Library & Literary Miscellany

In a belated salute to mothers and Mother’s Day, here’s a review of a story about a loyal young son on a quest to save his mother (among other things).

*mild, but not overly detailed, spoilers follow

Erec Rex the Dragon’s Eye by Kaza Kingsley (2006)

Erec Rex, also known as Rick Ross, hails from New York City, New York on the planet Earth as we know it. Or at least he always thought he did until one day when he wakes up to find his mother missing and his thoughts cloudy.

For Erec’s whole life (which is to say twelve years), he’s experienced what he calls “cloudy thoughts”–thoughts which essentially compel him to perform a certain action. Erec has found that these thoughts generally arise when someone is in danger, and, on that note, he embarks to find his mother.

Armed with his one good eye, his glass eye, and his cloudy thoughts, he tracks his mother to her last known whereabouts–Grand Central Station. While Erec does not find his mother at Grand Central Station, he meets a girl named Bethany who has seen his mother and who has some ideas about where his mother may have gone.

Together, Erec and Bethany leave Upper Earth and enter a world beneath Grand Central Station–the Kingdom of the Keepers. They soon find that the Kingdom of the Keepers is a kingdom where magic has been kept (aptly named, no?) and still flows freely, whereas they have come from a world where magic has been lost.

As they begin adjusting to the magic around them, they find that they have entered the Kingdom of the Keepers just as a tournament is about to begin to decide the next three rulers of the lands. King Piter (as in Jupiter), Queen Posey (as in Poseiden) and King Pluto (as in Pluto) are purportedly in charge of the tournament. But, as they say, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark (or Alypium, as the case may be), and the contestants keep getting hurt.

Erec’s special eyeglasses enable him to communicate with his imprisoned mother. However, he does not find conversations with her to be all that enlightening in helping him to understand his past; instead, he finds vague hints and blatant omissions. Nevertheless, he doggedly pursues gathering the materials (through the MagicNet and other means) that she says he needs in order to free her.

The time that Eric does not devote to planning his mother’s breakout he spends entering the tournament and navigating the various contests; Bethany enters as well. As they persevere through each contest, they discover latent talents and gain confidence in themselves and in their friendship.

With contests such as MONSTER (“multi option non stop to end race”), Pro and Contest, Tribaffleon and creatures such as minotaurs, wenwolfs, and sea serpents and objects such as a gravity-challenged castle, anibals, and Identdetectors (and let’s not forget nitrowisherine), there’s a great deal here to engage the mind, delight the senses, and jumpstart the imagination. Plus, Kingsley mixes in just the right amount of Greek, Roman, Celtic and Norse mythology to create some intertextuality as well as offering up age-old (and yet never outmoded) themes of justice, friendship, loyalty, and courage.

In the end, it’s not really the end, as Erec discovers he’s got twelve Herculean labors, errr, that is, quests to complete. The epilogue contains additional clues to his past and provides a compelling case for running straight out and jumping into Book 2, Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness.

For those who want to just “get a taste” of either book one or book two, sample chapters from each book are available at the official Eric Rex website. And Book 3, Erec Rex: The Search for Truth is scheduled for release in October (and the cover art has already been released)!

Kaza Kingsley also recently finished a blog tour, so you can find author interviews and more on numerous kidlit blogs. Or read more about this tour and her other wanderings at her own The Memory Mogul (life in the mind of a fantasy author) blog.

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The Secret History of Tom Trueheart by Ian Beck (2006 in Great Britain, 2007 in US)

“‘You’ll need courage,’ is what the crow had said, courage. That meant he would really have to face danger and trouble, and he was frightened of danger, and he was frightened of trouble. But they seemed to have come calling anyway, both for him and his brothers.”

Our “once upon a time, long ago” story begins with Tom Trueheart on the brink of turning 12, the age when he’ll be eligible to follow in the footsteps of his six brothers–Jack, Jacquot, Jacques, Jackie, Jackson, and Jake. His brothers “were very tall, very beefy, very brave, and very noisy young men”; they are all famous adventurers in the Land of Stories.

Just before Tom’s birthday, his brothers are all called away on their respective adventures which all turn out to be familiar stories such as Cinderella, the Frog Prince, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Snow White, and Jack and the Beanstalk. So off they go with promises to return in time for Tom’s birthday celebration while Tom remains behind with his mother (his father has been lost somewhere in the Land of Stories long ago which just cries sequel doesn’t it?).

Left behind as usual, Tom suffers from bad dreams about scary adventures, diffidence in himself, and worries about a secret he keeps locked up tight inside–”He was not at all brave“. When his brothers do not return, however, he is forced to confront his fears.

The normal way of things is that the Story Bureau assigns the adventurers a story with a beginning and the adventurers enter the Land of Stories to complete the tales. Unfortunately, this time Tom’s brothers have not returned because of the diabolical scheming of one Story Bureau writer, Julius Ormestone. Ormestone decides that he’s sick and tired of creating beginnings for which the adventurers get to complete the stories and he takes drastic measures to change things (i.e., kidnapping assorted adventurers with the last name Trueheart).

