Review of The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

Note: The Book Stop is on vacation!  This post was written in advance.  But please feel free to comment.

If you like well-written fantasy with a strong female character, this is the book for you.  The Hero and the Crown won a Newbery Medal in 1985, which is awarded once a year to the best novel in children’s literature.  This may be a children’s book, but the writing is incredibly adult.  McKinley gives us a fantasy novel that doesn’t rely on the standard tropes and doesn’t take any easy ways out.

Aerin is the daughter of the king of Damar, but she’s never been accepted by the people because her dead mother was rumored to be a witch who enspelled the king into marrying her.  Even worse, royalty in Damar are expected to manifest some magical talents by adolescence and Aerin has failed on that front.  She’s not beautiful, not talented, and mistrusted by her peers.  Her only support comes from her father, her best friend Tor, who is the next in line to be king, and her maid Teka.

Her life becomes more interesting when she rehabilitates Talat, the old and lamed horse who rescued her father in battle but hasn’t been ridden since.  She also creates a new way of riding without stirrups or a bridle.  She and Talat heal each other.  Then, while reading a book about fighting dragons, she discovers an ancient recipe for an ointment that protects skin from dragonfire.

In the world McKinley has created, dragons are small but because of their fire, incredibly dangerous to kill.  They prey on crops and villages, and it usually takes a team of trained warriors to slay one.  And lately, the threat of dragons has been increasing.

This is an incredible fantasy novel, and a surprisingly challenging read.  McKinley writes in a complex, lyrical style, which is at times almost dreamlike.  Most fantasy isn’t “literary” but this one is.

The book mixes the expected (dragon battles) with the unexpected (her visit to Luthe and the Lake of Dreams).  As with most fantasy, Aerin is destined for more than she realizes.  But each battle is hard fought and nothing comes easy to this heroine.

This is the kind of book I would love for my nieces to read, because I know it will make them think, but also because Aerin beats most heroines for bravery and strength.  I think this is a book you could read a few times and get more out of each time.

Review of Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Over Sea, Under Stone is the first of five books in Susan Cooper’s classic children’s series, The Dark is Rising.  She won a Newbery award for the fourth book, The Grey King.  It’s on my Classics Club list and also counts towards the Around the World in 12 Books Challenge.  March’s country is Wales, and even though this book takes place in England, it’s based on Welsh folklore.

I’m not sure how I missed this series as a child, but this book was a fun read, if a little traditional.  It’s based on Arthurian legend – and according to Wikipedia, is a mix of Celtic and Norse mythology as well.  It’s classic English fantasy – a little lighter than C.S. Lewis and darker than E. Nesbit, and Edward Eager.  Three children, Jane, Barney and Simon, come to Cornwall for a holiday.  Their parents, as in all great children’s fantasy, are absent for most of the book.  And then there’s mysterious Uncle Merry.  Of course they’re staying in a mysterious old house, and on the first rainy day, they decide to explore and they discover a very old, very cryptic map.  This sets them on a quest to find King Arthur’s Holy Grail, before the forces of darkness can find it.

Since Book One is clearly a set-up for the rest of the series, it’s difficult to review.  I’ll just say it was a quick and entertaining read, although a little far-fetched a few times, as the children escape their evil pursuers just a little too easily.  On the other hand, their escapes may be part of their enemy’s evil design.  The children know that by searching for the Grail, they run the huge risk of leading the enemy right to it – but they go ahead anyway.  There were a few times I wanted to slap them – but then this is a book written for kids, not for me.  This felt like a “starter” book – written for younger kids but wanting to be a lot darker.

Still, I enjoyed the Arthurian background and who doesn’t like a good treasure hunt?  It’s Narnia without the religion, which I appreciated.  Character development was good for this kind of book and I expect will grow a lot in the future books.  I hope to see Jane’s character developed further as the boys had a lot of the adventures in this book.

If you’ve read the series, I’d love to hear whether I should keep reading.  The other fantasy series I need to read is the one by Lloyd Alexander.  Which would you recommend?

