Junior High – Page 18 – Sneak Peek Books

The Thirteenth Fairy

In the quiet and uneventful town of North Pasadena, California, Filomena Jefferson-Cho finds adventure with her favorite book series, Never After, where magic and fairy tale characters exist. On her way to purchase the thirteenth and final book of the Never After series, Filomena discovers strange things have been happening.

First, the author of the series has mysteriously disappeared. Second, Filomena is being followed by a strange boy dressed as Jack Stalker, the main hero of the Never After books. Deciding the boy is just a Never After fan and not a potential murderer or kidnapper, Filomena turns to greet him but is interrupted by the sudden crash of a thunderbolt and the shrieking sound of an ogress. As she flees from danger, Filomena realizes the boy following her is in fact the real Jack Stalker and, Never After, a world full of famous fairy tale characters, is real.

Filomena inadvertently follows Jack and his best friend, Alistair Bartholomew Barnaby, to Never After where she finds the kingdom in a state of distress after the thirteenth fairy, Carabosse, stole Princess Eliana. As a result of Carabosse’s disappearance, the evil ogre queen, Olga has taken over the land.

In her first visit to Never After, Filomena fights ogres and meets the fairy, Zera, who sees a strange resemblance between Filomena and her sister, Carabosse. Zera reveals that Filomena possesses the fairy mark which shines brightly as a crescent moon on Filomena’s forehead. Confused, Filomena rejects her fairy mark and leaves Never After. Although she always wondered about her biological parents, Filomena is reluctant to accept that she is from Never After. However, upon her return to North Pasadena, Filomena finds her Never After books have changed and Filomena returns to Never After to help her friends, even if it means leaving behind the safety of North Pasadena and acknowledging her true identity.

This novel is an exciting book for young, middle-grade readers because it combines fairy tales and reality and mixes familiar characters with new stories. The book follows Filomena’s story, but short prologues are scattered in between chapters to provide context to the history of Never After.

Traveling to and from the magical and mortal world, Filomena and other recognizable fairy tale characters fight trolls, outsmart dragons, ride motorcycles with wolves, and perform spells in their quest to stop the ogres and save Never After. The Thirteenth Fairy is a fast-paced story full of adventure and inspiring characters. Throughout the book, Filomena learns the importance of friendship, family, and believing in yourself. Before her adventures in Never After, Filomena was unsure of herself and where she belonged. Although she is loved by her adoptive parents, she is an outcast at school, and she is losing faith in herself. However, with help from her new friends, Filomena discovers her inner courage and strength. Filomena learns that you can achieve anything as long you believe in yourself and trust the friends and family who have your back.

Sexual Content

Filomena’s mom is a contemporary romance writer, and Filomena is informed by school bullies that “page 157 of Mum’s latest book is exceptionally saucy.”

Violence

Filomena says hello to a boy she assumes is a fellow Never After fan, but instead, “the boy suddenly pushes her to the ground” to shield her from the Ogre’s Wrath.
Filomena and a strange boy are being attacked by thunderbolts. “More thunderbolts strike the ground around them, but they duck and weave, luckily avoiding being hit.”
A group of school bullies grabs Filomena’s backpack and “another grabs at her hair as she tries to regain her footing, knocking her off-balance yet again and yanking her backward.” Filomena “flinches, reaching for her hair.” She is upset, but not badly hurt.
Jack tells his friends that his “whole family was killed. I’m the only one left. I saw my brother burning in front of me when the ogres attacked our village.”
Filomena remembers ogres “like to roast their victims before eating them.”
Filomena, Zera, Jack, and Alistair engage in a battle against the ogres. The four friends watch as “ogres roar as they set cottages on fire, and when the inhabitants run out, they stomp on them.” Eventually, Zera “stabs the ogre general right in the heart.” Most of the ogres retreat, but Alistair “is in the grips of an ogre’s giant fist.” After Alistair has been saved, he claims he hurts “everywhere and after,” but he is alive.
In a vision, Princess Eliana is attacked by Olga the ogre queen. There is “blood on the wall. Blood on the floor. Then at last—an ogre fully satisfied.”
Filomena and her friends encounter the school bullies who reveal themselves to be trolls. The friends try to outrun the trolls until they are forced to fight. Jack uses his magic vines to trap the trolls, “but the trolls unleash their own weapons — garden shears! —and begin to hack at the vines. Jack falls to his knees, his vines dripping blood.” Then, “a few of the trolls focus their attention on the new combatants, and one of them slashes at Gretel [a Never After friend]’s sweater.” Jack continues to fight the trolls with his vines until they are “choked unconscious.” None of the friends are seriously injured, but a few of the trolls escape and kidnap Alistair.
Filomena encounters a hungry ogre in the woods. The ogre “moves first, reaching to stab the fork into Filomena’s stomach.” However, with Filomena’s dragonhide armor, “the fork can’t penetrate her.” While the ogre is confused, Filomena “stabs the ogre with the Dragon’s Tooth, hard and fast in the thigh” and the wolves of the forest chase the ogre away.
After the ogre queen is defeated “they discovered that King Vladimir had been killed, his corpse rotting in the middle of the ballroom, where he had tried to kill Olga and save his daughter.”

Drugs and Alcohol

At a feast with the Vineland villagers, Zera “raises her goblet of wine and taps the table with her open palms three times, signaling for silence.”
When Olga poisoned Queen Rosanna, “the poison spread slowly at first. Rosanna’s flesh flushed, reddening and heating until all her veins burst.” Olga killed Queen Rosanna.

Language

Filomena refers to the mean girls at her school as the “troll army.”
Posy, a bully, tells Filomena, “For a smart kid you’re pretty stupid.”
Posy tells Filomena to “stay away from us, ”
After Jack completes the Test of Wills, Alistair declares it was “badass.”

Supernatural

Never After is a land of magical creatures from fairies and “towering dragons, their armored scales glittering gold and green, to warty goblins and rambunctious dwarves.”
Carabosse is “the thirteenth and most powerful fairy in all of Never After.”
A thunderbolt strikes near Filomena, and she wonders, “did I imagine it, or were we just hit with an Ogre’s Wrath?!”
Filomena performs a fairy spell to make the lightning stop. She chants, “Ogre, ogre, cloaked in clover, I cease your wrath, three times over!”
Filomena discovers the Heart Tree, which is “the portal that connects all lands of Never After to each other.”
Frustrated with her peers, Filomena shouts out a spell to make time stop and to her surprise, “everyone is frozen.”
Jack has powers that allow him to grow vines and speak to trees.
Jack and Alistair explain that, being from timeless fairytales, they are technically immortal. He says, “We never grow old, but we can perish.”
Jack contains a Seeing Eye telescope that helps him locate magical items.
Desperate for an escape, Filomena “grabs the Pied Pipe from [Jack’s] hands and lifts it to her lips. Without thinking, she plays the first tune that comes to mind: the theme from the movies based on the Never After books, of course. Sure enough, it unlocks the Heart Tree.”
Jack reminds Alistair that “Filomena can’t see Zera’s cottage [because] it has the glamour around it.”
Filomena performs a spell that makes ogre bones turn to mush; “Ogre be feeble! Ogre be thick! Ogre be sluggish! Ogre be sick! Ogre droop under this limbless kiss, until every bit of you is mush and twist!” Then, the ogre’s “flesh goes formless…what was once nimble becomes numb, the skin sagging into a gloppy substance.” The ogre is presumably dead.
Zera recites a spell whispering, “the thirteenth fairy is missing, my sister is she. The thirteenth fairy is hiding, won’t you show her to me?” Then, Filomena sees “on her forehead, underneath the skin, is a luminescent mark: a tiny crescent moon surrounded by thirteen tiny stars.”
Filomena notices her favorite book series has magically changed the second time she reads it. “The first book is the story of Jack the Giant Stalker. But somehow, as she rereads it, it’s not.”
Magic and magical objects are used all throughout the book. For example, “Filomena stares in disbelief at the Arabian rug floating in the sky.”

Spiritual Content

None

by Elena Brown

Harriet the Invincible

Harriet Hamsterbone is different from the other princesses in the rodent realm. She’s not good at sighing and looking ethereal in front of guests; she prefers to care for her riding quail, Mumfrey, instead of attending deportment lessons. One day, Harriet’s parents tell her about the curse that a rat placed on her at birth, dooming her to “prick her finger on a hamster wheel and fall into a sleep-like death” on her twelfth birthday. But Harriet is ecstatic—that means she is invincible until she’s twelve! And so, she goes on a two-year adventure with Mumfrey—fighting monsters, saving princesses, and participating in jousts—until her twelfth birthday. The curse then activates in an unanticipated fashion.

Harriet the Invincible uses inspiration from fairy tales to create a wacky, action-packed story that will have readers eagerly turning the pages. When Harriet’s curse backfires on the castle guests, workers, and her parents, Harriet is determined to break the curse, lest neighboring kingdoms snatch the land in her parent’s absence. As she travels the realm to find someone to help her, she must rely on her smarts to solve problems. Ratshade, the rat who cursed Harriet, is more comical than scary, and readers will enjoy reading about how Harriet eventually uses her wits to defeat Ratshade.

On her travels, Harriet convinces Wilbur, a prince, to end the curse. The prince complains that he does not want to break the curse or marry Harriet. To him, “There is entirely too much kissing involved in this curse.” He becomes more confident, inspired by Harriet’s forwardness to end the curse, but still drags his feet, adding to the strangeness of the story. Readers will enjoy the humor of the story and how Harriet breaks the curse without her invincibility.

Purple and white illustrations add to the wackiness of the book. Drawings with dialogue help break up the text and keep the action moving. Harriet the Invincible shows the value of teamwork and will engage even the most reluctant readers. Harriet the Invincible is the first book in the Hamster Princess Series but can be enjoyed as a standalone book. Younger readers who enjoy Harriet the Invincible may also want to try the Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

Harriet’s deportment teacher tried to make her walk around with a book on her head to improve her posture. Harriet stuffed “a book. . . in his mouth” because she didn’t want to complete the exercise.
During her two-year trip, Harriet fights Ogrecat, an ogre with cat-like qualities. “The Ogrecat flung [Harriet] off with a wild shake of his arms.” Harriet recovered with a “reverse one-handed cartwheel (the other hand was holding the sword).” Then, Harriet “brought the hilt of her sword down on his toes.” The fight is detailed in three pages.
When her mother wakes her up to meet the royal court, Harriet drops her “sword on her own foot.”
Harriet defends herself against Ratshade, the god-mouse that cursed her to sleep when she pricked her finger on the hamster wheel. “Harriet whipped her around and around and charged toward the hamster wheel.” Before Ratshade could get another hit in their fight, “Harriet slammed [Ratshade] into the hamster wheel, hard enough to give the wicked fairy a shoulder full of splinters. The curse took. . . but it was the wrong person.” This part of the scene is described over three pages.
After Wilbur breaks the curse, Ratshade and Harriet fight. “Ratshade’s spell hit [Harriet] before she could make it ten feet. It felt like somebody clubbed her in the back of her knees.” Next, Ratshade cast a spell that made two of a hydra’s heads crash together, then “two more tied themselves together in a knot.” This scene lasts for two pages.
Harriet drops her sword, and the prince throws the sword to Harriet while he distracts the wicked god-mouse. Then, Harriet “swung the sword over her head and down in a great cleaving arc. . . aimed for the stump of Ratshade’s tail.” Furious, Ratshade tries to strangle Harriet with her claws. “Ratshade’s monstrous claws were cutting into [Harriet’s] skin and making it hard to breathe. . . Bright spots were starting to form in front of her eyes.” Finally, Harriet clips a magical clothespin onto Ratshade’s nose. While trying to unclip the magical clothespin, “Ratshade tumbled over [Mumfrey’s tail] and landed on her back.” This scene lasts for six pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

The Crone of the Blighted Waste puts “nasty-smelling gunk” on Harriet’s injuries and gave Harriet “a bottle of antiseptic” to continue treating the injuries.

Language

While writing a letter to her parents, Harriet says “dang” to her riding quail.
Harriet calls the Orgrecat a “foul beast” and a “monster.”
After cutting their way through the briars around the castle, Wilbur and Harriet “muttered bad words under their breath.”

Supernatural

Ratshade curses Harriet on her christening. “When [Harriet] is twelve years old, she shall prick her finger upon a hamster wheel and fall into a sleep like death!”
Three fairy god-mice modify the curse on Harriet. The oldest god-mouse changed the curse so “when the princess falls asleep, she shall not need either food or drink.” The middle god-mouse changed the curse so that “at the moment it takes effect, enormous thorny briars shall grow around the princess’s tower so no one can get in.” The youngest god-mouse changed the curse so “the kiss of a prince” will wake Harriet up.
When the curse activates on Ratshade, Harriet “felt [the curse] take, a great wash of cold air that ruffled her fur and pinned her ears back. . . Sparks arced and cracked over the rat’s fur and between her whiskers. . . The cold wind wrapped around them once, twice, three times–and the third time. . .then there was silence.” The curse had spread to the rest of the castle grounds, and except for Harriet, the hamsters around the castle were asleep.
Later, the Crone of the Blighted Waste makes the “modifications of the curse [take] effect. . . none of [Harriet’s] people will have to eat or drink while they are asleep, and the brambles seem to have grown around the entire palace quite nicely.”
Wilbur, a prince, was cursed to remain on a glass mountain until someone arrived to get him. “Prince Wilbur was wearing a hand-me-down christening gown. . . when the wicked fairy showed up, she thought he was a princess, and… well…”
After Wilbur broke the curse on Ratshade, the “pile of ropes exploded.” Ratshade said spells “that make the ropes whip off her like frightened snakes.” There were no ills effects from either spell.

Spiritual Content

None

by Jemima Cooke

Ravenous

Traveling on her house with chicken legs, a witch has arrived in the city of Bryre, and she is ravenous for children. While Greta is at the castle of Bryre, the witch captures her bother, Hans. Greta refuses to let the witch have her brother—after her parents disappeared, her brother is the only family she has left—and they strike a deal. The witch will give back Hans if Greta brings her something, a magical item the witch desires.

However, the Bryrian king thinks Greta is lying about her brother. When she ventures out on her own, a village of hybrids captures her, pausing her progress. With the help of a magical half-boy and half-horse named Dalen, Greta travels to Belladoma—a kingdom that once held her captive—to find the magic item. Mercenaries block their path, and the Sonzeeki, an ancient, tentacled sea creature, is getting restless. In the middle of the chaos is a family secret that can help Greta save Belladoma and defeat the Sonzeeki.

Set in the kingdom of Belladoma and its surrounding area, each chapter follows Greta’s perspective. The kingdom of Belladoma overlooks the sea; the streets are dark and depressing due to the mercenaries and the Sonzeeki’s terrorizing of the castle town. The first page of every chapter is decorated with alternating pictures of Greta, the Sonzeeki, Dalen, and the witch, allowing the reader to visualize the characters. While the narration is limited to Greta’s perspective, readers will relate to her determination and wit. Though she is weaker and smaller than the leader of the mercenaries, she uses her “swiftness” and her “ability to not let go” to best him in a fight.

Throughout Ravenous, Greta changes her opinion about Belladoma. She realizes they are her people since they had been affected by the former king’s and the mercenaries’ rule just like she had. She had assumed that Belladoma, and by extension its people, was bad because her captors had taken her there as food for the Sonzeeki; she thought the people were complicit with the captors. The dynamic between Dalen and Greta is lovely. At first, they’re enemies, but they connect over puzzles and stories and become friends. Dalen is one of the people that helped Greta realize that the people of Belladoma are “not bad people. They’re victims too.”

Ravenous is reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel and has elements of Baba Yaga. The story is an original and engaging retelling that adds a spin to the classics. There are a few instances of graphic violence and many acts of magic scattered throughout the story. The way the adults treat Greta is deplorable because they think she is incapable, then change their minds when she defeats them. The mercenaries look down on Greta due to her age, then perceive her as a threat after she wins against their boss, Vincali—to them, she is not “a mere child.” The lesson is this: do not underestimate people because of uncontrollable factors. Readers who enjoy reading Ravenous will also enjoy the companion book, Monstrous.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

When the hybrids capture Greta, the lead centaur “yanks [Greta] and pins [Greta’s] arms behind [her] back.” He shoves Greta into the cage.
Greta fights Vincali, leader of the mercenaries, for the cornucopia. “Then, I leap to my feet and brandish my weapon at him . . . [the leader of the mercenaries] lunges and tries to knock the sword from my hands . . . I duck and parry, then manage a swipe.” The leader of the mercenaries “comes at me faster. . . I evade the blow again. . . I parry blow for blow.” When they get into the center of town, their fight ends. Their fight lasts for two pages.
After rescuing her brother, Greta fights the witch. “One [of the witch’s floating hands] grabs at my cloak and lifts me up.” Then Greta swings “at it with [her] sword and land[s] a glancing blow,” from which, “the hand makes what sounds like a shriek and drops [her].”
After figuring out the witch’s weak spot, Greta, “leaps up and grabs one of the legs [of the witch’s house] . . . I take my sword and, swatting at the hand again, jab the blade up into the belly of the house. I twist and turn it until one of the bricks comes loose.” The witch materializes in front of Greta and “squeezes her hands around [Greta’s] neck,” while Greta uses a magic amulet to burn the house. The witch’s house “explodes in a blast of fire, feathers, and blinding light” and the witch burns as well. Her body “turns pitch black with cracks of red fire—then nothing remains but falling ash.” The fight scene lasts for five pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

While in the castle at Belladoma, Greta sees “two wine glasses.”
A couple of girls in the castle were “bringing ale” to the mercenaries, who “get more and more drunk and gamble away their spoils.” The mercenaries drink a lot of ale.

Language

One of the mercenaries calls Greta a “fool.”

Supernatural

The witch owns a walking house. “The house moves in a pattern, a figure eight that brings it close to the edge of the woods.”
In the story, there is a magical item known as the cornucopia. “It is the form of a horn-shaped basket. One merely has to touch it and think about what food one desires, and the meal will appear in the cornucopia.”
The witch teleports Greta outside of the walking house. The witch “snaps her fingers and [Greta finds herself] standing outside the chicken hut, watching it retreat into the woods at a breakneck pace . . .”
The witch sets part of the village on fire. “She snaps her fingers, and a surge of magic singes the air. In a flash, flames being to devour the great tree in the middle of the village.” A few of the villagers had been burnt and some had fits of coughing after inhaling the smoke.
Dalen and Greta must use alchemic symbols to solve a riddle. “Each triangle corresponded to an element and exposing it to that element reveals the real map.” The only effect on the map is revealing more locations where King Ensel hid the cornucopia.
Greta uses potions on herself. “Each potion has a purpose. . . but I have no idea whether these even work, let alone what sort of combustible interactions they might have if used together.” The only side effects that Greta has when using the potions are dizziness and feeling more addicted to the magic.
The leader of the mercenaries uses an amulet to create fire. “The amulet’s fire goes wide, scorching the brick wall.”
Greta sets the witch’s house on fire with the amulet. “The chicken hut erupts into flame, flaring high with an audible pop, reaching up to the tops of the trees in the grove.”
The witch throws Dalen with “three disembodied hands that have materialized in the air and hang there, seeming to wait on the witch for instruction.”

