Gregor’s baby sister Boots.

Why? Well, the rats have learned of a prophecy by the visionary founder of the Underland city of Regalia, Bartholomew of Sandwich. For the prophecy of Bane predicts that only Gregor – the “Overland warrior” – can destroy the great white hope of the rats and their bid to wipe out all humans in the Underland. But they also believe that if they kill Gregor’s baby sister, Boots, it will break Gregor’s spirit and he won’t be able to stop them. It’s like an arms race – whoever hits their target first, wins all. And Gregor has never felt himself to be much of a warrior, after all.

Before Gregor knows what’s happening, he and Boots are back in Regalia, preparing for another quest deep into Rat territory. This time they must cross monster-infested waters, depend on allies who may or may not be dependable, and overcome epic portions of anger, fear, grief, and hatred. Gregor learns staggering things about the amazing Underland, about who his true friends are, and about himself. But the most dangerous part of his adventure may happen after his quest is complete....

I am amazed at how colorful and lovable Collins makes her characters and the strange world in which they live and, in some cases, die. I am even more amazed at the menace, the mystery, the gut-clenching action and the deeply moving drama that unfolds around them. Did I say this was like Oz? I must have been out of my mind! This is like no world of danger and destiny you have ever entered before. And by the time Gregor comes out of it, all you’ll want to know is when he’s going back in!

Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods
by Suzanne Collins
Recommended Age: 12+

Book Three in the Underland Chronicles finds Gregor still trying to work out the meaning of the Prophecy of Blood, given to him at the end of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane. Whatever it means, the weird backward-written prophecy isn’t going to be easy on Gregor’s family. His father’s health is deteriorating again. His mother is terrified of letting her children disappear again, and forbids them from going down to the laundry room where the entrance to the Underland lies. Grandma is slowly slipping away, and Gregor’s next-younger sister Lizzie is a nervous wreck.

But it looks like Gregor and his toddler-sister Boots will have to go back down the strange world miles below New York City – no matter what his mother thinks. A plague is coming that could wipe out every warm-blooded being in the Underland, unless Gregor and Boots go back. Gregor isn’t comfortable with his role as the warrior, any more than he cares to bring Boots into danger. But his mother likes it even less – so little, in fact, that she insists on going with them to the Underland for what they are told is only a meeting to decide what to do next.

The meeting turns into an all-out quest for the cure, and Gregor and Boots have no choice to be a part of it. Not when Gregor’s bonded flyer, the giant bat Ares, turns out to be but one of several friends infected with the plague. And certainly not when Mom herself gets exposed!

Gregor’s third adventure is another test in many ways. As a test of his echolocation skills (the ability to “see” in the dark, using his ears and clicks of the tongue), it doesn’t go very well. As a test of his abilities as the “berserker” warrior whose battle rage can make a split-second difference between life and death, it isn’t a picnic either. Then there’s the test, for the whole search party, of the ability of humans, giant rats, and giant cockroaches, and other creatures to get along with each other and work together. Family loyalties, the ethics of warfare, the ability to unravel a centuries-old riddle, the ability to tell friend from foe, and the courage to face strange and terrifying dangers in a deadly jungle and a “Vineyard of Eyes,” are all tested in brutal succession...and not everyone will come back from the quest.

This is a serious, dark, thought-provoking tale, set in a marvellous fantasy world and filled with deeply conflicted, deeply interesting characters. The setting is like a 21st-century New Yorker’s nightmare-version of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, but the story itself is full of disturbing portents and sinuous plots. Each one goes deeper into the mysteries of the Underland, and even at the end of this story you know we haven’t reached the bottom yet.

Gregor and the Marks of Secret
by Suzanne Collins
Recommended Age: 12+

In this fourth book of The Underland Chronicles, Gregor and his kid sister Boots return to the underground city of Regalia to visit their mother, still recovering from the plague that had nearly wiped out every warmblooded creature in the Underland. But a birthday party leads to a secret, nighttime trip to answer a distress call from the nibblers (giant, talking mice), friends of the teenage Queen Luxa.

Their discovery of an abandoned nibbler colony, and a solitary mouse corpse, leads the young friends to sneak off on the pretext of a picnic. The picnic turns into a long, heartbreaking trek through the deepest realms of the world beneath New York City. Gregor, Luxa, Boots, and their friends experience narrow escapes, scenes of despair and horror, and a struggle for survival against the dangers of nature and the malice of the gnawers (giant, talking rats). A grim prophecy, long hidden in plain sight, is discovered in the lines of a nursery rhyme, while another prophecy hangs over Gregor’s head – one so dire that no one dares tell him what it says.