Review of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I bought this book for my teenage niece in June – I was looking for something that would go beyond the paranormal, dystopian stuff that’s mostly on the shelves right now.  I like that sort of thing, but with young adult fiction it seems like that’s all there is.  (I’m also glad teens are reading – but not sure most of that stuff is any good.) As the recent list of NPR’s most popular YA fiction showed, John Green is a hot commodity among the YA crowd.  His books definitely go toe to toe with Stephenie Meyers, Suzanne Collins, and JK Rowlings in terms of popularity.  He’s also won a ton of awards, including the Printz Award for Looking for Alaska.

John Green writes about real life, and not just life, but death, too.  He writes in a way that’s different from most authors, although I can’t say why exactly.   I’ve read three of Green’s books, Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and The Fault in Our Stars, and would recommend any of the three. They are real-life, well-written, deal with tough subjects and appeal to both genders (which is rare in YA).

But I’m conscious when I read his books that I’m not a teenager.  With the paranormal/fantasy/dystopian stuff, there’s almost no difference between a book classified as adult and a book classified as YA, but John Green’s books are clearly aimed at the young.  Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it.  It’s just that maybe I “appreciate” his books more than I can really get caught up in them.

The Fault in Our Stars is, to be very blunt, about kids with cancer.  Hazel is in a support group for teens with lots of varying types of cancer.  Her friend Isaac introduces her to his friend Augustus, which sparks a friendship, and more.  I’d like to say this isn’t a book about cancer, it’s a book about teens with cancer.  As Hazel says at one point, “cancer books suck.”  But cancer is never far from this story, and Green writes about it in a way you might never forget, the next time you’re feeling uncomfortable with the topic.

“Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer.  But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer.  Depression is a side effect of dying.”

Green really gets into the heads of his characters, and Hazel feels incredibly real – despite her young age and the fact that she breathes through a machine, has her lungs drained on a regular basis, and expects to die pretty soon.  She and her friends do teenagery things like play video games, listen to music, talk about boys, and argue about characters in their favorite book.  Green builds characters you’ll want to be friends with, and at the same time this is a story that will have you turning pages to see what happens.

There’s a lot of “aha” writing in this book which made glad I read it. Green expresses Hazel’s complicated feelings about her parents, friends, and Augustus in a way that made me understand what Hazel’s life might be like.  I also appreciated that Green never quite gives in to the melodrama that is teens with disfiguring, potentially terminal cancer.  You never feel like this is just a tear-jerker.  Although if you’re a parent, I’m guessing this book is a lot harder to read.

I love to see where authors get their titles from.  Green takes his title from a quote in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:

“Never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he had Cassius note, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.’  Easy enough to say when you’re a Roman nobleman (or Shakespeare!), but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.”

Thumbs way up to Green, for a book that feels new, young (from my non-teenagery perspective, that is) and not too sappy. If this book was a cry-fest I wouldn’t recommend it – I hate that sort of thing, especially when I’m on the Metro (take that, David Nicholls).

If the subject or the fact that it’s YA doesn’t scare you off, or if you have a teen to buy for, I highly recommend this book.  John Green’s books may be tough but they’re real – and I personally think that teens want to read about the tough stuff, whether it’s world-ending vampire battles or teens battling cancer.

For an interview with John Green on character development, see this post at Misprinted Pages.

Review of Alanna by Tamora Pierce

Note: The Book Stop is officially on vacation.  So I pulled an older review I never got around to posting.  Enjoy!

I’ve been wanting to read something by Tamora Pierce for a long time, since I enjoy young adult fantasy and this book is considered one of the best.  However, I think as with most series, the first book is a little more set-up and I expect the books get better as you go.

This book was also a little “younger” than I anticipated.  I was hoping for something with the complexity of Sabriel, but this was a lot more basic.  I wouldn’t call Alanna a young adult book, I’d say it’s perfect for the fourth-fifth grade range.

The book is set in a standard medieval fantasy world.  Alanna and her twin brother Thom are thirteen and being shipped off to school.  Thom is off to the knights academy, and Alanna is off to the convent.  However, Thom wants to study sorcery and Alanna wants to fight, so they switch places.  Alanna disguises herself as Alan and somehow fools everyone around her into thinking she’s a boy.