Spiritual Content

Dalen talks about the creation story of hybrids. “The Phoenix Queen, mother of us all. She cast the spell that allowed our varied species to be created. . . Every fifty years, her mortal form would burst into flames, and she would be reborn from the ashes. . . But the last time she did not come back. Legends says her ashes scattered to the winds, dripping magic across the lands.”

by Jemima Cooke

Thornwood

For years, Briony has lived in the shadow of her beautiful older sister, Rosalin, and the curse that has haunted her from birth. According to the curse, on the day of her sixteenth birthday, Briony would prick her finger on a spindle and cause everyone in the castle to fall into a 100-year sleep. When the day the curse is set to fall over the kingdom finally arrives, nothing—not even Briony—can stop its evil magic.

You know the story.

But here’s something you don’t know. When Briony finally wakes up, it’s up to her to find out what’s really going on, and to save her family and friends from the murderous Thornwood. But who is going to listen to a little sister?

Thornwood looks at the classic tale of Sleeping Beauty through the eyes of the little sister. While the villain in the story is clearly the fairy queen who cast the spell, she doesn’t make an appearance until the very end. Instead, the suspense is created by the Thornwood branches that attack the castle’s inhabitants. When Briony and a group of acquaintances try to defeat the Thornwood branches, a fairy tells Briony, “The Thornwood will disappear once Rosalin dies in it.” At one point, Rosalin considers sacrificing herself to the Thornwood to save the people she loves. However, Briony is the true hero of the story because she perseveres until she finds a way to defeat the fairy queen without sacrificing her sister.

Adding Sleeping Beauty’s sister to the story is an interesting premise, however, the sister relationship is spoiled by Rosalin, who has few redeeming qualities. For the most part, Rosalin is too caught up in her looks and the prince to notice her sister. When Rosalin talks, her statements are mean and dismissive. For example, when Briony tries to help Rosalin, Rosalin tells her, “Why don’t you just leave. Nobody needs you here. Go annoy someone else.” Plus, Rosalin constantly makes fun of Briony’s hair describing it “like mud that’s been stirred with bathwater” or “a mass of frizz that’s been hit by a lightning bolt.” Anyone who has been a victim of bullying will be saddened by Rosalin’s behavior, especially because Briony already feels ignored and unimportant. Despite this, Briony never gives up on trying to help her sister.

In the end, the Royal family is not portrayed in a positive light. The parents are clueless fools, Rosalin is self-centered, and the family doesn’t consider the feelings of others. However, by the end, Briony wonders, “Had we even thought about anyone but ourselves? We had acted like this was our story. Like the other people in it—everyone in this castle, and outside it, too—were minor details we didn’t have to pay attention to.” The conclusion has a typical happy ending that attempts to show that your station in life doesn’t determine your worth. However, if you’re looking for a fabulous fairy tale, you should leave Thornwood on the shelf and instead read The Prince Problem by Vivian Vande Velde or the Royal Academy Rebels Series by Jen Calonita.

Sexual Content

In order to wake Rosalin, a prince kisses her. Briony sees the kiss and thinks, “I wish I had gotten there thirty seconds later. . . It wasn’t a gross kiss. Just a peck on the lips—polite and distant—and then the prince stepped back from the bed.”
The story implies that Rosalin and the prince kiss. Briony “looked pointedly away and caught Edwin doing the same. We both snickered.”
When the prince thinks Rosalin is about to die, he professes his love and then kisses her. Briony thinks, “This time, the kissing was gross.”
After the castle is free from the Thornwood, Rosalin “claims that she only ‘likes’ the electrician who had been modernizing the castle, and she’s ‘not interested in getting serious with anyone right now.’ I mean, she’s already kissed him more times than she kissed Varian, back when she thought he was her destined husband.”

Violence

While Briony searches the castle, the Thornwood grabs her. “Something snapped around my wrist, driving sharp spikes into my skin. . .The branch that had grabbed me yanked back so hard that I was dragged towards the window. . .the branch pulled, slowly and steadily. Thorns dug into my wrist with sharp stabs of fiery pain.” Someone saves her. The scene is described over three pages.
When Briony, Edwin, Rosalin, and the prince try to leave the castle, the Thornwood attacks. “The ground around Edwin exploded, clumps of dirt flying as barbed vines broke through the earth. One wrapped itself around his ankle. . . another snapped around his wrist. . . Edwin had been pulled to the ground, and a thorny branch was crawling up his arm over his shoulder.” The Thornwood attacks everyone except for the prince. Rosalin’s fairy godmother saves them, but Edwin is seriously injured. The scene is described over six pages.
When the fairy godmother gets Edwin out of the Thornwood, Edwin is a “bruised and bloody creature. . . He was unconscious, his clothes in shreds and stuck to his body with dried blood.”
The Thornwood gets into the castle. The branches attack Rosalin. Briony “lunged for them and grabbed the largest, pulling at it with my bare hands. It could have encircled me easily, but it was too busy trying to get to Rosalin.” When they get Rosalin free, Briony, Edwin, and the prince run into a tower.
When they get to the tower, “A thorn snagged my [Briony’s] hair and pulled several strands out, with a burst of pain that brought new tears to my eyes. I wrenched myself free, into the golden light.” The tower scene is described over five pages.
Briony traps the fairy queen. But then, “She reached out and grabbed me by the throat. . . she lifted me from the floor, and I couldn’t’ breathe. I tried to scream, but couldn’t do that, either. Panic filled me as I struggled to draw air into my lungs and no air came.” Rosalin and Edwin save Briony.

Drugs and Alcohol

After sleeping for over 100 years, Rosalin discovers that the castle is surrounded by thorns. “There are some princes that come there [the village] to try to fight their way through the Thornwood and wake the beautiful princess sleeping in the castle. They need a place to sleep. . . and lots of ale.”
Before the castle fell asleep, Edwin was apprenticed to the blacksmith. The blacksmith “was not a good man. He got angry a lot, and drunk, and he let the other apprentices—”
When Briony goes to the apothecary, she finds it to be a mess. “The pots on the shelves were knocked over sideways or smashed on the floor. . .” Someone suggested that people were looking for wine and didn’t find it.
When the prince finds an empty jug that smells like alcohol, he says, “Someone in this castle is very drunk right now.” Later, the royal wizard shows up to the ball drunk. He tells the king and queen, “I have been working great and terrible magics to figure out a way to release us from our plight. I had to partake of wine so I could access the depths of. . . um. . .”
The prince offers Rosalin a bite of her birthday cake. When she refuses the cake, he eats it. Then, “his eyes went wide. He fell over sideways, straight as a log. The fork with its remnant of cake flew out of his hand, skittering across the dance floor. . .” The cake had been poisoned.

Language

Briony uses “oh curses” as an exclamation once.
A boy calls Edwin “sniveler.”
Rosalin calls Briony an idiot.
Rosalin often makes rude comments about Briony’s hair. For example, Rosalin says, “And fix your hair. You look like a Pegasus caught in a windstorm.”

Supernatural

The story takes place in Sleeping Beauty’s magical kingdom, where magic exists.
The castle is surrounded by Thornwood, a living plant that tries to trap people. When the branches are cut, “they hissed as if they had been burned.”
Briony sees a strange bird that “cocked its head and looked straight at me, and then it wasn’t a bird at all. It was a woman—a creature that looked like a woman—with shimmery dragonfly wings whirring behind her back.”
After the curse is broken, the fairy godmother throws a birthday ball. “The doors of the kitchen swung open and a cart rolled out. Rosalin’s birthday cake teetered on top.”
The prince says a fairy gave him a magical sword that can help him fight off the Thornwood.
Briony trips and puts her hand out to catch herself. “My palm landed right on a thorn. I screamed and pulled back. I expected the branches to wrap around my wrist. Instead, they all arced toward the thorn that had pierced my skin. A drop of blood dripped from the thorn’s tip, and one of the branches, swooped low to catch it.”
The tower room has a magic spinning wheel. Briony uses the spinning wheel to create magical, gold thread. The Thornwood “seemed to flinch back from the gold thread.”
Rosalin believes that the only way to save the castle from the Thornwood is to sacrifice herself, which she considers. Rosalin says, “It needs my blood. Once it has it, you’ll be free. You’ll all be safe. . . Name your first child after me.” Rosalin “thrust both hands into the thorns. Their hiss rose around us, sharp and sibilant and triumphant.”
Briony discovers that her blood repels the Thornwood. She “jabbed [her] palm into the spindle of the spinning wheel. It hurt. It really hurt. For one blinding second, the pain was all there was. Then I blinked out tears and saw that the thorns had drawn back even farther, leaving a larger space around the spinning wheel than they had before. My blood had given the spinning wheel power.”
Briony realizes that “No one, no prince, no savior, had come to us through the Thornwood. [The prince] had come from it.” Then Briony uses the magical gold thread. She “brought the thread down over his head and around his neck. I crisscrossed the ends and pulled them, making a noose that tightened against his throat.”
When Briony puts the golden thread around the prince, he changes. “His body shimmered; his face lengthened; his eyes grew larger. Two wings, blacker than black, snapped shut over his shoulder blades. He didn’t look like a woman, but he wasn’t a man either. He was a creature. A being. A center of power.” The prince was the fairy queen in disguise.

Spiritual Content

None

The Wishing Spell

Twins, Alex, and Conner Bailey are no longer living in a fairytale. After their father dies in a car accident, their mother struggles to make ends meet, and leaves the twins to fend for themselves on their birthday. Despite struggles in school and trouble making friends, both twins find comfort in the fairytales told to them by their late father and grandmother. A storybook from their grandmother titled, The Land of Stories allows the twins to enter a world of magic where fairytales become reality, but not everything happens as it was written.

In The Land of Stories, Goldilocks is a sword fighting outlaw, Little Red Riding Hood is a self-obsessed queen, and one of their greatest allies is a talking frog. However, as magical as the world may seem, the dangers are just as real, especially since the Evil Queen–from the tale of Snow White–has escaped from prison. To return to the safety of the real world, Alex and Conner need to find the items of “the Wishing Spell,” a legendary incantation that will allow them to wish their way home. But the Evil Queen is after it too. The twins are in a race against the Queen. Who will find the items of the Wishing Spell first? The twins will have to work together to settle their differences if they ever wish to return home.

The Wishing Spell is an entertaining and creative retelling of many classic fairytales including Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella. The Land of Stories is a well-crafted world, filled with many well-known tales that are explored in more depth. Because of that, the fairy tale characters develop intricate personalities, which are an enjoyable part of the book. The complicated plot is explained well, but the large cast of characters may be difficult for readers to remember. As for the main characters, Alex and Conner are opposites–Alex is a diligent, well-read girl with an introverted and idealistic personality, while Conner is a class-clown type character that provides comic relief and serves as a “realist” when needed. Combined, they make an engaging and loveable pair.

In the end, the twins learn that there is more to each story than what meets the eye. Alex and Conner are thwarted by the Queen, resulting in her using the Wishing Spell items before they can. However, they learn about her motives that reveal her to be less evil and more misunderstood, which deepens their compassion for her. As Alex says, “I think what I’ve learned from all this is that villains are mostly just people villainized by circumstance.”

In the end, the Evil Queen dies, and the truth of her motives—to save her lover who is trapped in the magic mirror—die with her. The twins learn that, while “happy ever after” may not be a reality for everyone, genuine kindness and love does exist. The story highlights the importance of treating others with respect and patience so misunderstandings can be prevented. No one can go back in time to save the Evil Queen from her demise, but Snow White concludes that “the best thing we can do now to honor her memory is to live every day with the compassion and understanding no one ever gave her.”

Sexual Content

Conner says he remembers the location of a room because of a painting beside it. Conner says, “I remember that portrait of Red being next to the basket room.” Conner pointed to a portrait where Red Riding Hood was barely clothed, with only a wolf-skin coat to cover her. Alex gave Conner a dirty look. “‘What?’ Conner asked with a smirk. ‘It’s memorable.’”
Goldilocks and Jack (from Jack and the Beanstalk) are in love. They kiss. Jack “reached through the gate and pulled Goldilocks close to him, and they kissed. It was passionate, pure, and long overdue.”
To get released from prison, Conner has to kiss a troll. “At a snail’s pace, [Conner] approached Trollbella with his lips extended. He wasn’t going fast enough for Alex, so she pushed him toward the cell door and Trollbella grabbed hold of him through the bars. She planted a big, fat, juicy kiss on him.”
When Goldilocks is rescued from the palace wreckage, she and Jack kiss. Goldilocks and “Jack collided into each other’s arms. They shared a kiss so passionate that a few of the soldiers blushed.”

Violence

Goldilocks and her horse, Porridge, fight with a pack of wolves. “One wolf tried to pounce on Porridge, but the horse kicked him away with her hind legs. Another wolf tried to bite Goldilocks, but she struck him with her sword, drawing blood, and he whimpered away. . . A wolf leaped and sank his claws into Porridge’s back. The horse bucked to free herself. In one quick slice, Goldilocks chopped one of wolves’ paws off. . . Goldilocks swung [her sword] hard at the wolves closing in on her, leaving large gashes in their muzzles.”
The goblins and trolls keep other beings as slaves who dig tunnels for them. They whip and imprison the humans, but it is not described in depth.
The twins fight back when they are chased by wolves in a minecart. “A few of the wolves swiped at them with their claws. The twins ducked down as far as they could in the cart, but not before one of them reached Conner and left a bloody scratch on his forearm. Alex kicked another right in the snout, and it whimpered away.”
The Evil Queen hits Conner. “She struck him hard across the face with the back of her hand. Conner’s whole body shifted with the blow.”
The Evil Queen’s Huntsman tries to kill Jack but ends up getting killed. “The Huntsman began shooting arrows at Jack. . . Jack was trying to block the arrows with the sword. . . He hit one [arrow] perfectly, and it flew behind the Huntsman. The Huntsman grunted and froze. His eyes bulged and he fell flat on his face. The arrow had bounced off the wall behind him and was now sticking out of his back. The Huntsman was dead.”
The Huntsman’s daughter, the Huntress, tries to kill Jack in retaliation. “Jack turned around and the Huntress stabbed him in the arm with her dagger. . . He dropped the sword and fell to the ground. . . He was clutching his arm. Blood was everywhere.”
To protect him, Goldilocks intervenes and fights the Huntress. “Goldilocks blocked the dagger with her sword. . . [Then Goldilocks] kicked the Huntress in the stomach. The Huntress rolled to the other side of the room and hopped back to her feet. Goldilocks swung her sword at the Huntress and the duel began. . .” The fight lasts five pages and ends with the pair dueling on the palace roof. Jack interferes to save Goldilocks. “He ran over to a cannon and lit it. He wrenched it toward the Huntress’s direction, and it fired. A cannonball soared towards the women and blasted away the section of roof the Huntress was standing on. [The Huntress] fell the entire height of the castle and into the moat, silently screaming the entire way. There was no way she could have survived the fall.”

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

Mrs. Peters, the kids’ teacher, gives a patronizing look. “‘And why is that?’ Mrs. Peters said, as if asking, ‘What on earth could you possibly be confused about, idiot?’”
Conner says, “Don’t piss off your neighbors.” He also says “stupid” once.
A farmer says, “the damn thing never worked” talking about a magic watering can.
Alex calls Conner an “idiot” when Connor screams in surprise at his reflection in a mirror.
Conner calls Queen Red Riding Hood a “self-obsessed twit.”
Froggy, a talking frog, says “damn you, miserable plants,” when the twins are attacked by vines.
Goldilocks insults Red Riding Hood a few times, calling her a “red-hooded harlot” and a “basket carrying bimbo.”
When the Evil Queen hits Conner, she calls him a “stupid boy.”

Supernatural

The kids use the fictional storybook The Land of Stories to travel to a magical land where all fairytales are true—with varying degrees of truth, such as Goldilocks becoming an outlaw after her run in with the three bears.
In The Land of Stories, there are talking animals, fictional creatures such as fairies, and magic.

Spiritual Content

Conner wonders why Snow White’s kingdom would have so many tributes to apples because they were what almost killed her. Alex says, “I suppose it’s symbolic for the kingdom. Like a cross in the church.”
When Connor and Alex wake up in the Mermaid Kingdom, Conner thinks that they have died. He thinks, “We must be in heaven.” Conner also mistakes the mermaids for angels.

by Maddie Shooter

Dragon Myths

They’re called drakon in Greek, azhdaha in Persian, kelekona in Hawaiian, and they have different names in numerous other cultures as well. They’re dragons. Many cultures even agree on what the giant serpents look like, though they may differ on whether these mythical creatures are benevolent or evil. This compelling volume takes readers on a tour of world cultures and dragon lore. Sometimes, the folklore is entwined with actual historical events, such as a Roman general’s supposed encounter with a water-spewing dragon on a march to Africa.

Take a trip back in time and learn how so many myths about dragons became legends. Readers will learn how different cultures preserved their dragon lore as well as why so many people fear dragons. Included in the text are different examples of dragons that have always been warned against. The book has several examples of dragons that are referred to in literature. Readers will also learn why dragons were worshiped, feared, or even considered friendly in ancient civilizations.

Dragon Myths is visually appealing. Each page has large illustrations that include short captions. In addition, each section is broken into smaller sections that have fun headlines such as “SWOOP, SLITHER, SLASH.” Another appealing aspect of the story is the fun facts that appear in a graphic that looks like a scroll. Throughout the book, readers will encounter bolded words that may be unfamiliar; however, the words are defined within the text making the passage easy to understand.

If you want to learn more about dragons, Dragon Myths is the perfect book for you. While none of the myths are covered in detail, the book will spark readers’ curiosity and give them different topics that they may want to research. Full of colorful pictures, interesting facts, and historical information, Dragon Myths will keep readers’ attention as they learn about the dragon lore.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

Some old folktales warn about the tatzelwurm, a dwarfish dragon that “is said to gobble up travelers.”
In North America, legend tells of a “leech-like dragon. Get too close and the dragon might vomit foul liquid on you. Stunned, you’d fall into the raging waters. . .maybe your family would find your dead body washed ashore—nose and ears mysteriously sliced off.”
An Ethiopian legend tells of a dragon that “feasted on elephants!”

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

None

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

Ancient Egyptians believed in Gods such as a dragon with “a winged snake with three heads and four clawed feet” and “the goddess Mersokar and the god Chanuphis (or Bati).”
In the legends of Saint George, “a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity. . . In one town, he encounters a dragon, which he was certain was really the devil in disguise. George not only killed the dragon but also convinced the townsfolk to adopt Christianity.”
In Asia, many dragons were worshiped. “They were said to possess magical powers that included natural events.”

The Madre De Aguas of Cuba

A legendary sea serpent is missing. Can the Unicorn Rescue Society find it and end Cuba’s terrible drought?

A brand-new adventure is ready to unfold as Uchenna, Elliot, and Professor Fauna fly to Havana to search for the Madre de Aguas. Is this missing creature responsible for the drought that has ravaged the island for months? And why are the Schmoke Brothers’ goons driving around Havana, dumping pink sludge into sewers? The Unicorn Rescue Society is ready to save the day—and hopefully not get eaten in the process!

Uchenna, Elliot, Professor Fauna, and a Jersey Devil come together on a fast-paced journey through Havana, where they meet several locals. The Madre De Aguas of Cuba shows how different cultures—Taino, Africans, and Spanish—have combined their traditions. Now the Cubans are like a ceiba tree, “many roots, one tree.” The story seamlessly incorporates the idea that people can have different beliefs and still live in peace.

When Uchenna, Elliot, and Professor Fauna get to Cuba, Yoenis—a Cuban American—gives a lecture on the political situation in Cuba, including commentary on the United States embargo. The history lesson is long-winded and has nothing to do with the story’s plot. Another downside of the book is that several of the characters, including Professor Fauna, speak Spanish. Some of the Spanish passages are long and there are not always enough context clues to understand what is being said.

