Reading level: Ages 14 and up

Add this book to your collection: Everneath

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Video courtesy of harperteen: “Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.”

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

Reading level: Ages 7 and up

Add this book to your collection: The Flint Heart

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Video courtesy of CandlewickPress: The Flint Heart by Katherine & John Paterson and illustrated by John Rocco

“An ambitious Stone Age man demands a talisman that will harden his heart, allowing him to take control of his tribe. Against his better judgment, the tribe’s magic man creates the Flint Heart, but the cruelty of it causes the destruction of the tribe. Thousands of years later, the talisman reemerges to corrupt a kindly farmer, an innocent fairy creature, and a familial badger. Can Charles and his sister Unity, who have consulted with fairies such as the mysterious Zagabog, wisest creature in the universe, find a way to rescue humans, fairies, and animals alike from the dark influence of the Flint Heart? This humorous, hearty, utterly delightful fairy tale is the sort for an entire family to savor together or an adventurous youngster to devour. http://www.theflintheart.com“

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

Add this book to your collection:  School of Fear

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Video courtesy of LittleBrownBooks: “What are YOU afraid of?”

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: December 30, 2011

Wildwood Chronicles

By Colin Meloy; illustrated by Carson Ellis

Reading level: Ages 9 and up

Hardcover: 560 pages

Publisher: Balzer + Bray; First Edition first Printing edition (August 30, 2011)

Source: Library

What to expect: Fantasy

At first glance, Wildwood Chronicles may seem too massive a tome to read to your children. Although daunting, I’m glad that we undertook the challenge. For the more faint-hearted, you may want to invest in the audiobook narrated by Amanda Plummer (whom you may remember as Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction and the axe-murder in So I Married an Axe Murderer). I’m told she employs a remarkable number of voices for this large cast of characters. The one character she cannot give voice yet seems to pulse with life throughout this book is the forest itself, the various flora and fauna that inhabit this Northwestern clime, and the ivy that lurks just below its surface waiting to engulf its very heart.

The soul of the book for me is the uncommonly bold heroine Prue who risks life and limb for her brother Mac and even puts her own parents to shame with her fearlessness. The story begins, much like Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, when baby Mac is snatched from his radio flyer wagon in the park and whisked into the sky by a murder of crows. Shocked yet undaunted, Prue returns to her house for supplies and leaves to rescue her brother early the following morning. Unbeknownst to her, she is followed by her curious friend Curtis who only wants to help her. Once past the Impassable Wilderness, they encounter an army of coyotes and lead separate adventures for most of the book until they are reunited in a battle to save Wildwood and Mac.

Illustration copyright © 2011 by Carson Ellis

The inventive ragtag cast of characters befriends and tricks Prue and Curtis as they search for Mac and whom to trust along their way. They both encounter beasts and humans trying to survive in a world that has changed since the reign of Alexandra the mad Queen who was banished to the Wastelands. Her devoted legion of various birds and coyotes prove formidable foes for Prue, Curtis, the Mystics, Bandits, and the Irregulars as they mount a campaign to defeat Alexandra and her minions and take back Wildwood. Throughout the novel, Carson Ellis’s delicate illustrations provide a fantastic backdrop for her husband’s imagination. The husband and wife live just across from the Impassable Wilderness and it would seem the perfect inspiration for them to conjure Wildwood into life. I must confess, though enchanting, Meloy’s long descriptions of fern and bracken often proved too taxing for my seven-year-old. I admire the breadth and depth of his imagination and his sheer ability to bring a story to Portland that will leave a mark on this fair city for some time to come. Much like Eloise in New York or Paddington Bear in London, Prue and Curtis will live on in the hearts and minds of the citizens of Portland. I salute the pair for a masterfully good read and look forward to reading their next installment.

Add this book to your collection: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book 1

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Nicki Richesin is the editor of four anthologies,What I Would Tell Her: 28 Devoted Dads on Bringing Up, Holding On To, and Letting Go of Their Daughters; Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond; Crush: 26 Real-Life Tales of First Love; and The May Queen: Women on Life, Work, and Pulling it all Together in your Thirties. Her anthologies have been excerpted and praised in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Redbook, Parenting, Cosmopolitan, Bust, Salon, Daily Candy, and Babble.

