If You're Reading This, It's Too Late

If You're Reading This, It's Too Late
by Pseudonymous Bosch
Recommended Ages: 10+

This sequel to The Name of This Book Is Secret features a recipe for roast villain, instructions for a magic trick, an explanation for why you can hear voices across a lake at dawn or dusk, and an interview with the author, by the author—and that's just the appendix! The remainder of the book, in chapters numbered backward like a countdown, is a weird tale of mystery, magic, and danger. Middle-schoolers Cass and Max-Ernest, among others, get caught up in a caper involving thieves and kidnappers, secret agents, retired carnies, a man-eating monster, and the girl band from aitch-ee-double-toothpicks.

Cass, you may recall, is a pointy-eared girl who wonders who her father was and specializes in survival skills, always handy in the schoolyard jungle. Her best (really only) friend Max-Ernest is obsessed with magic. Together, they hope to frustrate the plans of the Society of the Midnight Sun, a ghastly group devoted to finding a cure for aging and death. But their first mission for the Terces Society (hint: read that name backwards) does not go as planned, and they barely escape with their lives... and with a strange, alabaster ball that makes music when thrown up in the air.

It turns out this Sound Prism has something to do with a weird creature, created five hundred years ago by a sinister alchemist who called himself Lord Pharaoh. The Midnight Sun wants this homunculus, evidently because he guards the Secret to life and death—a secret that the Terces Society is dedicated to keeping, forever.

Cass and Max-Ernest do their best to get to the homunculus first, but once again, their plans go off the rails. While they confide in a third teammate—a hip, guitar-playing Japanese kid called Yo-Yoji—the evil Skelton twins lure another student in their class into a diabolical plot involving cupcakes, stuffed toys, and tickets to a pop concert. Before the night is out, the world will be in serious danger—along with Cass's life.

This series of books combines a down-to-earth depiction of the main characters' quirky family lives with a touch of spooky fantasy, a satire of the body-image mania created by the entertainment industry, and a vocab-building Lemony Snicket approach to narration—i.e., an author who disguises his or her identity, and who tells the story under protest because it's so darn scary. Loaded with bizarre surprises, it's sure to make young readers shiver and giggle in roughly equal amounts. And it already boasts at least three more sequels: This Book Is Not Good for You, This Isn't What It Looks Like, and You Have to Stop This.

The Unknown Shore

The Unknown Shore
by Patrick O'Brian
Recommended Ages: 13+

Before the storied friendship of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin was a gleam in Patrick O'Brian's eye, he gave the world this book featuring a very Aubrey-like young midshipman named Jack Byron and his boyhood friend, surgeon's mate Tobias Barrow—who is like Stephen in all ways short of being Irish. For a dress-rehearsal of Stephen's Irishness, see the main characters in the even earlier novel The Golden Ocean, to which this book is a strange sort of sequel. Unlike most sequels, it does not take place after the events of the earlier book, but at the same time—only from a different point of view. The main event, portrayed in The Golden Ocean, was Commodore Anson's historic voyage of circumnavigation on board the H.M.S. Centurion (1740–44), and the capturing of a Spanish galleon carrying a fabulous treasure. In the sequel, we see how things developed for another ship in the squadron, the Wager—which barely made it around Cape Horn before running aground off the worst coast in the world.

Once these ships part company, things go quite differently. The one book tells a tale of heroism of the type that overcomes disease, hardship, disappointment, disaster, violent weather, and overwhelming odds, to strike a crushing blow at the enemy and come home loaded with glory and riches. The other describes a heroic journey along the opposite tack: a passage through shipwreck, mutiny, starvation, physical and spiritual mortification, and long lingering marches along the extreme edges of death and despair. Here we experience the painful difficulty of surviving in one of the harshest inhabited areas on earth: the extreme southern end of the west coast of South America, and the islands off it. Desperation leads to deadly violence and rebellion among the crew. Even to those who faithfully follow the ship's captain—notably Jack and Toby—Captain Cheap does not come across as a likeable character, especially in an ordeal with indifferent natives, harsh weather, scarce food, and inhospitable terrain. At certain points, the only thing naval about the adventure is the discipline that keeps the dwindling group of survivors going, even when they are reduced to portaging pieces of a disassembled canoe across miles of boggy forest. At least once while reading this journey, you will be sure that you are reading an account of these people's agonizing death... and in the case of many of them, that's exactly what it is.