Gregor finds himself pulled in so many directions. He is torn between sheltering his baby sister from the reality of death and teaching her to understand that which increasingly surrounds her. He is torn between chafing against Luxa’s imperiousness and the first stirrings of young love between them. He is torn between his personal conviction that bloodshed and violence are wrong, and his destiny as a rager-warrior who, when he loses himself in the heat of battle, seems to enjoy fighting and killing.

The ending of this book dovetails with the opening of the fifth and last installment, Gregor and the Code of Claw. It leaves Gregor girding himself for a climactic war that he would a thousand times rather avoid, a war into which an unknown yet terrible fate propels him. And though this penultimate book leaves you in suspense as to what happens next, it leaves no illusions of this series being merely the “dark, modern version of Alice in Wonderland” it at first seemed to be. We do not know, yet, whether Gregor will become a grisly doomsday-machine in sneakers or a heroic voice of peace and healing. We do not know whether the Regalians, Luxa, or even Gregor himself will survive. We only know that a powerfully imagined fantasy world is about to reach its final crisis...and we wouldn’t miss it for anything!

Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl
by Eoin Colfer
Recommended Age: 10+

This book may be a little brutal for very young readers, I don't know. The title character is a 12-year-old criminal mastermind, from an old Irish noble family of criminals, whose father disappeared in a nasty encounter with the Russian mafia (but his son still doesn't presume him dead) and whose mother, shattered by the tragedy, seems to be going insane. For family all he really has left is his body guard—a huge muscle-bound martial-arts freak called Butler—and Butler's gung-ho kid sister Juliet. Artemis decides to rebuild his family's fortune by exploiting a source of funds no human has previously succeeded in tapping. He decides to steal fairy gold.

Step one is to get hold of the text of the Fair Folk's jealously guarded Book, which is like a fairy Bible and is practically impossible to clap mortal eyes on. But he is just devious enough, and has just the right resources, to do it.

Step two is to use what he learns to target a leprechaun to hold for ransom for a ton of gold. I mean, a literal ton of 24-carot gold in small, unmarked ingots.

Step three is to survive the fairy world's high-tech, crack police force, who will try to terminate him with extreme prejudice. This proves to be the tricky part, since the fairies have access to tunneling dwarfs, scenery-bashing trolls, blaster guns, spy cameras, a device that can stop time within a shielded area, AND a bomb called "blue rinse" that can wipe out all living things in the blast radius without damaging the architecture. Plus, the hostage, a resourceful & powerful elf cop named Holly Short, proves to be a tough customer in her own right.

There are some interesting personalities in the story, and lots of humor and action and thrills, but there are a couple things I want to caution you about. One is the moral ambiguity of the whole thing. The story has two heroes, really: Artemis Fowl and Holly Short. Holly is really more the hero type, to tell the truth. Fowl is kind of a villain, but not altogether without sympathetic characteristics. But there is a disturbing sense of amorality on both sides, and I find it hard to sympathize with either side. Maybe that's the point of the story, which makes it even more disturbing and possibly offensive; not that you recognize evil qualities in good people or good qualities in evil people, but that you don't care who's good or evil, or you don't care if either of them are good, and you just root for whoever seems coolest at the time. I think that's a demoralizing point of view.

The second problem, closely related to the first, is the cold-blooded murder, coolly contemplated by some of the leading characters. Maybe kids today are desensitized to that sort of thing, which I think is too bad. If they are sensitive about it, I wouldn't want to desensitize them. And books like this could do that. That is my caution; make up your own mind!

To visit a site for Artemis Fowl fans, click here.

Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident
by Eoin Colfer
Recommended Age: 10+

The sequel to Artemis Fowl reunites old enemies: the thirteen-year-old master criminal of the title and his Vin Diesel-like bodyguard, Butler; elf cop Holly Short and her commander, Julius Root; and Foaly, the centaur techno-geek, who works for LEP (the Lower Elements Police). Only this time, the old enemies are on the same side.

