Shelf Awareness--The Kingdom of Back

YA Review: The Kingdom of Back

The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu (Putnam Books for Young Readers, 336p., ages 12-up, 9781524739010, March 3, 2020)

In The Kingdom of Back, Marie Lu entwines well-researched fiction with fantasy, conjuring a captivating tale of young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and "the other Mozart." Historical details come alive in this fantasy-infused account of the extremely close relationship between the musical genius and his lesser-known sister, Maria Anna.

The story begins in 1759, when Maria Anna, called Nannerl by the family, is eight years old and Wolfgang only three. Their papa says Nannerl is a "miracle," and he brings Herr Schachtner, "the esteemed court trumpeter of Salzburg," home to hear her play the clavier. If she impresses, she will surely be invited to play for Herr Haydn of Austria, then on to the royal courts of Europe, thereby raising up the prospects of a family "forever on the edge of respectable." But when Wolferl innocently distracts the good Herr, Nannerl's opportunity is lost. That night, annoyed by her brother's interruption and desperate for the approval of her demanding father, Nannerl falls asleep yearning to be "worthy of praise, of being loved and remembered." For the first time, she dreams of the Kingdom of Back: a wild-looking boy walks in the surf of an ocean "lit by twin moons," and the air ripples with a "melody so perfect" Nannerl "aches to grasp it."

Time passes, and Nannerl overhears her parents speaking of a future for her defined by marriage and childbearing. She is haunted, knowing that soon, when she leaves her childhood behind, her father will stop teaching her. For now, though, Nannerl happily retreats to the haven of her clavier practice, and the menuetts she loves to play. Wolferl begs to learn the clavier, too, and Nannerl quickly understands that he has a "remarkable ear," perhaps even better than her own. After trying a few chords, her brother asks her to tell him a story, and the Kingdom of Back resurfaces. As Nannerl describes the landscape--a forest with trees that "stand upsidedown" and a shore with "sand as white as snow"--she transcribes a strange song that seems to spring note by note from this other world. Woferl plays the tune and does it so well that wonder and "a small twinge of something" (Envy? Fear?) begins to take root within Nannerl. Her old wish comes back to her: "Make them remember me."And she hears the "sweet and beautiful" voice of the wild boy: "I can help you, Nannerl, if you help me."

As Nannerl carries on with the fairy story, the siblings slowly fill in details of the fantastical kingdom. At times, it seems as if the magical place actually unfolds around them, replacing their neighborhood with the forest, and they even catch fleeting glimpses in the streets of Salzburg of the wild boy, a faery princeling named Hyacinth. Later that winter, when Woferl's musical gift becomes apparent and the family travels to Vienna for the children to play at the royal court, Hyacinth is also nearby. In return for promising to give Nannerl the recognition she craves, Hyacinth declares he needs her to help him reclaim his throne in Back. Though he warns her that "wishes have a habit of surprising their makers," Nannerl's ambition leads her to push away her unease. Fully aware that composing is "a man's realm," Nannerl cannot help writing down the "irresistibly coaxing song" Hyacinth conjures for her, thus agreeing to the bargain. Encouraged by Woferl, who promises to keep her secret, she continues to produce music originating in her visions and dreams of this other world. But her affection for Woferl is tried again and again as it becomes increasingly apparent that her younger brother will live the life she desires, even to the point of getting credit for work she herself has composed.

Nannerl Mozart was supremely talented in her own right, a young woman whose musical accomplishments were many and varied but whose dreams could only ever end in marriage. Readers are repeatedly teased by the possibilities of what might have been had Nannerl been born into another time, with far different expectations placed upon her. Lu's author's note at the conclusion points out how the fantastical Kingdom of Back was actually invented by the two siblings during their long carriage rides across Europe; their saga of music and magic is set "in a real land, full of real kings and castles and courts," but manifests also in "a dream of fog and stars, faery princelings and queens of the night." The author adds classic fairy tale elements and weaves the imaginary kingdom in and around the life of the Mozarts, increasing the tension of the story as the Kingdom of Back becomes more powerful and menacing. Torn between her deepest longing for immortality and her need to protect her beloved brother, Nannerl must decide for herself what her true legacy will be. --Lynn Becker.