All the characters are quirky in different ways, which adds humor and suspense. Even though the history of Cuba is introduced, young readers will still enjoy the story because of the humorous tone and the interesting characters. Black-and-white illustrations appear every 1 to 2 pages; the illustrations add humor and help the readers visualize the characters. Most of the text is easy to read because it uses short paragraphs, simple vocabulary, and dialogue.

The Unicorn Rescue Society Series will delight readers who want to learn about mythical monsters. Uchenna, Elliot, Professor Fauna, and a Jersey Devil are loveable characters who appear in each installment, and the interplay between the characters is both humorous and endearing. Readers who enjoy The Madre De Aguas of Cuba should check out Knights vs. Dinosaurs by Matt Phelan as it also mixes humor with monsters.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

Uchenna and Elliot are told some of Cuba’s history. “When Columbus first arrived in Cuba, he said it was the most beautiful place on earth, claimed it for Spain, and then he started killing the Taino, the Native People who live here.”
When the Europeans came to Cuba, they “began enslaving people in Africa and bringing them across the Atlantic.”
The Madre de Aguas uses the pipes to travel to a golden statue that is in a hotel. “Shards of gold and steel shot in every direction, hitting the ceiling and the chandelier, causing glass and plaster to mix with gold and steel to rain down on everyone.” No one is injured.
From the hotel window, the Madre de Aguas sees the ocean. “Her body rippled and vibrated with strength, and she tore away from the fountain and plowed through the tables, reducing them to wood chips and tatters of white fabric. . .She burst through the huge window” and escaped.

Drugs and Alcohol

The Schmokes brothers use Sure-to-Choke insecticide to poison Cuba’s water supply.

Language

None

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

An older woman explains the importance of the ceiba tree. She says, “The ceiba is sacred to the Taino, the Native People on this island.” The Spanish invaded Cuba in 1519. When they arrived, they gathered under a great ceiba tree and prayed, to give thanks for arriving safely in this land.
The Afro-Cubans considered the ceiba tree “the holy tree of Afro-Cubans.”
Cuba is suffering from a drought, and many Cubans “pray to Maria and she keeps them safe.”
At a gathering of people who work in agriculture, people argue over who is responsible for providing Cuba’s water. Some say, “We can all thank Oshun (daughter of the river) for all the sweet waters in Cuba.” Someone else says, “Every good Catholic knows that we get fresh water from Maria, Mother of God.” Others believe that the Madre de Aguas brings water.

Monstrous

The city of Bryre suffers under the magic of an evil wizard. All the young girls get sick because of his curse and disappear without a trace. No one is allowed outside at night, but for Kymera, night is the only time she can enter the city. Kymera was a victim of the wizard, but her father brought her back to life, and he replaced her burnt body parts with the remains of other girls and modified her body with animal body parts. According to her father, people would not understand her wings, her claws, or her spiky tail. They would not comprehend her purpose: to rescue the missing girls from the wizard’s prison.

Even though she was cautious, Ren, a boy from the city, sees Kymera and leaves a perfect rose for her every evening. Over time, they become friends, and as they talk, Kymera realizes that Ren knows about the missing girls’ plight, the wizard, and the evil magic encroaching on Bryre. And what he knows will change her life.

Set in, near, and around the cities of Bryre and Belladoma, each chapter follows Kymera’s perspective, and the first page is decorated with shifting side profiles of Kymera, her father, Ren, and Batu, a rock dragon, allowing the reader to visualize the characters. However, each chapter details one or more days in her life, which leads to the unique chaptering of non-consecutive days: the chapter format does not make the story confusing. Instead, the chapter format assists in thoughtfully unveiling the setting as Kymera becomes accustomed to her new body and old memories.

Due to her interactions with Ren, Kymera rethinks everything she had known about herself, her father, and her relations with the city. Though Ren and Kymera have a wonderful friendship, their relationship does not extend from their mutual feelings as allies. At first, she is cautious of Ren because she does not know how he will react to her animal traits. Eventually, Kymera fully trusts Ren as she learns the truth about her mission. Despite her initial ignorance about the city of Bryre, Kymera is a fascinating narrator, but her monologues about her true nature make the story drag.

Monstrous takes pieces from classic fairy tales and uses them to make a compelling, unique story. Readers will take away one lesson from the story—know who you can trust. For instance, the king and queen of Bryre make a deal with a wizard to protect Bryre from an unnamed city but decline to compensate the wizard when he asks for their first-born child as payment. Ten years later, he betrays the king by killing the queen and his first-born child—Rosabel.

Rumpelstiltskin is the inspiration behind their deal; The Pied Piper of Hamelin is the inspiration behind its consequences. Readers will enjoy pointing out the fairy tale inspirations and figuring out the true villain’s identity within Kymera’s limited perspective. There are few scenes with graphic violence and many acts of magic scattered throughout the story. All in all, this debut novel by MarcyKate Connolly stands out as an original story while feeling like a classic. Readers who enjoy reading fairytale-inspired stories will also enjoy Royal Academy Rebels Series by Jen Calonita.

Sexual Content

Ren leaves perfect red roses for Kymera, but her father “would not be happy that a boy is leaving [Kymera] gifts.”
When Kymera tests her abilities for the first time, a man approaches her and asks her to take off her cloak. “His gait appears nonchalant, but it is faster than I think. . . Why did he [Father] leave me to face this unsettling man alone?”

Violence

Father tells Kymera that a powerful wizard killed her mother. “Your mother attempted to stop him, and the wizard murdered her in the ensuing struggle.” Later, Father elaborates, “The queen [Kymera’s mother] tried to block my path to the princess. I killed her. . . I killed [the princess], too. I took [the princess’s] body and disappeared.”
Kymera hunts a rabbit for dinner. “I pounce, my teeth tearing into the soft flesh of its neck.” She does not know if she was meant to kill the rabbit. Then, she returns to her cottage with the “limp, bloody creature.” This scene continues for two pages.
There used to be a lot of magical creatures, but several species have been hunted to extinction. Father says, “The last griffin died more than a century ago, and dragons have been hunted to the brink of extinction for their magic powers. . .” When Kymera meets Batu, he adds, “[Wizards] take our blood, they take our magic.” Magical creatures’ extinctions are mentioned throughout the book.
Kymera fights a multitude of guards in the wizard’s prison. “Two guards peel off the wall and hurl themselves at me . . . I duck and sting them. . . others succumb to the effects of Father’s weapon. . .” She harms the guards.
A corpse of “the sickly girl…lies inside . . . the cold box.” Father said the young girl was buried in Belladoma. Kymera wonders why the sickly girl’s body was in Father’s basement instead.
When they see she killed a girl, the townspeople call for Kymera’s murder. “The crowd chants as a tradesman carries the limp body up to a platform in the middle of the square . . .” Oliver, a friend of Ren’s parents, attempts to calm the rioters and clear Kymera’s name. This scene continues for seven pages.
When Kymera and Ren are leaving Belladoma, King Ensel and Albin, his captain, fight them. “The blade sings past my [Kymera’s] arm and cuts a few feathers off my left wing.” After the Sonzeeki, an ancient, tentacled sea creature, eats Albin, Kymera hurls the king into the sea, and “the sea catches him in its maw and swallows.”
A man abducts Emmy, a missing girl from Bryre, and Kymera chases after him. When she finds him, she swoops down, pins him to the ground, and kills him. “The flame of rage in me explodes into a bonfire. . . My body acts of its own accord.” After she kills him, she finds Emmy dead from a blade embedded in her back. “[The crossbow] must have been set with the blade. . . One flick of his wrist and she was dead.”
When the wizard and King Ensel gather their troops in Bryre, Kymera gives chase. She stings King Ensel “until his shirt is shredded and bloody, and his eyes are dull.”
Kymera and Batu are fighting the wizard. The wizard kills Batu with vines and “drops of blue, glittering liquid—dragon’s blood—dot the ground. [Batu] stops moving.” Then, Kymera fights the wizard by herself. She kills him by dropping him “into his own funnel cloud. . . Then it spits him out . . . in seconds his body crumbles to dust.” Including the initial encounter, the final fight lasts for twelve pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

Kymera’s barbed tail can put “people to sleep.” She frequently uses this function.
Kymera uses “vials of sleeping powder” to put the guards to sleep.

Language

None

Supernatural

Magic is used by wizards and magical creatures, and the most prominent type of magic is dark magic. “Dark magic is the most powerful in shadows and moonlight. . .”
The wizard created a curse that only affects young girls and is transmitted like a disease.
Batu and Kymera make “a blood oath” so they can protect each other from the dark wizard. The spell prevents Batu and Kymera from mentioning their names and identities in front of individuals outside of their blood oath. Batu says, “We must keep each other secret to keep each other safe.”
Besides dragons, a lot of magical creatures exist, such as “centaurs, fauns, and mermaids.”
The dark wizard planted vines that would grow all over Bryre. “A huge gnarl of vines and thorns rises in front of us. It appears to be swallowing a building whole.”
Kymera’s father set up warding charms to “prevent anyone who would do the city harm from entering.”
King Ensel angered an ancient sea creature, the Sonzeeki, and “if he [King Ensel] doesn’t send a young girl off the cliff at the apex of each full moon, the Sonzeeki floods the city.”
The evil wizard revives King Ensel without inflicting any ill effects.

Spiritual Content

During one of Kymera’s conversations with Batu, he says, “Humans, dragons, hybrids–we are all animals in some form. And we all return to the universe when we pass from this life.”

by Jemima Cooke

Once Upon a Camel

Zada is an achy, old camel with a treasure trove of stories to tell. She’s won camel races for the ruling Pasha of Smyrna, crossed treacherous oceans to new lands, led army missions, and outsmarted a pompous mountain lion.

But these stories were before. Now, Zada wanders the desert as the last camel in Texas. But she’s not alone. Two tiny kestrel chicks nestled in the fluff of fur between her ears and a dust storm the size of a mountain take Zada on one more grand adventure – and it could lead to Zada’s most brilliant story yet.

Readers will fall in love with Zada as she protects two kestrel chicks from a windstorm. Zada’s patience is never-ending, and she uses beautiful stories to keep the chicks occupied. However, some readers may become annoyed by the chicks’ constant chirping and complaining. Despite this, the relationship between Zada and the birds is super sweet, and readers will relate to the chicks who are anxious about being separated from their parents.

The wind, which attacks Zada and her friends, is described as a living beast. For example, “As if they were waiting to grab one of the chicks, the willy-willies and the dust devils, the samiels and simoons, danced all around Zada. They swiped at her ankles, raced ahead of her, rose and fell, then rose and fell again, reminding her of ocean waves.” Through the story, readers learn about the weather, which adds depth to the story.

Once Upon a Camel is best suited for advanced readers because of the constant back and forth between present day and the past. Each chapter begins with the name of a place and the year, which will help readers know if the events are one of Zada’s stories or not. Some readers may be confused by the advanced vocabulary and the Turkish words, such as simoons, samiels, muster, escarpment, festooned, denizens, and dissipate. Detailed black and white illustrations appear every 8 to 16 pages, and a one-page glossary appears at the end of the book.

Each story Zada tells is full of magic. Zada demonstrates how stories can help us deal with an array of emotions. Zada’s love for her original country shines, and readers will catch a glimpse of Turkey’s culture through her stories. Even though Zada was born into a caravan of prized racing horses owned by a Turkish pasha, in 1857, she sails the seas and lands in Texas, where she discovers she will be a pack animal for the U.S. Army. Some readers may be disappointed with the lack of details about how the camels helped the army.

While Once Upon a Camel highlights the magic of storytelling, younger readers may struggle with the constantly shifting time period, advanced vocabulary, and Turkish words. By the end of the story, the chicks’ “tap-tap-tap-KICK, tap-tap-tap-KICK,” and “peeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeepeep” becomes frustrating. However, Zada’s point of view is interesting and unique, and she isn’t afraid to jump in a potentially dangerous situation to help those in need. In the end, no matter how difficult a situation is, Zada is determined to “become the brightest star.”

Sexual Content

None

Violence

Like human siblings, the two baby chicks argue and peck at each other.
When the camels traveled to Texas, they upset the horses. “The combination of hollering and gamboling set the resident equines into a frenzy of bucking and snorting. They reared up onto their hind feet, kicked each other, even cracked a bunch of teeth and jawbones.”
Pecos de Leon, a mountain lion, would hunt for prey. “He would spot an unsuspecting pack rat from ten feet away, then boom! Four paws off the ground and no more pack rat. Even snakes weren’t safe from his stalking prowess. He liked their spicy flavor.”
A group of boys sees Zada and her friend. “The boys and horses surrounded the camels, and for no reason whatsoever, started pelting them with rocks. Whap, whap, whap! Ouch ouch ouch!”
A flock of Kestrels attacks a coyote puppy. The puppy “was trying to tuck itself underneath a mesquite bush. Its front paws were covering its eyes, and it was shaking from nose to tail. . .[the birds] swished by and scraped the coyote’s ears with their sharp little talons. The coyote kept yipping and yapping and whimpering. The kestrels kept dive-bombing.” Zada chases the birds away.
The birds attack the coyote puppy because it ate some kestrel eggs. “They made a quick breakfast for the hungry pup.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Zada goes to the races and sees amazing things, including travelers who carried wine.

Language

None

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

When the birds get separated, the bird’s father Pard thinks his family will be at the mission. Pard “was praying that Perlita [the bird’s mother] was already there.”

Who Was Princess Diana?

A shy twenty-year-old girl stepped out of a horse-drawn coach and into the world spotlight, capturing the imagination of millions as a real-life fairytale princess. Although the storybook marriage didn’t have a happy ending, Diana learned to use her fame to champion charitable causes near to her heart. She became the “People’s Princess” by humanizing the image of the royal family and showing care and concern for all people, including the homeless, the sick, and others in need.

Even though Princess Diana was born into a wealthy, noble family, her father taught her to “treat everybody with kindness and never act more important than another person.” Because of her caring and compassionate nature, Princess Diana was loved by millions. Princess Diana used her fame to help people in need, including AIDS patients, the Red Cross and Mother Teresa. Again, though her fairy tale didn’t have a happily-ever-after, Princess Diana’s life is still an inspiration for millions around the world.

While the majority of Who Was Princess Diana? focuses on Diana’s life beginning with her early childhood, the book is full of other interesting facts. Scattered throughout the book are one-to-two-page non-fiction articles that talk more about the royal residences, the order of succession, Mother Teresa, as well as other topics that affected Princess Diana’s life. The end of the book includes a timeline of Princess Diana’s life and a timeline of the world.

Who Was Princess Diana? shows that life as a princess isn’t like it is in a fairy tale. The book has an easy-to-read format with large font. Large black-and-white illustrations appear on almost every page. Many of the illustrations show the royal family; however, the drawings are a bit off-putting because of the strange expressions on people’s faces. In addition, some of the drawings are of people in Diana’s life, but the picture doesn’t look much like them.

While Princess Diana was an admirable person, she is not portrayed as a perfect person. Throughout her life, her caring nature was a bright light. She was never afraid to show her love for people including the sick and the poor. Today, Princess Diana’s legacy is carried on by her two sons, Prince William, and Prince Harry. Who is Princess Diana? is perfect for readers who are researching the princess. However, learning about the princess will also encourage everyone to be a kinder person. Diana said, “I knew my job was to go out and meet people and love them.”

Sexual Content

None

Violence

After Princess Diana visited Angola, she joined the Red Cross to help get rid of land mines. After a civil war, “Close to fifty thousand people—including children—had lost an arm or leg in land-mine accidents.”
The paparazzi followed Princess Diana everywhere. Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi, were in a vehicle. Their driver tried to outrun the paparazzi. “The driver was going too fast and lost control. The car crashed into a concrete pillar inside a Paris tunnel.” All three passengers died.

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

None

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

Disney at Dawn

The Kingdom Keepers are back together to protect the Disney Parks from the evil fairy, Maleficent, and the Overtakers. But this time, the attack is personal. Amanda’s sister, Jez, has been kidnapped, leaving behind only her journal of clairvoyant sketches to help her friends find her. The search takes the Keepers to Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom, where Maleficent is hiding and using mind-controlled animals to do her evil bidding.

Raising the stakes further, Maleficent has set up a second hologram server that only she controls. If the heroes fall asleep, Maleficent and the Overtakers can force them to “crossover” into their holographic state and be stuck in Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, a coma-like sleep from which you cannot wake up on your own. Finn and the rest of the Kingdom Keepers must go undercover as Animal Kingdom employees to uncover secret meanings in Jez’s clairvoyant drawings, stop Maleficent and the animals from their quest to escape the parks, and find a way to shut down the second server, all before they become unable to stay awake any longer.

This thrilling second installment in the Kingdom Keepers Series keeps readers on their toes with fast-paced action sequences, simultaneous missions, and an exciting new location where the magic of the parks is shown. The book successfully transports readers to Animal Kingdom in the thick of the action. Pearson’s narration once again manages to provide wayfinding tips as well as the necessary descriptions of park attractions, so even those who have never seen Animal Kingdom before will feel as if they are actually there with the Keepers. Pearson also strikes a balance between solo missions for each Kingdom Keeper as well as creating new duos and trios for the action to revolve around. As the teams split off, the characters’ dynamics shine, with each different personality on display for readers to enjoy. They all get the chance to be leaders in their own unique way.

As before, if your young reader enjoys the Disney Parks, or has an interest in the park’s operations, this book offers an exciting “behind the scenes” view from the Kingdom Keepers’ perspective. It balances the presence of technical knowledge of the theme park and its attractions with the fantastical plot that brings animals, animatronics, and evil villains to life. The second book in the series does everything that Disney After Dark does well, but on a bigger scale, with characters that readers now know and are sure to root for.

Sexual Content

In the tunnels, Jez and Finn’s “faces were about a foot apart,” when Jez reminds Finn that she has a boyfriend.

