Here's another month with 8 titles. That's still not too bad, 2 books a week. It's all those movies I been watchin', that's eatin' up a lot-o-time.
Nightmare Academy 2 Monster Revenge by Dean Lorey takes us along with the kids from the first book as they finish their first year and enter their second year at the Nightmare Academy. They are being trained to fight the monsters from the Netherworld that are released into the human world when certain kids dream. There's a lot of monster fighting and lots of other stuff going on. It's a nice quick read and I liked the characters. Even some of the monsters are interesting. Lorey is a tv and movie writer. He's worked on Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday and Major Payne. On tv he's worked on My Wife and Kids, Arrested Development and Brothers. I enjoyed the first of his series enough to keep an eye out for number two. The third book is out and I am keeping an eye out for that one too. There was an announcement that the series had been picked up by Universal and Stephen Sommers of The Mummy series was attached to produce. The 2008 date came and went with nothing happening. It could be a fun series of movies with lots of monster fighting and wild settings for the battles to take place in.
Kingdom Keepers II: Disney At Dawn by Ridley Pearson is the 2008 sequel to the first novel from 2005. There's a third one but I haven't picked that up. The story is about some Disney villians who come alive through an intereactive computer program. Some kids have been scanned and their images used for hologram guides to Walt Disney World Resort. Holograms you can see in the daylight. That would be cool, huh. The real kids can't come into the park during the day without breaking their contract and getting fired from the project. Of course they are in the park for nearly the whole book, mostly in the Animal Kingdom. It's a pretty good series so far but it doesn't have the humor that the Dave Barry/Pearson Peter Pan re-imaginings have. There's lots of activity and most of the second book takes place over one day. There are lots of characters and most of them are ok. I thought the first one was good enough to look for the second and I'll be keeping an eye peeled for #3. There's talk of a movie series but nothing definite yet. I'd almost prefer to see the guy's Peter Pan come to the big screen.
The Edge Chronicles Maps by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell is a large 2 sided poster of The Edge World and a small 32 page booklet that has info about the place. It's not much of a book and it's hardly worth picking up. The poster images are kind of nice but they are the same as the illustrations in the novels. The booklet that comes with the poster has more illustrations from the book. So not much new material, lucky for me I got it on clearance for 4 or 5 bucks. It's still a bit of a waste but there you go, at least I have it and my Edge book collection is more complete. That'll be comforting on my deathbed, huh. Just one more thing for my brother to deal with.
Millo's Wolves by Jenny Nimmo is a book from 2001 and to find one you'd need to go to England, since it isn't normally for sale in the US. I got a Brit copy from Half Price books. I think they go looking for remainder books from the UK. I find Brit editions of children's books on a regular basis in the local HPB stores that I frequent. I have been enjoying Nimmo's Charlie Bone series and occasionally hide subliminal messages in this blog to get people to read them. This is a stand alone novel about some parents who announce to their 3 children that they have a long lost brother the kids didn't know about. Millo comes to live with them and brings trouble. He's been in an institution for all his life and has little experience with the outside world. There's a rather crazy, scarey guy who wants Millo to come with him. It's not what you think. Really the cover might give you a hint but I wouldn't think about it too hard. There's conflict and some good characters who work out what's happening and how to save Millo and themselves. I liked the girl who was our main protagonist. I enjoyed it and read it through quickly, wanting to find out what is happening. It's going on the keeper shelf to re-read. Read Charlie Bone!
The Beguilers by Kate Thompson is set some other place than earth with human like people. Our main character is a young girl named Rilka. She's allergic to Chuffies, a dog like critter that sucks all the emotional pain out of people, making them feel better. It's pretty normal for people to have these low level intelligent creatures around their houses. They even speak a bit. Rilka doesn't fit into her village very well. It's a very ridged and tradition bound community. People work all day and stay in all night. Nights are when the beguilers come out. They are some sort of dangerous critter that the villagers fear. No one's ever caught one and you can hardly see them. Very transparent in the light of day, beguilers glow at night. Hunting the beguilers is frowned upon, past hunters have often died or gone crazy. People will be shunned by the village for pursuing the beasties. It's seen as selfish because it isn't something for the village. Guess what our young girl chooses for her first Great Intention? That's a pledge to the village to do something important when you think you'd like to be treated like an adult. Something like getting married would be expected. Rilka is heading right for outcastville when she announces that she's going to hunt the beguilers. Sure enough, the town frowns. Even her family kicks her out. She taken in by the town's real old lady. She passes along some artifacts from the previous beguiler hunter and give Rilka hope. She does find the beguilers and it leads to an important discovery. I've mostly liked Thompson's books. Sadly they are mostly available in the UK. Still with the internet today that's less of a problem.
