Chuyển đến nội dung chính

Geeks and the Holy Grail (Camelot Code #2), by Mari Mancusi, for Timeslip Tuesday

The first book in the Camelot Code series, The Once and Future Geek , mixed time travel between the medieval world of King Arthur and our own, and it is a very entertaining book.  The second book in the series, Geeks and Holy Grail (Hyperion, October 2019), is also entertaining (though not quite as funny; King Arthur as a modern day high school student is hard to beat....). When Morgana, sworn enemy of King Arthur, attacks the druids of Avalon, Nimue, the youngest of them, takes the Holy Grail and runs with it.  King Arthur is dying, and only the Grail can save him.  Desperate to keep it from falling into Morgana's hands, she stumbles into Merlin's Crystal Cave.  But instead of Merlin there to help her (he's on vacation in Los Vegas, in our time), there's only his very inexperienced apprentice, Emrys.  His attempt to hide the grail works, in a sense--as a small, flatulent dragon, it sure doesn't look much like a grail.  But it isn't much use to Arthur as a...
Đăng nhận xét

The Secret

The Secret

Music Boxes, by Tonja Drecker

If "ballet horror (not the gory kind, but the situational kind) for young readers" is your thing, Music Boxes, by Tonja Drecker (Dancing Lemur, February, 2019) might be one you'll enjoy lots.

Lindsay's parents have put her little sister first, moving to New York city so that she can go to the Julliard school.  Lindsay is proud of her sister's talent, but she's devastated that her own ballet training has been disrupted.  There's no money for her to go to a good school in New York, so instead her parents sign her up for classes at the community center.  Which isn't the same.

But then she meets Madame Destinee, who has her own ballet school just around the corner.  Madame thinks Lindsay has talent just by looking at her, and offers her a place in her school.  There Lindsay dances like she never has before, in the company of other wildly talented young dancers.

But it is a very strange school.  The midnight performances, Madame's constant offerings of delicious food, and stranger things that are absolutely impossible.....and Lindsay, though drugged by both the dancing and the praise, and the food, keeps a clear enough head to figure out that she and the other kids are in terrible danger.

It isn't just beautiful music boxes that Madame is collecting....

It's a fast, straight-forward read (by which I mean--there is the one plot, and the one mystery, and we see it unfold as Lindsay does without any twistyness....so basically, the reader gets to sit back and enjoy the ride).  So it's a good one for kids who love creepy!  I myself would have enjoyed it more it had been less straight-forward; I would have liked Madame to be a little more well-developed as a character, and felt the friendships (and anti-friendships) Lindsay makes at the school were pretty predictable.  So for me it was fine, and I can imagine lots of kids (especially young ballet students) loving it, but it's not one I'll feel the need to re-read to get more out of it than I did the first time.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Nhận xét

Đăng nhận xét

Bài đăng phổ biến từ blog này

Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden

Dead Voices , by Katherine Arden (middle grade, G.P. Putnam's Sons, August 2019), is a delightfully spooky sequel to Small Spaces , perfect for a chilling read as winter draws closer! Ollie, Coco, and Brian became close friends under somewhat trying circumstances last fall--the evil Smiling Man trying to turn them into scarecrows--and now winter has come, they're on their way to a fun weekend at a new ski lodge with Ollie's dad and Coco's mom.  They almost don't make it through the intense snowstorm, and when they arrive, they find themselves the only visitors.  The snow keeps falling, trapping them inside, and the power goes out.  And there are ghosts. The day after they arrive another visiter makes it through the snow, a young reporter for a ghost hunting magazine.  The owners of the hotel aren't sure that publicity about the hotel's previous incarnation of an orphanage with a dark, sad, history is what they want, but the young man is keen to get ghost hun...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Premeditated

I'm going to start with the blurb from the back cover of this book, because it does a remarkable job of introducing the story in very few words: A week ago, Dinah’s cousin Claire cut her wrists. Five days ago, Dinah found Claire’s diary and discovered why. Three days ago, Dinah stopped crying and came up with a plan. Two days ago, she ditched her piercings and bleached the black dye from her hair. Yesterday, knee socks and uniform plaid became a predator’s camouflage. Today, she’ll find the boy who broke Claire. By tomorrow, he’ll wish he were dead. Claire and Dinah are cousins who are incredibly close, close enough that when Claire ends up in a coma in the hospital from a failed suicide attempt, Dinah knows where to look to find Claire's diary (or the computerized version of one, anyway). Dinah figures out what drove Claire to the point of suicide--a boy from the private school that Claire was supposed to attend that fall. Dinah enrolls at the school herself, determined to get...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Storm

By: D.J. MacHale This is the sequel to SYLO where a small island off the coast of Maine was invaded by the US Navy (the US navy is called SYLO).  The main characters, Tucker, Kent, Olivia, and Tori escaped from Pemberwick and got to Portland, Maine.  In Storm they pick up another character, Jon, a doctor from a Portland hospital.  As it turns out the US Navy is at war with the US Airforce.  Over three fourths of the worlds population is dead.  Tucker, Tori, Kent, Olivia, and, Jon are trying to get to Nevada where a radio signal they picked up said to come if they wanted to fight back.  There is a lot of action and the plot moves along at a good pace.  One thing that was different from the first book was how much you found out about their relationships.  Kent is with Olivia and Tucker is with Tori.  It sort of bothered me that they were so into who was with who when they were trying to figure out why most of the world's population was killed. ...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Free $100

Free $100