What’s good about the book – Alanna is good at a lot of things but she also has to work really hard to succeed in knights’ training.  This isn’t one of those stories where everything comes easily to the magical hero or heroine.  Alanna has to spend her nights training in swordsmanship and during the day has to fight the school bully.  She does, however, have a gift for healing and is clearly destined to become some higher power.

Alanna lives in a time where there used to be female warriors, and a female knight is unexpected but not as ridiculous as it might seem.  The interesting thing about the book is that Alanna has to come to terms with her own identity.  She’s sure if her friends discover she’s a girl they will hate her.  She cringes every time people look at her closely and it’s clear she can’t keep up the deception for long, if only for her own sanity.  It’s this extra layer of complexity that makes the book better than most.

I think this book might be one I needed to have read as a girl, sort of like Anne of Green Gables.  There are a lot of young adult books that are just as good when read by adults, but this wasn’t one of them.  If I was a girl I’m sure I would have loved Alanna; in fact I remember very few great heroines when I was young and reading fantasy.   If you’re looking for good fiction for a daughter or niece, this is a good pick, and I’m guessing the series gets even better as it goes.

I know Tamora Pierce has a lot of fans out there, so I’ll ask, is this the right place to start?  Should I keep reading or go to one of her series for older readers?  Similarly, the next author I need to read is Diana Wynne Jones — any recommendations for her?

NPR’s Best-Ever Teen Novels List: What’s a Teen Novel Anyway?

NPR just posted another reader favorites list – this one is the 100 best-ever teen novels.  These lists are always fun, not just in a what-have-I-read kind of way, but for the “controversy” they generate.  (I say that in quotes because, however heated the discussion gets, it’s just a book list after all.)

Who’s on it, who’s not?  And the bigger question, what the hell is a teen novel anyway?

NPR posted this explanation of why it chose what it did.  First, this is a reader poll, not a critical analysis.  Second, they eliminated books that really seemed aimed at middle-school and younger.  They decided 12-18 is the target age range for YA books, and they decided that Newbery award winners are “children’s books” not teen books.  I’m okay with that.

Then they applied a few rules that are, at best, questionable.  Is the book too violent?  Ender’s Game is out.  Too mature?  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, out.  Are teens not “lining up to read the book”?  Pride and Prejudice, out.

So you’re left to wonder what’s the definition of a “teen novel”.  Because I question whether Dune and LOTR are teen novels, regardless of their merits.  Is To Kill a Mockingbird a “teen novel”?  And do teens really line up to read A Separate Peace or Flowers for Algernon?  What’s the standard here?

If a teen novel is defined as a favorite of teens today, much of this list doesn’t make sense.  If it’s books that are commonly assigned in high schools, well then I’d say that a high school lit class should be assigning literature to read, not “teen novels”.  Is it, what were your favorite books when you were a teen?  I didn’t really read “teen novels” as a teen (I read books like Stephen King, Gone with the Wind, and my mom’s “adult” romance novels). Although I certainly admit to reading (and re-reading) Forever.

You can’t look at whether a book was marketed to teens.  That works for today’s fiction but I don’t think works for the classics.

Here’s the standard I like: a teen novel is one where the main character is a teen for most of the story.  Why not?  It’s clean and straightforward.

In general I thought the classics were well-chosen, and I was happy to see Garth Nix, David Levithan, Markus Zusak, and Scott Westerfeld on the list.  So if the list is a little on the fluffy commercial side (you won’t find me reading Jodi Picoult any time soon), it seems fairly balanced.

And in the end, what a book list is good for is generating reading ideas, and this one will do the trick – for teens and adults.  The top 20 are books I’d recommend to any teen or adult, except for the couple I haven’t read.  Do you think it’s too modern?  Too classic?  Too much fantasy or not enough?

Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.  Are your favorites on the list? How would you define a teen novel, and does this list cut it for you?

Review of The Drowned Cities by Paulo Bacigalupi

I’ve become a big fan of Paulo Bacigalupi after reading his short stories and his first YA novel, Ship Breakers.  Bacigalupi is not only a great writer and world-builder, but like all good science fiction or dystopian fiction, he makes really compelling statements about the world we live in.

