Quick Guide: Shannon Hale

Shannon Hale is one of those oddities that crops up every so often in the book world. She's not well known. In fact, almost no one has heard of her. But those who have read her are almost unanimous in their praise. Have a look on Amazon; it's very unusual for her books to receive less than four stars.

Broadly speaking, Shannon writes fairy tales. But these aren't twinkly stories with happy ever afters at the end. These are Teen novels with life, love, loss, death and happiness inside.

The Books of Bayern began with The Goose Girl, loosely based on the fairy story of the same name. Anidora, Crown Princess of Kildendree, is sent with Selia, her lady's maid, and a company of guards to marry the prince of neighbouring Bayern. Along the way Selia uses her powers of compulsion to overthrow Ani and persuade the guards to join her. Ani flees through the forest and when she finally reaches Bayern, she learns that Selia has been recognised as the prince's fiancee. With the help of the servants, Ani must fight for her rightful place and for the safety of her country.

In Enna Burning trouble has come to Ani's court. Neighbouring Tira is marching to war, and rumours of a fire starter in the court are adding to the unease. Ani's powers of wind-speaking are needed to quench the blaze.

After the war with Tira, peace envoys are sent from Ani's court in River Secrets. At first all seems well, but the canals of Tira hold many secrets and the envoy may be in over their heads.

In the most recent title, Forest Born, the young sister of Ani's guard flees her forest home when she begins to feel as though she no longer belongs there. At the same time, warriors from Kel strike into Bayern, burning villages to the ground. Ani and her friends must leave their home ground to find the source of these seemingly aimless attacks.



Standalone title Book of a Thousand Days is loosely based on Maid Maleen by the Grimm brothers. In the tale, a young princess refuses to marry her father's choice of husband, and she and her maid are locked in a tower for seven years for her disobedience. The maid Dashti is our hero here, relating the time spent in the tower and their adventures out of it. There are many obstacles to overcome before they finally find a safe home.



In Princess Academy, another standalone, Miri's tiny stone cutting village is astounded when auguries show that the prince's next bride will be found there. All the girls are hustled into royal training in preparation for his visit. Only Miri has any suspicions, and it will fall to her to save them all...



Shannon has a beautiful, lyrical style and it's really a shame more people aren't aware of her. Give one of her books a try. You won't be sorry.

Review: The Forbidden Game Trilogy, by L J Smith

LJane Smith is currently recieving a lot of publicity for her Vampire Diaries, which was recently made into a TV series. Forbidden Game is similar in a lot of ways to that series; young, semi-naive heroine, a 'bad guy' determined to drag her to his side, and a 'good guy' trying to save her.

Jenny is shoping for a new game for her boyfriend Tom's birthday. Ducking into a store she's never seen before, she meets a strange, blue-eyed boy who sells her something simply called The Game.

Jenny senses something off about The Game, but her friends are eager to start. Until they're sucked into the world of The Game, forced to face their worst nightmares in a world where anything is possible.

Jenny's being hunted by Julian, beautiful blue-eyed Julian the Shadow Man. He's loved Jenny for years because she is everything he isn't; light to his darkness, compassion to his cruelty. Now he's hunting her, hunting her friends, to force her to say yes to him.

All I refuse, and thee I chuse...

Jenny has some hard decisions to make. Can she say goodbye to the human world for ever-changing Julian? Can she hold onto her humanity in the face of his Game? In the end she'll have to choose, darkness or light...

Customer Review: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, Stephanie Meyer

Sorry peoples but the word I use for “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” by Stephanie Meyer has to be disappointing. Actually I do love the name, I think it it clever and if you hadn’t read or heard about – I’d go as far as to say impossible – the Twilight series, I think the mere name of this book would catch your interest enough to pick it up and read the back anyway!

