Heir Apparent and Alphabet of Dreams

Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde, 2002
Giannine Bellisario receives a gift certificate from her distant father at Rasmussem Gamming Center, a total immersion virtual reality center, which she requested for her fourteenth birthday present. She goes through some picketers, who feel such entertainment isn’t appropriate for children, and decides to play Heir Apparent because the desk attendant describes it as bean soup – there are many ways to make a good soup but also many ways to make mistakes, and also because the picture of the prince in the advertisement is cute. While she’s playing the game, she’s Janine, the heir apparent in a kingdom of half-brothers, former queen, wizards, advisors with various degrees of loyalty and helpfulness, seven-league boots, a midas crown, enslaving ring, and flesh-eating dragon. If she’s killed she gets to start over, but time is running out. The picketers have broken into the store and damaged the equipment. If she doesn’t become crowned king soon, she’ll never win. Her brain will be fried. A heavenly messenger tells her this while playing her first scenario and gives her some cryptic clues.
It is a thoroughly amusing read. The tone is humorous. I thought the premise was cleverly done, with a Groundhog-Day-esque pacing and hilarity.

Some memory-jogging tags: Virtual reality. Role playing. Magical kingdoms. Fathers and daughters. Learning from mistakes. Dragons. Magic. Duel identities. Trust.

MS Rating: Great. Fun read, especially for girls. I've heard from some of my MS students that they really liked it.


Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher, 2006
Mitra and her young brother, Babak, are living as beggars in the city of Rhagae, sleeping in the precarious safety of old catacombs in the City of the Dead and staying as far away from their neighbors as possible. Mitra, living as a boy named Ramen, doesn’t trust anyone. This secret is too dangerous, as is her other one – that she and her brother are the children of a would-be king nobleman who tried to overthrow King Phraates and ended up killed as traitors instead. She has convinced her older brother, Suren, to try to find the rest of the family, but he hasn’t returned. This is the beginning. As she waits for Suren, Mitra discovers that Babak can dream other people’s dreams if he sleeps with a piece of their clothing. This gift comes to the attention of a powerful magus named Melchior. They become part of his caravan; make friends with a kitten (Shirak), a donkey (Gorizpa), a camel (Ziba), and a boy (Pacorus); are joined by two other magi; are kidnapped for ransom but escape and given shelter by Koosha and his family; are returned to the caravan by Giv; and follow the stars to Bethlehem. Mitra eventually accepts her new life and is freed from having to keep secrets.
I had a hard time getting into the rhythm of the writing. It was choppy with lots of sentence fragments, which made it hard for me to get lost in the story. Though I enjoyed the overall story by the end, I didn’t much enjoy the reading of it.

Some memory-jogging tags: Hidden identify. Brothers and sisters. Nobility. Ancient Persia, fiction. Dreams. Jesus Christ, nativity, fiction. Historical fiction. Bravery.

MS Rating: OK. Beehive 07-08 nominee. Map at beginning.

Quotes: P 153: Koosha says, “You are entirely yourself, no matter how you hide.”
P 258-9: Balthazaar says, “I keep musing upon paradise and the way to attain it. Of the Prophet’s admonition that greatness comes neither from wealth nor knowledge nor nobility of birth, but from our own good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. By these lights, he tells us, even a slave can cross to paradise, while many a king plunges into the abyss. The highborn and the lowly are as one.”
P 259: Balthazaar says, “…this birth [of the baby in Bethlehem] has less to do with kingly power and priestly knowledge, and more to do here” – he placed an outspread hand upon his chest – “with the heart.”
P 280: Divining dreams were a grand and precious gift, like the gifts the Magi had brought to Bethlehem. But the freedom to dream ordinary dreams, dreams that were truly one’s own – perhaps this was more precious still.