The Drowned Cities is no exception.  This is a book about two children, Mouse and Mahlia, who live on the edge of the war-torn Drowned Cities.  Mahlia is the daughter of a Chinese peacekeeper.  In this world, peacekeepers had been sent to control the Drowned Cities, but at some point they abandon the city, and when they leave the retribution is brutal.  Mahlia’s mother is violently murdered and Mahlia has her hand chopped off.   Her friend Mouse saved her life, and together they are fortunate to have been taken in by a kind doctor.  But in this savage and violent world, their life isn’t going to stay calm for very long.

While violent, Bacigalupi has created an incredible world, full of warring political factions, children trained as soldiers, and genetically enhanced creatures who are enslaved to the government as fighting machines.

Mahlia and Mouse, struggling to survive, run into Tool, a dog-man introduced in Bacigalupi’s earlier book, Ship Breakers.  Tool is an intelligent being bred and trained as a weapon of war.  He’s half man, half beast, with the sensory perception of a dog and incredible strength.  The dog-men are bred to be devoted to their masters, yet Tool somehow breaks away from a life of slavery and seeks his own path.

The setting of the Drowned Cities is based on Washington, DC, although I admit I didn’t pick up on that for most of the book.  Once you do, the parallels are really fascinating and make me want to read the book over again.

Bacigalupi’s writing is incredible, from the first sentences of the book.

Chains clanked in the darkness of the holding cells.

The reek of urine from the latrines and the miasma of sweat and fear twined with the sweet stench of rotting straw.  Water dripped, trickling down ancient marble work, blackening what was once fine with mosses and algae.

Humidity and heat.  The whiff of the sea, far off, a cruel, tormenting scent that told the prisoners they would never taste freedom again.  Sometimes a prisoner, a Deepwater Christian or a Rust Saint devotee, would call out, praying, but mostly the prisoners waited in silence, saving their energy.

The best thing about this book is that Bacigalupi really develops the characters and the friendship between them.  There is a devastating hopelessness to the lives of these two children, yet they continue to fight for each other.  Mahlia has learned at a very young age that the only way to survive is to put herself first – but she also has to learn that sometimes putting the people you love first is the only way you can live with yourself.

I’ve read a lot of young adult fiction recently that I found to be incredibly adult.  And not because of sexuality – I mean a combination of complexity, traumatic subject matter and violence that makes me wonder why we call these books YA.  What makes a book “young adult” fiction?  Is it when the main characters are young?  Does it have to do with length or complexity of the book?  I think I’ve decided it’s a marketing tool more than anything else.  And I’m not sure it matters.  But I have a very hard time calling this book YA.

I loved this book even though it was incredibly violent, and in a brutal, graphic way that really got to me.  Bacigalupi doesn’t write about death, he writes about torture and fear.  He makes you think about how innocent people can be turned into killers and how people lose their humanity.  But at the same time, he really takes you into the minds and hearts of his characters, and creates a vivid and terrifying future.

I highly recommend this book — although not so much for younger readers.

Review of Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley.  It published on May 15, 2012 by Hyperion Books CH.

The worst thing I can say about this book is that it was unevenly written, meaning there were times that the pacing and story didn’t hold my interest, and other times I couldn’t put it down.

The best I can say about this story is that it’s a roller coaster ride of a spy thriller plus a detailed historical novel about the role of women as pilots and spies in World War II Britain.

Code Name Verity is written from the point of view of a young British spy captured by the Germans.  She’s being tortured by the Gestapo and forced to write down her story.  She intends to tell the Germans everything to avoid further torture, but she’s also clearly diverting them with a story about her best friend Maddie, a female pilot who flew her into Nazi-occupied France on her last mission.  The Gestapo already has Maddie’s ID and knows about her plane so there isn’t too much harm in talking about her.