Violence

There are references to the events of the previous book, including Maybeck’s “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome” in which he crossed over into his DHI state against his will and was unable to wake up. The narration describes the severity of the syndrome, saying it “might have killed him.”
While trying to stop a man from chasing Finn through a series of booby-trapped tunnels, Finn decides to trigger one of the booby-traps so that they both fall through the chute, effectively throwing off the man’s pursuit. As Finn falls and grabs onto the ledge, “His body smacked into the hanging trapdoor.”
Jez is “kidnapped” by the Overtakers, the evil Disney villains trying to take over the park.
Finn fears that the weather balloon him and his friends spotted in the sky above the park is meant to “kill him and his friends.” Philby says if that were true, then the man chasing Finn and Philby to the top of the castle would be “suicidal” as he would also be subject to the lightning strike. Finn also imagines that it could be a Frankenstein-like experiment, picturing “some Disney monster strapped to a stainless-steel table with wires attached to his head and heart.”
Finn and Philby discover an actress dressed as Tinkerbell tied up in the room of the castle from which she is meant to “fly” by ziplining across the park during the fireworks shows. However, Maleficent has orchestrated this event as her escape. Finn watches as Maleficent “jumps” out the window, though he soon realizes that she is not falling, but flying away.
The kids often use an online virtual reality system that allows them to navigate the software that controls the park as well as communicate with other people. Finn remembers how his parents warned him of “stalkers” that preyed on kids “by pretending to be kids themselves.”
Finn wondered if his mentor, Wayne, had “died or been captured by the Overtakers” or “been in a coma” since he had not heard from him.
Wayne explains that Maleficent wants to put all the DHIs into Sleeping Beauty Syndrome so that they are “out of the way . . . for good.” They can only prevent this by “crashing” the system that the Overtakers will use to put them in the coma. However, if they do this too soon, Wayne says they may never see Jez again.
While on the roof of Amanda’s house, Finn slips causing him to fall “face-first.” The narration says that if Amanda had not grabbed his wrists in time, “he was gone.”
Amanda says her parents drowned, while Jez’s were possibly overtaken by “real pirates.”
There is a recap of a time in the previous book in which the DHIs were attacked by the dolls in It’s a Small World as well as other characters.
A bat attacks the hosts from the sky. The Keepers turn on lights, knowing that bats have an aversion to it, causing the creature to dive “as if it had been shot.” They capture it and Philby later “suggested doing something to it that wouldn’t have been approved by the SPCA”.
Philby, after seeing Jez’s notebook of sketches, asks in a reference to Van Gogh, “At what point did she cut off her ear?”
A swarm of birds attack Maybeck. He sees a “pitch-black flurry of wings and beaks and scratching claws.” He escapes, surprisingly, without a scratch.
The plot of the safari ride at Animal Kingdom is described. Ride-goers try to prevent a group of poachers from catching a baby elephant.
Maleficent uses her powers to create a ball of flame that she intends to throw at Maybeck, but he sprays her with a hose first.
Finn pushes over the magically alive broom that is chasing him.
Philby thinks a tiger is looking at him as if he was “lunch.” The tiger then jumps to attack Philby, though he is not harmed. It is revealed later that the tiger is a hologram.
A few monkeys capture a cast member. They “knocked him over,” tied him up, and gagged him.
Maybeck encounters a lizard that he chases through the park. He recalls the amount of times his aunt “beat [lizards] with a broom” in her home. As a kid, he would catch them and pull their tails off, since they would grow back.
When being kidnapped by an orangutan, the animal lunges to bite Finn, though Finn pulls away in time.
Maybeck recalls when his dog has gotten into dogfights with other pets in the neighborhood. Maybeck thinks about how he “nearly got his hand bitten off.”
Finn runs under a trampoline while being chased by an ape. The animal is “crushed by the weight of the acrobat,” but is not seriously harmed.
In order to escape capture by orangutans, Finn sprays them in the face with a shower head. He then ties them up. Maybeck “poked it with a hanger that he wielded as a sword.”
Amanda is hit by a magical arrow that Maleficent made. She immediately falls unconscious. Finn becomes so angry that he slammed Maleficent against the wall and “was choking the life from her” telling her to bring Amanda back. She eventually agrees.
Philby and Wayne’s avatars are attacked on the virtual reality website they are using to navigate the park systems. They use swords to defend against the trolls. Philby is able to “slice the troll’s leg in two at the knee.” He later “severs” the virtual troll’s arm. However, the troll manages to “[chop] off the end of Philby’s right foot.” The attack occurs over three pages.
Finn faces multiple monkeys and a tigress. He defends himself with a baseball bat. He watches as the tiger seems to be hunting the monkeys for a “snack.” He also sees the tigress “swiping her huge claws” at other cats, but they do not feel the pain as they are holograms. Then the tigers attack him. He thinks they will “land on him, crushing him, then snap his neck with their powerful jaws and start the feast.” This does not happen. He watches as the monkeys jump to attack him, “and would have torn his head off…had the tigress not sprung.” The attack occurs scattered over 31 pages.
Maybeck and Willa are attacked by animatronic dinosaurs. Willa is “nearly beheaded” by a dinosaur tail. Maybeck is injured and felt as though “every joint was separating simultaneously.” He then snaps the pterodactyl’s leg in half. It reacts as if it is in pain, and he wonders if the bird is alive. Maybeck is nearly crushed by the creature and he leaves the attack “bleeding,” though he is alright. This event takes place over six pages.
The final showdown between the hosts and Maleficent includes her throwing fireballs at them. Finn realizes that the fireballs never actually hit him and determines that the imagineers who develop the parks would not create a being that could harm people, let alone kill him. Maleficent promises to kill Finn when he’s “no longer of use to” her. Using magic, Amanda lifts Maleficent and then threatens to drop her sixty feet. Finn, meanwhile, must cling to another Disney villain who is fighting alongside Maleficent, Chernabog, “rather than drop to the platform where the creature might squash him like a bug.” The final battle takes place over eight pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

Maybeck refers to using the caffeine in Coca-Cola to avoid accidentally falling asleep. Later the kids all use this strategy.

Language

Some mean language is used including: stupid, hideous, what the heck, and darn. For example, often the characters use the word “stupid” to describe things they do not like.
There is some name calling including: geek, jerk, insane, buggy, nimrod, warped,
Occasionally, Maybeck is said to use “a few words that would have gotten him detention.” He later says, “Son of a –.” The book never says what words Maybeck uses, but it makes it clear that he is cursing.
Finn is also said to “curse at the screen” of his computer.
Maleficent calls Amanda a “little tart.”
Maybeck uses the word “bleeping” in place of a curse word.

Supernatural

The story takes place in Disney World where magic exists.
Maleficent, the evil fairy, often casts spells. No specific words are relayed, but when she does, the narration describes that she “chants.”
Maleficent can also fly and transform into different animals.
Jez dreams the future. She draws these images in a notebook that become the guide map for her friends and sister’s journey to rescue her throughout the book.
Amanda tells Finn that she and Jez are “fairlies,” “as in, fairly human.” She says they are “just kids with unusual abilities” like “spoon-benders, mind readers, clairvoyants” and the ability to cause fires to start mentally.
Amanda refers to the incidents of the previous book, in which Maleficent bewitched Jez so she could not recognize Amanda. She then makes Jez do the Overtakers’ bidding.
Amanda levitates Finn to the ceiling of a truck they are hiding in so that he is not seen by the security guards.
The hosts come to learn that heat is Maleficent’s “kryptonite,” impeding her power’s effectiveness.
Maybeck thinks the bat they captured may be able to understand his words. Then he sees a group of birds that appear to be “following him.” These are the first pieces of evidence that the animals are under Maleficent’s control.

Spiritual Content

Finn sees that Jez has collected fortunes from fortune cookies in her journal.
Willa told her parents she was going to Mass to get them to let her leave the house. Her mother is “no longer a churchgoer.”
In Animal Kingdom, the hosts see replicas of Temples. One location has “prayer flags.”
Jez says she prayed for help to come when she realized she was trapped in the tunnel, “though [she’s] not very good at praying.”

by Jennaly Nolan

Cold As Ice

Abby and her brother, Jonah, don’t plan to use the magic mirror. But when their dog, Prince, jumps into the mirror, they only have one choice—go in after him.

Abby and Jonah land in a snow-covered winter wonderland. At first, they think they might be in Disney’s Frozen fairy tale. But this fairy tale is nothing like the movie! Instead, they are thrown into the cold world of the Ice Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. This Snow Queen is super creepy and mean, and she turns Prince into a dogsicle!

In this adventure, Abby and Jonah have to defrost their furry friend, ride a very chatty reindeer, learn to ice-skate and escape from a band of robbers. If they’re not careful, they could end up frozen!

The story starts with Abby at school where she has a confrontation with one of her best friends, Robin. Abby is hurt that Robin has been spending time with Penny. Abby gives Robin an ultimatum, “We’re your best friends. Me and Frankie. Not Penny. Penny isn’t nice. . . You can’t be Penny’s best friend and our best friend, too.” The fairy tale world connects to Abby’s school problem. Through Abby’s experiences, she learns that “of course people can have more than one best friend. . . Maybe it wasn’t very fair of me to say that Robin had to choose between us and Penny.”

One negative aspect of the story is that Abby and Jonah have been lying to their parents. Finally, the guilt gets the best of Abby and she realizes, “You’re never supposed to listen to someone who tells you to lie to your parents! Everyone knows that! People who tell you to lie to your parents are always the ones who are up to no good.” However, when Abby finally tells her parents the truth, the fairy in the mirror, Maryrose, erases the parents’ memory.

The two siblings balance each other out nicely. Jonah is impulsive, annoying, silly, and fun, while Abby is bossy, worried, and always wants to have a plan. Anyone who has a sibling will understand how Abby gets frustrated with her brother. The interplay between the two siblings adds a little humor and Abby’s inner dialogue helps keep the conflict in sharp focus. While the story isn’t always logical, younger readers will enjoy the ridiculous aspects of the story. The conclusion ends with a surprise that will have readers reaching for the next book in the series, Beauty Queen.

Most of the Whatever After books use the same formula and may begin to bore older readers. If your child is ready to move on to another fairytale inspired series, both Fairy Tale Reform School and Royal Academy Rebels by Jen Calonita would make an excellent choice.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

Abby summarizes the original fairy tale, The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. The Snow Queen kidnaps a boy and puts him under a spell. When Jonah and Abby meet a boy, they know he is under the Snow Queen’s spell because he has “zombie eyes.”

Abby and Jonah are kidnapped by a band of robbers. The robbers put them in a basement that is “cold and damp. There’s no furniture. Just a pile of brown blankets in the corner. Water leaking from the ceiling has frozen into threatening-looking icicles.”

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

None

Supernatural

Abby and her brother Jonah have a magic mirror that allows them to go into the world of fairy tales. “We discovered that when we knock on our basement mirror three times, it takes us into a fairy tale. Well, first the mirror starts to hiss, then it casts a purple light over the room, then it starts to swirl, and then it sucks us into a fairy tale.”
While in the fairy tale world, time passes differently. “Sometimes a day in a fairy tale is an hour at home. Sometimes an hour in a fairy tale is an hour at home. The watches we [Abby and Jonah] wear from home keep track of the time back there.”
The Snow Queen blows on Abby’s dog, Prince. “With her lips rounded, the Snow Queen looks like she’s blowing a kiss. But it’s not a kiss. I can actually see the air that comes out of her mouth. It’s like steam from a kettle. A tiny white tornado.” When the air hits Prince, “he freezes in mid-motion.”
Ralph is a talking reindeer who can fly.
The Snow Queen explains how she gained her powers by breaking a magical mirror over her head.
Maryrose, the fairy in the mirror, casts a spell erasing Abby’s parents’ memory. Jonah’s memory is also accidentally erased.

Spiritual Content

None

Charmed

The second book in the Fairy Tale Reform School Series revisits Gilly Cobbler and her friends following their triumph against the evil queen Harlow. Now that Gilly has been named a hero by all of Enchantasia, she experiences the praise she has never received before. Plus, her father’s glass slipper making business is booming and everything seems to be going her way.

Just as all is going well, the evil fairy Alva strikes again, breaking Harlow out of the Fairy Tale Reform School (FTRS) and leaving behind a manifesto that leads many reformed students back to villainy. Gilly decides to defend her status as a hero, taking Alva down all alone. Gilly sets off to uncover the identity of a mole at the school who is helping with Alva’s takeover. As Gilly will discover, the path to victory is more complicated than she believes. The lines between good and evil are blurred, and Gilly might just lose herself in the process without the help of her friends.

Charmed engages readers and explores what it means to be a hero. Gilly thinks she can handle Alva on her own, so she abandons the friends who helped her last time. Plus, she becomes overly confident due to the praise she is given. Eventually, Gilly comes to realize that she needs humility and the help of those who truly know and care about her. As her father says, “Sometimes being a hero means being brave. Other times it means knowing when you need help.”

In addition to working with friends, Gilly has to become more open-minded. She must confront her own prejudices about people like the Royal Ladies in Waiting. While she perceives them as evil and silly, she quickly learns that people are not so simple. Gilly must also confront her own behavior. While she sees herself as a hero, she is also capable of doing bad things. She says, “I’m still a little bit bad, a lot good, and a whole lot of other things too. Just as it should be.”
In Charmed the “villains” are given second chances. Even Gilly is misguided at times, and she must learn how to face her own misgivings and the guilt that accompanies them. Charmed allows readers to dive deeper into the overarching theme of recognizing that people are not rigidly good or bad; they are capable of both. Calonita continues to establish the message that people can change. Readers will appreciate how Gilly stumbles but is able to pick herself back up. Gilly learns and grows which leaves readers curious as to what will come next. While the ending is entirely satisfying in itself, the book ends with an open-ended letter from Gilly’s friend, Jax. The letter introduces the conflict for the third book in the series, Tricked, without compromising the characters’ victory.

Gilly leads readers through the story with help from the occasional “Happily Ever After Scroll,” a sort of daily newspaper that provides context for events throughout the story as well as introduces characters. The scrolls allow readers who have not read the first book in the series to easily follow the plot of this installment. Readers who enjoyed the film series Descendents will also enjoy taking a journey into the lives of the students at Fairy Tale Reform School. The high stakes and magical showdowns are captivating from the first page and readers will also be excited to see familiar faces from classic fairy tales.

Sexual Content

A professor at the school is said to know “plenty of [sea shanties]” which the Happily Ever After Scrolls take as possible confirmation for former flings with pirates.
The Pirate Blackbeard says, “I’ve been swayed by a bonny lass before.”
When Gilly goes to a meeting in a dress and with a new hairstyle, Jax, comments on how well she “cleans up.” Gilly is nervous when “Jax touches my pink sash and the pink ribbon wrapped around my uniform waist.”
Jax later tells Gilly he misses his “partner in crime” to which she blushes. These moments seem to imply a budding romantic connection between the two characters.
Gilly watches Professor Blackbeard put “an arm around” Madame Cleo and then she squeals. Gilly calls this “gross.”

Violence

Alva’s goal is to recruit “an army to help her take over the kingdom of Enchantasia.”
At the FTRS, the students celebrate “Wand What You Want hour” in which they can cast spells on borrowed wands. When she got her wand, Gilly says her wand looked “like it’s seen a few battles.” Her classmates are using spells. One student turns someone into an ice sculpture. She hears “kids . . . cheering and fighting”.
When Gilly and Jax try to leave the school on a magic carpet they are “stunned by an invisible wall” that prevents students from leaving without permission.
The students are in FTRS due to their histories as criminals. Gilly and some of her friends were caught stealing, which warrants their sentence in the reform school.
On Wand What You Want day, Gilly worries “about what [Kayla] could zap next.” There seems to be a history of harmful accidents with the wands, which is why the students are not permitted to use them regularly. Gilly narrates, “every time someone screws up by zapping off their pinkie or growing their nose to three times its size.”
Gilly recognizes that her life consists of “villains . . . trying to kill” her. Gilly and her friends have “kept [their] school from burning down,” thwarting Alva’s plans.
Gilly and Jocelyn, who is a witch, fight using magic. Gilly casts a spell at Jocelyn’s dress, leaving “a burn mark” on her “butt” which hurts. Gilly considers what else she could do, including “turn [Jocelyn] into a toad” and locking “her in a tower.” Instead, after more arguing, Gilly drops a pie on Jocelyn’s head. Jocelyn returns the favor, magically throwing “a piece of pudding pie into [Gilly’s] face” with a “Smack”. The food fight expands when Ollie steps in and gets “a wall of dead fish” smacked in his face, which leaves a slimy trail”. Kayla gets welts when “radishes hit [her] in the head.”
Interrupting the fun at Wand What You Want day, the students hear a loud “KABOOM.” Both Gilly and Jocelyn rush to the site of the explosion. When Gilly makes it to the school and jumps through the magically changing hallways, she lands “right on top of Jocelyn.” The students “drop to the ground just in time to see a cannonball whiz past [their] heads.”
Kayla’s backstory includes being blackmailed into helping the villainous Alva. Kayla’s “whole family was cursed by Alva and turned into a group of trees.”
The Pirates arrive on a ship with flags featuring skull and crossbones. Their ship is damaged from cannon fire after “racing away from the Royal Navy after pillaging the gold taxes the navy had collected from a port.” When they dock, the “pirates begin disembarking, swinging their swords menacingly in the air.” They are carrying “chests full of weapons.”
Jocelyn threatens Gilly with a “small swirl of purple smoke.” As the girls argue, a “fireball hits a pirate on the gangplank” who “yelps” after being struck.
As punishment for their fighting, Professor Blackbeard “grabs Jocelyn and [Gilly] by the backs of [their] uniforms.” He decides to set Gilly and Jocelyn against each other in an in-class duel to “get this aggression out.”
While the students are on the ship, they realize that the pirates are not responsible for the cannon fire when “another cannonball comes whirling toward” them. Alva is behind the attack and she brings her gargoyles with her. The gargoyles surround the ship. Ollie defends the students by “hurling radishes in the air.”
When Gilly and Jocelyn dash for the school, Gilly uses a magic pocket watch to paralyze Jocelyn temporarily. Gilly watches as “a light bursts from the watch and sends Jocelyn flying backward.” While Gilly is analyzing Jocelyn’s new state, another explosion happens “sending rocks and debris raining down on” them. This causes Gilly’s “right leg [to be] pinned under a piece of wall” and Jocelyn to be “stuck under a fallen wooden door.”
When trying to read the manifesto left by Alva, students are “pushing and conjuring spells to move others out of the way.”
Gilly watches a group of students “in full armor starting dragon training against a mechanical dragon that shoots real fire.”
Blackbeard says his “former occupation” was pillaging and plundering. To be more menacing, he also used to tie “fuses to his hair so they’d give off smoke.”
Gilly and Jocelyn are forced to duel. Blackbeard hands them swords, and Gilly thinks “the sheen of the blade” and “the clinking noise” tells her that “those babies are real.” The other students in the room encourage the violence against Jocelyn, saying, “Pummel the witch!” Jocelyn uses magic to send Gilly’s “body [flying] backward, smacking into a pixie and knocking her into Maxine’s hands.” After that, Jocelyn “raises her sword to strike” Gilly, but Gilly rolls out of the way. The fight turns into “the old-fashioned way . . . with name-calling and hair-pulling.” Blackbeard ends it by mummifying them in a sail. The fight is described over 11 pages.
Princess Rose says one of her hobbies includes hunting because “it keeps [her] focused.”
Kayla relays the information, “There’s been an attack on Royal manor. . . Alva sent her gargoyles to tear things up.” The people survived, but Princess Rapunzel “got knocked out when she tried to fight the gargoyles off.”
Gilly explains that “the silver turrets of Royal Manor blind anyone who dares look at them too long.”
Ollie ends up stealing pastries in the village, causing a police chase. He escapes by using a “smoke bomb.” Gilly helps distract the police by sending a Pegasi in the direction of a police officer. Gilly puts an apple cart in the street and the police officer is thrown from his horse. Gilly thinks, “I watch him land on a bag of apples and wince.“
When they return to the school, Gilly says she and her friends “are lined up like [they’re] about to be sent to the gallows.” Gilly thinks, “Blackbeard’s sword looks particularly menacing hanging from his scabbard.” Blackbeard suggests a “walk on the plank” for the rule-breakers. He adds that they could “put a few sharks in the waters” to encourage better behavior.
In the process of being disciplined by the teachers, Gilly and Jocelyn begin to argue again. Gilly narrates, “Jocelyn lunges for me, and Blackbeard extends his sword to keep us both apart.”
Gilly trips over a watermelon, landing on her face and smashing the watermelon with her fall. When Jocelyn laughs, Gilly pulls “on Jocelyn’s skirt and [takes] her down. . . Then I take a piece of watermelon and chuck it at her.”
When the girls leave the hall from which they were spying on Flora, they “smack” into Princess Rose, sending her “flying backward where she lands on her butt.”
Alva’s forces “burned half the village to the ground . . . Villagers were able to get everyone to safety.” Alva left behind another message which says, “Join me or perish.”
A final battle between Gilly and her friends and Alva. Several people are paralyzed by magic, and the gargoyles carry off others. The castle crumbles, raining debris on the students and guests.
Alva uses her ability to transform into an unkillable Wyvern. “Fire engulfs [Alva] completely. Through the flames, I see one leathery green wing, then another, and a spike-covered tail that whips around so fast that it knocks one gargoyle into a wall and squeezes another ’til it shrieks.”
Gilly is burned. She thinks, “I hear the fire before I smell it. The scent of rotting flesh.” She is ultimately okay. The battle is described over 24 pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

While the fruit punch at the RLW meetings is not actually laced with mind-altering drugs, Jax jokingly implies that it may be when he asks Gilly, “How much pink fruit punch have you had at these meetings?”
Several people use gingerroot to magically paralyze someone else. For example, Gilly is given gingerroot and her “legs feel like they’re on fire.”