The Lost Barkscrolls by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell is a collection of four stories of various lengths that span the three ages of flight. The stories add more interesting bits and pieces to the pretty expansive Edge history. The illustrations are good as usual and the stories are interesting. A welcome addition to the series. Here are the plots of the four stories from the Wikipedia. I just love all the character names.
Cloud Wolf - A story set in the time of Quint. Following a sky-battle between the Galerider, Wind Jackal's ship, and the Great Sky Whale, a formidable slave ship, Quint is given his sky-pirate name, but swears never to say it or use it until he commands his own sky-ship.
The Stone Pilot - A story told in the first person by Maugin, a termagant trog and future Stone Pilot to the Galerider, Stormchaser, Windcutter and Edgedancer. On the day before she was meant to turn termagant, Maugin releases her pet prowlgrin,out into the Deepwoods. While she is doing this, she is caught by slavers. At the slave market, Maugin was sold to a leaguesman, but rescued by Quint shortly after and discovers her passion for tending flight-rocks. Many years later, Maugin is waiting at Riverrise for her love Twig to return, all alone with the sadness of never having turned termagant.
The Slaughterer's Quest - This is the story of Keris (Twig's daughter and Rook's mother), who journeys from her slaughterer village to the Great Lakes of the webfoot goblins to discover if her father is still alive. Here she meets an enormous clam who tells her to travel to the Free Glades, where, in a caterbird cocoon, Keris finds out the truth.
The Blooding of Rufus Filatine -This is the story of Rufus Filatine, Xanth's son, who is a Freeglade Lancer cadet. Rufus wears a plain green collar instead of the checkered one and wishes to become a true Freeglade Lancer. The discovery of the Foundry Glades being used spurs this, as Rufus longs to be a colonel in the third roost, commanded by Rook Barkwater.
Freddy Plays Football by Walter R Brooks is the only Freddy book for november. I guess I didn't read much before bedtime this month. The 16th novel in the series came out in 1949 and this book has Freddy trying to prove that Mrs Bean's long lost brother is a fake. Aaron Doty shows up claiming his half of the family farm. It will take $5000 to buy him out. That's a lot of money from Mr. Bean and they have to borrow it. Freddy steals it to keep it from going to Mr Doty, who's in collusion wth Mr Garble. Both men need a good beating and they get it. From the cover you can see that Freddy takes up playing football with the high school boys. Turns out he's pretty good at the running and hardly anyone can tackle him and hang on. The school board doesn't have any reason to keep him off the team, as long as he actually goes to school. He does. Freddy enlists Cousin Weedley to help and manages to avoid being shipped off to Montana, once again disappointing Mr Garble's uncle Orville. Sad for him, huh. Still a fun read. There's a silly football game at the end with all sorts of critters playing. I laughed and I don't even like football.
Corby Flood by Paul Steward and Chris Riddell is part of the Far Flung Adventure series. There are three so far. I will have read another soon and by that I mean I read it in the past of when I wrote this but in the future of the post's content. That's the trouble with time shifting. I don't know how I keep it all straight. The 2 Far Flung Adventures are set in the same universe. A delightful place filled with interesting characters. There are lots of illustrations to show off their wonderfulness. Corby's dad is an engineer who had a bridge he built fall down. He's had to take a job designing umbrellas. The family is travelling to their new town in an old passenger liner that's seen better days and mostly hauls cargo. That cargo is important. It will help Corby tie together all the story threads and give many people better lives. It's a delightful book, one of the best I've read this year, and I've read some nice books. There's a lot less slaughtering in this Stewart-Riddell book than there is in most of their others, even counting all those people who died in the bridge collapse, but that was backstory and we don't see it, in print. Not that I object to slaughtering but some folks might like this a lot better. I know I don't care for slaughtering all the time myself. I have to admit I was surprised how much of it goes on in some of these young adult series. Nice to have a change. Another keeper.
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