Book du Jour:
THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING by Catherynne M. Valente (Fiewel and Friends)
Save Fairyland, little twelve-year-old-girl! (No pressure.) With lots of wordplay, a quest to vanquish in the name of good and a whimsical cast, perhaps this is a contemporary nod to Norton Juster's THE PHANTOM TOOLBOOTH featuring a female protagonist (and how timely, with a 50th Anniversary Edition and an Annotated Edition out and about?)...excepting, September has an enthusiastic spirit all her own, falling in line with the best of the Practical Princesses and other more liberated girls who have wandered--or wended--their way into fairy tales. Smart, lovely, sensory, descriptive language, too, with plenty of vocabulary that means what it says and says what they mean (bedraggled shoes, dense bread), always exciting and never dumb (just like good old William Steig used to do...how about BRAVE IRENE? ). Isn't it perfect when an author has a high regard for, um....words? And girls? Helps a lot. (11 and up)
Links are provided for informational use. Don't forget to support your local bookseller.
More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment