March 25th, 2008
by Sam Pagan
Coraline shouldn’t need any introduction if any of you reading this are cool even a modicum.
The brain baby of Neil Gaiman, renown for his works with Sandman, Stardust, Neverwhere, American Gods (with Terry Pratchett), and a slew of other great works, Coraline is a web of wonder and fantasy woven into a story that may have been made for children but can definitely be enjoyed by adults. Gaiman has a way with words; as such, there are no age limitations. All you need to enjoy him is an imagination and the ability to read. And to those that lack the latter, I’ll just take this opportunity to ridicule you for your incompetence. Biblio-blunderers.
Our main character is, of course, Coraline: A young girl who is full of imagination and curiousity. Unfortunately, her parents don’t seem to be the source of her inspiration, so it gets frustrating sometimes. We join Coraline and her family as they are moving into a new flat part of a large building separated into three parts. On the top part in the attic is the old man who claims to be training a mouse circus. On the bottom are two washed-up actresses who care for their bedraggled terriers and recount the “old days” when they were well-known and beautiful.
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March 4th, 2008
by Sam Pagan
The acclaimed bestselling title Swordbird now has a companion in the ranks of innovative children’s books. That book is not the prequel known as Sword Quest. Released just in January of this year, teeny-bopper author Nancy Yi Fan thought it necessary to continue her precocious anti-war story that includes birds with a prequel. A prequel! How pretentious is that? Not even out of the ninth grade yet and she’s trying to create a Lucas-esque world of imaginaton via a prequel.
Complete with non-sequitors that confuse the reader and preemptive descriptions of something that happens in the next paragraph instead of just describing it as it happens, Sword Quest is set one hundred years before the first book, telling the tale of how Swordbird (the character, birth name Wind-voice) came to be the mythical hero dove-thing. Fan may want to share her dream of world peace through cute little birds that wear robes and nose rings, but she still has a ways to go before she can make it as a real author. Her short sentences and creative ways on avoiding well-structured paragraphs will need some work and perhaps a high school diploma (for starters) before she’ll be able to write anything that can be enjoyed by anyone that isn’t in middle school.
Unless of course she wants to continue writing children’s books. Then by all means she should continue. My understanding of most children’s books, though, was the fact that they could be enjoyed by both adults and kids. I admit that there are quite a few titles in the kids’ section at my work that I would be interested in reading for pleasure. I am not reading Fan’s book for the same kind of pleasure. It’s more like a masochistic variety, where it’s enjoyable in the same way Snakes On A Plane was, and I know I need not delve further into reasons why.
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October 16th, 2007
by Sam Pagan
I read Swordbird mainly on the prompt of Robert’s response to the title and cover illustration you see above: A giant white dove holding a broadsword in its claws, and two birds fighting each other with their own weapons of choice. I would say it’s a blatant display of an over-abundance of testosterone and proving whose manhood is bigger, but I can’t knowing that this was written by a twelve-year-old girl with a penchant for birds and a hope of peace who laced this story with a malleable layer of religious undertones and hippie morals.
I just can’t go there. So here’s my review anyway.
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September 27th, 2007
by Sam Pagan
Here for a change is a children’s book review commentating the brilliant writing and story arc held within the hard bound pages of one devious little book.
Skulduggery Pleasant starts with a death. As all children’s books should, really. The audience is somewhat detached from the death because all that happens is that the person just slumps over at his desk in the middle of completing his latest novel, and dies. No explanation, no source of death, nothing. And that’s kind of what piqued my interest, because then you can expect a story full of mystery-solving and adventure. It’s also based in Ireland, which you can never go wrong with.
After that, it jumps right to the funeral ceremony to focus on the departed’s 13-year-old niece, Stephanie Edgely, the rundown of the immediate family members that were there as well as a stranger dressed in a tan over-coat, scarf, and hat in a mid-summer’s day. Foreshadowing, perhaps.
A day or two later Stephanie, her parents and her father’s other brother and wife, who are just as detestable as Mrs. Umbridge from the Potter books, are summoned to a hearing of the will.
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August 2nd, 2007
by Sam Pagan
There are several things I think when I’m perusing the shelves at the bookstore I work and, depending on the section, the wonderment I feel at finding a jewel of a novel. Now, “jewel” can mean good or bad. For instance, there is one such jewel in the Romance section whose title alone leaves nothing to the imagination: Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy.
Or there are books in the science fiction and fantasy section about talking mice wielding swords and befriending otters which make me wonder: If people can write such nonsense as this, then even I can get my book published with no hesitations.
Then, there are the diamonds in the rough that make me feel both flabbergasted and ecstatic that such a thing exists. One of these things is the book series Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean, by Justin Somper.
Could it be?! Vampires AND pirates all wrapped up in one g-rated and paper-bound package for 7-12 year olds to enjoy?? This is almost as good as when I discovered Goosebumps as a kid.
I, of course, promptly read the first book in about a week or two, escaping to the children’s corner on my breaks and lunches to devour chapter by chapter this wondrous marriage of undead hemophiliacs and ocean bound thieves with an eye for fashion and economics.
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