A year has passed since young Artemis did the seemingly impossible, getting away with a fortune in fairy gold. Since then he has used his ill-gotten gains to continue searching for his father, missing and presumed dead since an incident in the Gulf of Kola, off the coast of Northern Russia. Now the kidnappers have gotten in touch, and Artemis and Butler are about to attempt to rescue his father from the Mafiya who would otherwise, almost certainly, kill him.

But at the same time, down in the underground city of Haven populated by the fairy People (elves, pixies, centaurs, gnomes, dwarves, etc.), Captain Holly Short finds herself on the trail of a crime ring involving way-too-organized goblins, banned weapons, and human technology. Naturally she suspects Artemis Fowl. But when she brings him and Butler in for questioning, it turns out he's innocent. And now it seems Fowl and LEP need each other's help. So, against all odds, they agree to work together.

The real culprit—and there's no point in keeping it a secret—is a disgruntled LEP officer, conspiring with one of Foaly's technological rivals to rub out Root, take over LEP, and finally get rid of the "Mud People"—that is, the human race. Briar Cudgeon wants fairies to rule the world again, and he wants to rule the fairies.

So before they know what is really going on, Holly and Fowl and friends are cut off from Haven, harried by hit-goblins, facing unheard-of dangers, and forced to turn to another master-criminal for help. Meanwhile, LEP is surrounded by heavily-armed goblins, and powerless to defend itself... and Foaly, trapped inside his own secure laboratory, is the one everyone blames for the betrayal and the revolt. And somewhere in the frozen Arctic regions, on a rusted-out nuclear sub, Artemis Fowl Senior is being held by thugs who have no intention of letting him or his son walk away from a ransom drop.

In the spirited manner of the original book, The Arctic Incident delivers an adventure full of thrills, suspense, laugh-aloud humor, and a quirky blend of high technology and fairy-tale magic. Also, it shows our gifted young crook developing into more of a human being, though he sometimes tries to rebel against the flashes of decency that flare up within him. After all, he spends the whole book fighting crime, rather than committing it. But for you aspiring young felons out there, the criminal activities of a flatulent dwarf named Mulch will bring great satisfaction.

I enjoyed the story greatly, though I sometimes wondered whether Colfer thought he was writing a screenplay. The chapter titles were like cracked movie titles, and the text was liberally seasoned with section titles stating the location of a given passage, more like a script than a book. Nevertheless I don't have the quibble I had months and months ago when I read Artemis Fowl. I can see that the title character is developing in interesting directions. And I can also see that the characters themselves are becoming more concerned about the difference between right and wrong - and try to make up for the wrongs they have done each other.

Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code
by Eoin Colfer
Recommended Age: 10+

The third book in the adventures of teenaged master criminal Artemis Fowl begins with our hero making a tactical mistake. As a result, his faithful bodyguard Butler is seriously hurt, and a ruthless IT magnate from Chicago (with mob connections) has stolen a piece of ultra advanced technology that may leave the fairy world open to discovery. What's more, Jon Spiro (think: love-child of John Gotti and Steve Jobs) has decided to send a crack team to kidnap Artemis himself and force him to hand over the secrets of the C Cube and its "eternity code" encryption.

Enter Captain Holly Short, the first female officer in LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaisance), and other familiar faces from the hidden world of magical beings. With the aid of Butler's kid sister Juliet, and a kleptomaniac dwarf named Mulch, Holly and Artemis go to Spiro's skyscraper sanctum and attempt to beard the lion in his den. At stake is the security of the fairy People, the lives and safety of everyone Artemis loves, and lots and lots of money.

But even assuming they can outwit the one human who has ever outwitted Artemis Fowl... and outmuscle Spiro's goon, Blunt, who is the one "metal man" ever to outmaneuver Butler... it looks like this time, the fairies won't let Artemis and his friends get away with their fairy memories intact.

In an adventure that takes in Ireland, Chicago, and more than one sense of the word "underworld," Mr. Colfer has created a story full of intriguing twists, hilarious gags, exciting action and suspense, plus warm camraderie and cold-blooded scheming worthy of an adult thriller. But it all surrounds a teenage boy, a brilliant and charismatic but also vulnerable boy, whose criminal instincts are mixed more and more with the milk of human kindness. And besides that, the blend of high-tech gadgetry and fairy magic is simply irresistable.

Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception
by Eoin Colfer
Recommended Age: 8+

What’s with you people? When the latest Lemony Snicket book came out, I got about a SQUILLION e-mails from you, making sure that I knew about it and would have my review posted before you were done reading it! But a fourth Artemis Fowl book comes out and how do I find out? By going to Barnes & Noble and seeing it on display! How does a series this successful sneak out a new book without anyone taking notice? Is it simply that the excitement of the sixth Harry Potter book (100 days from being released, at this writing) has pushed everything else into the background?

Well, NO THANKS TO YOU (grin), I have purchased myself a hardcover (!!!) of The Opal Deception and read it as fast as possible, so you can find out what you’re missing. Then maybe you’ll snap out of your Harrypnosis, and go read something well worth a little spare hoopla. You know you want it. It has magic, high-tech action-adventure, a fiendish enemy, a boyish hero, a protective giant, a tragic death, loads of humor and suspense, and many of the creatures—like elves, centaurs, dwarves, and pixies—that cause you to live for fantasy and modern fairy tales.

In this fourth installment in the adventures of billionaire boy genius Artemis Fowl, the now-14-year-old master thief has gone back to his wicked ways after having all memory of his dealings with the Fairy Folk wiped from his mind. Unfortunately, he needs those memories badly. Because the dastardly pixie, Opal Koboi, has eluded police custody (without anyone even knowing about it!) and is gunning for all the people who foiled her previous evil plan. Now she has elf cop Holly Short, LEP commander Julius Root, centaur techno-guru Foaly, Artemis and his faithful bodyguard Butler, right where she wants them. Not only that, but she has a new face, a new crew of accomplices, and a new plan to destroy half of the fairy world and leave what is left exposed to the greed of mankind.

But enough long sentences. Holly Short shows grit. Artemis invents some mindboggling plans. A certain flatulent, kleptomaniac dwarf puts his varied talents to good use. And they do this at a time when the whole fairy world thinks they are dead—and would arrest them the instant they thought otherwise. Thrill to a death-defying dive from a hotel window. Chill to an attack by a pack of bloodthirsty trolls. Sniffle to the passing of an old friend, and cheer to the exciting, dramatic climax. But whatever you do, don’t stand behind Mulch Diggums!

Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony
by Eoin Colfer
Recommended Age: 10+

Fourteen-year-old ex-criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl is starting to look like a total good-guy. This is a good thing, because another junior crime kingpin, or rather queenpin, is at large and starting to meddle in the affairs of the fairy folk.

The girl's name is Minerva Paradizo, and she knows too much about the timetable for momentary appearances of demons for her own good...which is to say, she knows almost as much as Artemis Fowl. When Minerva captures a demon right in front of Artemis in a crowded Italian theatre, the Fowl boy and his bodyguard Butler join forces with Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police to rescue the demon. Timing is of the essence, because the stability of the entire dimension where the demons live has begun to deteriorate, and the end of their entire race may be at hand.

The demon in question isn't really a bad guy, once you get to know him. A sensitive imp named No 1, he hasn't made the transition into adult demonhood (known as warping), even though he is well past the age. No 1 suspects that he is a warlock, a special type of demon that hasn't been seen since the demons and their island were translated into an alternate dimension, centuries ago, at the end of a war between the fairy peoples and the humans. Since then, the demon psyche has been formed by a warlike psycho named Abbot, who is hell-bent on avenging his race's grievances on mankind.

To Artemis goes the weighty task of planning No 1's escape from Minerva's clutches...then, to rescue Minerva from her hired thug, Billy Kong, who has his own psychotic grievance with demons. All Artemis's cleverness and resourcefulness must come into play as he shifts directly from saving-everybody-from-Billy-Kong mode to saving-everybody-from-Abbot.

I can't get much more specific than that, without spoiling all your fun. Go on, read the book. This series continues to be lots of fun, with gosh-wow gadgetry, new and weirder-than-ever bits of magic, humor, camaraderie, danger, suspense, and the kind of surprises that only characters with powerful personalities can bring.

Half Moon Investigations
by Eoin Colfer
Recommended Age: 12+

"Half Moon" is a cruel, schoolyard nickname for a short-for-his-age, twelve-year-old detective named Fletcher Moon. Yes, he really is a detective—sort of. He took an online course, passed an exam, even earned a certificate and an official badge...but he won’t be old enough to use it legally for another six years. Meanwhile, he tries to keep his skills sharp by solving the petty crimes and minor mysteries that happen in every school. He has even proven helpful to the police on occasion—as something between a consultant and an informant. But this hasn’t made Half Moon any more popular with the kids his age.

