Active Voice

By Tobias Druitt [Librarything - Amazon]

Corydon the shepherd boy is a monster, a mormoluke, with one normal human leg and one goat leg. That’s why he was thrown out of his village, and that’s why he is picked up as a freak in a pirates’ sideshow. There he meets other monsters like him: the Minotaur, the Sphinx, the beautiful, tragic Medusa, and more. With the help of a magic staff, Corydon and the monsters escape from the pirates, but the gods of Olympus are united against Corydon and his friends, and it isn’t long before the greedy and cowardly Perseus is uniting the “heroes” of Greece into an army to wipe out the monsters. Corydon must journey into the Underworld to learn how to use the staff to save his new family, but what exactly does such salvation mean?

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By Ahmet Zappa [Librarything - Amazon]

Minerva McFearless and her younger brother Max come from a long line of monster hunters (or “monsterminators”), but their widowed father has forbidden them to study something so dangerous. The two young McFearlesses practice in secret, though, which comes in handy when their father is kidnapped and brought before the king of all evil, the Zarmaglorg. Now, with the help of the talking encyclopedia Ms. Monstranomicon, and Mr. Devilstone, a mysterious one-eyed coyote with plans of his own, Max and Minerva must rescue their father before the Zarmaglorg uses his knowledge to flood the world with monsters.

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By James Moloney [Librarything - Amazon]

When a young boy wakes up at Mrs. Timmin’s Home for Orphans and Foundlings, all he can remember is his name: Marcel. And if the terrifying sorcerer Lord Alwyn has his way, that’s all Marcel will ever remember. But with the help of three of the other children at the orphanage, all of whom have equally mysterious backgrounds, Marcel may just manage to learn the truth after all. But who can he trust? And though Lord Alwyn’s greatest creation is sworn to tell only the truth, is it wise to believe the Book of Lies?

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By Wendy Mass [Book One: Librarything - Amazon / Book Two: Libarything - Amazon]

Rapunzel’s twelfth birthday is just ruined when a witch shows up and announces that Rapunzel’s parents traded their firstborn for a handful of lettuce leaves from the witch’s garden twelve years ago, and the witch has come to collect. Now Rapunzel is trapped in a tower with no doors, hair that’s growing freakishly fast, and a strange little green creature watching her every move. Meanwhile, Prince Benjamin is having a hard enough time getting through his awkward stage without the interference of his annoying cousin Elkin. He wants to distinguish himself, but how? He’s no hero. At least, not until he hears a girl singing in a tower…

Princess Rose’s parents didn’t really mean to not invite the oldest, meanest fairy in the realm to their daughter’s christening – they thought she was dead! Offended, the fairy places a curse on Rose: at age sixteen, she will prick her finger on a spindle and die. Although the youngest fairy in the realm is able to change “die” to “sleep for a hundred years,” Rose’s parents are understandably overprotective…at least until that fated encounter with a spindle. One hundred years later, the Prince (he’s still working on a name) is trying to solve the mystery of the nearby forest, and the castle hidden within it. Things are complicated by his mother the Queen, who is part ogre and still gets a taste for human flesh every so often…

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By James Patterson [Librarything - Amazon]

In the final book in the Maximum Ride trilogy, it’s do-or-die time for Max and her flock: the bird kids versus the badguys. Unfortunately, tension in the flock leads to the team splitting up, the boys going with Fang and the girls with Max. While the boys are off dealing with killer robots and rallying an army of kids to their cause, Max and the girls are in Europe, breaking down the doors of the villain’s headquarters—and solving mysteries. Like who the heck is Max’s real mom, anyway? And why were they created?

And the big one: is there still enough time to save the world?

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Cornelia Funke (translation by Anthea Bell) [Librarything - Amazon]

Inkheart is about a girl, Meggie, whose life turns into a fantasy story when strange people begin chasing her father, trying to bring him and a mysterious book to a villain named Capricorn. Along the way, they befriend a grouchy book lover, Elinor, and have strange dealings with a traveling showman, Dustfinger.

When the group is caught and kidnapped, Meggie learns that her father, Mo, has the magical ability to read characters out of books…but in doing so, he reads someone else in. Her mother long ago disappeared into the book “Inkheart” as out came Capricorn, Dustfinger, and one of Capricorn’s henchmen. Though Mo has tried many times to read Meggie’s mother back out, he’s never succeeded—he doesn’t have any control over his ability.

Then it turns out that Meggie has inherited her father’s ability…and Capricorn plans to use her to read an even more horrible, murderous creature out of the book.

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