Fortunately, the Master of the Story Bureau appoints Tom to his brothers’ rescue. When the Story Bureau assigns a Trueheart a story, a Trueheart steps up to the task and discovers an ending for the tale. So Tom enters the Land of Stories where he will need all of the courage he can muster in order to save his brothers from the man who is trying to destroy his family and the Land of Stories itself.

The Secret History of Tom Trueheart is full of adventures and adventurers, of familiar tales and new twists, of nefarious plotters with wicked schemes and helpful comrades with ready aid, of evil and of good, of greed and of generosity, of cowardice and of courage. For those who enjoy The Secret History of Tom Trueheart, the sequel, Tom Trueheart and the Land of Dark Stories, was published on March 06, 2008 in the UK and the US edition will be available May 27, 2008. Read the Times Online review for more on the sequel.

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The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean (2007)

“The transporter room aboard the starship Enterprise is rubbish in comparison with a little child’s imagination.”

Sym’s fourteen now, but she feels the same way about imagination. After her father’s death, her imagination becomes an even more vigorous coping mechanism, and she brings to life in her mind her deceased Antarctic explorer hero, Captain Titus Oates (Wikipedia entry: Captain Lawrence “Titus” Oates).

When Sym tells her classmates that she’s happy imagining, they label her the mad girl–sad, frigid, and mad. Her response: “So that’s when I sealed myself inside. Laced up the tent, so to speak. Filled the locks with water so that they would freeze. That’s when Titus and I looked at each other and decided we could do without them, as long as we had each other”.

Sym’s got Titus for support but she’s also got her Uncle Victor and her mom. Her Uncle Victor is the one who got Sym hooked on all things Antarctic. When he surprises her with an Antarctic expedition (unbeknownst to her mother), she’s thrilled…at first.

From there, the plot darkens–survival is a constant battle and love and trust are concepts that were left behind in civilization. As Sym puts it, “I felt wiser now. Though sometimes a dose of enlightenment tastes a lot like swallowing bleach.” Sym receives many such doses of enlightenment from the moment she begins traveling with her Uncle, each dose hitting her viscerally and leaving her reeling and feeling utterly alone on the Ice Shelf. The fact that she continues to put one foot in front of the other as the mysteries of her life unravel and lay bear disturbing truths shows admirable strength of character.

The White Darkness stands out as a young adult novel that’s lyrically and inventively written and that crosses multiple genres–adventure, survival, thriller, mystery, psychological fiction, and coming of age. The setting has a prominent role as much of the novel’s action springboards off the physical circumstances. Sym’s internal journey and struggles parallel nicely with the external perils.

It’s a gripping story that includes some historical (mainly about former expeditions to the South Pole) and factual detail (did you know that penguins stink?) along the way. McCaughrean’s remarkable story was recently recognized as such when it won the 2008 Michael L. Printz Award.

Quote to ponder:

“It’s true: Everyone needs a reason to stay alive–someone who justifies your existence. Someone who loves you. Not beyond all reason. Just loves you. Even just shows an interest. Even someone who doesn’t exist, or isn’t yours. No, no! They don’t even have to love you! They just have to be there to love! Target for your arrows. Magnetic Pole to drag on your compass needle and stop it spinning and spinning and tell you where you’re heading and…someone to soak up all the yearning. That’s what I think. That’s what I deduce.”

For readers who enjoy survival stories a few other books to try include the following:

Nonfiction:

• The Coldest March: Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition by Susan Solomon
• The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander
• Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
• Left for Dead: A Young Man’s Search for Justice for the USS Indianapolis by Pete Nelson
• Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales; Fire Fighters: Stories of Survival from the Front Lines of Firefighting by Clint Willis
• In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Survive: Stories of Castaways and Cannibals by Nate Hardcastle (includes fiction and non-fiction)

Fiction:

• Blizzard’s Wake by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• Overboard by Elizabeth Fama
• Storm Catchers by Tim Bowler
• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Alden Carter
• The Shark Callers by Eric Campbell
• A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer
• Wild Man Island by Will Hobbs (and other works by Hobbs)
• The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence (and other works by Lawrence)
• Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen
• Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden
• Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (and other works by Paulsen)
• Holes by Louis Sachar
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (post-apocalyptic adult fiction)

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Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson (2007)

“‘I don’t know where to start,’ Tom said.

‘According to some people, the beginning is a good place.’

Tom puffed his cheeks. The beginning? His day dying. Jeffrey Veatch chasing his mom. Refrigerator deliverymen. Packing foam.”

At eleven years old, Tom already has quite a few stories to tell. Leepike Ridge is just a piece of Tom’s story–Tom’s life after his father’s death. It’s his life with his mother in their home on top of a rock in which he misses his father terribly and loathes his mother’s new boyfriend Jeffrey Veatch. And it’s his struggle to survive and to find the light again when he is pulled underwater metaphorically by the weight of his burdens and also literally by the current.