Here’s how it starts:

I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was.  I have always been good at pretending.  I spent the first twelve years of my life playing at the Battle of Stirling Bridge with my five big brothers – and even though I am a girl they let me be William Wallace, who is supposed to be one of our ancestors, because I did the most rousing battle speeches.  God, I tried hard last week.   My God, I tried.  But now I know I am a coward.  After the ridiculous deal I made with SS-Haupsturmfuhrer von Loewe, I know I am a coward.  And I’m going to give you anything you ask, everything I can remember.  Absolutely Every Last Detail.

It’s hard to describe the narrator, who doesn’t even have a name for a good part of the book (she goes by many names but we’ll call her Verity).  She’s stripped of all identity and context as she writes.

For much of the first half of the book I struggled with the flip tone of the narrative.  I had to keep reminding myself that Verity is writing for her captors, so her references to torture are meant to be defiant.  (Plus they already know what they’ve done to her, and she’s being forced to write her story, not theirs.)   She’s a difficult character to get to know because you don’t know how much of what she puts on paper is her real self.  She also refers to herself in third person a lot and with oddly self-flattering descriptions like “[she] let out a peal of her giddy, infectious laughter” but you come to realize she’s making fun of herself as she writes.

As she tells her backstory (how she got into spying, how she and Maddie became friends) it’s a little difficult to stay engaged.  She writes in a rambling style, and given the urgency of her current situation, you wish she would get to the point a little quicker.  Of course, she’s writing to prolong her own life, so her intent is NOT to get to the point quickly.

As a plot device, author Elizabeth Wein has taken on a challenge.  Unlike books where a journal or letters are used simply to tell the story, here the writing IS the story.  As a plot device, this could succeed or fail – I think ultimately it succeeds.

I’m trying very hard not to give away anything, but I will say this: if you’re struggling with the book in the early parts, stay with it.  There’s a point where the plot picks up and you will NOT be able to put this book down.  Wein brings it all together in a way that made this book worth every minute.

I’ll say the same thing regarding the historical nature of this novel.  If at first it seems a little plodding, it doesn’t end up that way.  Wein clearly did an incredible amount of research on female pilots and spies in World War II, as evidenced by a lengthy bibliography at the end of the book.

This is the second YA book I’ve read recently (The Drowned Cities is the other one) where I want to say this is WAY too dark for YA.  But as I thought more about it, I changed my mind.  One, this is history — and two, what we often forget about YA (and what makes it such a great genre) is that teenagers WANT darkness.  Their own lives are difficult and confusing and a book like this puts a lot of teen angst in perspective.

So while I found it a little hard to get into, in the end I would highly recommend it.   For you and for any teens you may know.

Greatest Girl Characters: Who’s on Your List?

This week Biblibio posted on one of my favorite topics: strong female heroines in young adult literature.  The post refers to a list published by The Atlantic on “the greatest girl characters of young adult literature” which includes Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pippi Longstocking, Harriet the Spy, Betsy from Betsy-Tacy, Ramona Quimby, and a few others.  The article argues the fairly obvious point that modern heroines like Katniss Everdeen have their roots in strong female characters like Laura Ingalls and Anne Shirley.  Okay, but is that just because they’re female?  What makes this particular group the greatest?

Mari Ness from Tor.com responded with an article criticizing this list on a few fronts: first, it sticks mainly to traditional, classic literature rather than including other genres like fantasy.  Second, it fails to differentiate between children’s literature and young adult (although arguably that can be a tricky line to draw).  Characters like Laura Ingalls and Anne Shirley grow from children to adults in their books, and others like Ramona Quimby and Pippi Longstocking clearly fall in the domain of children’s literature, not young adult.

Personally, the question of where to draw the line between children’s, young adult, and adult literature doesn’t phase me too much, because I think it’s all worthwhile.  Just look at a writer like Maurice Sendak, who sadly passed away on Tuesday (rest in peace, Mr. Sendak).  Sendak wrote picture books with more depth and creativity than most adult novels.  And strong heroines at every age are important.

The huge flaw is that there are so many wonderful girl heroines not included in the Atlantic’s list.  Ness mentions my favorites, the Oz books, which are FULL of adventurous, strong girl characters.  She also mentions an obvious omission, Hermione Granger, although Hermione isn’t the lead character in her books.