This book tells the story of one of the vampires turned by Victoria to join the army she is creating to destroy the Cullens. I think the premise is excellent and it could have been great but she forgets – in my opinion – that Bree is now a vampire and leaves her still with human feelings and no bloodthirstyness, facts all explained away in the book but factors which made me feel she was just cashing in on an already huge franchise. Much has been made of the fact that she released the story on free down-load so she isn’t making money but there is no such thing as bad publicity is there???

All that said, I think there are a million girls, boys and wanna-be vampires out there who will love this book and indeed, bar staff of pubs in Ireland (I met one about two weeks ago!!) who will love this book and will have paid for the book because they couldn’t wait for the free download date and I hope the book for them was all they hoped for and more. Me? A little bit too much pandering to the “fans” in my opinion and not enough staying true to her original premise…



Maeve works for the local County Council.

Books of the Month: June, 2010

Hi.

Adult Book of the Month is The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. Kidnapped from her village at age eleven and sold into slavery, Aminata spends sixty years trying to return home.

Irish Fiction Book of the Month is Truth or Fiction by Jennifer Johnston. Caroline was expecting a simple, boring magazine assignment. But Desmond Fitzmaurice is anything but dull...

Mind, Body, Spirit Book of the Month is Change your Brain, Change your Life by Dr Daniel G Amen. This is a new programme using drug free methods to fight problems like depression and obsessive worrying.

Minority Interest Book of the Month is You are Here by Christopher Potter. It's a simply presented history of the universe to date, explaining stellar phenomena without resorting to scientific jargon.

The Manager's Choice Book is Never Say Die by Melanie Davies and Lynne Barrett Lee. Thirty years ago Melanie was paralysed in a car accident. This book gives us the ups and downs of an extraordinary life.

Fiction Book of the Month is The Seven Secrets of Happiness by Sharon Owens. Ruby's life is shattered just after Christmas, but through the following year she learns seven secrets that help her keep going...

History Book of the Month is The Resistance by Matthew Cobb. This is the personal story of some of the many ordinary French men and women who risked their lives aiding the French Resistance against the Nazi invaders during WWII.

Cookery Book of the Month is Shrewd Food by Elizabeth Carty. It contains over 120 recipes that can be cooked on a budget as well as preparation and storage tips to help save you time, money and effort.

Sports Book of the Month is Screaming at the Sky by Tony Griffin. Tony was a hurling star when he took a year off to cycle across Canada in memory of his father. This book chronicles the highs and lows of his momentous journey.

SCi Fi/Fantasy Book of the Month is The Edge of the World by Kevin J Anderson. Two great nations have come to war, and a single ship has slipped their grip. Their journey will take them off the map and into uncharted waters...


Children's Book of the Month is The Very Cranky Bear by Nick Bland. All the bear wants to do is sleep. But it's raining out, and Lion, Moose, Zebra and Sheep have nowhere to go.

Children's Half Price Book of the Month is Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes. The Rat has always been a little...different. When her father dies, she decides to run away to see Grandma. What's a long suffering older brother to do?

Quick Guide: Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia are one of the most famous series of children's books, but not many people can name all seven or put then in the right order. It doesn't help, of course, that they were published out of what's now considered reading order; they're mostly published now in chronological order, but that's not how they were originally written.

The Chronicles are about the magical land of Narnia and the humans who find their way there. Only eleven humans ever visit Narnia. Narnian time runs much faster than ours so the series begins with its' creation and ends with its' destruction, all happening within one human lifetime.



In The Magician's Nephew, young Digory and his neighbour, Polly, stumble upon magical rings created by Digory's uncle. The rings take them on several adventures, culminating in a land that isn't really there yet. Polly, Digory and his uncle are witnesses as Aslan, the Lion god and son of the Emperor–over–the–Sea, calls the land of Narnia and all its' peoples into being.

Several decades later Digory, now an accomplished Professor, welcomes the four Penvensie children into his home, refugees from the London Blitz. Lucy, the youngest, is the first to find the way into Narnia; Peter, Susan and Edmund follow her and are caught up in a battle for Narnia's freedom. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the best known of the series.

