Shelf Awareness--The Wicked King

YA Review: The Wicked King

The Wicked King by Holly Black (Little, Brown, 336p., ages 14-up, 9780316310352)

In The Cruel Prince, human Jude used her place among fey royalty and her training as a knight to install a puppet monarch on the throne. Doing so meant working closely with her bitter rival, the hateful Prince Cardan, but allowed her to keep her murderous adoptive father, Madoc, off the throne, and her young, fey brother, Oak, safe from the court.

The Wicked King sees Jude playing the part of seneschal to High King Cardan, though, in truth, she is "the hand behind the throne." She's tricked Cardan into swearing allegiance to her "for a year and a day," but Jude wants to "keep him in [her] power--and out of trouble--for longer than that." Her plan is to crown Oak who, unbeknownst to most, is a child of the previous High King and therefore "of the right bloodline." But before he can take over for this new (and supposedly temporary) High King, he has to grow up. Unfortunately, Cardan, who never wanted the crown, looks increasingly comfortable playing monarch. Meanwhile, Orlagh, Queen of the Undersea, plots to unseat the seemingly "feckless" Cardan, and Jude juggles different court factions to maintain power.

To complicate matters further, Jude and Cardan become romantically involved, sharing the "sinister pleasure" of ill-conceived desire. Jude begins to get swept away in all of her escalating games of love and hate; stakes rise as her ability to lie, and her growing affinity for murder, may well lead to her downfall. The Wicked King has satisfying twists and turns, sizzling passions, brutal violence, spies and revels of all sorts--no one brings the intricate courtly politics of Faerie to life quite as well, or with as much intelligence, as Holly Black. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: As de facto ruler of Elfhame, Jude struggles to retain power in a divided court in this sequel to The Cruel Prince.

January Book Picks

Novels:

In THE FRIENDSHIP WAR, by Andrew Clements, Grace and Ellie are best friends, but Ellie’s always been the one in charge. When Grace acquires a storeroom’s worth of buttons, and somehow manages to start a button fad at their school, the social order of the sixth grade begins to shift. Grace finds herself in the center of things for a change, and she’s not sure she likes it. This isn’t entirely new ground for Clements, who wrote the bestselling classic, FRINDLE, some years ago, but it’s an excellent story in its own right. (MG)

THE LOTTERIES, MORE OR LESS, by Caroline Hadilaksono, is a follow-up to 2017’s compelling THE LOTTERIES PLUS ONE. The Lottery’s are a unique, endearingly zany family that kids will enjoy spending time with. In this episode, it’s holiday season, and an ice storm makes all of Sumac Lottery’s plans go haywire. (MG)

NEWS FROM ME, LUCY MCGEE, by Mary Amato, is the first book of an intended series. Lucy can’t believe her luck when Scarlett Tandy picks her-- not Victoria or Mara or Resa--to help make over Scarlett’s garden shed into "a beautiful Craft Cottage." Lucy is so excited, she skips the first meeting of the new Songwriting Club she's signed up for, and doesn’t tell her parents. Somehow it seems like Lucy gets all the hard work and Scarlett has all the fun jobs, but Lucy is not deterred. This is a fun early middle grade with a super-exhuberant title character. (MG)

Picture Books:

In OCEAN MEETS SKY, by the Fan Brothers, Finn misses his grandfather, who "would have been ninety years old today.” From odds and ends, Finn builds a boat which rocks him gently out to sea. There he meets a “great goldfish" who guides him to that magical place where the ocean meets the sky. This book is stunning in all ways: dust jacket, book cover, and endpapers welcome readers to enjoy a sweet and dreamy odyssey.

FOUND, by Jeff Newman and Larry Day, is a poignant, heartwarming, wordless picture book that's illustrated with pen and ink and smart, spare touches of color. A young girl, who has recently lost her own dog, slowly falls in love with a stray, but when she sees a “Lost” poster outside the pet store, she knows what she must do. As she walks away from the newly reunited dog and his owner, there is yet a third dog, in a shelter window, who may be a perfect fit.

INTERRUPTING CHICKEN AND THE ELEPHANT OF SURPRISE, by David Ezra Stein, features the same Interrupting Chicken from her 2011 Caldecott Honor Book. This time, she’s determined to find the elephant of surprise that, according to her teacher, every story has. From The Ugly Duckling, to Rapunzel, to The Little Mermaid, when Papa reads, Chicken manages to find those elephants of surprise. Poor Papa—he was so sure there weren’t elephants in any of those stories….

--Lynn

January's Book of the Month--Wolf in the Snow

Happy New Year!

January’s Book of the Month is the 2018 Caldecott Medal winner, WOLF IN THE SNOW, by Matthew Cordell.

It’s a cold, snowy day. In parallel storylines, a little girl and a wolf cub both become lost in a snowstorm. When they find each other, the girl helps the wolf, who’s having trouble walking in the snow. She follows the sound of the wolf pack’s howls, and returns the cub to its pack. But now the girl is tired and alone. And even though her dog is barking in the distance, and she can see there are people looking for her, it doesn’t seem like she's going to make it. But then the wolves begin howling, and they lead the search party to the freezing child, so she can be reunited with her family.

There is so much emotion conveyed in this wordless (except for sound’s like huffing, howling, whining and growling) picture book. Even though the girl is bundled up so we can only see her eyes, we always know how she’s feeling. The story, which begins before the title page, proceeds in alternating spreads of child and wolf, until they meet and the two stories are combined. The colors work beautifully. The girl’s red hooded jacket is offset by the green of the trees, and stands out nicely against the golden (before snow) and white (after snow) ground, and also has a primary color thing going with the blue of the sky. Then there are the blacks and purples of the wolves. And lots of watercolor texture. It’s gorgeous, in all its scratchy, expressive glory.

This is a heartwarming picture book that effortlessly depicts the virtues of helpfulness and the kindness of strangers.

--Lynn