Ness also points out that most of The Atlantic‘s heroines have to learn to fit into society and ultimately do conform to expected societal behavior (with the possible exception of Pippi Longstocking).  You can argue that’s the nature of classic literature, except the girls of Oz never stop having adventures, and in fact most of them don’t go home either.  One of them ends up running the place.

Ness throws out the question, who are your favorite girl heroines?  The one heroine on both lists is Meg Murray from A Wrinkle in Time.  But today, thankfully, there are plenty of others, thanks to great YA fantasy writers like Tamora Pierce, Robin McKinley, and others.  In fact, some of my favorite heroines have been created by male writers: Sabriel and Lirael (by Garth Nix), Tiffany Aching (by Terry Pratchett), Lyra Belacqua (Phillip Pullman) and Tally Youngblood and Deryn Sharp (Scott Westerfeld).

I think the list posed by The Atlantic has some merit; you won’t hear me complaining about most of the characters chosen. But I think there are enough strong girl characters that we can define our terms a little better.  What does “the greatest girl characters” even mean?  Are these characters who are brave, courageous, who challenge societal norms, who accomplish great things?  Are they the kindest, the best friends, the most moral?  Are we talking about girls or teens, classic fiction or contemporary?  To publish a list called “The Greatest Girl Characters” and come up with just a handful doesn’t cut it, even if Meg Murray is included.

Thanks to Biblibio, for giving me a chance to ponder one of my favorite subjects.   And please comment: Who are your favorite girl or young adult heroines?

Review of Jasper Fforde’s The Last Dragonslayer

I’ve said this before but here it is again.  Jasper Fforde is awesome.

If you’ve read nothing by Jasper Fforde, go out and find The Eyre Affair.  If you’ve read and loved those books (and Shades of Grey and the Nursery Crime series), you may be interested to know he’s started a young adult fantasy series.  The Last Dragonslayer is very different from other Fforde novels but at the same time unmistakably his.

If you’re a Fforde fan you know that besides being clever and satirical, he puts an incredible amount of detail into his world-building.  Dragonslayer is no different, though it’s a simpler read and definitely good for younger readers.  The book takes place in modern day England, where magic is slowly losing its power.  Jennifer is a teenager who runs Kazam, a job agency for aging witches and wizards.  Unfortunately, as technology increases, the prestige of magic has decreased, so now they do things like clean out pipes and rewire houses – things that magic can still do more quickly and cheaply than regular labor can.  Magic carpets are now used to deliver pizzas.

We hadn’t been able to afford a towncar for years, so the three sorcerers, myself, and the beast were packed into my rust-and-orange-but-mostly-rust Volkswagen for the short journey from Hereford to Dinmore.  Lady Mawgon had insisted on sitting in the passenger seat because “that’s how it will be” which meant that Wizard Moobin and the well-proportioned “Full” Price were in the back seat, with the Quarkbeast sitting between the two of them and panting in the heat.  I was driving, which might have been unusual anywhere but here in the Kingdom of Snodd, which was unique in the Ununited Kingdoms for having driving tests based on maturity, not age.  Which explained why I’d had a license since thirteen, while some blokes were still failing to make the grade at forty.  It was lucky I could.  Sorcerers are easily distracted, and letting them drive is about as safe as waving around a chainsaw at full throttle in a crowded disco.

Jennifer is training her replacement, when she hears of a prophecy that the Last Dragon is about to be slain, and Big Magic is coming.  Jennifer is troubled by the fact that the last living dragon is about to be killed for no reason, although the rest of the world isn’t.  In fact people have already started lining up to see the slaying and claim a piece of the dragon’s land.  Jennifer also worries what that the death of the Last Dragon will mean for the rest of their world, especially the uneasy peace between Britain and Wales, which is divided by the Last Dragon’s lands.