In the last years of Narnia's Golden Age Shasta, a boy raised in Calormen, meets a Narnian horse and they decide to flee North to Narnia together. They are joined by a young Calormene girl and her horse, fleeing from an arranged marriage. Together with their new companions, The Horse and His Boy struggle towards freedom and the discovery of Shasta's true identity.

A year after their return to England, the Pevensie children are brought to Narnia once more. Here they learn that thirteen hundred years have passed since their last visit. Narnia has fallen to the brutal Telemarines and the wondrous Talking Animals and magical beings are in hiding. Only the true heir to the throne, Prince Caspian, can bring Narnia back to it's roots.

A year after their adventure with Prince Caspian, Lucy and Edmund are staying with their cousin Eustace. They are called to Narnia to aid the now King Caspian on the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a journey to find seven banished Narnian Lords and return them home. The Dawn Treader takes them far beyond the boundaries of Narnia, almost to Aslan's country itself...

Eustace, far nicer for his Narnian adventure, is on the run from bullies with a schoolfriend, Jill, when both are transported to Narnia. Given a mission by Aslan himself, at first it seems hopeless. With time running out they'll have to use everything they've learned to solve the mystery of The Silver Chair.

In The Last Battle, Narnia's days are drawing to a close. Torn by treachery on all sides, the last King, Tirian, calls on the great kings and queens of the past to help him in this last, great battle for the souls of Narnia's people.

The BBC filmed four of the books between 1988 and 1990; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair. They are available from Amazon.co.uk as a box set.





More recently a series of films have been made. The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe was released in 2005; Prince Caspian followed in 2008. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will be released this Christmas, 2010.








The Chronicles are classic children's books and every child should have the chance to read them.

Reading order:

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

The Horse and His Boy is often numbered out of sequence as it takes place in Calormen rather than Narnia and is only peripheral to the main story.

Quick Guide: The Last Survivors

The Last Survivors is a trilogy by Susan Pfeffer. Set in the current day, the series details the effects on the world when the moon is knocked out of orbit, closer to earth.

Life as we Knew it, the first volume, is written in diary format by a teenage girl, Miranda. She lives in rural Pennsylvania with her mother and younger brother, Jonny. Older brother Matt is away at college, and her father's new wife has just announced her pregnancy.

The diary starts up a week before the expected meteor strike on the moon. At first it's a typical teenage diary; Miranda talks about friends and school, about her imminent step‐sibling and the tiny dramas that make up life. On the day of the meteor hit, though, everything changes.

The immediate effect is tsunamis. The tide happens to be in along the east coast of America, leading to reports of major cities being devastated. And when those waves finally die down they start up on the west coast as the tide moves around. Tsunamis are only the beginning, however; the changed gravitational pull leads to earthquakes and, a little later on, volcanoes erupting fiercely enough to throw a blanket of ash into the air, cutting the sunlight and destroying any chance they had of growing a crop.

Miranda faithfully chronicles all of these changes in her world, including all her reactions and everything she and her family discuss.



the dead and the gone, the second title, follows a teenage boy, Alex, in New York during the same time period. Alex finds himself the head of the household when his father, mother and older brother are all, in different ways, lost to him. He struggles to keep his sisters alive in a city that seems more than half dead.



This World we Live In brings the two story lines together, as Alex and his sister are brought to Miranda's home. Each is a survivor in their own way, but they teach other to be strong and to face whatever happens.


For a review of Life as we Knew it, go here.

For a review of the dead and the gone, go here.

For a review of This World we Live In, go here.


Incidentally, the author is very friendly and loves hearing from fans from around the world. Visit her blog and tell her Aoife sent you.

Review: This World we Live In, by Susan Pfeffer

Who will live and who will die?

The third volume of the Last Survivors brings us full circle as Miranda's father returns home, bringing with him his wife, their son, and three strangers; a man called Charlie and two siblings, Alex and Julie. Adding all these people stretches already strained resources to breaking point, and Miranda finds that their strange half‐life can't last forever...


