Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling, takes us into Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  And I think you know by now that Harry and his friends will never have a normal school year.  The book starts us off at the end of the summer, when Harry is invited to go with Ron's family to see the Quidditch World Cup, the biggest sporting event of the wizarding world.  I mean, he plays on one of the school teams, so he can't NOT go.  The game is very exciting, but nothing compared to the events occurring during the night after the game is over:  although rather than a joyful excitement, it is the kind of excitement which involves a lot of screaming in terror and running for your life.  It seems some of Lord Voldemort's old supporters have decided to use this mass gathering of witches and wizards as an opportunity to have their own kind of fun, which is the opposite of fun for everyone who is not a total asshole.

By the time the kids are all back at school, shit has already been on a slippery slope to getting Real, but no one seems too concerned about it yet because everyone is all kinds of busy with the resurrection of the Triwizard Tournament, an international competition between students of various schools of magic that unfortunately resulted in the deaths of many of its competitors.  And although the ministry has claimed to do its best to keep the mortal danger to a minimum for this one, it seems someone is hoping against that, because someone has put Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire, the magical item responsible for selecting the champion who will be representing each school in the tournament.  I don't know why the idea of someone actively wanting Harry dead should come as any kind of a surprise for him or his friends or anyone who knows him, really, since he has been the victim of conspiracy and attempted murder in all his previous years at this school, too.  But anyway, having your name come out of this goblet is a magical and binding contract, so Harry has no choice but to compete, and the professors and government officials have no choice but to allow it.  

The Secret of the Old Clock

The Secret of the Old Clock is the first book in the iconic Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, written by various authors under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene.  Nancy Drew has been a favorite of girls for decades, and her popularity has remained strong to this day, as is evidenced by the many revivals of book series, film adaptations, and even video games.  I even just found out that there is an annual Nancy Drew convention!  You can bet your ass that is a convention I would cosplay at, like...24/7.

Anyway.  So the point here is that I'm sure Nancy Drew needs no introduction, and maybe it's as "pointless" to review books from this franchise as it is to review such modern-day classics as Harry Potter.  But here it is.

Nancy Drew is an 18-year-old  (or 16-year-old, depending on how old your edition is) girl in the midwestern USA and the only child of star lawyer, Carson Drew.  They live in the small-ish town of River Heights, with their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen.  Nancy's mother passed away when Nancy was still very young, and Hannah became like a mother to her.  I haven't read any of these books (except for The Secret of the Old Clock, of course) for years, but I seem to remember Hannah not doing much besides cook.  But that is beside the point.  Nancy is pretty and bright, with a strong sense of personal responsibility and an unswerving sense of right and wrong.  She is quick-thinking and a little sassy, but always friendly and willing to lend a hand wherever one might be needed.  Nancy might get herself into situations at times where you, the reader, are thinking to yourself "what in the hell were you thinking, Nancy Drew, don't you know any better???"  But she never panics - she talks herself calmly and rationally through any predicament, and finds a way out.  A stark contrast to many other female characters of her time, Nancy Drew does not need a man to save her.  HELL no.  She puts on her fabulous outfits and gets in her fancy convertible and she gets shit done.  I mean, in the first chapter of Secret of the Old Clock alone, Nancy SAVES A CHILD'S LIFE.

And the action and suspense just picks up momentum from there.  I mean, yeah, this book was written originally in 1930, then revamped in 1959, so it is a little tame and predictable, and Nancy has some very Mary Sue-like qualities about her, in that she is basically Perfection Incarnate.  She is caring and thoughtful and makes fast friends with everyone (except thieves and rude people, of course, in which case WATCH OUT because she will drive down the highway or across town to report you to the police or the state troopers, even if it means she might be a little late for dinner).  She is beautiful and always very fashionably dressed.  She always knows just what to do in any situation, and always comes out on top.  And even though she is so awesome and everyone always acknowledges how freaking awesome she is, she is always very modest about it.