And then they get through to civilization again, and the story returns to more familiar ground for fans of O'Brian—the ground of an enemy country where the protagonists live as paroled prisoners of war; the deck of an enemy ship carrying prisoners for exchange to France; a chase with British privateers cruising the waters of the Caribbean; and still more surprises, crammed into the last few pages. The charm with which the book ends, however, is subdued by the shadow of the horror through which its characters have passed. You almost think it might have been kinder if they had perished, rather than live through all that. Or perhaps you give a grateful sigh as you turn a page, thinking how fortunate it is that this is historical fiction, and that the main characters didn't actually exist. But alas, they did. At least, everyone except Toby apparently did; even Midshipman John Byron figures in the actual history of the Wager Mutiny and its aftermath. That he lived to be both an Admiral and the grandfather of Lord Byron is an encouraging thing to keep in mind during the scene in which he nearly gives up. That he, along with only three others in Captain Cheap's party, lived through what they lived through, is an amazing account of human endurance—all the more amazing because it's true. It isn't the whole story; it's only perhaps the most extreme part of it. But even so, real men went through it and lived to tell the story; and now Patrick O'Brian tells the story again, with all his well-known flair for making history breathe, grip, shine, and sing.

It is a big story, alive with little human touches. It is a grimly powerful story, salted and peppered with wit and warmth. It is a story that vividly paints a picture of strange, haunted shores and of cultures so primitive that they can scarcely be called human. Political correctness may frown on the brusqueness of O'Brian's judgment of the unconverted savages of the Patagonian coastline, to say nothing of the national peccadilloes of the Spanish, French, and Dutch, on land or at sea. "Spaniards, if very much goaded, can act almost as quickly as reasonable beings," he says for one example. But in the strength of his feelings, you feel the feelings of his characters; and whether or not their attitudes (or his) were always necessarily right, the answering flash of anger, or anxiety, or laughter in your breast recognizes the truth—the awful, beautiful truth—in what he writes.

Tales from the Hood

Tales from the Hood
by Michael Buckley
Recommended Ages: 10+

The sixth book in the "Sisters Grimm" series features another "fractured fairy-tale" to delight middle-grade readers. Sabrina and Daphne go through a lot in this installment. While Sabrina finds herself reaching the age where she can't help worrying about how she looks, Daphne suddenly—and, to Sabrina, irritatingly—takes to imitating her older sister. But Daphne's trust in Sabrina will take a beating as the lure of a magical weapon, the fear of a family friend with a monster within, and a longing to cure the curse that keeps their parents asleep, lead Sabrina to take desperate steps.

Meanwhile, all is not well in Ferryport Landing, New York. The storybook characters who have long been trapped in the town grow each day more hostile to the Grimm family, their guardians. Mayor Heart and Sheriff Nottingham have arrested Mr. Canis, the family's most faithful protector, on charges of being the Big Bad Wolf. And even with Robin Hood and Little John arguing for the defense, it doesn't look good. The witnesses lined up by prosecuting attorney Bluebeard paint a terrible picture of Mr. Canis' violent past. And the Judge—an eccentric person named Hatter, esq.—refuses to allow the defense lawyers to speak. Plus, everybody knows what happened to Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs. Who really believes Mr. Canis is innocent?

Well, the pigs do. The former sheriff's deputies actually try to help the defense. And mad as little Miss Hood is (and in case you've forgotten her previous outing, she's dangerously insane), something tells the Grimms that Red's memories contradict the wood cutter's boastful, self-serving story. But with the jury stacked with members of the anti-Grimm-family Red Hand organization, and the same Red Hand frustrating the family's attempts to reach the only person who can wake the girls' parents, only a magical weapon can save the day. A weapon mysteriously tied to the origins of the Big Bad Wolf....

