Review: 'Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy'

OPHELIA AND THE MARVELOUS BOY
By Karen Foxlee
Middle grade fantasy
January 2014
Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 978-0385753548

Ophelia is an intrepid tween who prefers science to magic, fact to fantasy and, right now, the past to the present. The last is because her mother died a few months ago of cancer.

Her father has buried himself in his work as a sword expert, taking Ophelia and her older sister, Alice, away from their London home to a European city filled with snow. They're to spend their time ice skating while their father puts together an exhibition of the greatest swords ever gathered together.

The girls are bored as well as in mourning. Ophelia explores the vast corriors and twisty exhibit halls of the museum where the exhibition will be held. The nooks and crannies of the museum are far preferable to the company of the museum curator, a vaguely menacing young woman named Miss Kaminski. She may be beautiful, and her father and Alice may think she's spiffy, but Ophelia wants nothing to do with her.

Ophelia soon has her hands full with a quest. In one of the locked museum rooms, she discovers, is a boy. He has been there for a long, long time. Ages ago, the king who he was met when he was sent across the water to defeat the Snow Queen had him locked up at the behest of his new wife. As Ophelia battles fantastical things she knows cannot exist, but which do, the boy fills her in on his story.

As Karen Foxlee's new novel, Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, picks up speed in an action-filled adventure, her heroine finds she has also embarked on a personal journey that involves honoring the spirit of her mother, a fantasy writer who loved to spin tales about frightening things. Foxlee knows just when to switch scenes to what Ophelia's father and sister are up to, when to tell the reader more about the marvelous boy and when to move Ophelia's quest forward.

One of the great aspects to this story is that it is not sad. It is filled with life and making time count. Foxlee knows how to spin wisdom into her tale with light and laughter. She also has a masterful touch at description.

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy is a fabulous fantasy for middle grade readers who love fairy tales, adventure and stories of courage and love.

©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Book Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Breadcrumbs'

BREADCRUMBS
By Anne Ursu                                                                    
Middle grade/YA fiction
September 2011
Walden Pond Press
ISBN: 978-0062015051

Hazel is a precocious fifth grader who believes in magic and the power of stories, and who relishes time with her best friend, Jack, more than anything. During recess after a particularly intense snowstorm, Jack gets hurt. Then he changes, Then he disappears in Anne Ursu's brilliant and enchanting Breadcrumbs.

What happened is that an imp made a magical mirror, flew it toward the sun to take a look at the entire Earth, and got too close (shades of Icarus!) The mirror shattered and shards fell across the world. One piece fell into Jack's eye. He is whisked away by a Snow Queen who offers him Turkish Delight. (When Jack says, “Huh?” the queen replies that it was “Just a little joke”.)

Teaser Tuesday: 'My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me'

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:


•Grab your current read

•Open to a random page

•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
 
My choice this week is from the upcoming Penguin original, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, an anthology of 40 original fairy tales. Kate Bernheimer has gathered together an incredible array of authors with stories not soon forgotten, including the one I've excerpted. This is from Ardour by Jonathan Keats:
 

The wintertime clamor became almost intolerable, each man playing whatever instrument he knew, dancing, tendering bread, mead, gold. Ardour ... entirely forgot what she'd wished once to find amongst men. (p. 10)

A special thanks to Laurie London, at whose blog I discovered Teaser Tuesday.