Regardless, Nancy Drew is an excellent role model for young girls, because even though she does exhibit all these ideally feminine qualities, she has a brilliant and rational mind and is not afraid to speak her mind when necessary.  She has a lot of good sense, and is an overall genuinely nice person.

Standing in the Light

Standing in the Light:  The Captive Diary of Catharine Carey Logan is a fictional diary by Mary Pope Osborne, written for the Dear America series.  Caty Logan is a 13-year-old girl living with her family in the Delaware Valley in Pennsylvania.  The Logans are Quakers - a pacifist religious group that began in England and spread to North America in the late 1600s, when some of them emigrated to escape religious persecution.  Quakers have been historically very politically active in the fight for universal civil rights and gender equality, although they also tend to practice modesty and humility in general behavior and appearance (at least during the time in which this book is set).

It is 1763, just after the French and Indian War, and Caty is worried because there have been reports of raids on farmers around the valley, in retaliation of the English government going back on their treaties with the local villages regarding land ownership.  Caty's father believes that their family will be safe if they show the Indians that they trust them, and has faith in the friendly relations the Quakers have had with the Delaware Indians in the past.  Despite this, however, Caty and her brother Thomas are taken captive on their way to school one winter morning; after hearing the rumors at school of people being scalped, Caty fears the worst.

After a while, Caty loses track of the days, though curiosity and what seems like admiration causes her captors to allow her to continue writing in her diary, and from the day she and Thomas are taken, the book becomes a letter to their father, in case it should ever find its way back to him.

Once the small party reaches a village, Thomas is taken away:  will she ever see him or the rest of their family again?

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis is a classic children's fantasy story set during World War II.  Four siblings (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy) are sent to the country to escape the bombing of London, and the house where they are to be living is owned by an old and eccentric professor.  There are many rooms to explore, all full of fascinating and mysterious things.  While exploring the house, the children come across a room that is empty except for a large, wooden wardrobe.  Lucy soon discovers that this wardrobe is a kind of doorway into another world:  Narnia.

She meets a faun not long after entering, and after becoming friends with him, she finds that if she doesn't leave quickly, she will become the prisoner of the White Witch, the dictator-queen.  Of course, when she gets back through the wardrobe and tells her siblings about the wood she found through the wardrobe, none of them believe her; it's not until later, when they all find themselves forced to hide in the wardrobe together from the professor's housekeeper, that they see for themselves that she was telling the truth (although Edmund had actually got into Narnia once as well, and met Lucy on his way out, but he's kind of a dick, so he lied to Peter and Susan about it).

The real adventure starts when they all go to visit Lucy's friend, the faun, only to find that he has been arrested for not turning Lucy in to the witch.  They agree (Edmund not really so much) that it's only right to try and help Mr Tumnus if they can, since it was because of Lucy that he was arrested in the first place.  

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I can't even count how many times I've read this book.  The entire series is great, and I never get tired of reading each of the books.  Because of the movie that came out back in 2005, this is probably the most well-known of the series.  I like the Pevensie children (except Edmund not so much at first, since he's kind of a little d-bag); they aren't exactly the most complex characters you will ever come across, but that doesn't make them awful or too boring.  Sometimes I get a little annoyed with how goody-goody they seem, because that just does not feel very real, but they are children living during one of the worst times in modern history, so maybe they're just trying to make the best of things as well as they can.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (sometimes published with the shorter title The Wizard of Oz) is regarded as the first American fairy tale, and it is one of those stories that every American child would be familiar with, even if they haven't read the book themselves.  This is a story of self discovery:  young Dorothy lives on a farm in Kansas with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry; one day, a cyclone comes and picks up their house, with Dorothy and her dog Toto inside (she didn't make it into the storm cellar with her aunt and uncle).  Fortunately, she isn't hurt - rather, she gets bored or something after a while, goes to her bed, and falls asleep.  She wakes up when the house is set down none too gently in a strange and very colorful land full of strange little people.