This struggle for survival begins in earnest when Tom decides to ride the packing foam down the local stream in the middle of the night (he can’t sleep after being informed that his mother is “considering” Jeffrey’s proposal). Tom awakens to being pulled underwater into a series of underground caverns from which there is seemingly no escape. This fact becomes all the more trenchant when Tom meets Reg, a man who has been stuck underground for three years with little light, with negligible diet variation (crawdads, crawdads, and more crawdads), and with no company save for the occasional visit from a partially lame canine named Argus. Reg tells Tom of his underground lair, “The hard part wasn’t finding this place; that was an accident. The hard part is staying alive, wanting to stay alive when you can’t get back out.”

Yet, together Tom and Reg (and Argus the dog) help each other to hope and to search for a way out. Reg tells Tom, “If you die trying, I’ll die alongside you. It would be a nice change of pace from firelight and pasty-looking crawdads.”

Above ground, Tom’s mother Elizabeth refuses to give up hope that Tom’s still alive. In searching for Tom, she discovers that her husband’s death may not have been accidental. Throw in a villainous group of men who pretend to search for Tom but are actually searching for treasure and who will stop at nothing to get their hands on it and a sinister dimension is added to an already gripping mystery-survival story. N.D. Wilson’s first novel for young children is a riveting adventure that cries out to have its pages turned to the very end in order to find out whether Tom will ever again see the light of day.

Fans of adventure-survival stories like those of Gary Paulsen, Will Hobbs, Harry Mazer, and Jean Craighead George (as well as fans of the more classic adventure authors such as Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. Rider Haggard) will likely feel they’ve struck gold in reading Leepike Ridge.

Takeaway quote:

Reg: “After three years down here, I’ve not learned too much. But one thing I do know is that our bellies aren’t big enough for revenge. It turns sour and eats you up. We’ll get out, but we’ll get out for the sun, the moon, and mothers, not for small-souled enemies, though we’ll deal with them when we get there.”

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Mouse Guard Fall 1152 by David Petersen (2006)

“The mice struggle to live safely and prosper among all of the world’s harsh conditions and predators. Thus the Mouse Guard was formed.”

When you’re little, the world can be a dangerous place. Fortunately for mice, who happen to be quite little indeed, they have the Mouse Guard on their side. The Mouse Guard are the “escorts, pathfinders, weather watchers, scouts and body guards for the mice who live among the territories”. In other words, The Mouse Guard keeps mice travelers through the territories as safe as possible and investigates when said mice go missing.

So it is that three of the best of the Mouse Guard–Lieam, Kenzie, and Saxon–are sent out to discover the fate of peasant mouse that went missing while delivering goods among the territories. What they find (in addition to a hungry snake) is treachery from within mousekind.

As more of the plot against the Mouse Guard unfolds they discover that it is a mouse claiming to be of Black Axe renown that seeks to overthrow Lockhaven (the Mouse Guard’s home) and the Mouse Guard itself. Mouse Guard Fall 1152 follows these three mice as they investigate the treachery and fight to eradicate its source, so that they can once again focus on external threats to their species from “all the creatures that eats us” [mice, that is].

At book’s end, Petersen has included maps, guides, and assorted extras in which the mouse territories mentioned in the Mouse Guard’s adventures are more fully developed. Petersen’s text and pictures are replete with details that enhance the story. For instance, in describing Barkstone he proclaims it to be the “destination for the best in glass, furniture, and other goods” while Lockhaven is the Home of the Mouse Guard. He couples these proclamations with intricate drawings that reflect each locale’s uniqueness.

Each chapter begins with some exposition, but the captions on the panels themselves are relatively sparse making it an attractive choice for reluctant readers. Peterson employs diverse panel arrangements, color, line, and perspective to create the illusion of action and to drive the story forward.

Readers who enjoy Mouse Guard Fall 1152 will look forward to Mouse Guard Winter 1152 coming out in its collected edition in Winter 2008. In the meantime, other books to suggest to those who enjoyed talking mice historical fantasy adventure aspect include: Kate Dicamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux, Robert C. O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Brian Jacques’ Redwall series, Robin Jarvis’ Deptford Mice series. More mice fantasy adventure can be found in Michael Hoeye’s Time Stops for No Mouse and The Sands of Time, Avi’s Poppy stories, and Geronimo Stilton’s Geronimo Stilton series. Other books with less daring do but with talking mice that I can’t seem to stop myself from mentioning because they’re so much fun include: Beverly Cleary’s Ralph Mouse chapter books and Jennifer Holm’s BabyMouse graphic novels.

As for readers who don’t necessarily require mice, but nonetheless like the adventure and the anthropomorphic animal aspects, there’s no shortage of these kind of books. Just to name a few, you might try Erin Hunter’s Warriors series (cats), Kenneth Oppel’s Silverwing (bats), Kathryn Lasky’s Guardians of Ga’Hoole series (owls), or Richard Adam’s Watership Down (rabbits).

Mouse Guard Fall 1152 is a story replete with intrigue, adventure, survival, and courageous mice. Mice should be able to rest easier knowing that the Mouse Guard is on duty, and fans should rest easy knowing another volume is on its way.

Another interesting book review pertaining to rodentia is in the Times, Amanda Craig’s Varmints and Vermin in Children’s Fiction where she discusses Tumtum and Nutmeg by Emily Bearn and Nick Price and Barnaby Grimes: Return of the Emerald Skull by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.

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