Shelf Awareness--The Queen of Nothing

YA Review: The Queen of Nothing

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black (Little, Brown, 320p., ages 14-up, 9780316310420)

Holly Black is an undisputed master craftsperson of all things Faerie. In Queen of Nothing, the conclusion to her spectacular the Folk of the Air trilogy (Cruel Prince; The Wicked King), Prince Cardan faces the prophecy given to him at birth: he will cause "the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne."

As High King of Elfhame, Cardan has married his mortal seneschal--and nemesis--Jude Duarte as part of an elaborate scheme to exile her to the mortal world. Now, Jude restlessly frets over how to get back to Faerieland to reclaim her rightful place as High Queen (without being caught and executed, that is). An opportunity arises when her deceitful twin sister, Taryn, faces an inquest over her husband's death. Taryn begs Jude to impersonate her and convince the High King she is not guilty of the murder she did, in fact, commit. But Cardan, "even more horrifically beautiful" than Jude remembers, knows her immediately. Before they can unravel the current state of their contentious relationship, Jude is kidnapped by former Grand General Madoc, her estranged stepfather. Madoc seeks to dethrone the High King--and therefore Jude as High Queen--which means Jude must decipher Madoc's plans before he figures out who she really is. When a powerful curse is unleashed on the land, Jude must decide just how far she's willing to go in her never-ending pursuit of power.

Black's delectable descriptions of characters and her nonstop pacing will ensure that readers devour The Queen of Nothing as quickly as possible. Masterfully combining court intrigue, romantic drama and the magic of a most dangerous Faerieland, this series-closer is a stand-out ending to a riveting series. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: Sneaking back into Faerieland, Jude finds herself in the center of a plot to overthrow the High King in the finale to Holly Black's YA series Folk of the Air.

January's Book of the Month--Small in the City

Happy New Year! January’s Book of the Month is SMALL IN THE CITY, by Sidney Smith. It’s his first time writing, after a string of accomplished books illustrated for other authors, including Town is By the Sea, The White Cat and the Monk, and wordless Sidewalk Flowers, all of which are definitely worth checking out.

SMALL IN THE CITY opens with a young child, bundled up against a chilly winter's day. After riding a bus, the child trudges through a landscape where “people don’t see you and loud sounds can scare you, and knowing what to do is hard sometimes.” Advice follows, and what initially sounds like an internal pep talk is eventually revealed to be something quite different. A blizzard covers the city in snow, and the situation seems increasingly dire, but a welcome final page leaves readers feeling optimistic.

This tender and sad-yet-hopeful picture book is a gem. Each illustration—"ink, watercolor, and a bit of gouache”--whether spot art or spread, feels like an artistic treasure. But Smith makes sure to bring plenty of heart to his work, as well. The writing is spare and poetic, without wasted words. The book as a whole achieves quite a nice rhythm--wordless spreads alternate with those that have text, and single images alternate with multiple pieces of art arranged in storyboard/comics-style grids. I would love to see SMALL IN THE CITY walk away with a Caldecott.

--Lynn

Shelf Awareness--Call Down the Hawk

YA Review: Call Down the Hawk

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press, 480p., ages 12-up, 9781338188325)

Call Down the Hawk occupies the same fantasy-infused world as Maggie Stiefvater's stellar the Raven Cycle quartet. Fans of the previous series will enjoy delving deeper into the magical heritage of the Lynch brothers; new readers should enjoy this riveting follow-up trilogy opener.

Of his three brothers, Ronan Lynch has "the most dangerous of the secrets." He's a dreamer who can "fall asleep, dream of feathers, and wake with a raven in [his] hands." His father dreamt his mother into being, and Ronan, in turn, dreamt into being his "cherubic" younger brother, Matthew. Now that their parents are dead, Ronan's older brother, Declan, holds what's left of the family together.