The Good Witch of the North informs Dorothy that she is in the land of the Munchkins, and points out that Dorothy's house has landed on the Wicked Witch of the East, killing her.  Dorothy wants to get back to Kansas, and since with the death of the witch comes the munchkins' freedom, they are more than happy to help her.  They set her up with some provisions and the Witch of the North kisses Dorothy, leaving a mark of protection, then points her in the direction of the Land of Oz.  Dorothy decides her practical and worn-in boots are no good for a long journey on foot, and since the Witch of the East is dead and so will not be walking anywhere anytime soon, Dorothy loots the witch's pretty silver and (unbeknownst to her at the time) magic shoes.

As she travels along the yellow brick road, Dorothy makes a few friends who each desire something for themselves, and Dorothy assures each one that there is no reason this wizard of Oz shouldn't be able to give them what they want, even though she only just heard of the guy and knows nothing about this place.  She's very young, though, so I guess she can't really be blamed for making promises of other people.  The party gets into all kinds of trouble along the way, but miraculously, they make it through every danger completely unscathed.  Eventually, they reach the Emerald City and meet with the wizard, who says sure, he'll grant them each their respective wishes, but only if they go and kill the Wicked Witch of the West first.  She's the last wicked witch left, after all, and since Dorothy downed the other one, this one should be no problem, right?

The Invasion

The Invasion is the first book in K.A. Applegate's Animorphs series.  Jake and his friends Cassie, Marco, Rachel, and Tobias are cutting through an abandoned construction site on their way home from the mall one evening when they see a bright light in the sky that appears to be getting closer...it doesn't take long for them to realize that the light is actually a spaceship.  The ship lands and the kids get a message of warning from the dying alien who was piloting it; the people of Earth are in danger.  Another alien race is working on enslaving people by controlling their minds and bodies.  Until help comes, Jake and his friends may have to try and fight the invasion.  To help them, the alien gives them all a gift:  the ability to morph into any animal after acquiring its DNA sequence by touching it.  When the kids start realizing just how many people are already under the alien control, it hits them just how in over their heads they might be.

These books were right up there with Baby-Sitters Club and Goosebumps when I was a kid; come Book Fair time, Animorphs were certainly at the top of the Want List.  There is something very appealing about having the power to change into any animal at will, and to do so in order to fight for the human race would be pretty awesome.  Reading it again as an adult, I realize how cheesy the writing is, but I imagine it isn't so easy to write in the voice of a pre-teen or teenager in a way that might be believable enough to keep the target audience invested in the characters - especially when the way kids talk changes so much over the years.  

The characters so far are pretty one-dimensional, but there are a lot of books in the series, so there is plenty of room for development where that is concerned.  There are things these kids deal with, though, that are definitely not fluffy and childish.  Marco and Tobias don't have the easiest home lives, and the rest of them are about to have to grow up a lot more pretty soon here if they plan to survive the coming war until the Andalites arrive to fight the Controllers.

The Last Song

The Last Song by Eva Wiseman is a gripping juvenile fiction novel set in Toledo, Spain during the infamous Spanish Inquisition.  The Inquisitor General has come to the city, and while the Jews themselves are not exactly treated with kindness, it's the "Conversos" who are being persecuted here - the people who only recently converted to Christianity.  If any of them are caught or suspected to still be practicing the Jewish faith while pretending to be Christian, they are arrested for heresy and tortured into a confession, whereupon they are burned at the stake.

Fourteen-year-old Isabel has seen the grim procession of prisoners through the city, and though a devout Catholic herself, questions the humanity of it all.  She is quickly hushed, though, because to even doubt the Inquisition is to mark yourself as either a heretic or a traitor.  Isabel is from a fairly well-off and respected family - her father is physician to the royal court - and inside the walls of her home and with the comfort of her personal shrine to the Virgin Mother, the world feels safe and normal.  Her world is turned upside down, though, when she is betrothed to the son of Don Alfonso, a Cavalier.  Luis is cruel and disrespectful, but her parents ignore her pleas not to marry him.  They insist it is to ensure her safety from the Inquisition, as Don Alfonso's family has a long history in the Catholic church; Isabel is confused why she should need any protection from the Inquisition, but her parents then tell her the impossible truth - they are Conversos.  Their grandparents were forced to convert, but their family continued to practice their Jewish faith in secret.