This World brings together Miranda and her family and Alex and his. It starts on April 25th, more than a month since we've last seen Miranda and four months since Alex and Julie left New York. They've all grown in the interim; Alex and Julie are much more of a team, and Miranda has grown out of her teenage all‐about‐me stage. It's back to diary format, too, which makes it interesting; Miranda can only judge Alex and Julie on what she hears and sees, while we know more about them.

While a lot of the book is taken up with the scramble for resources we're familiar with from the first two, there are some huge set‐pieces towards the end, and some painful decisions are forced on Miranda. She copes admirably, in a way she couldn't have in Life as we Knew it or even at the start of This World, proving how much she's grown and matured through her experiences.

It's interesting, too, to watch Alex‐who's kept his faith through everything‐talk with Miranda, who gave only lip service to religion even before anything happened. Their individual points of view are very well represented without either side coming across as too preachy.

I could happily read another twenty books set in this world, but if this is the end, it's a perfect place to stop. Things have gone wrong, but Miranda has learned to look for the good in everything and as long as she has people she loves, she'll survive.


'You have to believe in the future,' Alex said. 'Otherwise there's no point in being alive.'
'That's easy for you to say!' I cried. 'You have your faith, your Church. But I don't believe like that. Maybe I used to but I don't anymore.'
I thought Alex would get angry at me then, but he didn't.
'You don't have to believe in the church,' he said. 'Or even in God. Believe that people can change things.'
'No,' I said. 'I don't know that anymore.' My mind flashed back to the dead man with his dog lying beside him. 'We're all helpless,' I said. 'There's nothing we can do. There's nothing left to trust in.'
'Trust in tomorrow,' Alex said. 'Every day of your life, there's been a tomorrow. I promise you, there'll be a tomorrow.'

Review: the dead and the gone, by Susan Pfeffer

Only the unlucky survive...

Alex Morales lives in New York city. He has no interest in the meteor that's supposed to hit the moon; he has work and school to keep up with, and with his older brother in the Marines and his father away at a funeral he's the man of the house. Not that his sisters seem to pay much attention to him.

When he gets home on the evening of the 18th May, he discovers his mother has been called into work unexpectedly, leaving him with his sisters. In the days that follow, as he realises his parents aren't coming home and life has changed forever, he struggles to keep them together and fed. But worse is yet to come...


Life as we Knew it was set in rural Pennsylvania. Miranda and her family were short of food and heat and water, but their isolation protected them from some of the problems Alex and his sisters face. New York is devastated by the tidal waves, and each time the tide comes in a little more of the city is lost. With government breaking down waste removal ceases, which doesn't seem like a problem until you realise how many people are dying. And with only emergency food supplies making it into the stricken city, it becomes harder and harder for Alex to keep his family alive.

Alex has to make some very difficult decisions during the course of this book. Both his sisters are offered places out of the city, forcing him to weigh their chances of survival against their hatred for being split up. At one point the only way to get food is to trade clothes and belongings looted from dead bodies.

Miranda and her family weren't particularly religious, but Alex and his sisters are devout Catholics and their occasional prayers add a ring of truth to the story. Similarly, while the government was mostly incompetent in LAWKI, here you get the sense that they're genuinely trying to help as many people as possible, particularly in a harrowing scene in Yankee Stadium early in the book.

The book ends on the 29th December, meaning the whole book takes place within LAWKI. And luckily, it escapes the middle—book—in—a—trilogy curse; it's just as strong as the other two.


'It's not Thanksgiving without football,' one of the guys said.
'Touch football,' another said. 'No helmets, no hits.'
'No Cowboys, either,' the first said. 'Jets versus Giants.'
'We need another guy on our team!' another man yelled. 'Come on, kid. You're a Giant.'
And for one glorious moment, that was just how Alex felt.

