Uprooted

Uprooted Naomi Novik 4 / 5	Published 2015 First Sentence "Our Dragon doesn't eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley."
Publisher's Description: “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.” Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.
Dear Reader, I didn't see this one coming at all. Uprooted left me constantly surprised by its twists and turns. It began like a traditional fairy tale, and so the reader is lured into thinking it is going to follow a certain prescribed path, but it kept turning away from the expected into more and more adventure. While it did read somewhat slowly at times - even in the midst of nonstop action! - overall, it was a book I just kept looking forward to returning to. I really wanted to know what happened to Agnieszka and the Wood. Again, the beginning felt tired: a young girl who doesn't realize she is anything special is selected, despite all odds, as the Chosen One. This is something every girl her age has been preparing for their entire lives. Agnieszka is whisked away to a remote tower where she is tested...in some quite unusual ways. The reader could join in with the girl's own frustration as she worked to puzzle out exactly what was expected of her. When she does figure things out, though, in many ways it's "all wrong" - this is the first of many times that the book diverges from the reader's comfortable idea of a fairy tale. But it's a great branching off, and creates a much more enjoyable story. It's difficult to discuss this book's specifics without giving too much away, so I'll refrain from writing too much more. I will, however, add that I did think this was a YA book until I had it in my hands. There is some rather adult content in the book, which actually bothers me because otherwise it is so PG! I suppose a creative parent could read this book to an older child (I'm imagining the audience for The Princess Bride or Stardust, say) and simply gloss over the two rather unnecessarily graphic scenes (I didn't feel as if they added anything to the story, honestly). Otherwise, it's a really magical adventure story, full of sorcery and villains (some unexpected!) and monsters and castles and nature and the strong bonds of friendship. I also loved that it was steeped in a lot of Polish fairy tale history. Definitely worth the read. Yours, Arianna

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman 5/5	Published 2013 First Sentence "It was only a duck pond, out at the back of the farm."
Publisher's Description: Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what. A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.
Dear Reader, Magic! Pure magic! I LOVED this book. The magic in this book was wonderful, it took me right back to those childhood memories that I miss. Do you remember those moments when you were that young reader, that impressionable one? Remember the feeling you got when you read something so magical that gave you shivers? THIS does that, or at least for me it did. It's so adult, but yet has all the charm of a children's fairy tale. Maybe that impression comes from the main character being a child who happens upon a family with magical powers. This boy has a normal family, not too happy or too sad, and has a love of reading that is extremely relatable to any reader. It brings you back to when you read a book under the covers with a flashlight, reading while walking around and even while climbing the stairs, bringing your book with you everywhere... THAT kind of love for reading. I want you to close your eyes, think back to that time in your childhood that had you captivated by a magical story. Close the eyes, remember that time and breath slowly... so slowly that you don't wake. If you wake... the magic will disappear in a cloud, like a dream. THAT is how this book feels. I won't deny that I've been a fan of Gaiman before this book came out and I'm happy to see him slide into a more public view after this book became a bestseller. He is definitely an Author with a niche and one that most people who might not be into supernatural or fantasy would rather pass up but I find The Ocean at the End of the Lane very accessible to anyone. I like that he created an approachable book, maybe even to sway non-fantasy readers over to the magical side a bit more. I think Coraline was another of his more approachable and acclaimed works, and this story has a lot of similarity. Apparently, Gaiman has a way of reaching everyone while writing about children in a magical world. Maybe everyone can relate to that feeling of wonder and magic? Whatever the reason, I can easily give this recommendation to just about anyone (although I will warn this isn't a children's book, parents be warned). Pick this up and read it today. Happy Reading, AmberBug

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