The news breaks everything Isabel thought she knew about herself - she feels she is as devout a Catholic as ever, but is she truly also a Jew?  Can she be both, or must she choose?  Whatever she does, however, she is sworn to secrecy, for all their lives depend on no one discovering the truth of their heritage.  Isabel wants to learn all she can about this new part of her identity, but can she satisfy her mounting curiosity without giving away her family's secret?  The Inquisitor General's men are everywhere, and it is impossible to know who can be trusted.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling is the third installment of the widely popular Harry Potter series.  Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione are in their third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and as per usual, their year does not exactly go smoothly.  Harry is not doing so well to begin with, though; his Uncle Vernon's sister comes to visit toward the end of the summer vacation, and things get a little out of hand.  Harry storms out of the Dursleys' house, set to run away and resigned to being expelled from school and living as a fugitive.  While wondering what to do first, though, he gets picked up by The Knight Bus, which gives rides to stranded witches and wizards, and he goes to London, thinking he may as well start off at The Leaky Cauldron pub.  He's met at the pub by none other but the Minister of Magic himself,  however, and thinks he's in for it.  Rather than be arrested, though, he's set up with a room and told to stick to Diagon Alley, and not to go wandering about in Muggle London.  He doesn't have too much time to ponder the strangeness of the leniency, though, as he's quickly caught up with being back in the wizard world, and soon enough he is joined by his friends, since everyone goes to Diagon Alley to get their back-to-school shopping done.

Just before getting back on the train to Hogwarts, Harry learns some startling news about a mass murderer - Sirius Black - who  has broken out of Azkaban, the wizard prison; the man is considered to be such a danger that even the Muggle law enforcement has been notified to be on the lookout for him and to exercise caution.  Extra security measures have been placed at school, and everyone is worried for Harry's safety especially.  This is probably for the best, since he and his friends seem to have a real knack for getting into life-threatening situations.  Despite all these precautions, however, events continue to unfold which lead Harry, Ron, and Hermione right into Black's path.

Yesterday's Dead

Yesterday's Dead by Pat Bourke is a middle grade novel set in Toronto in 1918.  Meredith Hollings is a 13-year-old girl who must leave her small hometown of Port Stuart to become a maid for a doctor's family in Toronto.  Her father left and was killed in the war, and their family's store isn't bringing in quite enough.  She regrets having to leave school, since she dreamed of becoming a teacher someday (and who will hire a teacher who didn't even go to high school?).

Meredith decides, however, that her time in Toronto will be an adventure, and she may just get a little more than she bargained for with that.  The rest of the household staff are mostly pleasant - kind Mrs Butters runs the kitchen and helps her to feel more at home; Forrest, the chauffeur and sort of jack-of-all-trades for the house; Mrs O'Hagan, who doesn't live in the house, but comes to clean and do the laundry.  Mrs O'Hagan's son, Tommy, is also very nice, and he offers to show Meredith around the city on her day off.  Parker, the butler, on the other hand, is not very pleasant at all.  He seems to find fault with everything Meredith does, and is generally a grouch.

The members of Doctor Waterton's family are perhaps a different story altogether, apart from the doctor himself.  The eldest, fifteen-year-old Jack, is a flirt who teases Meredith every time he sees her; Maggie, who is Meredith's age, is a brat with airs of entitlement; the youngest, Harry, is a handful - he's always getting into something, mainly the sugar.

Despite some of the difficulties, Meredith is doing her best and doing a pretty good job, but when the Spanish influenza sweeps through Toronto, it doesn't skip the doctor's house.  Meredith has her work cut out for her trying to get all the regular housework done while also taking care of the members of the household who have fallen victim to the flu.  The doctor is detained for days at the hospital as waves of people are brought in, and he's ordered them all to quarantine themselves inside the house - no one goes in, no one leaves - to try and keep anything from spreading even further.  He doesn't know, however, that nearly everyone in the house is now ill, and Meredith is running the place nearly on her own.  People around the city are dying every day - will she be able to maintain everything in the house until Dr Waterton gets back?  She's been relatively lucky so far, but with all their lives in Meredith's hands, what will happen if she also falls ill?