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

Add this book to your collection: The Outcasts (Brotherband Chronicles)

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©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

Add this book to your collection: Dark Eden

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Reading level: Ages 12 and up

Publisher’s synopsis: If you had the chance to change one thing about yourself, what would you be willing to give up in exchange?

Fifteen-year-old Will Besting is sent by his doctor to Fort Eden, an institution meant to help patients suffering from crippling phobias. Once there, Will and six other teenagers take turns in mysterious fear chambers and confront their worst nightmares-with the help of the group facilitator Rainsford, an enigmatic guide. When the patients emerge from the chamber, they feel emboldened by the previous night’s experiences. But each person soon discovers strange, unexplained aches and pains…What is really happening to the seven teens trapped in this dark Eden?

Patrick Carman’s DARK EDEN is a provocative exploration of fear, betrayal, memory, and ultimately, immortality.

Experience the fear: http://enterdarkeden.com

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

Add this book to your collection: Ranger’s Apprentice: The Lost Stories

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©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: October 12, 2011

Looking for some spooky good reads this Halloween? Below is our family’s list of all-time favorites. Have a Happy Halloween!

A cautionary tale from 1829 The Spider and the Fly will capture your children’s imagination. Tony DiTerlizzi spins a masterful retelling of Mary Howitt’s poetic fable with his perversely charming pictures. It’s such fun and best read with a wicked voice… Ba ha ha ha ha! (Ages 6-9)

Humbug Witch is a little witch who can’t quite fly her broom or make her cauldron boil and bubble, but Lorna Balian’s surprise ending will delight your little ones. (Ages 3-8)

Diane Goode’s Book of Scary Stories & Songs is a fabulous collection of old folktales, poems, and songs that will either send a shiver down your spine or make you laugh out loud. Goode’s playful illustrations bring old favorites back to life like “The Ghost of John” and “The Green Ribbon.” (Ages 5-8)

From the creators of The Gruffalo, zooms Room on the Broom. Julia Donaldson tells the story of this enterprising witch and cat. Young children will become bewitched by the rhyme and have a silly time. (Ages 4-8)

The Witches’ Supermarket is a terribly clever book for ages 4-8 who will enjoy being one step ahead of the little girl in disguise who shops for all manner of shocking grocery items (like apples with worms and shake n’ bake snake) with her faithful dog. (Ages 5-8)

Ghosts in the House become repurposed by the new owner as lovely curtains, tablecloths and comforters. Decorating her cozy home with Kazuno Kaharo’s simple yet charming illustrations, kids might just want to move in. (Ages 3-6)

You’ll probably have to check your local library for copies of Adrienne Adams classic Halloween books A Halloween Happening and A Woggle of Witches. In A Halloween Happening, the witches throw a party for the children complete with special delicious things like toad tarts, wart soup and worm waffles. After their feast, they take to the sky on bat-wing gliders. Adams’ moonlit pictures enchant with originality and fun. (Ages 4-8)

And for more advanced readers:

Bed-knob and Broomstick by Mary Norton is a combined edition of The Magic Bed-Knob and Bonfires and Broomsticks. Best known for her novels about The Borrowers, Norton created a timeless classic in the forties when she wrote these two books about an apprentice witch named Miss Eglatine Price who befriends three young waifs who threaten to tell their aunt on her. After offering them a magical bed-knob in return for their silence, together they take adventures on a marvelous flying bed which becomes part of Miss Price’s witchcraft training. (Ages 8-11)

The Witches by Roald Dahl Enough said, right? He’s a genius. Mr. Dahl presents witches as ordinary women in plain-clothed disguise who loathe children. When an orphan boy discovers their terrible secret, he must risk everything to prevent them from turning more children into mice. Eeek! With his trademark humor and charm, Dahl casts a dizzying spell on us with his magical prose once again. (Ages 7-12)

Nicki Richesin is the editor of four anthologies,What I Would Tell Her: 28 Devoted Dads on Bringing Up, Holding On To, and Letting Go of Their Daughters; Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond; Crush: 26 Real-Life Tales of First Love; and The May Queen: Women on Life, Work, and Pulling it all Together in your Thirties. Her anthologies have been excerpted and praised in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle,The Boston Globe, Redbook, Parenting, Cosmopolitan, Bust,Salon, Daily Candy, and Babble.

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

Add this book to your collection: Dreamland (Riley Bloom)

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©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.