Review: Life as we Knew it, by Susan Pfeffer

Our world ends tonight...

Sixteen year old Miranda isn't that interested in the meteor that's supposed to hit the moon. She has other things to worry about – her father's new wife's pregnancy, for one, and her best friend's worrying new found religion, for another. The whole meteor thing is just an excuse for more homework, as far as she can tell.

She's wrong.

The meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. Immediate reports of tidal waves start coming in from around the globe, and that's just the beginning. Earthquakes and volcanoes quickly follow. Miranda and her family are in for the struggle of their lives...

First of all; this is the first of a series, but it stands on its' own — no cliffhanger. Except of course that you'll be desperate to find out what happens next, to Miranda and her brothers and mother.

Now that that's out of the way...

The book's written as Miranda's journal, in present tense, which ratchets up the tension as there's no hint of what's going to happen next until it happens. It also makes it much easier to get inside Miranda's head, to the point that you almost feel what she's feeling...it's a shock, sometimes, to look up from Miranda describing scraping snow off the roof and realise that the sun's shining out here in the real world.

Miranda's world gets smaller in stages; no Internet or phones or TV, no school, no trips to town, no holiday away, and finally no room to be alone. But as her world gets smaller, her ability to see joy in the tiniest things gets larger; a dinner with friends, a piece of chocolate, a joke with her brothers or a conversation with her mother.

A lot of readers have said that this book made them go out and stock up on tinned food and batteries. I'd have done the same if I thought I had any chance of surviving a catastrophe like this one. {I haven't. That's why I like to read about them.} Miranda not only survives, she grows and learns from the experience, and she's much more than a year older at the end of the book, March 20th. {The years are cunningly not mentioned. This worries me a little, but we're past May 18th for this year, anyway.}

One of the best in the post apocalyptic genre, and a welcome respite from vampires.



We are a family. We love each other. We've been scared together and brave together. If this is how it ends, so be it.
Only, please, don't let me be the last one to die.

Customer Review: Knife, by RJ Anderson

Knife by RJ ANDERSON



I'll admit it, I'm a Librarian's daughter and I always judge a book by it's cover, so when I saw the fairy floating on the front of Knife, I wasn't that interested. But I picked it up and read the back and thought I'd spend on the chance of getting a few nights out of it. I'll cop to being wrong this time on prejudging it but I'll still do it, and anyone tries to stop me - I'll set my parents on you - they're Librarians, so they can take you...

So Knife is not really a fairy story although it does have fairies, and it isn't really a love story although it does have romance and it isn't really a fantasy story although it does have magic and it isn't really an adventure story although it does have epic quests and fights and good versus evil. As is the nature of stories of this kind that take in so many genres, it has something for you no matter what kind of book you like. If you like love stories, then that's the kind of story you will read in this book, if you like magic then the story will be about that, if you like adventure then the journeys and travel and quest aspect will be your thing.

For me the best part was how much I enjoyed this book that I picked up out of boredom and how suprised I was to accidentally find such an excellent read by pure chance. See magic and fate lovers, perhaps I was meant to.

The book took in love and unrequited love, I mean, she's a fairy, he's a boy and a crippled boy at that which brings it's own challenges and one of my favourite parts was how love did conquer all, he didn't have to be healed for them to maybe end up together, she did have to change but fundamentally as opposed to personally. Love can conquer but it didn't change them, not the people or fairy that they were at least. It has action, and speeding cars, and attempted suicide and imprisonment and tantrums and secrets and lies and all the while a really, really strong story to push you to the next page and then the next. I would highly recommend this to anyone, I've recommended it to older and younger friends and all have enjoyed it. I won't say if you love Twilight or Harry Potter or Skullduggery Pleasant read this because I could as easily say if you like Nora Roberts or Jodi Picoult or Nicholas Sparks, read this. I will say if you like those books, try this as it has elements of all of them..