Language

The students frequently wonder if they or their friends have gone crazy.
The characters occasionally use exclamations including: geez, holy shipwreck, holy gingerbread, thank goodness, fiddlesticks, for the love of fairies, duh, flapjacks, my heavens, and what the gingerbread.
After Jocelyn insults Gilly for her family’s previous inability to “afford pudding,” Gilly makes a pointed statement meant to harm Jocelyn. Gilly says, “. . . you’re an orphan with an evil sister in lockup.”
Blackbeard refers to a woman as a wench.
Harlow calls the students brats.
One student’s mother lovingly calls him Porridge Bottom.
Often, characters call each other names such as liar, silly princess wannabes, peasant, thief, wicked, goons, and a pill.
Gilly tells Jocelyn she’s “as crazy as [her] sister.”
Gilly asks herself if the RLWs are “missing a screw.”
Jocelyn calls Gilly “as pigheaded as the Three Little Pigs.”
Jocelyn tells Gilly, “Don’t act like Humpty Dumpty!”

Supernatural

The book is based on the existence of magic, fairytales, and magical creatures. Many of the characters are magical creatures such as fairies, witches, ogres, living gargoyles, and dwarves.
The students are watched over by a magic mirror, which acts as a looking glass to see people in different locations as well as being alive itself with a voice and personality.
The school has magic hallways that change throughout the day, making the floorplan of the school variable.
The school is also surrounded by a magical barrier that prevents students from escaping.
The headmistress makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin that magically protects the school grounds, though not the students that reside on it.
The characters frequently use or encounter spells in their journey to stop the evil fairy, Alva. Often magic is represented with the sound effect of a quick “zap” followed by the spell’s effects. Jocelyn’s magic appears as purple glow before she uses it. One spell that is used most often is the ability to paralyze other people.
Jocelyn places an irreversible curse on Gilly which turns a strip of her hair purple.
One variation of the paralyzing spell uses a magical pocket watch and the incantation “Houratiempo”.
The students occasionally have access to magic wands which are said to have preprogrammed spells in them. The wands allow the students to do things like conjure food, change outfits, and fly on magic carpets.
Pegasi exist within the text and are frequently ridden by the students. These creatures are said to have the ability to read minds, which is how Gilly is able to calm Macho the Pegasus without saying a word allowed.
The RLW sashes act as mind control tools in the final battle. Everyone who wears one becomes a mindless servant.
Alva has the ability to transform into other creatures. In the final battle, she becomes an unkillable, fire-breathing Wyvern.

Spiritual Content

None

by Jennaly Nolan

Girl From Nowhere

Ninety-four countries. Thirty-one schools. Two bullets. Now it’s over . . . or so she thinks.

Sophia Hepworth has spent her life all over the world–moving quickly, never staying in one place for too long. She knows to always look over her shoulder, to be able to fight to survive at a moment’s notice. She has trained to be ready for anything.

Except this. Suddenly it’s over. Now Sophia is expected to attend high school in a sleepy Montana town. She is told to forget the past, but she’s haunted by it. As hard as she tries to be like her new friends and live a normal life, she can’t shake the feeling that this new normal won’t last.

Then comes strong and silent Aksel, whose skills match Sophia’s, and who seems to know more about her than he’s letting on . . .

What if everything Sophia thought she knew about her past is a lie?

Sophia is an interesting character, whose parents have taught her many survival skills including how to defend herself, even if that means she must take a life. While Sophia’s conflict isn’t relatable, her story takes the reader on a fast-paced ride through many dangerous situations. Along the way, Sophia meets Aksel, which adds romance and gives Sophia a protector. Eventually, Sophia confides in Aksel and explains how after being kidnapped and tortured, she feels as if she is “tainted.” Aksel helps Sophia realize that she’s not defined by what others did to her.

While Sophia and Aksel are teenagers, they do not act like typical teenagers. Instead, Aksel reveals that he has been secretly training to be an undercover agent. While this explains his advanced skills with weaponry and evasion, readers still may have a difficult time believing that Sophia and Aksel could survive an attack from a trained terror group. The conclusion is one bloody confrontation after another and finally ends with a surprise that has a very little emotional impact. Despite this, Sophia’s story is entertaining and suspenseful, and Aksel is a swoon-worthy protagonist.

Readers who love action-packed, secret agent stories will enjoy Girl from Nowhere. Sophia isn’t portrayed as a helpless girl in need of a man to protect her. Instead, she is a strong character who is intelligent and resilient. Readers who love strong characters, conspiracy theories, and a sprinkle of romance, but don’t want the graphic descriptions of violence should read Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter and Endangered: A Death on a Deadline Mystery by Kate Jaimet.

Sexual Content

At a party, Sophia is dancing when Tate “comes up behind me, places his hands on my hips, and sways with me along with the music. . . I elbow him in the chest, right above his second rib.” Then Sophia leaves to line dance with a friend.
From the first time Sophia meets Aksel, she feels drawn to him. “His fingers graze mine, igniting flames across my skin.” Often, Sophia thinks about her reaction to Aksel. She wonders, “Why does being around Aksel make my skin feel like it is perpetually on fire?”
While out with friends, Tate puts his arm around Sophia’s shoulder. Sophia thinks, “Emma once said memories of kissing Ryan Rice in ninth grade give her the ‘heebie-jeebies.’ This is what I feel when Tate puts his arm around me—the heebie-jeebies.”
As Sophia and her friends split up, “Tate slinks his arm around [her] waist.” Tate realizes that he left his keys in the restaurant and leaves Sophia alone.
Sophia and Aksel are exploring the wilderness. Sophia’s snowshoe causes her to stumble. Aksel’s “arm is braced firmly around my waist to keep me from falling. He stares down at me, and my cheeks go blistering hot. . .Aksel’s lips press against mine. His fingertips trace my cheek, my jawline, before returning to the nape of my neck. . . Then our lips are meeting again and every nerve in my body is electrified.”
After Sophia rejects Tate, a rumor goes around that she “hooked up with Tate outside the Creamery, then hooked up with Aksel hours later.”
While swimming, Aksel swims towards Sophia, and “he wraps his large hands around my ankles and stands up in the water. . .Heat spreads like wildfire across my chest and it constricts my airways, like I can’t breathe . . . He outlines my lips with his thumb. He bends forward to kiss me. . .” Aksel stops and asks about a Sophia’s scar.
Sophia and Aksel kiss for the first time. They’re at his house when “his hands entwine my waist, resting on the hollow of my lower back. Gently, he pushes me against a wall. . . An intense heat races throughout my body. . .We kiss until he leans away.” The scene is described over a half-page.
Sophia and Aksel kiss numerous times. For example, “Aksel’s hands slide across my [Sophia’s] neck, slipping down my back. . . flames of heat surge across my throat. I feel his pulse, flush against my chest. Our lips hover. . . He pulls me in, wraps his strong arms around my waist, and kisses me.”

Violence

After being kidnapped, Sophia is home alone when someone breaks into her apartment. She was hiding when “right before he stepped into the kitchen—pop! He slumped to the ground, dead the instant my father’s bullet penetrated the back of his head.”
While walking in the forest, a bear attacks Sophia. “Huffing and grunting, she swats my back, violently rolling me over. My skull hits the dirt. She strikes my thigh fiercely with her paw.” Someone shoots a rifle and the bear runs away.
Sophia has a flashback that makes her panic. When she was younger, her family charted a sailboat when a group of men began chasing them. Sophia’s parents tell her to hide underwater. Her mother says, “No bubbles. You have to stay hidden, and that’s the only place! Now go!”
When the men get close to the sailboat, “gunfire erupted. . .” When Sofia comes up, she sees “four bloodied bodies floating in the water. Facedown.”
While attending school in Africa, the class goes on a safari. While the group was exploring, a truck blockades the road. One of the men gropes Anika and “her brother Peter shouted at him. The rebel hit Peter so hard with his rifle barrel, Peter staggered into the bumper, bleeding from his ear. . .”
One of the rebels shot the driver, who “crumpled onto the dirt, dead.” The rebels killed another adult, but when they went to shoot some of the children, the gun jammed. Sophia describes, “I reached into my boot, pulled out my 5-7, and fired twice. The commander dropped to the ground. A rebel shot Katu, so I shot him too, a double rap into his stomach. . .” The school group race to the hospital, but the fate of the injured adults isn’t known.
While leaving a restaurant, Sophia sees a man who has been following her. The man is standing next to Aksel’s truck, blocking the passenger door. “Abruptly, the man takes a step toward Aksel, like a tiny squirrel provoking a chained dog. Glinting in the man’s hand is the shining, polished edge of a blade. . .” After a short standoff, the man backs down.
Sophia tells Aksel about being kidnapped. While in Istanbul, two women ask Sophia for directions. Sophia “turned in time to see the second woman corner me. Her hand shot out like a viper from the folds of her pleated dress, snatching my wrist with a viselike grip. The first woman threw her shawl over my head, muffling my screams as they dragged me into the alley.”
After the two women restrain Sophia, a man blindfolds her and takes her someplace where she “was tied to a copper pipe jutting out from between the floorboards. . . I was scared. I knew I would be sold to a terror group, or a wealthy buyer. . .” A man finally unties Sophia and questions her. “When I didn’t answer, he touched my cheek and rubbed his hand against my neck . . . That was worse than when he hit me. And he did. . . often. . . he made me bleed.”
While being held captive, a man named Farhad “pulled out a rusty knife and put it next to [Sophia’s] throat.” The man threatened her, “Tell us who your father is or I send him your head.” When Sophia spat in his face, the man cut her, leaving a scar under her chin.”
Sophia was able to get the knife from Farhad. She “swung the knife, cutting him from his forehead to the bottom of his cheek.” Then, Sophia was able to escape. The kidnapping is described over four pages.
Terrorists surround Aksel’s house in an attempt to capture Sophia. One of the men throws a grenade. “The floor-to-ceiling glass windows shatter. The trim erupts in bright flames, splintering shards of wood across the room. We throw ourselves to the floor. Aksel turns midair, landing on top of me, shielding my body.”
The terrorists begin shooting at both Aksel and Sophia. Aksel “fires twice. Both bullets hit a man’s chest. His knees buckle and he drops. Aksel. . . pulls the trigger again. This time he punctures the man’s neck. A geyser of blood sprays across the foyer.”
When some of the terrorists enter the house, “Boom! A flash of bright light, the doors burst open. The force of the exploding thrust me [Sophia] across the room. I land hard on my bleeding leg.” Then “a man lunges for Aksel’s neck. Aksel spins hard around, hitting the butt of his rifle into the man’s face with a bone-crunching sound.”
A man is able to capture Sophia and “holds my arms behind my back and wraps a cable tie around my wrists. . . I throw my head backwards with as much force as I can. Crack! The Chechen lets go of me. . .” Sophia is able to use a knife to cut the man. “The semiautomatic drops from his hands as he tries to stop blood spurting from the neck.” The bloody scene is described over nine pages.
Sophia reads a report about Anton Katranov, who was an undercover spy that worked under Sophia’s father. Sophia’s father, Kent, found Anton “face down on the floor, arms outstretched… behind him were the lifeless bodies of his two boys. And behind them, blocking the entrance to the back bedrooms, lay the crumpled body of Mrs. Katranov.” The deaths are described over two pages.
Sophia gets angry at her parents and sneaks off a train. When Sophia realizes she is being followed, she goes into a crowded club and then tries to leave, undetected. She cuts through an alley and sees, “the bald man. I reverse, but two other men approach from behind me. . . Between them is a girl with long, dark hair, and silver hoops in her ears. . . Now, she stares at me, wide eyed. Petrified. Blood is coagulating around a cut in her eyebrow. Her lip is swollen. . .” Sophia gives herself up, so the men will let go of the girl.
Sophia is thrown into a car, and her ankles are zip-tied. Despite this, she is able to “curl my knees into my chest, pivot to the left, and rocket my legs out from my body. My blunt heels collide with the back of the driver’s head.” The car swerves and crashes. Sophia escapes.
The story concludes with a multi-chapter, extended description of the battle between Sophia, her parents, and the terrorists. Sophia’s father appears out of nowhere and grabs one of the terrorists, Munich Jacket. “Unflinching, my father bends Munich Jacket’s forefinger so far in the wrong direction that the bone snaps in two. . . With a swift swipe of his HK, my father breaks Munich Jackets’ skull.” There is a blood gun battle where many people are killed, including Sophia’s father.
As Sophia runs from the terrorists, she runs across a frozen pond. When the men try to follow, “I turn to see the ice dissolve beneath them too. Their bodies plunge into the frigid water.”
Bakami, the terrorist who wants Sophia, finally captures her. “Bakami slides his hand around the back of my neck and pinches my spine so savagely between his forefinger and thumb I nearly black out. . . Slowly, I tilt my neck back then ram my head forward. My forehead collides into his face with a hard crunch . . . Blood gushes from his nostrils, soaking the collar of his shirt.”
When Sophia continues to talk back to Bakami, he “traces my collarbone with his fingernail. . . with the back of his hand, he swings the weight of his forearm across my jaw. He grips my neck, pinching my esophagus, strangling me.” Bakami points a gun at Sophia, readying to shoot her when, “A gunshot sounds. Followed by another. . . Abramovich [Bakami] crumbles back against the mahogany desk, blood pouring from the silk handkerchief in his pocket.”
Sophia and the secret agents follow the terrorists, who set off a bomb. When Sophia comes to, “my skin is on fire. Hot pieces of metal gash my forearms like fiery embers; they singe my shirt, engulfing the pavement and every nearby surface.” While there are several injuries, no deaths are described.
When the double agent is discovered, Sophia’s mother “grabs Andrews by her lapel, flings her around, and shoves. Andrews tumbles backward out of the plane, sucked into the sky.”

Drugs and Alcohol

When Sophia is injured, she is given an injection of lidocaine.
Sophia’s captor drinks vodka.

Language

Damn is used twice. Sophia’s father tells her, “Stop being obstinate and get on the damn plane.”
One of the terrorists calls Sophia a whore.

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

None

I Am Not Starfire

Mandy Anders is the daughter of Koriand’r/Kory Anders, otherwise known as the superheroine Starfire from Teen Titans. For most of her life, Mandy has lived in the shadow of her mother’s fame as a superheroine, and Mandy’s lack of superpowers only enhances her stress. Kids at school constantly pester her for information on her mom. They look for Mandy’s superpowers. They even theorize about her online. Combine that with high school and it’s easy to say Mandy’s life is a bit of a disaster.

Mandy’s only real friend is a boy named Lincoln, she has a crush on popular girl Claire, and she walked out on her S.A.T which her mother is completely unaware of. After walking out on the test, Mandy has become more distant with her mom. What appears to be a normal, yet rocky mother-daughter relationship devolves into a massive fight over Mandy’s future and her life.

I Am Not Starfire is told from the perspective of Mandy and follows her life at a normal high school in Metropolis until it is upended by the arrival of Blackfire, Starfire’s sister. Readers get to follow Mandy’s emotions as the story progresses, as well as experience her relationship with her mother from her point of view. Mandy’s story centers on learning to not take her mother for granted, understanding the importance of her connection with her mother regardless of her being Starfire the superhero, and taking risks in all manners of life.

Some readers may relate to Mandy’s struggles with school, college, being unsure of what she wants to do in the future, as well as her rocky relationship with her mother. Queer readers will especially relate to Mandy as she has a crush on a female peer, Claire, and her attraction and eventual relationship to Claire is presented as normal– not something that requires a grand “coming out of the closet” moment. However, some may find Mandy’s dialogue and thought process too edgy and sometimes misogynistic. For example, Mandy makes a comment about her mother’s outfits: “She wears less than a yard of fabric to work every day, yet somehow, I’m the one who’s dressing weird.”

I Am Not Starfire has beautiful art that readers will find attractive. The character’s faces are expressive, and the color composition of certain scenes highlights the emotions Mandy feels in that particular moment. Readers may also appreciate the outfits in I Am Not Starfire. Starfire and Blackfire’s outfits are modern, the kind that the targeted audience would recognize, but they are presented in a way that will make them timeless.

I Am Not Starfire is a quick read with simple vocabulary and pretty pictures. Each page has about fifty or fewer words, all of them either in speech bubbles for dialogue, boxes for the characters’ thoughts, or rounded rectangles for text messages. However, I Am Not Starfire doesn’t have a good plot or good character development. While the graphic novel provides a good entrance to the DC universe, it falls flat on its message: the people around you don’t define who you are, and you can be whoever you want to be.

Anyone who is looking to get into its massive and ever-expanding universe will find I Am Not Starfire entertaining. New fans will be incentivized to investigate DC as a whole and learn more about Starfire and the Teen Titans. However, readers who are already fans of DC comics will find this graphic novel very disappointing as it has inaccurate information on Starfire’s powers, goes against DC’s established lore, and overall is written poorly. If you’re looking for a fun, well-written graphic novel with a positive message and an LGBTQ character, Pumpkin Heads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks would be a good choice.

Sexual Content

A guy at school yells from the background, “Hey Mandy! Like your mom’s tits.”
Mandy recalls a summer camp romance experience where she kissed a girl. “I did have this girl who kissed me at camp one summer.”
In a two-page spread, Mandy and her crush, Claire, kiss for the first time.

Violence

When Starfire tells Mandy about her past on Tamaran, she brings up that her sister killed their parents. Their death is not shown. “Our parents…were killed by The Citadel.”
Blackfire and Starfire battle against each other to determine Mandy’s fate. However, Starfire loses to her sister which causes Mandy’s powers to awaken. Mandy fights Blackfire in her mother’s place and wins. The fight lasts for about 16 pages. The illustrations are kid-friendly, and the characters end up with a few scratches and cuts with a little bit of blood.

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

Lincoln calls a group of Teen Titans fans assholes for not respecting Mandy’s boundaries.
Multiple characters often use the word “shit” and other variations of the word. For example, Lincoln says Claire’s friends “are shitty but [Claire] seems okay.”
When Mandy’s mom wants to talk about Mandy’s college plans, Mandy says, “Fuck.”
After Blackfire has knocked out Starfire, Mandy says, “Why don’t you just fuck off and die?!”

Supernatural

While not exactly supernatural, the story features aliens; Starfire is an alien from the planet Tamaran and thus, Mandy herself is an alien. Starfire’s sister, Blackfire, also appears in the book.
The Teen Titans make brief appearances in the book. Beast Boy is a green metahuman (human with powers) who can turn into any kind of animal and Raven is a superheroine who is a Cambion (half human and half demon).

Spiritual Content

None

by Emma Hua

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Thirteen-year-old Charlotte Doyle leaves her boarding school in England to reunite with her family in America. She leaves England a prim and proper lady with a notebook from her father to detail her travels. However, Charlotte quickly discovers that her voyage home is not going to be smooth sailing.

