Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon

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This was better than school.  The only locker for a hundred miles belonged to Davy Jones.  He was still the only dragon in a crew of frogs and lizards, but now he was the terror of the seas!  No one made fun of his mythical status, or he'd make them walk the plank! 

There was just one problem...where was that beeping coming from?

The beeping, alas, is from Danny Dragonbreath's alarm clock, waking him from his magnificent piratical dream to the mundane reality of yet another school day.  Not only is Danny always getting picked on for being the only mythical creature in his school (otherwise populated by reptiles and amphibians),  but he has neglected to do his science paper on oceans, due today. Picking  his nerdy best friend's brain doesn't help--all Wendell knows about the ocean is that it's big, wet, salty, and has fish in it.  Danny gets a big fat red F and has to rewrite, prompting a visit to his cousin Edward the Sea Monster, who gives Danny and Wendell a guided tour of the ocean world.

Such is the plot of Dragonbreath, the first volume in a lively new series by Ursula Vernon.  Dragonbreath's playful prose  is complemented by many delightful pages of comic-style illustration, all done in a palette of green, black and white.  The illustration reminded me a little of the Babymouse books, with its perky representations of  anthropomorphized animals and their vivid imaginations.  I would say that the reading level of the Dragonbreath series is just a smidgen higher than Babymouse, mostly due to the chapters of plain text.  But the entertainment value of Dragonbreath is every bit as high...and that's saying something.

Ewan's favourite line:  "AGGGH!  The scurvy!  It burns! ".  Dramatic, yes? 

My Favourite Cupcake Queen

I just get such a kick out of the Babymouse books.  I can't resist sharing this, courtesy of Unshelved, a library webcomic I also think is great.  Jennifer and Matt sum it up better than I ever could:

A Little Less Dumb than I Would've Been: The Photographer by Guilbert, Lefevre, and Lemercier

"It's hard to describe all that the Afghans gave us,"  Robert observed.  "I reckon that thanks to them we're just a little less dumb than we would've been".

I don't normally review adult books here, but I'm making an exception for The Photographer, since I think it has such great "crossover potential", as we say in the biz;  in other words, I think many older teens could get a lot out of it.  I sure did. 

The Photographer is a collaboration between Didier Lefevre, photographer, and his close friend Emmanuel Guilbert, graphic novelist.   In July of 1986 Didier agreed to accompany a group of medical professionals from MSF  (Doctors Without Borders)  who were setting up a clinic in rural Afghanistan.  His task as a photojournalist was to document the group's journey to their destination and the work of the clinic they set up.  He came home to his native France three months later with four thousand photographs.  Six were published that year in a French newspaper. Some of the remainder were published in Didier's 2002 photography book Voyages en Afghanistan.  Many more appear throughout the remarkable pages of this book. 

What this book gave me was a sense of really being shown, in the finest detail,  another, very foreign, part of the world under the heightened circumstances of war.  The sense of immediacy Didier's photographs give the book is really profound.  In an interview, Guibert explains that The Photographer is really documenting three different things;  the work that goes into photojournalism, the work of NGO medical aide groups such as Medicins Sans Frontiers, and the lives of the people in certain regions of Afghanistan at a particular moment in history.  I found each thread fascinating.  Much of it surprised me--for example, I was shocked at the huge task it was for the party to simply get to their destination.  Because Soviet troops were controlling the roads, Didier, the doctors, and their guides walked overland for several weeks to reach the rural community they were there to treat.  By "walking overland" I mean crossing mountains on foot, sometimes in the dark to avoid being fired on by Soviet planes.  This was a physically gruelling experience that left Didier stripped of all his body fat. On the other hand, I was moved by the many photographs of elderly Afghani men carrying their grandchildren around on their backs and otherwise caring for their grandsons and granddaughters.  These aren't images I would have expected to come out of a patriarchal Islamic culture. 

Here are some parting images from Didier's camera:

Mercury by Hope Larson

I've always been interested in Hope Larson's graphic books, which are so graceful and elegant and dreamily imaginative. Up until now, my favourites have been the earlier ones, Salamander Dream and Gray Horses.  Despite their simplicity and lightness I find them linger-worthy.  Larson's latest has a more complex, plot-driven story than her early work and is perfectly suited for tween girls who like romance, family dramas, or historical fiction but like them a little off-beat.  

Mercury  is deliciously shadowy and mystical, with a very strong sense of place. It's set in a small Nova Scotian community, French Hill,  at two different points in history.   Larson does a beautiful job of showing us the landscape of that part of the world, beginning with a gorgeous five-page  sequence showing the passing of time from the 1400s onwards, and the marks that various groups of humans have left on the land that becomes French Hill.  Her landscape includes some supernatural creatures which blend in with the forests and skies while adding an otherworldly dimension.

Larson shifts us  back and forth between the years 1859 and 2009 as we follow the separate stories of two young teens, Josey Fraser and her modern look-alike and descendant, Tara Fraser. Josey's story involves a mysterious young man, Asa, who appears at her family farm claiming to have found gold on their land.  As he becomes more involved with her and her family, Josey develops feelings for Asa.  These lead  lead her to clash with her mother, who views Asa with deep suspicion.  Tara, meanwhile, is in conflict with her mother around the fate of the family homestead, which has burned down.  Their two stories are linked not only by kinship and location but also by a secret treasure. 