Light humor, dark danger, powerful magic, and a certain homey warmth blend together in this story, along with characters from a wide range of folklore and children's literature. Denizens of Oz, Wonderland, Camelot, and Sherwood Forest cross paths with characters out of Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm. But it's the perspective of the Sisters Grimm that puts this imagination engine on course for the hearts and minds of young readers: a point of view that doesn't overlook the realistic, everyday problems of being a pre-teen girl, just because she happens to live in the same ZIP code as Snow White.

Plus, it's just plain funny, from the opening gag in which a leprechaun pops out of a toilet to a description of the clothes worn by the Three Bears. Even at my decrepit age, I enjoyed this book. I might have enjoyed it even a bit more if the selfsame secret weapon hadn't solved quite so many problems, or if the front-cover artwork didn't give that solution away. But the ending still leaves plenty of room for a sequel. And indeed, there are already three more books in this series, titled The Everafter War, The Inside Story, and The Council of Mirrors. Since writing this book, author Buckley has also published the first five-books in a series of kiddie espionage capers, collectively titled N.E.R.D.S.

The Gray Wolf Throne

The Gray Wolf Throne
by Cinda Williams Chima
Recommended Ages: 14+

In The Demon King, the author of the "Heir Chronicles" introduced a marvelous fantasy country in which the powers and interests of three groups—the noble families of the lowland Valefolk, the craftsmen and warriors of the upland Clans, and the Council of Wizards descended from a race of foreign invaders—are held in a delicate balance by the line of Gray Wolf queens. We also learned about the Nǽming: a magic-reinforced covenant that prevents the wizards from taking control of the government. Then, in The Exiled Queen, we followed princess-heir Raisa to the military academy in Oden's Ford, fleeing from a forced marriage to the High Wizard's son Micah. Her story became increasingly tangled with that of Han Alister, a former street-gang leader who was now being sponsored by the Clanfolk to attend the college of wizardry. Now, in the third book of the "Seven Realms" quartet, these young people move closer to their intermingled destinies, in a complex world held together by tangled agendas and conflicting motives.

Raisa has escaped from attempts to assassinate her, abduct her, and force her into a strategic marriage. Fleeing homeward from Oden's Ford, she fears she may be too late to prevent her royal mother from disinheriting her and naming her younger sister heir to the throne. But after barely surviving several more attempts on her life, Raisa learns that the Queen wasn't so lucky. Now she has until the Queen's funeral to show herself in the presence of all her political enemies, or she will lose her place in the succession. But this means facing unbelievable danger, protected only by a cadet who has suddenly become her Guard Captain, and by two young wizards practicing forbidden arts. After running that gauntlet, she merely has to stay alive until the coronation, in spite of incessant plots against her life, a wearing series of parties alternating with meetings with her advisers (most of whom feel threatened by her), the distraction of a series of wizard murders in the city, and the looming threat of a neighboring kingdom that may come out of its own civil war with enough clout to force Raisa into an uncomfortable corner.

But all that is nothing compared to Raisa's sense that she is losing her freedom—freedom to act and speak as she pleases; freedom to choose man she will marry. The guiding spirits of the previous queens of her line tell her that when the time comes to make that choice, she must choose love. But her survival as Queen, the survival of her line, and the survival of the Fells as a nation, seem to demand other choices: A highland buck who will never be faithful to her. A magnetic young wizard who has already come too close to forcing her hand. A ruthless king with a talent for murdering members of his own family. Anyone other than Han Alister, who commands her heart. Neither of them would survive long if their secret love were known; it threatens virtually every interest in the Queendom, and beyond. And even Raisa does not know that Han's bloodline flows direct from the Demon King himself, who made the Nǽming necessary when he broke the world.