On board The Seahawk, Charlotte fears the majority of the ship’s male crew, including the lone black man Zachariah, who gives her a knife the first time they meet. He warns Charlotte to keep the knife for protection, as “she might need it.” This is the first hint that things aboard The Seahawk aren’t all they seem, but Charlotte’s determined to keep her ladylike composure, especially in front of Captain Jaggery. Jaggery is a refined and educated man, unlike his crew, which prompts a friendship between him and Charlotte. Yet, Charlotte wonders if something more is awry when Jaggery asks that Charlotte become his “informant” and report any talk of rebellion to him.

After her promise, Charlotte discovers that the crew intends to mutiny. When Charlotte reports the threat, Jaggery responds with violence, killing some of the sailors including Zachariah. Suddenly, Charlotte’s journey turns into one of atonement. To fill the gap left by the now dead sailors, Charlotte joins the crew. Then, during a hurricane, the first mate is found with Charlotte’s knife in his chest. After a trial by Jaggery (who now scorns Charlotte because she has sided with the crew), Charlotte is proclaimed guilty, even though she didn’t commit the crime.

In the end, it’s discovered that Zachariah lived through his beating. He helps Charlotte create a plan to rid the ship of Jaggery and prove her innocence. They discover that it was Jaggery who murdered the first mate as a ploy to get rid of Charlotte, whom he hates for being an “unnatural” girl. Charlotte is able to dispatch Jaggery and sail home as a young captain with Zachariah by her side. However, her greatest conflict is the one she faces back on American soil, when her father burns her journal and forces her to be a “lady” again. Charlotte runs away from home when she remembers the words Zachariah once told her: “A sailor chooses the wind that takes the ship from a safe port. . . but winds have a mind of their own.”

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is a thrilling and detailed story for young adults. The book is told from Charlotte’s perspective, and she is a compelling narrator. At first, she’s somewhat difficult to like because she’s stuck in her ways, but the reader will sympathize with her desire to do what is right despite the criticism she faces as a woman. While it is unlikely something like Charlotte’s story ever happened at the time, the story is realistic in the context of the era – such as the behavior of the characters, the dialogue, and the use of religion. The end of the book also includes a glossary of ship terms which the author uses for the reader to feel as if they’re on board a ship just like Charlotte is. The overarching message of this story is to follow one’s own path, even in the face of adversity, and Charlotte is a character that embodies that until the end.

Sexual Content

Ewing, one of the crew, kisses Charlotte on the cheeks to say goodbye.

Violence

Zachariah gives Charlotte a knife for protection.
Charlotte uses the knife to scare an animal. “I heard a sound. I looked across the cabin. A rat was sitting on my journal, nibbling at its spine. Horrified, I flung the dirk at it.” The rat runs off.
Zachariah describes a past incident where Captain Jaggery punished one of the crew for not tying a knot properly. “Captain Jaggery said Mr. Cranick’s laboring arm was his by rights. Miss Doyle, Mr. Cranick has but one arm now. He was that much beaten by Captain Jaggery, who, as he said himself, took the arm.”
Captain Jaggery shows Charlotte that he keeps guns in his cabin.
Charlotte describes Jaggery’s violent behavior. “If provoked sufficiently, the captain might resort to a push or a slap with his own open hand. . . I saw him strike Morgan with a belaying pin, one of the heavy wood dowels used to secure a rigging rope to the pin rail. In dismay, I averted my eyes. The fellow was tardy about reefing a sail, the captain said and went on to catalog further likely threats. Confinement in the brig. Salary docking. No meals. Lashing. Dunking in the cold sea or even keelhauling, which, as I learned, meant pulling a man from one side of the ship to the other – under water.”
Charlotte finds a gun in one of the crew member’s chests. Another man, Morgan, who catches her, threatens her so she won’t tell the captain. “He lifted a hand, extended a stiletto like a forefinger, and drew it across his own neck as if cutting A spasm of horror shot through me. He was – in the crudest way – warning me about what might happen to me if I took my discovery to the captain.”
Captain Jaggery kills a crew member, who tries to start a mutiny. “Captain Jaggery fired his musket. The roar was stupendous. The ball struck Cranick square in the chest. With a cry of pain and mortal shock he dropped his sword and stumbled backward into the crowd. They were too stunned to catch him, but instead leaped back so that Cranick fell to the deck with a sickening thud. He began to groan and thrash about in dreadful agony, blood pulsing from his chest and mouth in ghastly gushes.”
Captain Jaggery has Zachariah whipped for starting the unsuccessful mutiny. The first mate “turned Zachariah so that he faced into the shrouds, then climbed up into these shrouds and with a piece of rope bound his hands, pulling him so that the old man was all but hanging from his wrists, just supporting himself on the tips of his bare toes. . . I turned to look at Captain Jaggery. Only then did I see that he had a whip in his hands.”
Jaggery says that the first mate, Mr. Hollybrass, will give Zachariah 50 lashes. “Hollybrass lifted his arm and cocked it . . .with what appeared to be the merest flick of his wrist, the whip shot forward; its tails hissed through the air and spat against Zachariah’s back. The moment they touched the old man’s skin, four red welts appeared. . .” Hollybrass continues to whip Zachariah.
Charlotte begs the Captain to make it stop. When Captain Jaggery refuses, Charlotte whips him. “He took another step toward me. In a gesture of defense, I pulled up my arm, and so doing flicked the whip through the air, inflicting a cut across the captain’s face. For an instant a red welt marked him from his left cheek to his right ear. Blood began to ooze. . . When [Captain Jaggery] saw they were bloody he swore a savage oath, jumped forward and tore the whip from my hand, whirled about and began beating Zachariah with such fury as I had never seen.” Later, Charlotte sees the sailors dump a hammock overboard, which is said to contain Zachariah’s dead body.
After Charlotte joins the crew, Captain Jaggery punishes her. “He struck me across the face with the back of his hand, then turned and walked away.”
Charlotte finds Mr. Hollybrass’s body after he’s been killed. “A knife was stuck in his back, plunged so deeply only the scrimshaw handle could be seen. I recognized the design. . .This was the dirk Zachariah had given me.”
Charlotte is accused of murdering Mr. Hollybrass since the knife belongs to her. Captain Jaggery threatens to hang her if she can’t prove who killed him.
After Charlotte realizes that Captain Jaggery has killed Mr. Hollybrass, he chased her with a pistol to kill her. Jaggery chases Charlotte out to the bow, where he falls into the sea and drowns.

Drugs and Alcohol

One of the sailors, Morgan, has a tobacco pouch.

Language

Charlotte describes the sailors as “men recruited from the doormat of Hell.”
Captain Jaggery says that the men on the ship are unable to understand kindness. He says, “they demand a strong hand, a touch of the whip, like dumb beasts who require a little bullying.” He also calls the crew, “the dirtiest, laziest dogs” and “a poor set of curs.”
When Charlotte tells Jaggery that she suspects a mutiny, Jaggery says, “why the devil did you not tell me before?”
Captain Jaggery shouts, “damn you!” once.

Supernatural

Charlotte considers that Zachariah might’ve appeared to her as a ghost or an angel.

Spiritual Content

References to God, the Bible, and Heaven occur occasionally throughout the text. Captain Jaggery occasionally has a Bible with him, and a church service is held on the ship on Sundays, where Charlotte reads passages from the Bible to the crew. Captain Jaggery sometimes refers to himself as a Christian. “And was ever a Christian more provoked than I?”
Zachariah compares God to a ship’s captain. “When a ship is upon the sea, there’s but one who rules. As God is to his people, as king is to his nation, as father to his family, so is captain to his crew.”
After Cranick’s death, Zachariah wishes to give him a funeral, but Captain Jaggery wants him thrown overboard. Zachariah says, “Even a poor sinner such as he should have his Christian service.” Captain Jaggery replies, “I want that dog’s carcass thrown over.”
Charlotte feels responsible for what happened to the crew and Zachariah since she revealed their plot. She prays to God for forgiveness.
During Charlotte’s trial, each man swears on the Bible to tell the truth.
Zachariah tells Charlotte an old saying, “the Devil will tie any knot, save the hangman’s noose. That Jack does for himself.”

by Madison Shooter

Exile

Sophie is settling in nicely to her new home and her new life in the world of the lost cities. And it helps that living at Havenfield means getting to spend time with rare, precious species—including the first female Alicorn– who shows herself to Sophie and trusts only her.

Sophie is tasked with helping to train the magical creature so that the Alicorn can be revealed to the people of the lost cities as a sign of hope. Sophie wants to believe that the recent drama and anguish are gone for good.

But the secrets buried deep in Sophie’s memories remain, and before long, she’s back in incredible danger, risking everything to find the answers to questions that could save not only her life but the life of someone close to her…

From the first page, Exile jumps into action and takes the reader on an adventure through the elf’s world. The story focuses on the mystery of the Black Swan and Sophie’s unique talents—telepathy, teleportation, understanding all languages, and being able to perform a brain push. The intrigue around Sophie’s beginnings adds danger, suspense, and mystery. The moments between Sophie and her friends also give the story added depth as well as blush-worthy awkward boy scenes. As the narrator, Sophie draws the reader into her life and highlights the dangers of guilt. One councilman tells Sophie, “Guilt is a treacherous thing. It creeps in slowly, breaking you down bit by bit.”

Exile is extremely entertaining, but the complicated plot, the large cast of characters, and the political intrigue make Exile more suitable for strong, middle-school readers. Scenes between Sophie and a high-maintenance unicorn add humor and glitter to the story. Sophie’s friends—who don’t always get along with each other—give the story heart. The heartwarming conclusion leaves several questions unanswered, which will have readers reaching for the next book in the series, Everblaze. However, readers should be warned, that Sophie’s adventures will draw you into the action and leave you wanting to read every book in the series, which has 8.5 books (and counting).

Sexual Content

None

Violence

When a man sees Sophie’s family pendant, “He lunged for her. Sophie shrieked and tried to block him, but he pinned her shoulders to her chair with one arm while his other hand tore at her cape.” Sophie is scared, but not injured.
Fintan creates a fire. “Flashes of orange thrashed among the yellow flames, and Fintan stumbled to his feet, realizing they were the figures of his friends. . . All he could do was watch their agonized faces as the fire attacked. Then he dropped to his knees and vomited.”
While performing a brain push, Alden and Sophie are injured when “a wave of heat shot up Alden’s arm, burning Sophie’s hand. . .” Alden falls to the floor. “Alden lay unconscious, a large gash on his forehead streaking his face red.”
By using his power, Bronte inflicts pain on Sophie. “The harder Sophie tried to fight the heat, the hotter it burned. . . Sophie screamed and felt her body collapse as the searing heat raged through her mind like an inferno.” Sophie takes a serum that makes it so she “couldn’t feel, couldn’t think, just lay there and soaked up the freedom of being so light, so calm, so completely unburdened.”
A group of cloaked people throws a net over Sophie, Keefe, and the Alicorn. “Keefe aimed at the figure who was armed, but before he fired, one of the other figures nailed Keefe in the head with a rock. The melder slipped from his hand. . .” Keefe uses a throwing star and “the silver blades clipped the figures shoulder, tearing his cloak and making him drop his end of the net.” During the struggle, the Alicorn’s wing is broken.

Drugs and Alcohol

Several times, Sophie is given serums called “Achey Break,” “Fade Fuel,” and another one called “Youth.” When she drinks the Achey Break, “it rushed through her like warm bubbles floating into all the places she’d felt sore.” The water had a special enzyme that helped keep everyone healthy.
Alden geos into an unconscious state and is given sedatives to keep him from thrashing.
When Sophie is upset, a healer gives her a “salty medicine.” After she takes it, “the room didn’t just become clearer—it became brighter. Lighter. Things weren’t so bad, really. How could they be when there was this cool rush racing through her, filling her with life and energy and lifting her higher. . .”
A dwarf gives Sophie a sedative so he can take her to a secret location.

Language

Other elves call Sophie a freak.
One of the council members calls Sophie’s adoptive parents “two of the world’s most scandalous misfits.” Later, a council member calls Sophie’s adoptive father an “insolent fool.”
Several times, a boy calls his brother an idiot.
One of Sophie’s friends asks, “Ugh, how do I apologize for being the hugest jerk ever?”

Supernatural

Sophie is an elf with many powers including teleportation and understanding all languages. In addition, “Sophie was the only Telepath who could track thoughts to their exact location—and the only one who could read the minds of animals.”
Sophie uses a “brain push” that allows her to channel “energy from her core into her legs” so she can run faster.
In the elf world, some elves use a crystal to “light leap” to another location. For example, Sophie “stepped into the light, letting the warmth swell under her skin like thousands of tickling feathers as the simmering rush swept her and the alicorn away.”
A spectral mirror has a girl in it. Sophie is told the mirror works because of “a clever bit of programming.”
Sophie’s adoptive mother, Edaline can “pull things out of thin air.”
Sophie’s adoptive father, Grady, is a Mesmer. He says, “I could make anyone do anything they needed. I could mesmerize the entire Council if I wanted to, make them sight any law into effect. I could make them all jump off a cliff if I felt like it.”
One of Sophie’s classmates says her special ability will “probably be a Guster like my dad. Controlling the wind—whoop-de-fricking-do.”
Dwarves mine a mineral called magsidian. “It has an inherent field that draws things to it, and you can change what it draws by how you carve it.”

Spiritual Content

None

Terra-Cotta Soldiers: Army of Stone

Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, China’s first emperor, was not a popular ruler. Despite this, he was able to unify China’s seven states. He also passed laws to standardize written languages, currencies, weights, and measurements. While these laws helped China build strong trade, Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi is best known for his tomb which is guarded by terra-cotta soldiers. The tomb has about eight thousand terra-cotta statues, including individual soldiers and their horses. Terra-Cotta Soldiers: Army of Stone describes the archaeological discovery of thousands of life-sized terracotta warrior statues in northern China in 1974 and discusses the emperor who had them created and placed near his tomb.

Terra-Cotta Soldiers: Army of Stone will appeal to reluctant readers for several reasons. The text is printed in large font and is broken into small, manageable parts. Most of the two-page spreads have text on one side of the page and a large picture on the other side of the page. Readers will be captivated by the pictures of the soldiers and the paintings of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi. Throughout the book, there are also two to three sentences describing some of the artifacts found in the tomb. The end of the book has a glossary as well as a short list of other books that readers may want to explore.

Anyone who is interested in history will enjoy Terra-Cotta Soldiers: Army of Stone because the text is both engaging and easy to read. The book includes an interesting mix of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s cruelty and the emperor’s positive impact on China. The pictures of the terra-cotta soldiers are breathtaking and the history behind them will fascinate readers. Whether you’re writing a research paper or just interested in history, Terra-Cotta Soldiers: Army of Stone is an excellent book to start with because even though the book packs in a lot of facts, it doesn’t read like a history book.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s army “used deadly weapons such as crossbows that shot arrows with poisoned tips. . . If a soldier brought back the head of an enemy, he was given money or a higher position in the army or government.”
Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi made Confucianism illegal. “He burned all books about Confucianism. Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi also had hundreds of Confucian scholars killed by burying them alive.”
After Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s death, the peasant class “rose up against the new emperor, Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s son. . . They looted and burned all of the government buildings as well as Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s great palaces.” The tomb was the only thing that survived the uprising.
Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s wanted his tomb to be safe from grave robbers. “Mechanical crossbows were set up to shoot arrows at anyone who dared to break into the tomb. Then the men who set up the crossbows were buried along with the emperor. . . Women from Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s court were also buried alive in the tomb to provide the emperor with companions in the afterlife.”

Drugs and Alcohol

None

Language

None

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi was not a popular ruler. One reason is that he drafted citizens from all parts of the empire to build his tomb. They were told that they had to be involved in building Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s tomb in order to get to heaven.”

Battle of the Ampere

After sacrificing himself for the successful destruction of the Starxource plant, Michael is lost in the Peruvian rainforest. He’s rescued by a group of natives named the Amacarra tribe, who are also sheltering another one of Hatch’s electric children: Tessa. From Tessa, Michael learns that the Elgen have a fleet of boats, including the Ampere, where the head of the Elgen corporation resides. Michael’s next goal is to track down Hatch who lived through the destruction of the plant and seized control of the Ampere which is his new base of command. But first, Michael must reunite with the Electroclan if he wants to have any hope of taking Hatch down.

Battle of the Ampere is broken into three parts. The first part follows Michael and Tessa’s journey through the jungle with Jaime, their guide, who works for the unnamed resistance against the Elgen corporation. The resistance is headed by someone who Michael calls “the voice.” The voice wants the Electroclan to sink the Ampere to put a stop to Hatch’s plans.

The second part of the book details the fate of the remaining Electroclan members. The Peruvian government declared the Electroclan terrorists after the destruction of the Starxource plant left much of Peru without electricity. It’s up to Michael and Tessa to rescue them from prison.

Lastly, the book covers the sinking of the Ampere, which puts a dent in Hatch’s plans. Unfortunately for the Electroclan, Hatch still escapes with his life and the other electric children. This book is an important read because the Electroclan is tested in ways it hasn’t been before: losing one of its members. Wade dies during the group’s escape from the Peruvian army. Michael reflects that “Grief is a powerful force that settles in the heart like a dark, heavy fog.” The group certainly feels the weight of grief as they split up; some of them choose to return home rather than continue to risk their lives to sink the Ampere. Michael says that the split hurts him, “not just because I was losing my friends, but because deep inside I really wanted to go home with them.” Even though the decision is hard, Michael still chooses to do what he thinks is right.

Things look especially grim at the climax of the novel when Hatch locks the Electroclan in the engine room of the Ampere. The group decides to ignite the bomb they have with them, sacrificing themselves so that they can sink the ship and take Hatch down with them. However, at the last moment, they are rescued by other members of the Electroclan who decided not to return home after all. Upon reuniting, Abigail says to Michael, “You said not to regret my decision. I couldn’t. If something had happened to you, I would have regretted it the rest of my life.”

Battle of the Ampere is darker than the last installment, but it highlights a worthwhile message of sticking by loved ones even when the odds are against you. When the Electroclan wants to give up, Michael emphasizes that they should not let Wade die in vain by letting the Elgen win. The story addresses the grief that comes with losing friends, but it also shows how to preserve their memory. At the end of Battle of the Ampere, Hatch escapes once again, but the Electroclan have learned an invaluable lesson: they are stronger together than apart.

Sexual Content

Taylor and Michael reunite, they kiss. Michael runs to her. They “hugged, then she pressed her lips against mine.” When they kiss again, someone says, “Get a room.”
When Jack and Abi say goodbye, they kiss. Abi, “leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Then she looked intensely into his eyes, then kissed him on the mouth.”