Suddenly, Fletcher finds himself in the middle of a perplexing mystery. It starts when a pretty girl from the popular crowd offers him real money to find her souvenir lock of a pop singer’s hair, suspected stolen by one of the kids of a local crime family. A tough kid from the same family tries to intimidate Fletcher into keeping out of their business. But he gets in deeper and deeper, drawn first by curiosity, then by his own flight from the law when someone frames him for a heinous crime. Suddenly Half Moon is on the run, partnered with the unlikeliest ally, and desperate to get to the bottom of an increasingly tangled mystery—one that could ruin his career as a detective, or even his whole life, just as both are starting to become interesting.

Here, the author of the Artemis Fowl series has started what I hope and expect will be another successful series of funny, exciting, and smart stories, outrageously translating Philip Marlowe into a small English schoolboy. It’s not as if nothing like it has been done before; after all, you have Anthony Horowitz’s Diamond Brothers books and even earlier series of boy-detective tales, such as the Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown. Half Moon Investigations is a bit closer to the spirit of the Diamond Brothers, with a playground-savvy take on the hardboiled genre and a willingness to laugh at its own silliness.

New mysteries are always welcome. May the next Half Moon mystery be as much fun as this one!

The Supernaturalist
by Eoin Colfer
Recommended Age: 12+

In the near future, a place called Satellite City has become the urban nightmare du jour. Everything, including the steering of individual cars, is controlled by a privately-owned satellite hanging low in the sky over town. City police, private police, and armed-and-dangerous squads of lawyers patrol the city, and “no-sponsor” orphans like Cosmo Hill are locked up in a maximum security “institute for parentally challenged boys” where they earn their keep as guinea pigs to test all kinds of products, from music videos to health-and-beauty aids. Cosmo knows that he has a slim chance of living to adulthood, and if he does, he will be sold to a labor prison on trumped-up charges. He has three choices: be adopted, die, or escape. It’s too late for door number one, so that really only leaves two...

Cosmo’s opportunity comes when a glitch in the satellite causes a gruesome accident. He barely survives the accident, and the shock of it “turns on” the ability to see supernatural creatures that seem to feed off the life-force of injured and sick people. Taken in by a small group of youngsters who have the same ability – “spotters” or “supernaturalists” as they call themselves – Cosmo barely has time to recover from his wounds before he is in the middle of a war against energy-eating creepy-crawlies on the one hand, and lethal lawyers, corporate security guards, hoodlums, and ninja paralegals on the other. And suddenly a 14-year-old orphan who has never had a chance to be an individual, finds himself pulling off heroics, battling monsters, saving the innocent, walking in space, defying death, overcoming his worst fears, uncovering betrayal, and getting to the bottom of a fiendish plot.

Oh yeah, he also kisses a girl.

Not bad for a first taste of freedom. I’ll bet there will be more adventures to follow, engagingly narrated with a mix of high-tech wizardry and apocalyptic paranoia by the creator of the Artemis Fowl series.

Andrew Clements

Things Not Seen
by Andrew Clements
Recommended Age: 14+

This one's pretty good. It's written in the first person, from the point of view of a fairly bright 15-year-old who speaks exactly like a 15-year-old boy. The book begins with Bobby Phillips waking up in the morning, taking a shower, and stepping in front of the mirror to discover that he has gone invisible overnight. He frightens the daylights out of his parents - his mother is a U of Chicago English prof, his father a physicist who smashes atoms for a living - and they decide to keep him home from school and keep Bobby's problem a secret. They're afraid that if anyone finds out, the government will take Bobby away and they'll never see him again.

But while they're trying to solve his problem - which isn't too easy to solve - the school, the Dept. of Child Welfare Services, and the police become interested in what has happened to Bobby, who before you know it has missed a month of school while his parents refuse to disclose his whereabouts. It's looking like they'll go to jail pretty soon, on suspicion of hacking up his dead body and flushing it down the toilet or something, if he doesn't figure out how to get visible again.

Meanwhile, Bobby asserts his independence by taking field trips, either bundled up from head to toe or totally naked (depending on the weather). He discovers a pretty blind girl at the library, a girl named Alicia, who along with her parents (her Dad's a scientist too) becomes a party to his secret. Alicia also becomes Bobby's close friend. But she has anger issues about going blind (which happened suddenly, not long ago) and that makes part of Bobby's adventure an angst-filled teenage love story. Another part is a love story between a boy and his parents, who are both kind of bossy and domineering until they learn to respect Bobby as an adult person, a respect he earns as the ordeal matures him a little.

