Review: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Fairyland, Book 1

Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Pages: 247
Publisher: Square Fish
Source: Gifted by Kayla of Bibliophilia, Please

Description from Goodreads:
Twelve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father went to war and her mother went to work. One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind (taking the form of a gentleman in a green jacket), who invites her on an adventure, implying that her help is needed in Fairyland. The new Marquess is unpredictable and fickle, and also not much older than September. Only September can retrieve a talisman the Marquess wants from the enchanted woods, and if she doesn’t . . . then the Marquess will make life impossible for the inhabitants of Fairyland. September is already making new friends, including a book-loving Wyvern and a mysterious boy named Saturday.

With exquisite illustrations by acclaimed artist Ana Juan, Fairyland lives up to the sensation it created when the author first posted it online. For readers of all ages who love the charm of Alice in Wonderland and the soul of The Golden Compass, here is a reading experience unto itself: unforgettable, and so very beautiful.

First Sentence: "Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her parents' house, where she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog."

Review:

Though Catherynne M. Valente's novels have been on my radar for a while now, I've honestly been a bit terrified to read them. They're so lauded by readers I respect highly and I really feared that I would be the black sheep of dissidence. I'd heard they were strange and that doesn't always jive so well with my tastes, but, oh, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland is just the right kind of strange.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland recalls many classic tales: Alice in Wonderland, the myth of Persephone, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to name a few. I make these comparisons not to suggest that Valente's tale lacks in originality in any way, but that she cleverly weaves a story full of allusions to those classic tales. Though I don't usually do this, I'm going to structure much of my review around these comparisons, since The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland has been reviewed by many people already, and I feel free to do my own weird thing with it.

The tone and the sheer madcap adventure-filled feel of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland is one hundred percent Alice in Wonderland. Though there was little that specifically seemed directly out of Carroll's classic absurdist tale, his influence is visible on every page. The girl stumbles into a magical land and bounces from quest to quest, with the ultimate goal of unseating an evil female ruler, who destroyed the benevolent queen. Valente fully embraces the absurd, but, where Carroll's story lacks for me—characterization, Valente shines, but I'll talk about that more later.

The Persephone myth works as a frame story to September's adventures. There are clever references throughout, but the main purpose is to explain why September will eventually return. I love the way that Valente set up the very end. It's simply perfection, bringing the rest of the plotting full circle. Sometimes it feels like the weird novels are so spontaneous and surprising because the author didn't know what was going on either, but it's very apparent that Valente knew exactly what she was doing.

I have two points to make with reference to the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The most overt similarity is that one of the characters traveled to Fairyland by means of wardrobe, an obvious omage to Lewis' tale. However, there's another comparison to be made, a bit subtler. Like Lewis' classic, September travels to a magical world during wartime. Her father is off fighting in WWII and her mother works as an engineer. She feels lonely and doesn't understand what's going on very well. Valente turns September's adventures in Fairyland into a neat platform by which to make observations on the nature of war.

As I said, there's so much more to Valente's tale than those structural similarities, all of which I love a lot. Her characters are a delight, though I must admit this is one of those times where the supporting cast is much more dear to me than the MC. September is a delightful girl, it's true. She has a lot more strength and graciousness than the average heroine, and is much more empowered in her story than any of the ones in the three classic tales I mentioned previously, which is utterly fantastic. She just can't compete with her sidekicks, though.

Those who know me well will probably not be surprised to learn that my favorite character is A-Through-L, affectionately known as Ell, the wyverary. He's a wyvern, sort of like a dragon, but also the son of a library. He knows absolutely everything about anything found between the letters A through L, which is immensely helpful on a journey, and he's the most delightful companion a girl could want through Fairyland. I also love Gleam, a lantern over a century old and desperate for adventure, and Saturday, a creature similar to a genie who I'm really looking forward to getting to know better in the next installment.

Even the evil Marquess is a marvelously well-drawn character. Often villains take a back seat to the good guys, lacking complexities in books with otherwise sophisticated characterization. Valente, however, made her villain one of the most complex characters in the piece. She gives the Marquess a reason for the way she is, and makes her at least a little bit sympathetic.