Violence

During their trek through the forest, Michael and Tessa are caught by Elgen guards, who torture them with RESATs (devices that are made to paralyze the children’s electricity). Michael narrates, “Out of my peripheral vision, I could see them cuffing Tessa’s hands as well. She was still crying but not struggling. She looked as if she was having difficulty breathing. The RESAT was set way too high for her.”
Jaime is also captured. Michael says, “With some effort I looked over at Jaime. He was so still I wondered if he was dead. . . But they tranquilized him. The Elgen only killed when their foe had no value. Jaime had value. They would torture him. They would break him and learn about the voice.”
To kill the guards holding them hostage, Michael activates a sentry gun. Michael says, “I got the remote in my hands and moved it around in my fingers. As the first guard reached me, I pressed the button. The entire campsite exploded with machine gun fire. . . I closed my eyes until the firing stopped, the stench of smoke falling low to the ground. . . I dared not even move my head enough to look around to see if anyone was left. . . The Elgen guards were lying all around me, but no one was moving. I looked back at Tessa. She was shaking. She tried to speak but couldn’t. She was drenched with sweat and her blouse looked as if she had showered in it. The RESAT was set way too high. I was worried that if I couldn’t get it turned off soon that it might stop her heart.”
The Electroclan (minus Michael and Tessa) attempt to escape from prison in a van driven by Peruvians, but they are caught. Jack is shot in the process. “The transport veered off the road and everyone bounced around in the back. Bullets tore through the front and side windows of the cab, ripping apart the front of the van. A stray bullet hit Jack in the arm . . . As they lay there, dozens of Peruvian soldiers surrounded the vehicle. Soldiers pulled open the front door of the van, then dragged the bodies of the traitorous soldiers out of the cab. ‘Están muertos.’ [They’re dead].”
On board the Ampere, the Elgen council votes to execute Hatch. He attacks them by using the electric children who are still loyal to him. “The corridor lights flickered. Then the lights at the end of the hall went dark. . . both guards drew their weapons, the first a submachine gun, the second a Colt sidearm. Suddenly the second guard dropped his handgun and began screaming. His face was red and he was violently shaking his hands in the air. ‘My hands! They’re burning!’ Then, the first guard also threw his gun to the floor and fell to his knees, pulling off his boots…” The two guards lay on the ground writhing and screaming with pain.
The kids continue to abuse the guards before locking them in the ship’s brig. Quentin makes the guards strip down to their underwear even though they’ve been burned. Torstyn orders one to crawl inside the cell. “The guard hurriedly pulled down his slacks, screaming as they brushed against his feet. Then he crawled into the cell, whimpering.”
When a hostage board member tries to grab a gun, Hatch throws him out of a window. “The guards lifted the man and threw him out. The sound of his screaming could be heard until a distant splash ended it.”
The guards also hurt head chairman Schema on Hatch’s orders. “The captain walked up to Schema and pulled him out of his chair, forcing him to kneel, then kicked him in the stomach. Schema gasped, then fell to his side, coughing fiercely. . . Hatch turned around and said, ‘Captain of the guard, I want former chairman Schema hung upside down by his feet.’” Later, while drunk, Hatch visits Schema. Schema “had been hanging for more than three hours and was unconscious. There was a pool of vomit on the floor beneath him.”
Michael, Tessa, and Jaime work together to stop a Peruvian convoy that is transporting the rest of the Electroclan to trial. Michael attacks the soldiers with lightning. Michael makes a ball of lightning and “lobbed it into the truck’s cab. There was a flash of blue light, then the sound of a head hitting the dashboard.”
Mercenaries use the attack on the Peruvian convoy to capture Jack and Taylor for ransom money. A few of the men argue over how to split the money. One of men pulls out a gun. “The Australian [mercenary] drew first and shot him twice. Then he shot the man next to him. The other three men put their hands in the air as smoke rose up from the campsite.”
Wade is killed in the escape. “Jack was kneeling on the ground holding Wade in his arms. There was blood everywhere. As we got to Jack’s side, he was pressing down on Wade’s abdomen. Blood was rising up between his fingers. Wade was shaking and his skin was pale and waxlike.”
Michael reflects on Wade’s death. “Time seemed frozen, disjoined like broken sequences cut out of a horror movie. Jack’s hands and torso were drenched in blood and he was screaming in anguish. . . During it all, one of the guards woke and began shouting at us to let him go.”
After Wade dies, Michael walks over to a guard. “When [the guard] saw the fierce anger on my face his own expression turned from anger to fear. I had to control myself so that I only shocked him unconscious. Then Zeus and I dragged him out of the clearing into the jungle, crammed leaves into his mouth, and tied his shirt around his face to keep him from making any more noise. We were doing it for his benefit. In Jack’s current state he would gladly silence him permanently. Then, Zeus, Ian, and I dragged the other guards into the jungle. There was no need to tie up the guard who had shot wade. He hadn’t survived Zeus’s blast.”
Taylor informs Michael that Jack intends to “go down when we sink the Ampere.” Jack refers to their mission as “a suicide mission” a few times, reflecting his wish to die when they sink the ship. Michael tells Jaime, “[Jack] blames himself for Wade’s death. Taylor told me she read his mind and he’s not expecting to survive the attack. It’s like he’s just accepted this is going to be a suicide mission.”
Jack cuts Wade’s initials into his arm. “Jack walked into the kitchen. His arm was covered with blood. . . He held up his wound. He had a cut a jagged line on his forearm below his tattoo.”
After the group infiltrates the Ampere, Michael finds the aftermath of Hatch’s torture of the board members: “Two of the cells were occupied. One had an Elgen guard lying unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood. The other was jammed full of people, with a woman hanging upside down against the bars, her long hair touching the floor.” The woman has died.
Taylor reboots someone too hard. “The man screamed out with pain, fell to one knee, then to his side, crying out as he hit the floor.” Ostin tells Taylor that she probably gave the man an aneurysm.
After sinking the Ampere, the Electroclan celebrates Wade’s birthday. Taylor reads a post from a blog Wade kept. The blog says, “Today, my grandmother hit me again. She bashed me like a hundred times with a wooden spoon, and then with a tennis racquet. I have cuts and bruises all over. It takes all I have not to just haul off and knock her one, but I know they’ll throw me in jail if I do. The last time I stood up to her she called the police, and when they came she acted like a sweet old lady who got stuck with a low-life juvie… Sometimes I feel like this crummy world is completely stacked against me and I want to give up.”
Wade writes about Jack’s history in his blog too. “Jack’s been dealt a bad hand too. His old man’s an alcoholic. His mom left him, and one of his brothers is a drug head and in prison, but Jack never gives up and he never complains. . . If it wasn’t for him, I probably would have just ended it a long time ago.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Hatch and the kids drink alcohol in a toast to their future successes. Hatch gets drunk and visits Schema in the brig, but Schema is unconscious.

Language

The Australian mercenary calls a few of his men “wankers” and “bloody crook[s]” for being cowards and wanting more money.
After the Electroclan escapes to a nearby town, the townspeople recognize them and surround them because they still believe they are terrorists. Ostin calls it, “a freakin’ lynch mob.”
Ostin tells Hatch that he is “a skid mark on the underwear of humanity.”

Supernatural

There are seventeen electric children in the series. Each one has a different electricity-related power including the ability to create light, heat, magnetism, or lightning. Others can interfere with electrical equipment. Some of the kids can manipulate electrical signals within the body that allow them to read minds, take away pain, and create emotional responses such as fear. For example, Michael can make his body electric and is able to absorb the energy from the other children and concentrate it into lightning he can pulse and throw. Taylor can read minds due to electrical brain signals. Ian is blind and uses electro-location to see through walls and solid objects.
Tessa, another one of the electric children, meets Michael in the rainforest. Unlike Michael, she amplifies electricity rather than taking it away.
The Amarcarra people believe Dr. Hatch is a Chullanchaqui. Tessa explains, “The natives believe the Chullanchaqui is a demon who lives in the Amazon jungle. It appears as a friend and lures people off into the jungle where they are never heard from again.”
The Peruvian people have a similar distrust in the electric children. “Rumors spread quickly through the Peruvian military force that eight teenagers they were hunting in the jungle were more than just young terrorists. They were part of an occult group called the Electroclan and workers of black magic – a rumor that gained credence when it was discovered that some of them actually glowed in the dark.”

Spiritual Content

Hatch says, “Fate is an excuse for people who are too stupid or too weak to make their own future.” Later he adds, “You can’t fight destiny.”
Hatch and Quentin talk about the Bible. Hatch says, “It’s fabulous fiction, really. Hogwash, of course, rubbish and drivel. But every now and then, the writers got it right. Did you know that it prophesizes of us?”
Hatch quotes the Bible, “And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. . . The dragon gave the beast his power, his throne, and great authority. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.” Hatch thinks “the seven heads and ten horns, the number seventeen, represents the seventeen electric children. And the dragon gave them their power, as I have given you yours. Just as I will give you thrones and great authority. And the people of the world shall fear you and they shall worship me.”
When they bury Wade, “Ostin fashioned a small cross from tree branches.”
An innkeeper who shelters the Electroclan says, “I will pray to the Virgin Mary for your safety.”
Michael is worried that Jack wants to commit suicide. Michael says, “I don’t know what to do when someone loses hope.” Jaime replies, “you pray for them.”

by Madison Shooter

Climbing Everest

The peak of Mount Everest is the highest place on Earth—and one of the deadliest. Terrible storms stop climbers in their tracks. Avalanches crush everything in their way. Brave adventurers disappear on the snowy slopes. Despite this, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay decided to climb. They come from different cultures, but their dream is the same. Can their teamwork help them make it to the roof of the world?

Everest’s story begins with George Leigh Mallory, who was born in 1886. Mallory attempted to climb Everest many times and although people believe he reached the summit, he died while climbing the mountain. However, Mallory was not the last to climb. Climbing Everest describes the different people who tried to make it to the top of the world.

In order to explain why some of the explorers wanted to climb Everest, the book focuses on the main climbers. This allows readers to understand each person’s motivation behind climbing Everest. Some of the words come directly from the explorers’ personal letters and writings which adds interest to the story. Through the climbers’ stories, readers will be awed by the climbers’ dedication, grit, and ability to survive in harsh conditions.

Climbing Everest uses short chapters and easy vocabulary which makes the book accessible to reluctant readers. Large black and white illustrations appear every 3 to 7 pages and show the mountain and the mountain climbers. The end of the book includes records set at Everest, a map of the climbers’ camps, and other interesting facts. While the book is easy enough for young fluent readers, the content will be interesting to older readers of all ages.

Today, more than 300 people have died attempting to reach Everest’s summit. Climbing Everest chronicles the first explorers who dared to reach earth’s highest peak. Their stories explain the difficulties of reaching the summit as well as the teamwork involved. Even though the book is nonfiction, readers will have a hard time putting it down. Readers who are interested in mountain climbing will also want to read Peak, the first book in the Peak Marcello Adventure Series.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

Mallory’s body was found years after his death. He was “lying face down in the snow. His feet were pointed toward the mountain base. His arms were outstretched as if trying to stop a fall. He had a broken leg, broken ribs, and a broken shoulder.”

Drugs and Alcohol

During the 1922 expedition, the climbers brought cases of champagne so “they could celebrate their success once they reached the top.”

Language

None

Supernatural

None

Spiritual Content

On their trip to Mount Everest, the climbers stopped at the Rongbuk Monastery. “Sherpas, and many other people from the region, followed the Buddhist religion. . . The paths of the monastery were lined with stones, and the stones had prayers carved into them.”
When Edward North and his expedition went to the monastery, “he asked the head lama to give a special blessing to the Sherpas.” The lama “held a silver prayer wheel to each man’s head. By doing this, he gave the climbers a blessing.”
One of the Sherpas was “a little scared” of going to the summit because “his Buddhist religion taught him that gods and demons lived in the mountains. They were sacred places, to worship and to protect.” Later Tenzing “left gifts for the mountain gods—sweets, and the pencil his daughter had given him.”

Ascent

In the third installment of Peak’s climbing adventures, Peak Marcello and his friends, Alessia and Ethan, go to Myanmar to climb the isolated mountain, Hkakabo Razi. However, the jungles of Myanmar might prove to be more treacherous than the climb itself. But if anyone is good at getting out of trouble, it’s Peak.

Ascent begins Peak’s Myanmar adventure that takes him on a four-week trek through the rainforest. Peak’s descent down Hkakabo Razi is detailed in the fourth book, Descent. Ascent maintains much of the same cast and includes rock climbing and run-ins with local governments in countries that have histories of civil unrest.

Characters from the first book also make a surprise reappearance in the latter half of the book, including Peak’s biological father, Josh Wood, who is a famous mountaineer and Zopa, the Tibetan monk. Peak’s relationship with Josh continues to grow. Peak is also enormously happy to see Zopa, who rarely reveals his secrets and is always the smartest person on the mountaintop. In this sense, the end of Ascent harkens back to the events on Mount Everest in Peak.

Much of the book takes place in the jungle at the base of Hkakabo Razi. The group encounters corrupt military officials, language barriers, wildlife, and a murderer on the run from the Burmese government. The actual mountaineering is near the end of the book, when they finally make it out of the jungle.

The traumatic events that occurred in The Edge are addressed, in part, in Ascent. Ascent is less intense than The Edge generally. These books should be read in order, for comprehension’s sake. Readers familiar with this series will find their expectations met when it comes to the intensity and graphic nature of the violence. Much like the previous book, Peak doesn’t experience the violence himself, but he does hear about it secondhand.

Ascent is a good continuation to Peak’s adventures and the characters’ development. Although this book moves at a slower pace than the previous two, it sets up the intense action in Descent. Fans of Peak’s adventures will be glad to see old faces reintegrated into the mix and will welcome the new additions. Ascent certainly presents an exciting first half to this two-part portion of Peak’s story, and it will be interesting to see what unfolds for Peak and his friends next.

Sexual Content

Peak and Alessia are dating. Peak talks about his feelings for her, saying, “I guess I am in love with her. And I think that she feels the same way about me.”
At several points in the book, Peak “kisses [Alessia].” It is never more than a quick peck.

Violence

A Burmese guide named Lwin killed an owl “with his slingshot and ate it.”
Lwin has a timber elephant named Nagathan, and Lwin tells Alessia, Ethan, and Peak that Nagathan has killed several people. This turns out to be false; it was Lwin himself, who killed those people. Alessia, Ethan, and Peak discover this when soldiers find them in the forest and inform them of the situation.
Nagathan trampled Lwin, killing him. Peak and his friends only hear reports about the state of Lwin’s body. Major Thakin, who oversees the soldiers, says that Lwin “was unrecognizable as a human. The forest animals had been feeding on what was left of him for a couple of days. It was too dark to search for remains last night, so the soldiers camped near the crime scene. This morning they searched the area and found a foot, two fingers, and a bloody longyi [pouch] up in a tree.” This description lasts for a few paragraphs.
Lwin, who turns out to be alive, tries to take Alessia hostage. Alessia uses the mixed martial arts that Ethan taught her to flip Lwin and break his foot and hand. Peak describes, “There was a loud snap, like a dry stick being broken, and then an unconscious Lwin was lying on the ground and Alessia was holding his [hunting knife] to his neck.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Peak and his friends end up in a bustling town in the middle of the jungle. In it, there are stands selling “animal parts, skins, rubies, and opium.”
Nick and Ethan have cold beers when invited to dinner by a man named Mr. Chin, while Alessia and Peak drink lemonade.

Language

Light language is used somewhat often. Language includes: crap, fool, damn, crazy, stupid, and weird.
Nick, the resident botanist of Peak’s group, says, “Good lord” when a young girl in a village runs up to him and shows him a dismembered monkey’s foot.
As Alessia’s bodyguard, Ethan has been teaching Alessia mixed martial arts. Ethan says to Peak, “She can kick your ass.” Later, after Ethan hears that Alessia defended herself against Lwin without an issue, Ethan says, “I told you she could kick your ass.”
A cameraman named Zack says, “Oh my God” when Peak tells him how Ethan was injured.

Supernatural

Ethan has a single spoon that he’s used during his journeys on all seven continents. He refers to it as his “magic spoon.”
Ethan mentions that he saw “a ghost” in the middle of the night. Peak responds that he doesn’t believe in ghosts, and Ethan replies, “Yeah, me neither. Let’s take a look.” They find that there are footprints, and Peak says, “I don’t think ghosts leave footprints.” They discover that Lwin probably faked his own death and has been following them.
Peak tells Nick the ghost/Lwin theory. Nick responds that he thinks it’s just a ghost. Nick says, “The forest is filled with spirits and ghosts . . . I’m surprised it took Ethan this long to spot one.”

Spiritual Content

Zopa is a monk and sometimes gives blessings to passing porters, hikers, and climbers.
Peak survives being buried in an avalanche. Josh calls him “lucky,” and Zopa calls it “karma.”
When a helicopter finally shows up in the forest, Alessia says, “Thank God.” Peak responds, “Amen to that.”

by Alli Kestler

A New Beginning

Will Treaty has come a long way from the small boy with dreams of knighthood. Life had other plans for him, and as an apprentice Ranger under Halt, he grew into a legend—the finest Ranger the kingdom has ever known. Yet Will is facing a tragic battle that has left him grim and alone. To add to his problems, the time has come for him to take on an apprentice of his own, and it’s the last person he ever would have expected: Princess Madelyn, the daughter of Princess Cassandra. Will will have to win the trust and respect of his difficult new companion—a task that at times seems almost impossible.

A New Beginning brings the exciting tale of Horace and Cassandra’s daughter, Maddie. Fans of the Ranger’s Apprentice Series will be eager to follow Will Treaty on an epic journey that pits a group of evil slavers against Will and Maddie. The fast-paced story has plenty of adventure and action as well as humorous moments. The first part of the story focuses on Maddie’s Ranger apprenticeship where she not only learns the skills of a Ranger, but also learns to have compassion for the common people. The second part of the story focuses on Will and Maddie as they investigate the kidnapping of children. Both parts expertly merge for a suspenseful conclusion that contains several surprises.

As a princess, Maddie was disrespectful, disobedient, and defiant; however, readers will connect with the spoiled princess who wants adventure and a life of purpose. Being a Ranger’s apprentice allows Maddie to learn important survival skills, such as how to defeat an enemy, why loyalty is important, and the necessity of following orders. Plus, Maddie gets an inside look at the struggles of peasants. The satisfying conclusion shows Maddie’s growth from a spoiled brat to a brave Ranger’s apprentice who helped save children from being sold into slavery.

A New Beginning is not for the faint of heart; an evil villain, bloody battles, and many deaths are all essential parts of the plot. The fighting and deaths are described in detail. Plus, the story focuses on the Stealer, who “is a mysterious spirit, dressed all in black, and wearing a black mask and cloak. He materializes in a village and takes children.”

Although A New Beginning is the beginning of Maddie’s story, those who are new to the Ranger’s Apprentice Series will not understand the significance of some of the people and events that take place. For maximum enjoyment, readers should first read all 12 books in the Ranger’s Apprentice Series. While this may seem like a huge undertaking, each book has a unique new conflict that will capture readers’ attention.