It's a neat story, about as realistic as any teenager-wakes-up-invisible story can be, from a human standpoint. The science gibberish doesn't even pretend to be any more than gibberish (you'll LOVE what caused his invisibility) and the solution is kind of cheap and too-easy, but the resolution of Bobby's personal problems is more interesting anyway. Especially his feelings toward Alicia, and her increasingly well-rounded character.

David Clement-Davies

Fire Bringer
by David Clement-Davies
Recommended Age: 14+

Richard Adams, the author of Watership Down, has called this book an “anthropomorphic fantasy.” His own book is another example of the type: fantasies that get inside the minds of animals, that explore their relationships and experiences as if they were people - yet in a grown-up, semi-realistic way. I mean, the animals act mostly like animals. They don’t walk on their hind legs, wear clothes, drive cars, and so forth. But they talk to each other, have feelings and beliefs and conflicts, and draw you into their world of mystery, danger, and adventure.

Adams did it for rabbits in Watership Down and for dogs in The Plague Dogs. But now a new master has come, whose “anthropomorphic fantasy” about red deer is a tale filled with dramatic power, lyrical beauty, and a deep dark thread of myth.

Fire Bringer is a story about the red deer of the land we call Scotland. It focuses on one young stag, born with a white mark shaped like an oak leaf on his forehead, and born on the night of his father’s murder. From the first moments of his life, Rannoch is hunted – hunted by a Lord of the Herd who aims to destroy the natural, old way that deer have lived, and to create a new Great Herd ruled by reason, power, and fear. Hunted because his very existence is a reminder of the old ways. Hunted because his escape is an embarrassment to the powers that be. Hunted because of a prophecy that describes just such a fawn with an oak-leaf mark, and that makes him a direct threat to the tyrannical, hornless stag named Sgorr.

In this tale you will meet and love many animals including, first and foremost, the deer. But a seal, a wolf, a raven, and even a human will have parts to play. You will enjoy the stories told by the old deer to the young, including a really unusual variant of a human holiday favorite. You will thrill, and sometimes cringe, at the battles and violence. Your heart will thud with disbelief at the sight of a savage ritual. And you will be captivated by the tragic romance, the suspense, and the sense of impending destiny that fills the final pages of this extraordinary book.

And then, like me, you will rush out and buy Clement-Davies’ second “anthropomorphic fantasy,” which is about wolves, and is titled The Sight. [UPDATE: Since I first wrote this review, the same author has also published books titled Fell and The Alchemist of Barbal.]

Beverly Cleary

Dear Mr. Henshaw
by Beverly Cleary
Recommended Age: 10+

I should have read this book 20 years ago. This story about a lonely boy, learning to live with his parents’ divorce, going to a new school where he has no friends, and making his first efforts as a writer, won the Newbery Medal in 1984 - the year my parents split up. In lots of ways, it’s like reading the story of my life; but obviously it isn’t about me, and the poignancy of the story isn’t just in my head, or it wouldn’t have earned the recognition it did.

Little Leigh Botts, sixth grade (about the age I was in 1984, too), has fallen in love with a book called Ways to Amuse a Dog. He starts writing letters to the author, Boyd Henshaw, telling him how much he likes the book and how he delivers a book report on it year after year. In sixth grade, Leigh is assigned to ask an author ten questions, and he writes to Mr. Henshaw. In return, Mr. Henshaw asks Leigh ten questions about himself. This leads to Leigh starting a diary, and planning to write a story for a school competition.

But what’s going on in Leigh’s life is what the story really is about--what his letters and diary entries are full of, mainly: how a lunch thief keeps taking the best things out of Leigh’s lunch bag; how a kindly custodian takes an interest in the sad, scowling little boy and tries to divert him from becoming an angry menace; how he is hurt by the sense that his trucker father doesn’t care about him much; and how being recognized as someone special makes so much difference in so many ways...even if the results aren’t “storybook neat.”

Here is a profoundly simple, profoundly real story about an ordinary child who speaks with an extraordinary voice. You will love Leigh Botts. You will love this book.