On top of all of that, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Her writing is a veritable feast of deliciously underused words. Though I do think this might be a tough read for children, it would be a perfect choice for parents to read aloud to their kids, though they may end up explaining quite a few terms. This is a story that will delight children, I think, but adults even more so, in a rather different way perhaps.

Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is absolutely marvelous, and I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone who delights in verbiage, characterization, fairy tales, or any of those stories I mentioned above. With this one book, Valente goes on my auto-read list.

Rating: 4.5/5

Favorite Quote: "All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.)"

Review: Pirate Cinema

Pirate Cinema

Author: Cory Doctorow
Pages: 384
Publisher: Tor Teen
Source: For review from YA Books Central

Description from Goodreads:
Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by reassembling footage from popular films he downloads from the net. In the dystopian near-future Britain where Trent is growing up, this is more illegal than ever; the punishment for being caught three times is that your entire household’s access to the internet is cut off for a year, with no appeal.

Trent's too clever for that too happen. Except it does, and it nearly destroys his family. Shamed and shattered, Trent runs away to London, where he slowly he learns the ways of staying alive on the streets. This brings him in touch with a demimonde of artists and activists who are trying to fight a new bill that will criminalize even more harmless internet creativity, making felons of millions of British citizens at a stroke.

Things look bad. Parliament is in power of a few wealthy media conglomerates. But the powers-that-be haven’t entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people’s minds….

First Sentence: "I will never forget the day my family got cut off from the internet."

Review:
Up to now, my only Cory Doctorow experience was with Little Brother, because of course I would start with a dystopia. I read it before I started blogging, so I don't have a real review to consult. From what I recall, I really liked it, but I remember being more into the concept than the characters or the writing. Now that I've read Pirate Cinema and quite enjoyed it, I definitely need to be reading more Doctorow.

For those who don't know, Cory Doctorow is an activist about copyright as it pertains to the shift to digital. He supports Creative Commons licenses, and even offers some of his books for free in ebook format. All this is to say that Pirate Cinema clearly touches an issue close to his heart, that of the freedom to create, even if it requires 'illegal downloading.' Basically, he obviously feels, and I agree, that there's clearly something different about digital consumption, and that the laws do not properly reflect this change.

His writing really appealed to me, funny and a bit gritty. Trent, the MC, comes off as rather a stereotypical nerd, very focused on making his videos and in search of a lady love. I suspect some readers could be offended by some of the sexual references or the way he thinks, but it seemed like typical boy behavior to me, and much more honest than most of the male POV books I've read. The  book's set in Britain, an interesting change since Doctorow is Canadian; the slang sounded fine to me, but I only know it from pop culture, so who knows.

Pirate Cinema definitely is unlike any of the other books I've read. At the beginning of the book, Trent's family's internet is taken away by the government for a full year, as punishment for Trent's illegal downloads. Yikes, right? His father's job, his mother's health, his sister's education and his access to videos to remix relied on the internet.

In this future, the media companies essentially control the government, offering money and vacations with glamorous starlets in exchange for getting the parties to vote their way. The copyright law worldwide has become increasingly draconian, as the corporations that make the films, music and video games feel increasingly threatened by illegal downloading of their content. Having the internet shut off was a fairly common measure in this future. And, sadly, this future does not seem impossible by any means.

Trent, feeling awful about what his love of creating movies using clips of actor Scot Colford's films has done to his family, hoofs it, hopping a bus to London. Once there, he is promptly robbed and homeless. Luckily for him, he meets the artful Jem on his second day in London, who teaches him how best to live as a homeless person, explaining where to find the best food in garbage bins, how to get people to give you money when begging, and how to find a proper squat. The homeless lifestyle isn't one I've really encountered in fiction, and Doctorow makes it sound like something not to be pitied interestingly enough. Jem and Trent can find anything they need from high-powered electronics to gourmet food to a decent home, all without spending any money.

