The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, bk 1) by James Patterson, 2005
I started this one over the break, and then left it at my aunt’s house, so I didn’t finish the last bit until a few weeks later. Six winged children, mutated by scientists, have escaped the lab and are living in a remote mountain home. Led by 14-year-old girl Max, their location has been discovered and the Erasers (part human, part wolf) are on the hunt. The other winged mutants are called Fang (even stronger than the others), Iggy (blind and really good with explosives and locks), Nudge (can sense others’ presence from places they’ve been), the Gasman, and little Angel (6 years old who can persuade others of most anything). Very short chapters pulled me right along. It’s a fun read, lots of action, and the premise is really cool.
Some memory-jogging tags: DNA experimentation. Genetic engineering. Mutants. Winged humans. Mind reading. Outcasts. Orphans. Betrayal. Adventure story.
The Field Guide (The Spiderwick Chronicles, bk. 1) by Tony Di Terlizzi, 2003.
The Grace kids, boy twins Jared and Simon and their older sister Mallory, have just moved with their mom to their great-aunt’s large and fairly decrepit Victorian house in the country. Right away, they hear weird noises in the walls. Trying to track down the source, they find a decorated mini-room within the wall, a dumbwaiter that leads up to a room with no doors, and a poem that contains clues to a treasure hunt. While some creature (a boggart) plays tricks on the family (ties Mallory’s hair to the bed, trashes the kitchen), Jared follows the clues to discover an old book: Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You. Jared convinces the others to try to make it up to the boggart in order to change him back to a harmless mannikin.
The Light of the Oracle by Victoria Hanley, 2005
Set in a world similar to our middle-ages, Bryn, a stonecutter’s daughter, is found by the master priest, Renchald, and brought to the temple of the Oracle to study to become a priestess. But all is not well at the temple. In a setting where all are to suppose to be equal, and honesty the rule of the day, there are pecking orders, favorites, and secret plots of deceit and murder. Bryn’s powerful gift of prophecy and humble clothing brings her under the ridicule of Clea, another new handmaid and cousin to the queen. Even worse, her gifts make her a threat to the master priest himself as he plots with another to overthrow the queen’s daughter, the rightful heir to the throne. It is unclear at the beginning if the story is going to be historical fiction or fantasy, but the gifts developed and exercised at the temple are beyond our reality. I liked the story, and the friendship between Bryn and Kiran, a boy who can speak to the animals with his thoughts. The writing was fine, though there was nothing terribly moving about the story.
Some memory-jogging tags: Birds. Talking to animals. Friendship. Conceit. Priests and priestesses. Secret plots.
Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton, 2006
This story flips between modern day Oxford and medieval Germany, the two time periods tied together by a book without words made of dragon skin parchment. Endymion works for Gutenberg, steals a magic book from Fust (aka. Faust, the man who sold his soul to the devil), and escapes to Oxford, hiding the book in the new college there. Drake has just moved to Oxford with his mom and younger (and annoyingly superior) sister Duck from the United States. He finds a blank book in the library, or it finds him, called Endymion Springs and is intriqued by it. If he looks closely enough, writing appears. But he is not the only one interested. I loved the premise, but I found the actual story a little slow. Also, it was a bit unclear to me what this magical dragon book was actually doing. However, I did hear from one student that he liked it.
Some memory-jogging tags: Fantasy. Gutenberg. Books and reading. Magic. Apprentices. Oxford. Family problems. Mystery and detective stories.
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