Ramona and Her Father
by Beverly Cleary
Recommended Age: 8+

Second-grader Ramona Quimby is distressed when her father loses his job. This brings changes in her family, which includes an older sister "Beezus" (given name Beatrice) who is going through that "difficult age," a cat who snubs cheap cat food, and a mother who has to work so hard to support the family that she doesn't have time to do things like sewing a sheep costume for the Christmas program. But what worries Ramona most is her father, who is moody and smokes too much.

This is an adorable book about a family crisis seen through seven-year-old eyes. I chose this from among many children's stories by Beverly Cleary because it happened to be a Newbery Honor Book in 1976. But its charm, its generosity to the memorable characters in it, and its relevance to what many families are going through, should win lots of readers to the interconnected series of books that include Ribsy, Henry Huggins, Henry and Ribsy, Beezus and Ramona, and lots more.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle
by Beverly Cleary
Recommended Age: 8+

This book is about the friendship between a boy named Keith, who has a toy motorcycle, and a mouse named Ralph who learns to ride it.

To give you an idea or two about how Cleary thinks, it's no problem for Keith and Ralph to talk to each other because all motorcycle lovers speak the same language, and it's no problem for a mouse to ride a toy motorcycle because any little boy can tell you that if you make a "pbbbrrrrm" noise it will go.

Ralph's adventures are sometimes hair-raising, often hilarious, and the friendship between the two motorcycle fanciers--mouse and boy--is warm and sweet. I understand Cleary wrote several more stories about Ralph the mouse. If they are as charming as this one, I recommend them too. [UPDATE: Obviously, this review was first published before I read the next two books.]

Runaway Ralph
by Beverly Cleary
Recommended Age: 8+

The sequel to The Mouse and the Motorcycle finds Ralph the mouse growing discontented in his hotel lobby home. His younger brothers, sisters, and cousins keep pestering him to let them ride his toy motorcycle, and his mother and uncle won’t leave him alone. Finally Ralph decides to runaway to a camp whose bugle calls he can hear every morning and evening.

Expecting to find lots of middle-sized kids and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, Ralph instead finds deadly peril with a watch dog named Sam, a tomcat named Catso, and a boy named Garf--armed with a butterfly net.

Next thing he knows, Ralph is ensconced in a mouse cage next to a grumpy hamster, while Catso tries every trick in the Cat Bible to clap paws on him. Ralph will have to be at his very cleverest if he is going to clear Garf of suspicion of stealing a girl’s wristwatch, escape from Catso, and get back home with his motorcycle.

A charming little adventure featuring a boy and a mouse at similar stages of adolescence, and some other interesting animals and people, Runaway Ralph makes a quick but satisfying read.

Ralph S. Mouse
by Beverly Cleary
Recommended Age: 8+

The third book in the series that began with The Mouse and the Motorcycle and continued with Runaway Ralph takes off when Ralph befriends the son of the hotel’s new housekeeper. Ryan agrees to take Ralph to school with him, but things turn out as neither of them planned.

Soon, Ryan’s whole class is doing mouse-related projects, while their mascot surreptitiously runs loose in the school at night. Of course, this leads to trouble at the school and a rocky stretch in Ralph’s and Ryan’s friendship. Meanwhile, Ryan and a classmate named Brad are struggling to understand each other while they work together on their mouse-studies project. And when a knock-down fight between the boys destroys Ralph’s beloved motorcycle, it looks like any chance of friendship between the three of them is finished. With a school-wide mousehunt in the works, Ralph’s chances aren’t too good...

As always, the characters in the story accept the magic of their situation with good-humored casualness. The story is quick, crisply told, and full of wit. Here’s a sample:

No sooner had Ryan sat down at the table than he and the rest of Room 5 stood up again to recite some words about a flag and something about liberty and justice for all. Whatever it was, Ralph hoped mice were included.

Clearly, this is an author who loves the kind of little boy (not to mention the kind of mouse) who dreams of driving motorcycles...and other things. But I think boys and girls alike will enjoy it for its charm and whimsy, while the serious bits about mouse and boy growing-pains sneak by.

Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
Recommended Age: 15+

A Time Magazine review quoted on the cover of this book likens it, very aptly, to a meeting of Jane Austen and J.R.R. Tolkien. Chiefly set in Regency England, it affects the style and even spelling quirks of the early 19th century so convincingly that one could easily take the author for a contemporary of Dickens. First-time novelist Susanna Clarke combines gentle satire of the delicate manners of that age, yearning for the magic of even earlier times, and a crystal-clear syntax that does not wear out the brain or the eyes with endless sentences like this one.