Paced sometimes thrillingly fast, sometimes deliberate in its savoring of Raisa and Han's predicament, this book weaves its many-hued texture towards a chilling climax on the night of the new Queen's coronation. This sets the stage nicely for Book Four: The Crimson Crown. It's not perfect, to be sure. There are moments when you might be struck by the unlikelihood of everyone at the highest level of a nation's government being either teenagers or the parents of said teenagers—or of the things that concern teenagers being so vitally important to the fate of the world. On the other hand, when you feel the frustration of Raisa's position so strongly that you sometimes pause to rehearse the speech you would have made—when, for example, you want her to accuse the person across the table from her of making multiple murder-attempts on her royal person, but she has to pretend that it didn't even happen—why, you've made it across the "suspension of disbelief" threshold, after all. Across, beyond, and into new-broken ground: that's where the magic happens in Cinda Chima's masterpiece world of high fantasy. Come, and be astounded.

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group
by Catherine Jinks
Recommended Ages: 13+

Thirteen-year-old Toby Vandevelde falls asleep in bed one full-moonlit night, and wakes up the next day in an MRI machine. Nobody, least of all Toby himself, can explain how or why he turned up naked in the dingo pen at a suburban Sydney zoo. His mother suspects epilepsy, until a pediatrician rules that out. The only explanation anybody has to offer is one that Toby's mum considers crazy. Toby doesn't quite believe it either... but he's afraid it might be true. He's afraid Father Ramon and his intense young friend Reuben might not be lying—or raving—when they warn Toby that he is a werewolf.

Reuben says he's a werewolf too, and he and the priest can help Toby deal with his condition. Toby does not yet know how much experience Father Ramon has with caring for those most vulnerable of all God's creatures, the undead. He doesn't know what you and I know: that this is a sequel to a hilarious and hair-raising book called The Reformed Vampire Support Group. So you get to enjoy Toby's surprise as he finds out that vampires, werewolves, and zombies(!) are real(!!). Not cool, not powerful, not sparkly-cute, not sexy (with a few exceptions). Vampires, for example, are immortal but not invincible; mostly, being one is like having to live forever with a digestive disorder, only some vampires are more dangerous to mortals than others. Werewolves, on the other hand, have to lock themselves up one night a month to avoid hurting their nearest and dearest, if they have any after the stigma of being a monster; they are also at risk of being kidnapped and forced to kill or be killed in a big-business blood-sport. As for zombies... we find out where they come from in this book. Don't let me spoil it for you.

Young Toby's journey of self-discovery is a humorous upside-downifying of the late teen and tween undead craze, bringing to the genre a sensibility more of Woody Allen than of Anne Rice. There's a touch of hopeless romance in it, a streak of macabre slapstick, and a peculiar strain of the horror bug in which the most dreaded events play out under the harsh glare of daylight in the wide-open Outback. The bad guys are bad, but some of the good guys are almost worse. Be that as it may, you can't keep a good werewolf down (well, mostly). By the end, Toby is mouthing such group-therapeutic slogans as, "There's an 'I can' in 'lycanthropy.'" You've laughed. You've cringed. You've fallen in love (again, maybe) with a cast of characters so down to earth that they're downright subterranean. A new species of lunatic has joined the asylum; the crusade to end the werewolf-fighting industry seems to be only beginning; and hopes for a third book in the series are high. More books should end with such a satisfying feeling!

Speaking of "more books," Catherine Jinks is also the author of the "Evil Genius" trilogy; a four-part series of medieval adventures featuring a knight named Pagan; a four-book series about a juvenile ghost-hunter named Allie; a new series about monster-hunters starting with How to Catch a Bogle; and numerous other interesting titles, listed here.

The Parable of the Antifreeze

To what shall I compare this generation?

Verily, it is like a dog that has caught the delicious scent of a puddle of spilled antifreeze. The dog's owner knows that his pet, if given its way, would joyfully lick up that puddle—and would then die a painful and gruesome death. But the owner also knows that if he restrains his dog, it will strain and chafe against its leash, resentful of being denied its heart's desire. Which would be the more loving thing to do?

Let him who has floppy ears, perk them up.