I loved both the writing and the visuals in this book and felt that they complemented each other perfectly.  Larson is a true artist and a wonderful storyteller, all rolled up into one great package.  I look forward to reading more of her work. 

Beware the Brontesaurus!

A Miniature World: The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz

This is really a tiny treasure of a book, and it comes so beautifully wrapped.  Before reading  a word I was impressed by its beautiful thick glossy paper, rich shimmery blue-black endpapers, elegant typesetting, and the lovingly detailed, full-colour illustrations by British illustrator Angela Barrett.  The level of craftsmanship that has gone into creating this book prepares its audience well for the special experience of reading it. 

 Laura Amy Schlitz, a Newbery medal winner for Good Masters!  Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village,  makes me realize just how flat and boring those popular fairy series books that girls have been reading for the past few years really are.  Her writing overflows with intelligence, imagination, literary quality, and respect for its audience.  I love how she uses vocabulary that is so flavourful  and precise, vocabulary which I'm guessing will gently stretch a lot of children's boundaries while never overwhelming them:

"On the night of Flory's peril, she was less than three months old.  It was a windy night:  cool and sweet with springtime.  Flory was coasting on the breeze, letting it toss her wherever it liked.  She was still very tiny--as tall as an acorn--and her green wings glittered in the moonlight.  A little brown bat swooped down upon her, caught her, and crunched up her wings." 

One of the many things I loved about this book was its depiction of the natural world.  Fairies are the only supernatural entities in this book, and Flory is actually the only fairy we ever see.  A night fairy by virtue of her time of birth, she turns herself into a day creature when she loses her flight, and makes her home in the garden of a "giantess" (in the birdhouse, actually).  Her life there is populated with squirrels and  raccoons and hummingbirds and insects and spiders.  The animals talk to her, but otherwise they stay completely in character.  Flory is not altogether benevolent at first;  she can be selfish and irritable, and it is interesting to see how organically her feelings develop:

"Flory felt a funny ache in her throat. She was not the kind of fairy who cried easily, and she didn't think the hummingbird cried at all.  But the words "the chicks will die" made her feel queer, as if her heart were swollen and sore.  She gave herself a little shake, trying to replace the queer feeling with crossness...".  

Schlitz's writing contains echoes of The Secret Garden in places;  doesn't that paragraph read like it could be about Mary Lennox?  And in the end, Flory's wings regrow and she is at last able to fly again, just like Colin is able to walk.

 Much of the fascination in The Night Fairy comes from seeing our world in miniature through Flory's perceptive eyes.  It's also a treat to see how resourceful and adventurous she becomes, as the lone fairy in her environment.  This would be a beautiful read-aloud or the perfect book for an imaginative child to curl up with on a summer afternoon.

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

Oh my gosh, what a lovely romantic book this is.  I can totally see a well-worn (but still impeccably clean) copy of this sitting on a teenage Emma Pillsbury's bookshelf, right next to Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Perrault's Fairy Tales.

Jessica Day George, author of Sun and Wind, Ice and Snow, has given us another beautifully executed and bewitching fairy-tale-turned-novel.   Princess of the Midnight Ball is based on the Grimm story The Twelve Dancing Princesses, in which twelve princesses disappear nightly into a magical land below the earth with trees of silver and leaves of gold, to dance the night away.  The king, their father, offers a reward of marriage to the prince who can discover why his daughters' dancing slippers are fresh each evening and worn out by morning. After various princes fail to do so, a soldier succeeds in the task with the help of a cloak of invisibility, and is rewarded with a princess and a kingdom.

George's version sticks closely to the original plot, but it's the embellishments that make it special.  The soldier, Galen, is a wonderful character. Raised by a soldier father and a mother who washed the soldier's clothes, Galen has no love for battle and is glad to return to civilian life at the end of the war.  He finds work as the apprentice to his uncle, Master Gardener at the Royal Palace.  It's sweet to see him courting the eldest Princess, Rose, as he works among the flowers.  And he knits, too!  He's an interesting blend of valour and domesticity.   The older princesses are well-developed characters, Princess Rose in particular. I liked how they have so much family feeling and are so protective of each other throughout the story, and how interested they are in Galen, even though he is a servant.

I always found the original Twelve Dancing Princesses to have an eerie, otherworldly mood.  It's not altogether clear what kind of magic creates the opulent underground kingdom, and whether the princesses go willingly to their ball.  Princess of the Midnight Ball darkens this otherwordly quality;  here, the girls are trapped by a bargain their dead mother made with the fearful  King Under Stone, who rules the underground land (truly an underworld) with a cold and relentless hand.  They cannot speak of the curse they are under, and when they try and rebel by staying away, the sons of the King Under Stone erupt into the Palace garden and climb the Palace walls as a warning.   They are menacing presences, these sons, and the story's suspense builds when the ultimate goal of the King Under Stone, to have the twelve princesses marry his twelve sons,  is revealed.

The daylight world, in contrast, is downright pastoral.  Although there are hints here and there of an impoverished, war-torn kingdom, the bulk of the daytime action takes place in the Palace or its lush gardens, which are so descriptively drawn you can practically smell them. The king is kindly, Galen and Rose are exceedingly well-matched, and when the King Under Stone is finally defeated, there is no doubt that our new friends will all live happily ever after.