It was, in fact, very exciting to read. Though the plot unfolds over some 10 years (and 800 pages), it does not seem to move slowly. Certain chapters would make captivating, stand-alone stories, and the last half of the book gathers momentum toward a climax of shattering power. At times it is suspenseful, shocking, humorous, tragic, romantic, and chilling. At least once I became so angry at some of the characters that I started swearing at them out loud. Another time I found myself pounding on my desk and yelling, “Yeah!”

So who in the world are Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell? They are the first two practicing magicians in England since the “Silver Age” of magic, hundreds of years before. They live in a version of history closely allied to the real world, up to a certain point. Napoleon, Wellington, George III, Lord Byron, and many other contemporary figures are here, mostly unchanged. But the England of this history was once split into two kingdoms; the northern half was ruled for 300 years by the Raven King, a powerful magician who consorted with fairies, angels, and demons.

The Raven King, also known as John Uskglass, is still out there somewhere, and his return is expected. Since he went away into Faerie, the practice of magic has declined until only one man claims to be more than a theoretical magician: Mr. Gilbert Norrell of Yorkshire. Norrell is very little like your idea of the “greatest magician of the age.” He is a crabbed, awkward, small man who fusses about his library, who destroys other magicians as a hobby, and who is determined to put magic on a modern, scientific footing.

Jonathan Strange is his one student: a handsome, active, outgoing young man who is both disciple and rival to Mr. Norrell. The contrast between them could not be greater; yet Strange is also a surprising magician – happily married, socially adept, and creative. He has to be creative, because Mr. Norrell is so stingy with his books that Strange has no other way of learning than to invent. And invent he does, achieving fame as Lord Wellington’s military magician from Lisbon to Waterloo.

But a certain fairy gentleman threatens to bring tragedy on both men. Of all people, it is Norrell – opponent of all dealings with the fairy realm – who summons this gentleman. So begins a trail of trials that could destroy both magicians. While master and student become increasingly estranged from each other, both of them – and the future of English magic – are headed toward freakish danger.

This story has much to appeal to a grown-up Harry Potter fan. It’s a thick, richly detailed book that you can’t put down. It’s full of colorful characters – some loveable, some hateable – and gosh-wow magic tricks. It even has magic that simply couldn’t be done in Harry’s world; and magic that shouldn’t be done either. It has horrors and gruesome surprises that are definitely not for the faint of heart; but it also has a hero you care about, even when he’s not particularly well-behaved. As for the villains, you find yourself hating most of them with a very personal hatred, yet pitying them later. It’s all marvelously done.

Ann Nolan Clark

Secret of the Andes
by Ann Nolan Clark
Recommended Age: 11+

As long as he can remember, Cusi has lived in the hidden valley with no one but the old man Chuto, a simpering dog, and a large herd of proud llamas. High in the Andes mountains of Peru, Cusi works hard tending the herd. He gets little to eat, sleeps out of doors, and has little to protect him from the cold of night apart from llama wool clothing and the chewing of coca leaves. Yet Cusi is descended from a great, proud nation – the Inca – whose civilization was destroyed by Spanish conquerors four hundred years ago.

There are many secrets that Cusi does not know as this story begins. He knows nothing of the outside world. He does not know who his parents are, or what it is like to have a family and to belong somewhere. He does not understand the cryptic words passed between Chuto and the minstrel who comes to visit them. But he begins to learn about the history and the traditions of his great people, which have not died – and which, Cusi himself will defiantly swear, WILL not die.

Cusi’s journey of discovery begins with a trek to the salt pits, a few days’ walk from the hidden valley. It continues with the arrival of a great teacher. But the most important part comes when Chuto sends him out of the valley, alone, to follow his heart wherever it will lead. Will Cusi find the family he has been looking for all his life? Will his search bring him in a circle? Or will his destiny have something to do with the future fate of the Inca people?

This is a tale full of haunting mystery, awe-inspiring natural beauty, and tenderness between man and beast, between man and child. It is full of exotic, sensory pleasures; ancient riddles and rituals; and a reverence toward the last surviving remnants of a once-great civilization. It is also, more or less, a fantasy – though not in the sword-and-sorcery sense, exactly. So it is not surprising that it is also a Newbery Medal book. It has it all – educational value in a page-turning story where you feel the heart of the main characters, and a final twist that will leave your spine tingling.