Active Voice

By M. T. Anderson [LibraryThing]

When Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut, receives a telepathic cry for help from a dear friend at the secret monastery of Vbngoom, he and his best friends Katie and Lily journey to the mountains of Delaware to offer their assistance. But Delaware is a strange and dangerous place, and they must make their way past dinosaurs, tourists, spies, mountain squid, riddles, and a creepy staring-contest team to reach Vbngoom – and there’s something even worse waiting for them at their destination.

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By Bruce Coville [Coville at LibraryThing -- Coville at Amazon]

I’m going to do something a little new, here. It’s no secret that Bruce Coville is my favorite author, and I can’t pretend to be objective about his books — I get too caught up in fangirling. I read all of these books in marathon sessions over the course of a week, so I wasn’t pausing for deep thoughts. Basically, I just want to get these book reviews out there, so I’ve decided to include two short reviews here: one of Bruce Coville’s series The Unicorn Chronicles — including the newly-released book Dark Whispers — and one of his Rod Allbright’s Alien Adventures series.

The Unicorn Chronicles: A strange man begins following Cara and her grandmother, and the incident sends her from her home town into a whole new world — literally. Cara finds herself in Luster, the land of unicorns, where she must deliver a message the unicorn’s queen. But that’s harder than it seems: not all of Luster’s creatures like humans (or unicorns). Cara soon finds herself in the middle of a centuries-old war between the unicorns and a clan of humans who have sworn to hunt them into extinction.

Rod Allbright’s Alien Adventures: Rod Allbright is a typical kid — albeit a clumsy one. Then a group of aliens crash-lands in his science project, and reveal that the school bully who torments Rod is actually a villain wanted galaxy-wide for crimes of unspeakable cruelty. Things get even worse from there when it turns out Rod’s enemy may be the only one who knows what happened to Rod’s long-missing father.

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Apologies for the lack of posts! I have been completely swamped with moving. However, now that I can read on the subway (as opposed to the bus, which gives me a stomachache), I should be able to get a lot more Active Voicery done. Here’s hoping!

By Garth Nix [LibraryThing - Amazon]

In the beginning, the Architect made the House, the epicenter of the universe, and she made the Secondary Realms, in which to play out her great experiment: life. Then she went away, leaving the House in the hands of seven Trustees. But the Trustees were untrustworthy, corrupted by the power they held, and the House fell into disrepair.

Now 12-year-old Arthur Penhaligon has been chosen by the Architect’s Will as the Rightful Heir. One by one he must face the Trustees, take their Keys, and restore the House to rights. But all he really wants to do is go home.

In Superior Saturday, Arthur, having defeated the first five Trustees, takes on the one who has been working insidiously against him from the start. Disguised as a Piper’s child, faithful companion Suzy Turquoise Blue by his side, he must infiltrate Saturday’s realm – which is entirely populated by sorcerers – free her section of the Will, and take her Key. Meanwhile, his forces are waging war on the Piper’s army, Saturday is waging war on Sunday, the lower sections of the House are crumbling into Nothing, and Arthur is becoming less and less human.

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By Elise Primavera [LibraryThing — Amazon]

Although Prudence Gumm, Franny Muggs, and Cat Lemonjello have all lived on the same street their whole lives, they don’t like each other at all. And when Ivy Diamond moves to town, it’s not long before none of them like her, either. But then they find themselves mixed up with a witch, a lot of ruby red slippers – and one silver one – a wizard in a hot air balloon, and magical and perilous secret country. To survive, they’ll have to work together, appreciate each other’s strengths, and look at almost everything from the other way around.

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By Jane Johnson [Series at Librarything - Series at Amazon]

Ben’s world is changed when a very demanding little cat named Iggy begs Ben to free him from the evil Mr Dodds’s Pet Emporium. Iggy, it seems, hails from the magical world of Eidolon, where Dodds – known in Eidolon as the Dodman, a terrifying monster with the head of a vicious dog – has been kidnapping magical creatures to sell as exotic pets in England. Worse, Ben’s own mother is Eidolon’s rightful queen, and as magic is siphoned from the land by the Dodman’s cruel trade, Ben’s mother grows steadily sicker. Her only hope – and Eidolon’s – is for her to return to Eidolon, stop the Dodman, and reclaim her birthright. But though Ben and his sisters are the prophesied saviors of Eidolon, can they really defeat the Dodman and the various monsters he has gathered against them?