While I did really enjoy it, the downside of the book is how political it is. I suspect the publication date being before the election was intentional, as it's all about political activism and making a difference. The overall tone does get a bit preachy, but the writing, hellishly possibly future, and Trent's obvious passion for movie-making save the book from feeling like solely a political tract. The characters feel pretty realistic, and run the gamut of races and backgrounds, which made a nice change from the usual middle to upper class white kids that dominate YA. There is romance too, but that takes a backseat and doesn't follow the usual YA patterns either.

I'm one of the apathetic that the kids herein would despise, but I still really liked this book anyway. More politically-minded teens and adults, particularly those interested in the way the copyright laws regarding digital content might evolve, should most definitely read this book.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Quote:

"In the films, they always say that you'll never forget your first kiss. In the films, you first kiss is always perfect. In the films, everyone participating in the kiss always knows what to do.
   In real life, my first kiss was wildly imperfect. First, there was the business of noses. Hers was small and round and adorable, like a Bollywood star on a poster. Mine was a large, no-shape English nose. both of them tried to occupy the same space at the same time and it didn't really work out.
   Then teeth. The sound your teeth make when they knock against someone else's teeth is minging, and you hear it right in your head, liek the sound you get when you crunch an unexpected chicken bone. And it seemed that no matter where I wanted to put my teeth, she wanted to put her teeth.
   And tongues! Christ, tongues! I mean, when you see them going at it in videos, they're doing insane things with their tongues, making them writhe like an eelmonger's barrow. But when I tried to use a bit of tongue, I ended up licking her teeth, and then I had the realization that my tongue was in another person's mouth, which was nearly as weird as, say, having your hand in someone's stomach or your foot in someone's lung.
   That was only the first realization that entered my head. After that it was a nonstop monologue, something like Holy crap, I'm kissing her, I'm really kissing her! What should I be doing with my hands? Should I put my hands on her bum? I'd love to put my hands on her bum. I probably shouldn't put my hands on her bum. Oh, yes I should. No. Wait, why am I thinking this, should the kiss be, like, all-obliterating and occupying 300 percent of my total consciousness, transporting me to the Galaxy of the First Kiss? I wonder if this means she's my girlfriend now. i wonder if she's kissed other blokes. I wonder if I'm better at it then they are. I bet I'm rubbish at it. Of course I'm rubbish at it. I'm spending all my time thinking instead of kissing her. For God's sake, Trent, stop thinking and KISS."

Review: The Spindlers

The Spindlers

Author: Lauren Oliver
Pages: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Source: For review from YA Books Central

Description from Goodreads:
One night when Liza went to bed, Patrick was her chubby, stubby, candy-grubbing and pancake-loving younger brother, who irritated and amused her both, and the next morning, when she woke up, he was not. In fact, he was quite, quite different.

When Liza's brother, Patrick, changes overnight, Liza knows exactly what has happened: The spindlers have gotten to him and stolen his soul.

She knows, too, that she is the only one who can save him.

To rescue Patrick, Liza must go Below, armed with little more than her wits and a broom. There, she uncovers a vast world populated with talking rats, music-loving moles, greedy troglods, and overexcitable nids . . . as well as terrible dangers. But she will face her greatest challenge at the spindlers' nests, where she encounters the evil queen and must pass a series of deadly tests--or else her soul, too, will remain Below forever.

From "New York Times" best-selling author Lauren Oliver comes a bewitching story about the reaches of loyalty, the meaning of love, and the enduring power of hope.

First Sentence: "One night when Liza went to bed, Patrick was her chubby, stubby, candy-grubbing  and pancake-loving younger brother, who irritated and amused her both, and the next morning, when she woke up, he was not."

Review:
Lauren Oliver debuted in 2010 with Before I Fall, and The Spindlers is her fifth published work, not counting novellas. Her sixth, Requiem, the conclusion to the Delirium trilogy comes out early next year. Simply put, she has blasted into popularity, prolific and talented, to become one of the most loved and admired YA/MG authors. Of the three books of hers I've read, The Spindlers was my least favorite, but still contained some of the wonderful bits that make Oliver's work such a joy to devour.