Hennessy, too, is a dreamer. Each time she sleeps for more than 20 minutes, she brings back "a copy of herself." Hennessy and her art-forging clones sneak into the Fairy Market--a place to buy illicit magical items--desperate to find a painting that may allow Hennessy to change her dream before she is literally killed by her own nightmares. Carmen Farooq-Lane goes to the Fairy Market after it's described in a premonition. She is part of a group dedicated to killing all dreamers in order to stave off an apocalypse that one of them will cause "with starving, unquenchable fire. Dreamed fire." Ronan, too, attends the Fairy Market--a stranger is whispering to him in dreams, and he thinks the Market may offer answers.

Stiefvater's (All the Crooked Saints) melodious prose is as gorgeous as ever, but here the tone is grittier, as players both new and familiar operate in a dangerous, surreal underbelly in and around the nation's capital. Alliances form, victories are hard to gauge and reality seems less and less certain. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: In this first book in a YA companion trilogy to Stiefvater's the Raven Cycle, dreamers are pitted against a group of hunters determined to prevent a fiery apocalypse.

December Recommendations

Novels:

THE QUEEN OF NOTHING is the conclusion to the intensely satisfying Folk of the Air trilogy by Holly Black. Jude Duarte has been exiled from Faery to the mortal world, but she sneaks back in to impersonate her twin sister, Taryn—and, while she’s at it, reclaim her own rightful place as High Queen. She gets kidnapped by her stepfather who mistakes her for Taryn, as he plots to dethrone Cardan—and therefore Jude herself! Beginning with THE CRUEL PRINCE, followed by THE WICKED KING, finishing with THE QUEEN OF NOTHING, these novels masterfully combine court intrigue, romantic drama, and the magic of a most dangerous Faerieland. (YA)

THE DARKEST PART OF THE FOREST, also by Holly Black, and also set in the same Faerieland as the Folk of the Air series, is a standalone story about Hazel Evans and her brother Ben, and the Faerie prince who is encased in a glass coffin in the forest near their home. And it’s about how Hazel becomes a warrior, and how Ben tries to fight the magic of his music, and how they both try to save their hometown from an invasion of the Folk. And it’s about the monster that lives in the heart of the forest. It’s contemporary dark fantasy with plenty of traditional fairy tale elements and romance. Most excellent! (YA)

LOOK BOTH WAYS: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, by Jason Reynolds, is a collection of ten stories, woven together to make up a larger story of community. Once the dismissal bell rings at Latimer Middle School, students burst forth into the rest of their lives, filled with boogers and divorce, stolen change and cancer and candy, skateboarding and bullies and plenty more that’s packed into these pages. The always-creative Reynolds has given us another winner. (MG)

Picture Books:

THE SHORTEST DAY, by Susan Cooper, began as a work for the theater--"a joyful celebration of the winter solstice, in music, dance, and words”—and now Carson Ellis’s gouache illustrations bring the poem new life as a book. When the old year dies, people gather "singing, dancing,/ to drive the dark away.” Heavily influenced by northern European beliefs, it’s a mythic, uplifting piece that shows how ancient winter solstice rituals are still alive in many modern holiday traditions.

JUST IN CASE YOU WANT TO FLY, by Julie Fogliano and Christian Robinson, is a delightfully imaginative collaboration. “…here’s some wind/and here’s the sky/here’s a feather/here’s up high…” It begs to be read aloud and savored. The book is well made, too—take the dust cover off for a complementary cover, and savor the whole of it as a piece of picture book art at its best.

POKKO AND THE DRUM, by Matthew Forsythe, is also beautifully made, with thick, creamy pages and gorgeously colored illustrations. The story, too, is a winner—when Poko’s parents give her a drum, they declare it was "a big mistake.” But Poko takes her drum into the forest, where she assembles a diverse crowd of animals who also play instruments. (She only has to threaten the wolf once not to eat the other band members.) It’s droll and fun and truly noteworthy.