The best news, you don't have to wait like I did as RJ Anderson has already published a sequel so "Rebel" is only waiting to be picked up next. The third one? Well sorry, it is coming and there is only so much a non-magic human can do....

Maeve works for the local County Council.

Review: Viola in Reel Life, by Adrainna Trigiani

Viola is a fourteen year old native New Yorker. She's used to following her documentary producing parents all over the world. But when they sign up for an assignment in Afganistan, they decide it's too dangerous for her and enroll her in an all girl boarding school in Indiana. Viola's determined to hate every minute of it. But it's hard to hate girls who seem to understand you so well, or the boys at the neighbouring academy...or the chance to create her very first movie...

Viola walks the fine line between being whiny - there are a couple of times you want to shake her, but they pass quickly - and being too squeaky clean to be believable. Any teenage girl in her place has a right to a little self pity, but she does shake herself out of it when she learns that her interests can apply and that she can contribute to this community. Of course, the boys at the neighbouring school help with that, as does the film competition that draws all her new friends together.

It's not a perfectly happy ending, but it is realistic, and you feel that Viola has learned and grown...which is, after all, the point of boarding school.


'When I go up for a part, sometimes I'm too tall or too thin, or too this or too that, or not enough or way, way too much. The goddamned theater! You can't please them! I have to live with being judged on everything from the credits on my résumé to the size of my ankles! But you - you are not judged, and you are not dismissed. You are the first thought in your mother's and father's mind in the morning and their last one before sleep.'

'Did they tell you that?'

'No. But I'm a mother. And that's just how it goes.'

Children's top sellers and new titles...week ending May 9

Hi all.

Percy Jackson is still selling well, especially the most recent title, Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian. Rick Riordan's new series, The Kane Chronicles, started well this week with The Red Pyramid. Where Percy Jackson was all about modern day Greek gods, Kane is about ancient Eygptian gods set loose in our time.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is going strong.

Threads: Beads, Boys and Bangles, the follow up to last year's Threads was released this week. This year Crow and her friends have an ethical dilemma when reports that Crow's clothes are sweat shop products come to their attention.

The third in the Last Survivors series, This World we Live In, has been released. Miranda's world is about to get a lot larger when she meets, quite literally, the last boy in the world...

Review: Nation, by Terry Prachett

When much is taken, something is returned...

Mau is not a man. Not yet. But his manhood test is almost over, and soon he'll return home.

But on his way home he is caught up in a tsunami, and when he reaches his island Nation he finds that his people have been washed away. He is alone...apart from the ghost girl, and, after a while, the refugees. And over the horizon, the war canoes of the cannibal Raiders are drawing ever closer...

Nation is a very hard book to categorise. It's a coming of age story, it's a survival story, it's a horror and a comedy and a drama. All of these things are true. But it's also a beautiful way of looking at a world so very close to our own. Mau and Daphne, the point of view characters, must learn to change the way they think to deal with their circumstances. And you will find your thinking changing along with theirs. If this book doesn't stay with you after you've read it, I'll be very surprised.

It's also a remarkably hard book to describe, because anyone hearing 'Well, it starts with a tsunami that kills everyone...' immediately puts it back down again. But this is not a book about death; it's about life, and belief, and about how your world can start again even after everything that gave it shape is gone.


"There was a boy called Mau. I see him in my memory, so proud of himself because he was going to be a man. He cried for his family and turned the tears into rage. And if he could, he would say 'Did not happen!' and the wave would roll backwards, and never have been. But there is another boy, and he is called Mau too, and his head is on fire with new things. What does he say? He was born in the wave, and he knows that the world is round, and he met a ghost girl who is sorry she shot at him. He called himself the little blue hermit crab, scuttling across the sand in search of a new shell, but now he looks at the sky and knows that no shell will ever be big enough, ever. Would you ask him not to be? Any answer will be the wrong one. All I can be is who I am. But sometimes I hear the boy inside cry for his family."

"Does he cry now?"

"Every day. But very softly. You won't hear him..."