In The Spindlers, Lauren Oliver tackles a pretty standard fairy tale plot: the child whose sibling has been replaced with a changeling and the resulting quest bent on rescue. Liza wakes up to find her brother not himself. He looks the same and he has a lot of the same behaviors, but he is both too nice (perfect table manners and politeness) and too mean (spelling out 'I HATE YOU' to his sister in his alphabet cereal). Liza immediately knows what has happened to him: the Spindlers, spider creatures, have taken his soul, and, should it not be replaced soon, the shell of his body will turn into dust.

As is common in middle grade books, only Liza can save her brother from this tragic fate. Her parents refuse to believe her assertions that something is wrong with Patrick and tell her to grow up, now too old for stories. Unwilling to allow her brother to die, Liza determines to go look for him herself, so she goes down to the basement and into the crawl space. Once there, she falls into a deep hole.

It turns out the crawl space in her house connects to the Below, a world populated by the magical creatures her favorite babysitter, Anna, always told her about. She immediately gains a companion in the form of Mirabella, a rat who imitates humans. Mirabella also happens to be in possession of a number of articles stolen from her family. I'm glad to know that all of the things I can't find were not in fact lost through my carelessness but swiped by troglods.

Mirabella creeps me out a lot. Now, it's not because she's a rat. I know rats can be alright. One of my best friends in college had three rats senior year, and they were friendly creatures. Mirabella, though, sounds every kind of unpleasant. For one thing, she's person-sized. She wears clothing and a matted wig. She smells like a sewer, but covers her face in powder and mascara in an attempt to meet human standards of beauty. Basically, she will probably haunt the dreams of some. Call me vain, but I could not get past my immense distaste for Mirabella.

Liza's journey reminded me of any number of books. There was little I found especially original about this tale, except for the nocturni, which were really cool. Otherwise, the monsters, while new to me in name, fit classic molds. Still, I suspect the array of creatures will delight and terrify younger readers as they are intended to do. What Lauren Oliver brings to the story is her way with words. She has a glorious way of writing, one that I think will hold a lot of appeal for children, who also often like stories to follow familiar paths more than I do.

For fans of books like Gregor the Overlander or Coraline, The Spindlers will be a delight. 

Rating: 3/5

Favorite Quote: "That was what her parents did not understand—and had never understood—about stories. Liza told herself storied as though she was weaving and knotting an endless rope. Then, no matter how dark or terrible the pit she found herself in, she could pull herself out, inch by inch and hand over hand, on the long rope of stories."

Pure Imagination - Gene Wilder

A Little Princess

Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: children's literature
Pages: 199
Publisher (of this terrifying edition on the right): Sterling Publishing, Co.

I am going to deviate from my standard formula here (and will probably do likewise for other books as well known as this one) and skip the summary portion. I am assuming that a good number of people will have grown up with this story, like I did. I actually have never read this book before (maybe...I might have read it when I was quite young, but this is a true statement so far as I recall). I usually post a picture of the cover of the edition I read, but I was really tempted not to here. Check out the ridiculously terrifying cover on my library copy!

Sara Crewe is a child gifted with a remarkable imagination, intelligence and a doting father. When her father dies, her intelligence is useful certainly, but it is her imagination that really pulls her through the tough times. She wonders in the beginning of the book whether she is actually nice or not, because she has never experienced a hardship. I really loved that when hardship came, she struggled to maintain her princess demeanor. She got angry and wanted to respond spitefully to ill treatment, but made the conscious decision to rise above. This makes Sara feel like a real girl, not like some absurd Pollyanna.

I am always happy to find another book lover, and such is Sara Crewe. One of the most trying moments of the book for her in her battle to keep her temper is when her reading is interrupted: "Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment." Delightful.

There was one element of the story that is a bit...odd...from a modern perspective. That is that the Indian servant, Ram Dass, watches Sara while she is inside and even comes into the room while she is sleeping. His intentions are entirely noble and he is doing good. Still...it's hard not to be at least a wee bit creeped out by that these days.

Although a children's book, this classic loses nothing when read by an older audience. I highly recommend this to anyone who believes in magic! Also, if you haven't seen it, definitely check out the 1995 film version, because it manages to capture the magic of the book and even improve upon the story (in my opinion)!

"If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanna change the world?
There's nothing
To it

There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You'll be free
If you truly wish to be"