The Empire of Gut and Bone

The Empire of Gut and Bone
by M. T. Anderson
Recommended Ages: 12+

In The Game of Sunken Places, best friends Brian and Gregory learned that the destiny of Earth is tied up in a game played by two humans in every generation, representing two pointy-eared races with very different ideas about what to do with the planet. The elfin Norumbegans would peacefully coexist with mankind; the alien Thusser intend to invade, conquer, and replace us. And though Brian won the game on behalf of the Norumbegans, The Suburb Beyond the Stars found the Thusser invading anyway, beginning with a nightmarish subdivision where time moves too fast, where the houses absorb the families that live in them, and where a zombie realtor dreams of settlers from another dimension turning prefabricated homes into vile nests of horror. And now, in Book 3 of the Norumbegan Quartet, Brian, Gregory, and a clockwork troll named Kalgrash travel to the new homeworld of the fey Norumbegans, seeking their help to save Earth.

Instead of a nice, straightforward planet, however, the boys find themselves somewhere in the innards of a world-sized creature—the Great Body, as its inhabitants call it. They don't know much about their host, not even whether it is still alive. They farm its liver, they mine its intestines, they travel by submarines through its arteries, and they quarry building materials out of the tough tissues of its twelve-chambered heart. By itself, this much would be weird and whimsical, maybe a little gross, but not really appalling. The trouble is that Norumbegan society has fallen apart.

For starters, the automatons who have long done their menial work, have rebelled and set up a society of their own. As a result, the Norumbegans live in filth and squalor, made worse by their habitual idleness and frivolity. Plus, they refuse to negotiate with their servants, or even to acknowledge that they have broken free. Given the chance, they do not hesitate to take advantage of their power to compel the wind-up people (whom they don't consider people) to obey them, to be polite to them, and even to be in awe of them. But even when confronted with an automaton army poised to bombard their palaces into rubble, the popular Norumbegan impulse is to plan a tea dance. And these are the people Brian and Gregory need to come to Earth's rescue.

The boys' negotiations with the Imperial Court form the framework of this book. But as a framework to rest the fate of our world on, it's not very encouraging. Brian, especially, struggles to make his plea heard over the bluff pageantry of the decadent Court, the hubbub of a series of assassinations, an attempt to frame his friend Kalgrash, warning shots of the automaton army, a high-level election campaign, and several attempts on his own life. Gregory, meanwhile, seems to be growing farther away from him, partly due to his attraction to a high-born girl and partly through their differences in character. Also, it doesn't help that the Norumbegans are insufferable snobs who practice a delicately balanced mixture of courtesy and rudeness among themselves, but who feel no qualms against being openly cruel to those they consider beneath them—such as the two "human cubs" and their mechanical friend. Danger, mystery, palace intrigue, betrayal, suspected espionage, and the distant rumble of the Thusser invasion only add to Brian's burden of loneliness, hurt feelings, and desperation to save his home world.

If I've said this before about this series of books, it's only because it remains consistently true: M. T. Anderson here proves himself a master mixer of a cocktail of emotions, images, and ideas like nothing you'll have tasted before. The Norumbegans speak and act in strange juxtapositions: ancient fashions and archaic terms running hard against modern things and everyday lingo; violence and macabre thrills dovetailing with friendly bickering and lighthearted whimsy; the alien, inhuman ways of the fair folk meeting machine men in a world beyond alien, all light years away from where you would expect to find them even in the final days of their decline; and here and there, startling glimpses of such mundane things as newspapers, telephones, and the emotions of a chubby, bespectacled teenager with the weight of a world on his shoulders. It's a unique mixture, and a superb one. And if my description doesn't convince you, here's a small taste:

They wore black top hats, veils, black dresses, dark swallowtailed coats, and their faces were marked with face paint in signs of mourning (two blue stripes streaking from the eyes to symbolize tears; a line of white dots across the forehead to suggest vision into another world; or a fat red bar across the neck to indicate death). Drones in black robes passed through the crowd, passing out deep glasses of the Wine of Weeping and little sandwiches made of the Bread of Suffering, ham, cheese, and Dijon mustard.

The fourth and concluding book of this series is titled The Chamber in the Sky.