--Lynn

Shelf Awareness--Not a Bean

PB Review: Not a Bean

Not a Bean by Claudia Guadalupe Martinez, illus. by Laura González (Charlesbridge, 32p., ages 3-7, 9781580898157)

On "the yerba de la flecha," a shrub found near the arroyos of northern Mexico, grows a seedpod. Within this seedpod are smaller pods, and each one of these smaller pods is "Not a Bean." In this playful-yet-informative bilingual counting book, Claudia Guadalupe Martínez and Laura González set the record straight about a perennial favorite, the Mexican jumping bean.

Early one morning, "una oruga" bores its way into one of the small pods. Inside, the caterpillar finds food and water. When the seedpod dries and hardens, it breaks open and falls to the desert sand. "Dos saguaros" decorate the warming landscape as the caterpillar maneuvers the Not a Bean into a shady spot among the rocks. Nearby, "tres cascabeles" rattle their tails; the Not a Bean jumps into a crevice, where it stays safe from "cuatro coyotes" and "cinco cuervos." Rain from "seis nubes" takes the Not a Bean downriver, where "siete amigos explore." The friends draw "ocho óvalos" in the dirt and play a game with the Not a Bean plus eight other jumpers, making "nueve saltarines” in all. That night, under "diez estrellas" that twinkle in the sky, the Not a Bean grows quiet. The caterpillar inside spins a cocoon and, many days later, "a majestic polilla" emerges, then "soars into the sky."

Martínez's fascinating story presents the life cycle of the jumping bean moth, while González's digital illustrations support and illuminate the text. Back matter describes the science in greater detail, and includes both environmental context and an explanation of the jumping bean's appeal to children. Additionally, Not a Bean's well-placed Spanish words and phrases serve as an introduction to readers who do not speak Spanish and a welcome invitation to those who do. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: The life cycle of the jumping bean moth is detailed in this picture book that also includes an introduction to Spanish numbers and vocabulary.

December's Book of the Month--The Hate U Give

THE HATE U GIVE, by Angie Thomas, is December's Book of the Month, and one that I’ve wanted to spotlight for a while. I talked about it in Recommendations shortly after it came out, but didn't get around to picking it for a Book of the Month. But, with the movie being released this year, and because Angie Thomas now has a follow-up book set in the same town of Garden Heights, it seems like a good time to revisit this terrific story.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter is torn between two worlds. She attends high school at the fancy, suburban, almost-all-white Williamson Prep, and, when school is over, she drives forty-five minutes home to the much rougher black neighborhood of Garden Heights, where “you rarely see white people.” Starr has learned that “Williamson is one world and Garden Heights is another and [she has] to keep them separate.” When Starr sneaks out with her brother’s sister Kenya to a party, there’s a shooting and the guests all flee. Starr, drives away with her longtime friend Khalil. But a police officer pulls them over, and “Khalil breaks a rule—he doesn’t do what the cop wants.” Choosing to question why they were pulled over at all, Khalil, unarmed, is shot and killed. Starr goes to the police station and speaks to the detectives, but it soon becomes clear that the authorities “see no reason to arrest the officer." Starr needs to decide if she’ll go public with her story, thereby giving her Williamson world a clear view of her Garden Heights roots. Will she face the media circus and make sure the world knows “what went down,” or is she “too afraid to speak?"

I think what sets this book above and beyond is the undeniably superior writing. Starr is a complete, complex character that drew me in from the very first page. Her struggles feel authentic and compelling. The narrative also has a superb supporting cast, and the plot is rich and satisfying. Far more rich and satisfying than the short blurb above makes it sound. It should become an enduring classic, and a chronicle of the highest order in regards to the serious issues it takes on.

I’m going to buy a copy of Thomas’s second book, ON THE COME UP, next chance I get.

--Lynn