Through the Ranger’s Apprentice Series, Flanagan creates a world where good and evil often clash. By the end of the series, readers will feel like the characters are their friends. While the series often delves into serious topics, the books also reinforce the importance of loyalty, sacrifice, and friendship. Readers who decide to jump into the Ranger’s Apprentice Series will be swept away into a world where knights exist, princesses help save the day, and the Ranger’s apprentices always help overcome evil.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

A Ranger questions a wagoner about “the fire that you and Ruhl set in that inn. . . There was a woman killed in that fire, remember? A Courier.” The Ranger explains that the Courier died while saving a child who was trapped in the fire.
Later, the fire is described. The Courier, Alyss, was on the second story of the inn when there was “a terrible rumbling crash, the entire section of the roof above and around where she was standing gave way and collapsed in a mass of flames and sparks. . . Alyss never had a chance.”
As the Ranger questions the wagoner, the Ranger’s “right hand snatched the dagger from his belt and he swung it in a backhanded strike. . . The wagoner grunted in shock and staggered back. His feet tangled in the bench he’d been sitting on and he stumbled, crashing over to hit the edge of the table, then falling with a thud to the ground.” When the wagoner doesn’t move, someone turns him over. “The wagoner’s eyes were wide-open. The shock of what had happened was frozen on his face. His own dagger was buried deep in his chest.”
Someone tries to kill Maddie, who reacts by using her sling to throw a projectile at the attacker. “The shot, with the extra impetus of the sling to propel it, hit its target first. She heard an ugly, meaty smack and a muted cry of pain from her attacker as it struck home.” Maddie kills the attacker.
The villain kidnaps a girl. In the process, her brother “pretended to go back to sleep. I told him if he raised the alarm or told anyone what he’d seen tonight, I’d come back for him and cut his eyes out of him.”
In an epic, multi-chapter conclusion, Will and Maddie try to save a group of children who were kidnapped. Both Will and Maddie are forced to kill several evil men. When Will sees a guard, he “nooked an arrow, drew back and released, sending a shaft flashing down the cliff face. It struck the crossbowman full in the chest.” The man dies.
One of the villains threatens to kill a child. In order to save the boy, Maddie whipped the sling over and forward. The lead ball caught the moonlight, glinting once as it flashed toward its target.” The man is injured, and “he drew in a breath to scream and the action caused him more agony as the jagged pieces of his fractured rib grated together.” The man falls off a cliff and dies.
Will draws the enemy away from Maddie. When Will has a chance, he shoots an arrow at “the line of advancing men. . . Enrico cried out in surprise and pain and threw out both arms, staggering back under the impact of the speeding shaft. Then he crashed over on his back, his sightless eyes staring up at the sky.” Will kills three men in a similar manner.
The enemy captures Will. One of the men “jerked his head forward and butted Will in the face.” Will is tied up, and the head henchman, Ruhl, plans to burn Will at the stake. “Ruhl made his way up to the beach to where Will stood, trapped against the stake, unable to move. . .”
Maddie crawls behind Will, who is tied at the stake. She cuts Will’s binds. Someone notices her, and Maddie’s “first shot smashed into one of his men. . . Maddie’s second shot smashed home. It hit him on the right shoulder, shattering the large bones there, smashing the joint beyond any possibility of repair and sending him reeling.”
During the fighting, Maddie is hit. “The evil, barbed head was buried deep in her thigh and she felt the leg give way under her, unable to bear her weight. Blood was coursing down her leg and she fell, causing more agony. . .”
During the fighting, Ruhl falls into the fire. “Then the firewood ignited with an explosive WHOOF! Ruhl screamed as the flames shot up, enveloping him instantly, catching his clothes and hair. . . He tried to scream again, but the burning air and flames scorched his throat and lungs, and he made a terrible, inhuman grunting noise.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Several times throughout the book, the adults drink ale. A man who owns a tavern “had drunk far too much ale. As a result, he had staggered off to his bed without bothering to clear away the dirty platters. . .”
Maddie is invited to a party where there is a cask of wine. Maddie “took a deep swig of wine. It tasted heavy and somewhat sour.” After drinking too much wine, Maddie looks at her friend who “seemed to be swimming in and out of focus.” The next morning, Maddie has a hangover and decides, “I’m never going to drink again.”
While trying to solve a mystery, Will goes into a tavern and orders small ale. “Small ale was ale and water mixed in equal proportions.”

Language

Gorlog’s breath is used as an exclamation once. Gorlog is a “very useful Skandian demigod.”
Oh god and my god are both used as an exclamation once. When Will talks about his dead wife, he say, “Oh god, how I miss her.”

Supernatural

While talking to some village children, Maddie hears about barrow wights. “They’re supposed to be spirits that hang around ancient graves.” Will thinks back into the past. Will had “sensed something then as he rode past some ancient borrows, as the ancient grave mounds were called. It seemed to be some malign presence.”
One of the villains scares the children with a story about the Stealer. “The Stealer is a mysterious spirit, dressed all in black, and wearing a black mask and cloak. He materializes in a village and takes children. . . The thing is, the Storyman said if we were ever to see him, we were to say nothing. . . And he said we must never, never tell a grown-up about the Stealer in the Night.”

Spiritual Content

Queen Cassandra’s father says, “Thank god for Horace. She couldn’t have chosen a better husband.”

The Arctic Incident

After years of searching for his father, Artemis Fowl receives a ransom note for him; it’s a nightmare and a relief. Artemis’ father is alive—but Artemis has no idea how to rescue him without being killed himself. At the same time, Holly Short discovers something unthinkable: goblins are trading with humans. Exposure could mean a war between the fairy people and humans, and Holly can think of only one human who could be responsible.

When Holly brings Artemis in for questioning, he sees it as the perfect opportunity. He will help them find out which humans are trading with the goblins, and in return, they will help him rescue his father. For their mission, Holly and Artemis head to the Arctic. However, everything goes sideways when halfway through their rescue mission, their weapons die, and they are ambushed by goblins. The goblins are planning a revolution and they’ve clearly had inside help. The question is, who can Holly and Artemis trust, and will they be able to get back before the goblins take control?

Artemis Fowl and the Artic Incident is an action-packed sequel that will please fans of the original book. Holly Short and Artemis Fowl are hilariously at odds with each other as they are forced to work together. Joined by old friends, including Butler, Commander Root, Foaly, and Mulch, The Arctic Incident is equal parts nerve-wracking and hilarious. Readers will enjoy the bonds the fairies and humans make on their mission and will root for Artemis as he struggles to balance his criminal tendencies with the urge to help his newfound friends.

Told from a variety of different viewpoints, The Arctic Incident allows readers to see what is happening on all sides of the power struggle in a clear and enjoyable way. Readers will want to read the first book in the series before picking up this book, in order to understand the action and interpersonal relationships. Both Holly and Artemis continue their personal growth in a believable and heartwarming manner. Technology, fantasy, and feisty fairies are blended to create a fast-paced and fun story. The Arctic Incident does not disappoint, and readers will eagerly reach for the next Artemis Fowl adventure, The Eternity Code.

Sexual Content

None

Violence

Chix is injured by goblins. “Chix was lying on a mound of rubble across the avenue. It didn’t look good. The side of his helmet had been bashed in by the jagged remains of a low wall, rendering his com-set completely useless.”
Artemis and his team are attacked. “Several softnose laser bursts bored hissing holes in the snow at their feet.”
Artemis and his team are caught in a rock slide. “The air was rent by avalanche thunder, and the packed ice beneath them heaved and split. Thick chunks of rock and ice speared the cave’s opening like bars. Bulter and Root were trapped.” It’s mentioned that one of the enemy goblins is caught in the avalanche and killed. “Lieutenant Poll had handed in his resignation when he’d strayed too close to the avalanche and been swatted by a one-ton pane of transparent ice.”
A goblin kills his comrades out of greed. “He shot his comrades from behind. Close range, point blank. They never had a chance.”
After healing from an injury that was Artemis’ fault, Holly “whacked Artemis right between the eyes.”
The LEP is attacked by goblins, who can lob fireballs. “Trouble heard the filaments in his suit pop as they tried to cope with the heat. Boiling tar sucked at his boots, melting the rubber soles. . . a hail of charges sang through the air around them, pulverizing what was left of the emporium’s shop front. Trouble’s crown lurched forward as a slug flattened itself against his helmet.”
Root is injured while being towed to a shuttle. When Holly asks Root where it hurts, “Root coughed, blood splattering his uniform. ‘The general bodily area. Couple ribs gone.’”
Holly takes down two goblins. “And that was when Holly’s boot connected with [the goblin’s] chest, slamming him into the wall.”
A villain crashes through a plasma panel. “He was fried by a million radioactive tendrils.”
As part of a rescue mission, Butler shoots Artemis Senior. “The shot caught Artemis Senior in the shoulder. He spun around, slumping over the startled Vassikin.”

Drugs and Alcohol

Root often smokes “fungal cigars.”

Language

Hell is used a few times. Root says, “What the hell is this?”
Damn is used once. Root says something “damn near destroyed an entire shuttle port.”
D’Arvit is a fairy curse word that is used several times.
People call goblins dumb and “dumb as stink worms.”
Someone calls Artemis a “pasty-faced mud weasel.”
Foaly calls someone a “baboon face.”
When a goblin sees Artemis’ massive bodyguard, he thinks, “Oh gods, it’s a troll in clothes!” Another time, a man says, “oh, gods. We’re dead.”
A Russian calls Artemis a “devil” and his friend “you crazy devil!”

Supernatural

The fairy folk live underground, where they hide from the Mud Men (humans). There are pixies, sprites, centaurs, dwarves, goblins, etc. The first fairy Artemis meets is a sprite. “The fairy’s nose was long and hooked under two slitted golden eyes. Her ears were pointed, and the alcohol addiction had melted her skin like putty.”
“A lot of the magic attributed to [fairies] is just superstition. But [fairies] do have certain powers. Healing, the Mesmer, and shielding being among them . . . What fairies actually do is vibrate at such a high frequency that they are never in one place long enough to be seen.”
The Mesmer allows fairies to mesmerize humans and force them to do what they want. “When the face began to speak, Luc’s worries slid away like an old snakeskin. How could he have been worried? This person was obviously a friend. What a lovely voice.”
Some fairies can heal themselves. After a traumatic injury, Holly’s magic heals her. “Holly shot upright, arms swinging like a puppet. Her legs began to jerk, kicking invisible enemies. Then from her vocal cords came a high-pitched keening that cracked the thinner sheets of ice.”
Dwarves “can unhinge their jaws, allowing them to ingest several pounds of earth a second. The material is processed by a super-efficient metabolism, stripped of any useful minerals and . . . ejected at the other end.” This leads to some toilet-related humor. One time, “Mulch let go with a stream of gas, blowing a hole in the rug and propelling himself to the ceiling.”
Mulch is a dwarf who uses his pores to climb a building. “Dwarf pores are not just for sweating; they can take in moisture as well. When a dwarf was thirsty, as Much was now, his pores opened to the size of pinholes, and began to suck like crazy. This could be extremely useful, if say, you had to climb up the side of a tall building.”
Fairies also have the gift of tongues, meaning they can speak any language. Mulch uses this to speak to guard dogs.

Spiritual Content

None

by Morgan Lynn

The Edge

For an upcoming documentary, billionaire Sebastian Plank recruits a team of young climbers to complete an International Peace Ascent on mountains all around the world. To fulfill part of Plank’s documentary, fifteen-year-old Peak Marcello and his mom are flown to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan along with a few other young climbers and a documentary crew. But when the camp is attacked and hostages are taken, Peak has to track down the attackers to save his friends and mother.

The Edge is the second book in the Peak Marcello Adventure Series and takes place relatively soon after his adventures in the first book, Peak. Much of the same cast from the first book is back, including the mysterious Sherpa guide/monk Zopa, Peak’s mom, and the documentary crew. Peak himself is still a fun and interesting character, and his love for his family and humanity, in general, makes him a sympathetic protagonist.

Much like in the first book, survival and climbing are strongly intertwined themes. Peak spends much of the book using survival techniques and climbing to find and save his mom and fellow climbers. He, fortunately, has the help of Ethan, a new character who is a fellow climber and former marine. Peak looks up to Ethan, and Ethan serves as a practical guide who keeps Peak and the others from dying out in the elements.

This second book’s plot involves political intrigue and terrorists, so it has more graphic violence than the first book. One of the climbers, Alessia, is the daughter of a French diplomat that Peak befriends and shows romantic interest in. Over half of the climbing group is taken as hostages from camp, and several of the group are killed on camera. The attackers make it clear that they are using the hostages to get money from the French government because they have the daughter of one of their diplomats, and they themselves are former French soldiers. Although Peak is spared from seeing some of the worst parts, some of the more gruesome scenes are described by other characters. The Edge covers sensitive topics like murder and a hostage situation, so younger readers should be prepared for more nitty-gritty details than in the first book.

The Edge furthers Peak’s story while rounding out old characters and introducing new ones. Peak and the others use their climbing skills to survive as well as perform for the camera. Despite the overall serious tone of the book, there are lighthearted moments early on from the documentary guy, Phillip, who clearly doesn’t understand much about climbing and causes some humorous frustration for Peak. This series is for people who like climbing and those who really want an action-packed adventure. Fans of Peak won’t have to look far for his next climbing journey, which is detailed in the next book in the series, Ascent. Although The Edge is a complete story on its own, the next book will surely have a new mountain for Peak to scale.

Sexual Content

Phillip’s personal assistant and girlfriend, Cindy, seems very friendly towards Ethan, one of the other climbers. When Peak asks Ethan about it, Ethan laughs and says, “Not my type, and I’m not her type either. She was doing that stuff with me at the river to get under Phillip’s skin and because she didn’t want to go for a hike.”

Violence

Tony, the immigration man helping Peak and his mother in Afghanistan, is playing the video game League of Legends on the plane when Peak meets him. Peak goes to speak with him, and Tony says, “I was just bludgeoned to death. Take a seat.”
Tony explains that Afghanistan “has been in a state of war for thousands of years. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, the British, the Soviet Union, Al-Qaeda, the Americans, the Taliban, and several others have all attempted to take over Afghanistan.”
As he’s climbing up the side of a cliff, an eagle attacks Peak. Peak says, “I scrunched up as best as I could on a vertical wall and shoved my face into a narrow crack to stop my eyeballs from getting plucked out. I felt the air from the first bird’s wings a second before it smashed into my helmet. This was followed by another hit on my pack, much hard than the first.”
As Peak reaches for the cave, the eagle knocks him in the butt. Peak smashes “[his] face on the back wall, which was only six feet from the opening.” Peak is bleeding considerably from a cut on his chin due to the impact.
The camera guy, JR, gets the “butt strike” on video. Peak responds to this with, “If you put it on YouTube, I will kill you.”
Peak falls asleep in his cave and when he wakes up hours later, everyone else is gone. Peak goes exploring only to find the guides Ebadullah and Elham “lying next to the cool water…Their throats are slit. The fronts of their kurtas are covered in dried blood. Their beards are caked in gore. Their eyes are open in surprise. Their rifles are gone. Their prayer rugs are unrolled. They were murdered during isha.”
Peak finds one of the other climbers, Rafe, laying on the ground. “There was a four-inch gash on [Rafe’s] forehead, his nose was broken, his left ear was torn, his upper lip looked like he had bitten through it, and these were just the injuries [Peak] could see.”
Rafe tells Peak that the others were kidnapped by “five or six guys. Afghans. Guns and knives.”
A donkey does not want to keep walking. When Ethan pulls on the reins, “it bites Ethan in the butt.”
Ethan was in the marines. He tells Peak, “I spent a couple years in Force Reconnaissance or Force Recon . . . It was a lot of fun until some gung-ho captain walked us into quicksand, which killed two men. He blamed us and became a major.”
Peak and Ethan come across three mounds that turn out to be graves. Peak has to know, so he digs each one up. Peak says, “The first grave was Phillip’s. Like Elham and Ebadullah, his throat had been slit. I didn’t want to uncover the other two, but I had to know. The second was Aki. The third was Choma. I sat back, covered my face, and began sobbing with horror and relief. It could have been Mom or Zopa or Alessia or the film crew.”
After Ethan finds the bodies of Phillip, Aki, and Choma, he says, “These dirtbags made the video crew film our friends’ execution. They’re going to use the tape to get money.”
Ethan kills one of the guards keeping the hostages. Peak sees the guard “sitting on his blanket. His headlamp was pointed down at a deck of bloody cards.”
Peak and some of the climbers come across a “crudely made rack” with a “snow leopard pelt.” The vultures flying overhead indicate to them that this poaching incident was recent.
Alessia explains that her father was a conservation biologist who died “in the Congo when [she] was ten years old. Killed by rebels, they say, but [her] mother believes he was murdered by the gorilla poachers he was trying to stop.”
Peak’s mom shoots the captors with a pistol. Peak describes, “She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then squeezed the trigger. One of the men went down.” The description lasts for half a page.
Ethan shoots Émile. When Peak sees Émile, he “was on the ground covered in blood.” Émile dies.

Drugs and Alcohol

When Peak’s mom tells Peak’s stepfather, Rolf, that she and Peak are going to Afghanistan to climb, Rolf “pours himself a drink.”
Peak mentions that he “read that Afghanistan grows more opium than any other country in the world.” To this, Tony says, “It’s a four-billion-dollars-a-year industry with about twenty-five percent of that money going to the farmer and the rest divided between district officials, insurgents, warlords, and drug traffickers.”
Peak finds a cigarette butt while heading back to base camp. As they keep walking, Peak finds “three more Gauloises cigarette butts.”
Ethan tells Peak about his time in Iraq. He says, “We broke up a tobacco-smuggling operation . . . Learned more than I ever wanted to know about tobacco. There are a lot of counterfeit cigarette operations. The Taliban actually make money here running cigarettes when they aren’t smuggling dope.”

Language

Light language is used infrequently. Some words include nuts, nutcase, oaf, idiots, jerk, moron, dense, and dumb.
Cindy says about the Afghan guards, “All they do is stare at me, or leer, and I’m pretty sure they’re making snide remarks, but I don’t know what they’re saying.” Cindy is wearing tight-fitting clothing that is brightly patterned. Peak “looked at her snakeskin pants and had a pretty good idea what they were saying. Women in Muslim countries don’t dress like Cindy.”
When the donkey bites Ethan in the butt, Peak laughs and says, “Now you can say you’ve been bitten in the ass by an ass.”

Supernatural

Peak suggests that the snow leopard (shen) that he keeps seeing is watching over them. Ethan says, “You’re not going all magical thinking on me, are you?” To which Peak replies, “It works for Zopa. And we could use some magic.” Ethan replies, “Wish I had a magic wand, or an invisibility cloak.”

Spiritual Content

Tony mentions that the only hiccup they might have landing the plane in Afghanistan is that they’re landing “just before afternoon prayers.” Peak then describes, “I’d just read about these prayers in one of Mom’s books. Devout Muslims pray five times a day. Fajr, just before dawn. Zuhr, noon. Asr, afternoon. Maghrib, sunset. Isha, evening.”
Tony talks about the local Afghan people, saying, “Like most of the one point six billion Muslims in the world, the Afghans are trying to live a good life, raise their families, and get by. Ninety-five percent of them are great people. The other five percent have a strange take on the Koran. I suspect this percentage holds true for Christians and their Bible as well.”
The call to prayer sounds as Peak leaves the plane. Peak describes, “A sound came from somewhere outside. A mysterious sound. A beautiful sound . . . It seemed to come from all around on the hot, dry air.” It is coming from the minaret attached to the airport’s mosque.
Tony runs to the mosque for the afternoon prayer. He yells to Peak, “I am one of those one point six billion Muslims I was telling you about, as are my sister and two brothers. My parents are Protestants.”
Cindy, Phillip’s girlfriend, complains that there’s no running water or electricity at the base camp. She then says, “But we do have a camel and a donkey. All we’re missing is the Virgin Mother and a manger.”
Cindy makes a comment about the mountains being a “god-forsaken place,” which upsets Peak. Peak thinks, “I wanted to tell her that mountains are not godforsaken places. They are where humans go to find God, which is kind of the whole point of humans climbing mountains.”
Partway through a hike, an Afghan guide named Elham does the evening prayer, “kneeling toward Mecca on a small prayer rug he had pulled out of his little pack.”
Peak tells Alessia that he was on Everest, and her eyes “got that look. It was like I had just said I’d met God.”
Zopa refers to the snow leopard as a “living Talisman.”
Alessia asks Peak about Zopa. She asks, “Do you think that by above, he meant that God would save us?”