|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
Welcome to our 'Yule Special' assignment - the holiday season is upon us so we asked one of our staff writers to do a round-up of some books aimed at the youth and children's market. Perhaps you might find a suitable stocking filler among them for a child or teen of your acquaintance.
|
|
 Click
image to visit Amazon.com, prices range from $13.97 for a hard back copy
as it is not yet out in paperback in the States.Click underlined text below to visit Amazon.co.uk Inkheart, prices range from £5.59. |
Inkheart The bright cover proclaims that this story is soon to be made in to a motion picture. Perhaps the publisher hopes that this novel, aimed at a young readership, will push the Harry Potter series from its pre-eminent position? I do not think so. Once the main characters finally begin to grab your imagination, some time after chapter five, you begin to see an appeal for the young mind - but how many children will wait that long? I suspect that it will make a better film, talking book, television series, or radio play than it does a book for children. The other media formats can cut the verbal deadwood out and keep the action going. What is the story like? It can be dark, people die, people are maimed, fairies are treated badly, thieves abound. But, of course, the good guys win in the end [shhh don’t tell anyone]. |
| It has a satisfactory magic quotient, without any religious bias. There are no ‘witches’, although the main male character is called a ‘wizard’ and his daughter a ‘witch’ towards the end of the book. They are magic wielders by default rather than by training. The fairies and other magical creatures are there because they escaped from the pages of other books. Can this book be read by Christians without fear of a whiff of Satan? Possibly not for a Christian fundamentalist, but for your average Christian it would pass the censor as the ethics behind the book are solidly moral. The main character is female and twelve, however most twelve-year-olds would not find it an easy read unaided, especially in this day of the computer and television dominance. Buy it for a fourteen-year-old girl who still likes to read about magic. Buy it for a very literate twelve-year-old girl. Boys will not find it to their taste. Grown ups will buy it for their kids hoping that their offspring’s reading age can handle it. Finally, I enjoyed it by the end, but I am a grown-up. This is not really a children’s book, more a children’s story aimed at grown-ups, what we would like our kids to read, rather than what they enjoy reading on their own. |
|
| |
|
| The
Witch Trade Nowadays you get a lot of books published as children’s fiction that are not, some of which have been featured on this page. However, this is not one of them. This really is a book for children, filled with magic, good guys, bad guys, and with the requisite happy ending. It
is a known fact that more girls than boys read books. Since the ubiquitous
Harry Potter series [which I love] authors have tried to encourage a readership
that embraces both genders. This almost always results in two main characters,
one of each sex. This book is no exception to that rule. The two main
characters are Abby and Spike. Abby is clearly written as a human girl,
who happens to be an orphan – or is she? Spike, the male, is not
quite so clearly delineated – is he human or not? We do not find
the answer to that question until near the end of the book. |
 Click
image to visit Amazon.com, prices range from $4.99. Note this cover is the
UK edition, the US edition looks similar but has changes.Click underlined text to visit Amazon.co.uk The Witch Trade, prices range from £4.79. |
It
is a book about a quest. What has happened to all the magic in the world?
Where has the Ice Dust gone? What really happened to Abby’s parents
– and all the other children that once lived in the Witch-filled
town of Speller. Only Abby and Spike now roam its childless streets.
With
a collection of strange companions the two go off on a rollicking adventure,
from London to the high seas. They are aided by magic and the Master of
the Light Witches, so that they can overcome the dark forces that had
engulfed their home. There is the thrill of bad things to bring a chill
to the back in this novel, but nothing that a ten-year-old could not handle.
Buy this as a Yule present for your child. It will keep them reading over
the winter weeks. It is truly refreshing to find a children's book that
is written for the market it is aimed at. By the way, and just in case
any fundamentalist Christians have completely lost the plot and are reading
Psychic Tymes - this book will not pass the 'moral censors' - the Witches
are both the good guys and the bad guys. |
|
 Click
on image to visit Amazon.com, prices range from $6.99, [please note that
the cover art differs for the UK and USA edition].Click on underlined text to visit Amazon.co.uk The Wee Free Men, prices range from £4.19. |
The
Wee Free Men |
I am a Terry Pratchett fan, so you would expect me to write a glowing review of Wee Free Men and its sequel, A Hat Full of Sky. If you want to cheer yourself up read both of these books. If you feel ill and need to be tucked up in bed, grab both of them and do not stop reading until you feel better. They are medicine, your body may feel awful but these two books will feed your mind with joy and laughter – I know because that was what I did. Forget buying these for your children, buy them for yourself then let the kids read them. Terry
Pratchett has been writing books about the Discworld for many years. Most
of them are aimed at the adult market, but he has written a few aimed
at children and young teens. These two fall under that category. |
|
| Let us look first at “Wee Free Men”. The basis of the plot is that a young girl has had her brother stolen away; it turns out that the Queen of the Fairies has whisked him off fairyland. Tiffany Aching, the heroine, sets out to rescue him even though he has an endlessly snotty nose and an adventurous nature which means that she is forever trailing after him. Tiffany is a practical girl. She makes cheeses of superb quality from the milk of her father's sheep. Her grandmother had been the Shepherdess of the area, the big chalk, and Tiffany has inherited her qualities. But there are no witches on the big chalk, not like the other mountains found on Discworld. But her qualities are witch-like under the Discworld definition. She leaps into action on behalf of her missing brother, she may not like him but he is her brother and no-one steals him and gets away with it! Now enter the Wee Free Men, the Pictsies. I do not know about our North American readers, but all the UK based ones will recognize the characters of these endearing miniature blue men as Glaswegian Football hooligans - think of a miniature version of Billy Connolly on amphetamines. You can almost hear them chanting Celtic or Rangers - the two major Glasgow football clubs. Like most Pratchett books, the fun made of an ethnic stereotype is as inoffensive as possible [look at what he does to the witches in previous Discworld books, and who also re-appear in A Hat Full of Sky]. These wonderful wee Hooligans help Tiffany in her journey to a nasty Fairyland where things are not what they seem and living there is like inhabiting your worst nightmare. Although the Pictsies can be a liability due to their argumentative nature, love of stealing and drinking sheep’s liniment, they are her ace in the fight against the Queen of Fairyland. Like all Pratchett books, there is a happy ending. Buy Wee Free Men and give yourself [and your kids] a treat. |
|
| |
|
|
A
Hat Full of Sky A Hat Full of Sky continues with the saga of Tiffany Aching and her training as a witch. After her amazing adventure, chronicled in Wee Free Men, she has to leave her home on the ‘Big Chalk’ and seek employment out in the harsh world. So she is sent to work as a maid for a witch called Miss Level, leaving on her journey with Miss Tick [mystic – geddit?], the witch who first noticed her Hag-like abilities. Tiffany shows all the qualities that are required for a Witch that inhabits the Discworld: pragmatism, the ability to see through things [or to have first, second and third sight – as defined by Mistress Weatherwax, head Hag of the Discworld], and the ability to impose herself on and dominate ordinary folk. The witches of Discworld always remind me of confidence tricksters with a little magic dust in their veins.