This leads into a complicated back story about the Dragonslayers and why there is only one dragon left.  Jennifer then has to find the Last Dragonslayer and try to keep the Last Dragon from being wrongfully slain.  The book has a really strong heroine, so I recommend it highly for girls who like fantasy, although boys would love this book too.  Also typical of Fforde, the side characters are equally strong, like the imperious Lady Mawgon, the wise Wizard Moobin, and especially the dreaded Quarkbeast (who reminded me a bit of Pickwick but with razor sharp teeth).  Jennifer isn’t one of my favorite names for a heroine, especially given Fforde’s talent with words, but it’ll  have to do.

Like Fforde’s other books, this one is original and creative and laugh-out-loud funny.  Sure, there’s plenty of dragon-fighting fiction written for middle-school kids, but this is one worth reading.

So, if you’re a Fforde fan or someone who likes YA fantasy, run out and find this book (it’s not released in the U.S. yet but Book Depository can send it to you).  There’s a sequel, Song of the Quarkbeast, and I would assume more to come.  If nothing else, it will tide you over until the next Thursday Next novel comes out (July in the UK, October in the US).  Me, I’m still waiting on a sequel to Shades of Grey.  You can find out more about Fforde’s books and events here.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret: the Book versus the Movie

I hadn’t heard of this book until the movie came out and got so much Oscar-attention.  Then I came across the book in the library and was intrigued: it’s a hefty hardback with a spine about three inches across, yet it’s the recipient of a Caldecott award (the award for best picture books).  But open up the book, and you’ll find it’s half text, half illustration.  It’s a beautiful, visual book.

Brian Selznick is both the author and illustrator.  I love when the author and illustrator are the same because then you just know it all works together.  No arguments about what is the vision for the book.  It doesn’t happen often (an example is my favorite Dr. Suess) but it’s great when it does happen.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is about a young boy who lives by himself in a Paris train station around 1920.  His father died, his uncle disappeared, and he’s hiding from the Station Inspector to avoid being sent to an orphanage.  He maintains all the clocks in the station so the Inspector will think that Hugo’s uncle is still around.

This is a strange story but it totally works.  The illustrations are simple but powerful.  Selznick accomplishes something that most illustrators don’t – his illustrations don’t just show you things, but movement and emotion.  For example, he shows you Hugo running from the inspector in a series of illustrations that really make you feel you’re running beside him.  It’s hard to explain but there it is.

It’s also a really cool story.  I think it won’t be telling too much to say it starts out being about the history of turn of the century robotics but ends up being about the dawn of movie-making.  Since I have a thing for turn of the century illustration (Arthur Rackham, Maxfield Parrish, Mucha, etc.) I loved the exploration of art through film-making.

The book gives you a lot of information about the history of film.  Sometimes when a book is written to explain, it doesn’t do a good job of entertaining.  This book puts it all together in a dramatic story.

That said, did the movie live up to the book?  Yes, but no.  Yes, in that it’s very faithful to the book.  No, in that the movie isn’t paced quite right, because ultimately this is a children’s book and doesn’t have two hours worth of stuff in it.  I don’t like children’s books being made into movies, for the reason that stuff always has to be added.  But being too faithful to the plot of a book doesn’t work either.  It’s a Catch-22 but in my mind the solution is DON’T MAKE GREAT CHILDREN’S BOOKS INTO MOVIES.  Look at all the horrible movies that are being made from Dr. Seuss books.  I wish they’d stop.  It’s better with books for older children, just stop making picture books into movies, please!

I found Hugo the movie a little slow. Ultimately, it was a nice rendition of the book, but left me feeling it didn’t ADD anything to the book.

Now, I’ll never know how I would have experienced that movie without having read the book.  That’s a choice you have to make, one way or another.  See the movie first and the book is diminished.  Read the book first and the movie nearly always suffers by comparison.  Hugo is probably a fantastic movie without being compared to the book — but compared to the book it suffered, even with its beautiful graphics and impressive actors like Ben Kingsley.  The book did a better job of conveying Hugo’s feelings; the movie just felt a little forced to me.  Maybe it was the acting, maybe the pacing, or maybe it’s just that some movies work better than others when you already know what’s going to happen (for example, Titanic is still an entertaining movie and you know how that one ends).

Of course, this is just my opinion (as always) — did you see the movie or read the book?  What did you think?