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By Jason Lethcoe [Librarything - Amazon]

Ever since his parents died and he was dumped into the world’s most miserable orphanage, nothing’s gone right for Ben. So he never really thought his birthday wish for unlimited wishes would come true, but it did – and caused major problems by doing so. Now he has to team up with Thomas Candlewick, brand-new president of the Wishworks Factory, and lead a small army of fairies, leprechauns, and Jinn into battle. Because not only has Ben’s wish upset the delicate balance of children’s birthday wishes worldwide, it’s delivered the unstoppable power of endless wishes into the hands of the president of the dreadful Curseworks Factory, where it’s become a weapon that may just destroy all wishing…forever.

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By Suzanne Collins [Collins at LibraryThing - Collins a Amazon]

Gregor is more or less an average kid growing up in New York City, though he does miss his father, who disappeared over two years ago…But everything changes one day when he and his toddler sister, Boots, fall down an airshaft from their building’s laundry room and land in a strange realm called the Underland, where giant creatures—cockroaches, rats, and bats, among others—can talk.

There are humans in the Underland, too, a colony that was led there by Bartholomew of Sandwich four hundred years ago. But it’s a hard life: resources are scarce, and the humans and rats are constantly at war. Gregor, of course, wants nothing to do with war or the strange civilization, but he discovers that his falling was foretold in a prophecy Sandwich wrote…and the prophecy also tells of a quest he must undertake to find his father, who has now been a prisoner of the rats for over two years.

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By Carol Hughes [Librarything - Amazon]

When Joe follows the strange girl called Katherine who’s been sent to fetch him, he finds himself in a land torn apart by war, where the people live in fear of secret police and horrifying machines capable of immense destruction. With Katherine and a blind guide named Spider, Joe must make his way across the perilous no man’s land to the capital city in order to find his little sister, Hannah – for this is the land where sick children go, and Hannah is deathly ill. But as Joe finds himself awash in this land’s secret history and deceptive politics, two questions arise: Just who is behind this war, anyway? And is Hannah the one who needs saving – or is Joe?

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By Jodi Lynn Anderson [Librarything - Amazon]

Having finally come to terms with the fact that a great destiny awaits her somewhere in North Farm, the part of the Ever After (sort of a realm of the dead) that even most spirits avoid, May and her companions set out northwards hoping to find a way home. Unfortunately, the Bogeyman is still after them, and he’s got a few merciless minions sniffing around.

Worse yet, when May finally reaches the Lady of North Farm, she finds out that the only portal that can take her and her brave companion, Somber Kitty, home is located under the Bogey’s own bed. How can they possibly sneak in under his nose and get home without getting caught?

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By Rebecca Rupp [LibraryThing - Amazon]

Ever since he lost his grandfather’s pocket watch with its mysterious inscription, Choose time or lose time, Alex has been in what you might call a funk. Time seems to be racing past him too fast, and since it all ends eventually, he thinks, why even bother? That is, until a strange old woman tells him to look for his watch on the blue moon, where all lost things go.

Once Alex and his dog Zeke hitch a ride on a spaceship piloted by three-foot-tall moon rats, he teams up with Tetley, the runt of the moon rats, plus Miss Mumsley, a prim suffragette who has lost her heart, and Simon, an Elizabethan math nerd who has lost his way. From there he has three days to find his lost watch before the moon ceases to be blue and he’s trapped there indefinitely. The companions must navigate through weird allegorical locations like the Inn of Abandoned Plans, the Pointless Tower, and the Cave of Lost Tempers, while avoiding the Time Eaters, who do exactly what their name implies. Complicating things is Urd, youngest of the Norns (Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters, similar to the Greek Fates), who wants to steal everyone’s time to keep herself eternally youthful.

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