|
|
|
So what happens when our little hag goes out to seek her fortune and learn to be the first witch of the ‘Big Chalk’? She becomes possessed. A trick she had used at home to check how she looked [her family were too poor to own a mirror] turns out to have been an ‘Out of Body' manifestation. And, as anyone knows, nature hates a vacuum. In the Discworld this means that something will jump into your body as you float out. A nameless ancient horror decides to take up residence and use Tiffany’s witch powers to create mayhem. So how does our heroine survive? The pictsies and Mistress Weatherwax join forces to help Tiffany overcome the ancient foe, and grow into her formidable abilities as a witch. Is
this a book for children? Yes. Is it a book for fundamentalist Christian
children? No. Is this a book for grown-ups? Yes. The main character is
quirky and obviously human. She reminds me of ‘The Secret Garden’
heroine, Mary, in the Edwardian children’s classic by Frances Hodgson
Burnett. In other words, a real girl, and not a politically correct version
of how grown-ups want their children to be. Unfortunately the gender divide
will stop boys from picking up this book but Mr Pratchett has written
other children’s novels that will attract and cater to them. By
the way, there is a happy ending. |
|
 Click
image to visit Amazon.com, prices range from $5.99.Click underlined text to visit Amazon.co.uk Undead and Unwed (Berkley Sensation) , prices range from £3.34. |
Dead
and Unwed The main character is an air-head girl who becomes an air-head Vampire. Her overwhelming addiction is haute couture shoes. Okay, that does not sound interesting, so why did I include this little novel on the page? It wins out in the humor department. it had me giggling, and sometimes breaking out into laughter. Even my partner, who is male, enjoyed this piece of fluff. How did I find the book, after all it is not my usual kind of story. My daughter handed it to me and said “you’ll like this one, mum.” How right she was! |
An example
of the humor is illustrated in the following quotes. The first is from
when our heroine, Betsy, discovers she is still alive at the Mortician’s: It seems strange to say it, but this is a ‘Mills and Boon meets Vampire society’ and still works. Do not expect any deep thought from it, just settle down with a box of chocolates or a nice hot drink, and spend a dull winter afternoon chuckling away. Pure fluffy escapism for teens – and parents of teens. |
|
| Shadowmancer This ezine is not aimed at the Christian market in any way; however, as we are coming up to the Yule, Christmas, and solstice holiday season I thought it would be appropriate to add a children’s book that is being marketed as dealing with magic from a Christian point of view. There has been a lot of adverse publicity in the mid-west of America regarding the current glut of magical stories aimed at children, including the usual book-burnings by the terminally dumb. So here is one that purports to be for them. Is
it? I found this book very dark. Compared to the Narnia books, by C S
Lewis [a famous Christian based children’s series written in the
1950’s], this one held out no happiness in its message to the reader.
The evil characters are decidedly nasty, and, surprisingly for a book
aimed at Christians, the main evil-doer is a supposedly a Christian priest.
He turns out to be a sorcerer dealing in necromancy later on in the story. |
 Click
image to visit Amazon.com, image is of the UK edition, USA edition has a
different cover! Prices range from $6.80.Click underlined text to visit Amazon.co.uk Shadowmancer, prices range from £3.99. |
| The two child protagonists end up on a quest to rescue a ‘holy grail’ in the hands of the evil priest. He wants to use it to end the world in a suitably apocalyptic manner. They are aided by a strange person from an ethnic background, who ends up being angelic in nature. Apart from the evil priest, and his side-kick, you get a weird mixture of people who help, or hinder, the two children. These figures range from a keeper of the local whore house through to non-human creatures. So where is the Christian aspect to this book? The main male child ends up ‘seeing the light’ and fighting in the name of the ‘Jesus’ fictional representation that is so well hidden that it is almost undetectable. There is also a small, but inaccurate, scene showing witches and a coven in a truly negative light. The use of magic is represented from a Necromancy point of view. In the end I have to come to the conclusion that the Christian aspect of the publicity material is not really accurate, merely an advertising ploy. It is also a children’s book aimed at young adults – it is much too dark to give to a child under the age of twelve to read. If you want a really magical book for a Christian child go buy ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ by C S Lewis. Aslan makes a better metaphor for Jesus than the one in this book. |
|
