The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

Children's Literature

Bo and Prosper are brothers that have run away after their parents died and they found out their aunt and uncle only want to take in the younger brother, Bo. To stay together, they escape to Venice and fall in with a bunch of other homeless kids in an abandoned movie theater, lead by the thief lord. The kids steal small items to pay for food, but the thief lord comes back with much more expensive items to help out. When Bo and Prosper find out that their aunt has come to Venice and hired an investigator to find them, they are on high alert. The thief lord is presented with a contract to steal a wooden wing for a few million lire. The children work together to figure out how to steal this item while trying to stay out of the private investigator's way.

Having just come off reading Funke's other book Inkheart, which I didn't enjoy all that much, I was surprised that I really enjoyed this one. The characters were cute and enjoyable, including most of the adults. Many of the characters want what they can't have, but somehow find ways to get what they want. All that, topped with a great ending. It's a fun book!

First Line: "It was autumn in Venice when Victor first heard of Prosper and Bo."

Rating:
(4/5)

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Children's Literature

Meggie is a 12 year old book enthusiast, spurred on by her father who repairs books for a living. One night, a mysterious man appears outside their house and Meggie's father, Mo, invites him in. He turns out to be an old friend who knows much more about Mo's past than Meggie. Stating that the two are in danger, they pack up their belongings and move to Meggie's great-aunt's house. Elinor is even more of a book enthusiast than Meggie and Mo, as her only friends are book and she is completely surrounded by them in her house. Unfortunately danger finds them there too.

Meggie soon learns that her mom did not die when she was young, but that her father is able to read characters in and out of books. One night when Meggie was young, Mo read out some bad characters to Inkheart and accidentally read her mother in to the story. Now those guys are after Mo.

What is a very unique idea for some reason didn't pan out for me. It started pretty slowly, with Mo and Meggie spending way too long at Elinor's house as the author tries to build up that character, but it adds very little to the main plot. Then the characters kept repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again. By the end, I was tired of their antics rather than routing for them and didn't really care what happened.

I won't be continuing in this series.

First Line: "Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain."

Rating:
(2.5/5)

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne

Children's

It's been 19 years since Harry, Ron, and Hermione fought Voldemort and won. Harry and Ginny now have three kids, with Harry working at the Ministry. His youngest, Albus, doesn't fit in. On the train to Hogwarts for his first year, Albus feels the pressure to make friends and finds another loner like him, Scorpius Malfoy. Scorpius is incredibly unlike his father and a breath of fresh air for that family. When Cedric Diggory's father shows up begging Harry to bring back his son by using a time turner, Albus decides to take this on himself. Him and Scorpius turn time back to different periods of the Triwizard Tournament to try and save Cedric.

This book is just a copy of the play, which makes it a pretty quick read because you're mostly reading just dialogue. I had a hard time picturing how this script would look on stage because it jumps back and forth between characters and locations a lot. It seems that this would be hard to put on stage because it would require lots of set changing. I'd be interested to see how this comes to fruition.

For the story, I really liked the different what if scenarios. Making small changes in the past can cause huge changes in the future, which we've seen play out in a lot of different movies and books but I enjoyed this take.

Where I was disappointed is in how our favourites have changed. I had no issues with Hermione; she's exactly what I expected. Ron however, I thought he had aspirations to become an Auror and work for the ministry. Instead, he's running a joke shop like his brothers (or his brother's joke shop?) and is a very shallow character. Then there's Harry, who was the biggest disappointment of them all. He is a horrible father and rather self-centred. He blames it on not having a father at the end of the book, which is a big cop out. I wasn't impressed Harry!

Despite the few character problems, it was still nice to get some new Harry Potter content.

First Line: "A busy and crowded station."

Rating:
(4/5)

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

Children's

It's summer in the Lake District and the four Walker children want to sail across the lake and claim an uninhabited island for their own. After getting permission from their mom and dad, who is over seas and sends OK by telegram, the children set off. They pack all their provisions, including food and tents, and sail to their island. Once camp is set up, they explore and find a evidence that someone has already been on the island. There don't seem to be any other people so they make the place their own.

In a few days, they find out who was previously on the island, when another sail boat goes by with a black pirate flag. It's the two Blackett girls, with their boat Amazon. The two declare a friendly war with each other, with the purpose of fighting the captain of a houseboat who fires his cannons at them.

The imagination of these children entertains them for the week or so they are out on the island. It's the kind of imagination I hope my children will have and the kind of book children would love because of how imaginative it is.

As a grown up, I wished for the ability to sail to my own island, make camp, and just hang out. Help was close by for the kids if they ever needed it and food readily available. Sounds like a dream to me!

This was such a charming book.

First Line: "Roger, aged seven, and no longer the youngest of the family, ran in wide zigzags, to and fro, across the steep field that sloped up from the lake to Holly Howe, the farm where they were staying for part of the summer holidays."

Rating:
(4.5/5)

Momo by Michael Ende

Children's

When Momo, a little homeless girl, takes up residence in an abandoned amphitheater on the edge of town, the residences come out to see who this girl is. She quickly makes friends of them, listening to their stories and troubles. Soon her friends visit her less and less, and Momo wonders what happened. There are men in grey suits going around stealing time from everyone. Adults have less time thinking they are banking it for later and children are running around free because there is no supervision. Momo wants life back the way it was and sets out to figure out how to do so.

I had picked this book up because the author is that of The Neverending Story. While this book is every bit as imaginative as his previous work, I found it rather tough to get through. I didn't find Momo the character very interesting. I think part of the reason is that almost nothing about her is explained. She's a child, but thought to be very old. There seems to be some mystical features of her but none are actually determined. This, combined with a rather slow moving plot made me rather bored of this book.

