The Book Search

Boy, does it feel good to read some fantasy fiction.  I like realistic fiction, but things have been very real around here for awhile, so it was good to dig into some books where problem solving is based on magic rather than the hard work that requires here in the real world! The first one is a graphic novel.  I'm going to confess right now that graphic novels are not my favorite.  I think I create pretty good mental images and the images of a graphic novel sometimes slow me down.  But this one was SO GOOD. It's called Doodleville by Chad Sells.  You might have read Chad's earlier book called Cardboard Kingdom, which was really fun.  In my opinion, Doodleville is even better.  It's about a group of kids who are in an art club.  They typically draw super heroes and each of them has their own character that is their most well developed.  Drew, the main character, has a friendly group of characters that can escape their pages and end up in some ...

There's some brand new fantasy fiction waiting in the wings and boy, are they worth the wait! This first one comes out in September.  It's called "Nevers" by Sara Cassidy.  It's set in a town called Nevers in the Burgundy Region of France.  Odette and her mother, Anneline, arrive there by cheese cart. They are poor and looking for a place to land.  Anneline has been unlucky in love - she's very beautiful and falls in love easily but all of her husbands have died and mostly they've been her fault.  Odette is a resourceful and practical girl who figures out how to get food and shelter.  Through a series of sometimes hilarious events, they solve a mystery (which I don't want to tell you about because it's so much fun figuring it out!).  There are some interesting historical pieces that lend a little weight to this very fun story as well as some beautiful figurative and philosophical language.  I thought this one was great.  It would be good fo...

One of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately is the characters in the books I'm choosing for my school library.  I'm still surprised by how few books there are where the main character is a person of color.  This is certainly changing, but one place it seems like it's going slower than in other characters is in the fantasy realm.  There still are very few options for multicultural heroes in fantasy books, so I was really happy to read these two books, which both have non-white main characters. The first one is called "Jinxed" by Amy McCullough.  It's about Lacey Chu, who lives in a time where everyone has a baku instead of a phone.  A baku is a companion robot that looks and behaves like an animal but it also has communication and computer capabilities.  So instead of making a call or a text or an internet search, you ask your baku.  The baku have different levels, the entry level ones are inexpensive and has fewer features.  The high...