The Magician's Nephew

The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis is actually not the first book that was published of The Chronicles of Narnia - it was the second to last to be published.  It's usually presented as the first book in the series, however, because it is first chronologically.  Since "Book 1" is printed on the spine of the copy I have, and the omnibus I have has this one first, I can't bring myself to read them in order of publication.

Probably The Magician's Nephew is one of the least known of all seven books, since most people only really know of the books which feature the Pevensie children.  The children in this book are Digory and Polly, a young boy and girl who live next door to each other in London.  Digory's mother is very ill, and his father is in India for work, so he and his mother have come to London to live with her brother and sister in their home.  Digory thinks his Uncle Andrew is straight crazy, and is a little wary of him, and he finds he had good reason to feel this way when one day, he and Polly accidentally get into his upstairs study while exploring a tunnel which runs the length of all the houses.

Uncle Andrew, as it turns out, is a magician.  He is convinced he's unlocked the secret to moving between their world and other worlds, but rather than go himself (he's quite old, you see, this sort of thing is really only fit for someone still young), he tricks Polly into being sent from their world, leaving Digory no choice but to go after her (well, really he does have a choice, but he's not a douche, so he goes).

The Smuggler's Treasure

The Smuggler's Treasure by Sarah Masters Buckey is the first book in the American Girl: History Mysteries series.  When I was a kid, I really adored American Girl, and even now that I'm definitely on the "and up" side of "for ages 10 and up," I still enjoy the books for a fun, light read.  The Smuggler's Treasure is the story of a ship captain's daughter, Elisabet Holder.  It's two years into the War of 1812, and Elisabet's father has been captured by the British.  Her mother has been long dead, and her father's accountant believes her father may be dead now as well, so she makes the long trip by sea from Boston to New Orleans, to stay with an aunt and uncle she's never met - her only living relatives.

Arriving in the strange new city is, for Elisabet, like going to another country - the Louisiana Purchase has only just occurred recently, so the residents are still very much French or Spanish at heart.  On top of this, she finds out that she is expected to work in her aunt and uncle's bakery as a shop assistant; this is very different from living in Boston with her father, where she went to school and had servants to wait on her.  When she learns news of the ship that took her father prisoner, however, and is determined to rescue him from the British, she soon learns the value of friendship despite social class boundaries.

Voyage on the Great Titanic

Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady by Ellen Emerson White is a part of the Dear America collection for children/young adults. The books are written as though you are reading the main character's diary, and started being published widely after the American Girls series got very popular. I got this one at a book fair in middle school, and I still enjoyed reading it as an adult.

Margaret Ann Brady is an orphaned girl in England who is living in a home and school run by nuns, one of whom has given her a diary, which is where the book essentially begins. Margaret fills the reader in on her back-story - about her parents and her brother, and how she came to be at the orphanage. But she has also been taken on by a wealthy American woman to act as a companion on board the Titanic. While I'm sure we all know the story of that tragic event, I found it interesting to read about from Margaret's perspective, and the historical significance is not made light of although the book is intended for a fairly young audience.

Catherine, Called Birdy

Okay, so I know I thought before that I would have more time for new posts, but that did not turn out to be the truth. School seems to get more hectic every semester! But the good news is that finals for this Spring are next week, and I won't have classes again until July; so I will have more time for leisure reading and to post more frequently (for real this time)!

Anyway, tonight I want to talk about Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman. This book came out back when I was in maybe the fourth or fifth grade - I thoroughly enjoyed it then, and it was a fun book to revisit. The format of the story is as if you are reading Catherine's diary, which I always like, because I am a nosy person. Obviously, if you are someone who likes having a certain depth in multiple characters, this book is not for you, but I think it is fun to read books set up this way, too.