First Line: "Long, long ago, when people spoke languages quite different from our own, many fine, big cities already existed in the sunny lands of the world."

Rating:
(3/5)

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Children's

Black Beauty is a beautiful horse with good manners. His mom and first master taught him well so that he doesn't stir at loud noises or abnormal behaviour from other animals or humans. This story tells us the ups and downs of Black Beauty's life as he's passed from owner to owner. The start of his life is great and he is free. Not all of his owners are kind and Black Beauty has to suffer through them. Thankfully, this is a child's story so everything comes full circle and the reader is left with a happy ending.

Once we learn the core beliefs of Black Beauty and his basic personality, the book becomes much more about the situations he's put in. Black Beauty's character doesn't develop much beyond what we learn about him in the first few pages but it doesn't need to because he has such a strong morale base.

This book does a great job of illustrating how abuse feels to animals. Though I'm not sure how a young child would take to either the abuse these animals went through nor the loss that was experienced. It could be rather sad, though the overall message is quite sweet.

First Line: "The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it."

Rating:
(4.5/5)

Boom! by Mark Haddon

Children's

Jim and Charlie are spying on their teachers when they hear two of them start speaking in a strange language. Trying to get to the bottom of what those teachers are talking about, suspicious events happen. The boys set out on an adventure to try and figure it out.

There isn't a Haddon book I've met that I haven't liked. Until now. I enjoyed some of the moments between Jim and his dad, who is unemployed and trying to figure out how to contribute to the family when he's given a beginner's cook book. There were also some good moments between Jim and his sister. The rest fell flat for me.

Jim's sister is dating a weird guy (Craterface) who seems abnormally violent. Looking back on this character, he seemed to serve no purpose other than the use of his motorcycle. Surely there's an easier way to get a motorcycle than inventing a character?

The last quarter of the book was probably the worst part, with many threads unexplored and not making much sense. While I think a young boy would really enjoy this book, I'm not sure anyone else would find it entertaining.

First Line: "I was on the balcony eating a sandwich."

Rating:
(2/5)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Children's

When Ella was a baby, she was "gifted" with obedience. When someone gives Ella an order, she must obey it. As a teenager, this becomes a big problem as people boss her around and make her do things that suit them rather than her. Ella looks to find the person that gave her this curse and see if she can get it reversed.

This is a different take on the Cinderella fairy tale, though you really only get in to the Cinderella part at the very end of the book. The first part of the book was imaginative and fun but swinging in to the Cinderella story line at the end of the book seemed like a bit of a cop out to me.

However, since this book is for kids, I don't think kids would care when they read this. It's still a fun story about a girl who overcomes her curse and everything ends happily ever after!

First Line: "That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo

Children's

When Charlie Bone discovers accidentally that he can hear people in photographs speak, his dad's side of the family takes over. They give him tests and poke and prod him to determine if this is a legitimate gift and whether he should be sent to special school. Charlie tries to deny it but can't because the pictures are so loud. He is sent to Bloor's Academy, away from his best friend and his mom. He learns about secrets that he shouldn't and meets others like him: both nice and mean. With cats that can set fire to things and a box that is trying to open itself, Charlie isn't at school long before he gets wrapped up in a variety of different schemes.

This book has lots of comparisons to Harry Potter but it really is a weak substitute. There isn't "magic" per say, but a few of the characters have unique abilities. That said, these abilities are hardly explored at all in the book and take a back seat once they are announced. I'm not sure I understand what the point is of having a character that can hear people within photographs if he only uses it a couple of times throughout the book.

Not much happens in this book, not much is required to fix the problems, and not much is described of the characters. All in all, it's a pretty shallow book, though I'm sure it would have a good audience of young kids - maybe 6-8 years old.

First Line: "Long, long ago a king arrived in the north."

Rating:
(2.5/5)

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
Children's

Hannah is visiting her grandparents during Passover in 1988 America, wishing that she could be like her best friend Rosemary and eat candies at this time of year. Instead, she's tired of remembering the past and listening to her family talk about their experiences during the war. While performing one of the rituals of Passover, Hannah opens the front door and is transported back in time to 1942. She is called Chaya, which is her name in native tongue. She is now part of a new family, her parents supposedly died from sickness. Her uncle is getting married the next day and as the wedding makes its procession to the church, Nazis are in front of the church. The tell everyone that Jews are being relocated and to follow them. They aren't given a choice. The whole village is crowded in to a train and taken to Auschwitz.

Hannah lives through the horrors of Auschwitz and slowly forgets her role in the future. The tale is one we've all heard before but this doesn't make it any less of a travesty. This is supposed to be a children's book and I think it's a pretty good way of introducing what happened during the Holocaust to children 10 or so years of age.

First Line: "'I'm tired of remembering,' Hannah said to her mother as she climbed into the car."

Rating:
(4/5)

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Children's
This is a children's book about a mole, a rat, a toad, and a badger. They all live close to the river and are very good friends. Toad is rich and is easily obsessed with ideas. When he sees a motor car, he desperately wants one but can't handle the car and gets in a variety of accidents. Mole, rate, and badger try to stage an intervention but it just doesn't work.

This is a classic but I just couldn't get in to it. While the story of Toad and his need for speed was the dominant one, there were times where that story line wasn't being followed at all and it felt like there was no point to what was going on. Overall the book seemed pretty random to me. The dominant theme being friendship, which was nice, otherwise I could have left it. Perhaps the problem is that the book was written in the 1930s and what appeals to people now is quite different to what appealed to people then.

An additional bonus was that the illustrations in this book were quite cute.
First Line: "The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring cleaning his little home."
Rating:
(2.5/5)