Return to Eerie-on-Sea
Thomas Taylor: Shadowghast (Walker Books 2021) October arrived at Eerie-on-Sea. Even the most determined tourists have already traveled home. On All Hallows Eve, however, local people revive a special tradition: every year at this night, those who visit the old theater at the end of the pier can enjoy a special shadow play – this is the Ghastly Night. This year, however, a real world-famous magician is coming to town to perform on the theater stage. Not long after, someone mysteriously disappears. Do the two things have anything to do with each other? Once again, Herbie, the Lost-and-Founder of the Grand Nautilus Hotel and her friend Violet have to solve the mystery. But it’s hard to see the truth among the many illusions. Thomas Taylor’s latest book in the Legends of Eerie-on-Sea series was published in September this year, marking the end of the tourist season and the start of…
Little witches
Dominique Valente: Starfell Willow Moss and the Lost Day (HarperCollins Publishers 2019) Eiko Kadono: Kiki’s Delivery Service (originally published in Japan in 1985) Julie Abe: Eva Evergreen – Semi-Magical Witch (Little, Brown and Company 2020) I recommend the following books to everyone, but especially to the girls because these are kind and exciting stories, and because we can get to know very interesting girl characters in them. You’ve already read a lot about Dominique Valente Starfell’s series on BogiWrites (you can check out the previous posts here and here) as this is my favourite middle grade novel. The story is an ode to imperfection. The protagonist, Willow, was always considered a bit odd by her surroundings and she also felt like an outsider with her more magical family. However, this adventure shows that what matters is not what her ability is, but what she does with it. The most famous…
Peligan City Noir
Sophie Green: Potkin and Stubbs (Piccadilly Press 2019) Lil Potkin is determined to find the big story in the corrupt metropolis of Peligan City. However, the big story finds her instead: she is visited by Nedly, an 11-year-old boy who is seen only by Lil… Because Nedly is a ghost who says he was killed and asks Lil to help investigate who did it. Lil asks for help from the strayed former police officer, Abe Mandel, who had the case after the boy disappeared, but unfortunately found nothing at the time. Meanwhile in the city, a firebug is taking his victims, which the mayor is trying to cover up. I haven’t read a noir style book yet, but I really liked Potkin and Stubbs. Not only its mood was special, but also the depiction of the characters: they all start with disadvantage, but despite their imperfections, they try to get…
The Ghouls of Howlfair
Nick Tomlinson: The Ghouls of Howlfair (Walker Books 2019) Nick Tomlinson: Molly Thompson and the Crypt of the Blue Moon (Walker Books 2020) Nick Tomlinson works as a teacher and moved from Birmingham to the Welsh border near Hay-on-Wye, where he still lives with his wife. He had always wanted to write, but after he was seriously determined to do it, it took him 11 years to publish his first book and another 15 to accept the second one for publication. On the long journey so far, he said, he made every imaginable mistake. He has loved horror books since he was a child because he was shy and weird at the time and, in horror stories often the protagonists discover unsettling and dangerous things, other people don’t take them seriously because they are shy and weird… His protagonist, Molly, an amateur historian, has always been interested in scary creatures…
City of Ghosts
Victoria Schwab: City of Ghosts (Scholastic 2018) Victoria Schwab: Tunnel of Bones (Scholastic 2019) Victoria Schwab: Bridge of Souls (Scholastic 2021) Victoria (V. E.) Schwab has written several successful books for adults and young adults, including the Shades of Magic trilogy and the Monsters of Verity duology, as well as The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. The trilogy about Cassidy Blake is her first middle grade series. Cassidy Blake’s parents are a successful pair of authors who write investigative books about ghosts (The Inspecters – it’s a play on words: “inspector” is a person who searches for or examines something, and “specter,” which is another term for a ghost). They don’t really see the ghosts, but Cassidy does. Her best friend is also a ghost. People are usually afraid of the dark, but Cassidy knows that night is no more haunted than the day and the day is no less haunted than the night. Cassidy is really looking forward to the summer break as they finally go to the beach where she hopes to meet fewer ghosts than usual,…
The Book of Dragons
Edith Nesbit: The Book of Dragons (first published by Harper & Brothers in 1901) Many Thanks to Digi-Book Kiadó for sending me the book! Dragons are the most interesting mythical creatures. Everyone knows them, they appear in many books, films and video games today, but they have been found in written and drawn works since the ancient times. They may have been created by the discovery of fossils, which explains why these creatures appeared and played different roles in the mythology of different peoples. While in Asian cultures, they are positive characters, in the European mythical world, they are always the enemies of the people. In this book, too, dragons usually appear in a negative role. We can read eight stories about them. Some take place in fantasy worlds, some in England. There are places where a dragon is released from its prison and wreaks havoc, there are places where…
A pinch of magic
Michelle Harrison: A Pinch of Magic (Simon & Schuster Ltd. 2019) Michelle Harrison has two sisters, just as the Widdershins girls do in her book. Tales have always played an important role in her life, as her sisters often read to her in her childhood and also invented their own stories, illustrated with their own drawings. Michelle Harrison studied illustration at the university and after graduation, she wrote her first middle grade novel (The 13 Treasures), which was published in 2009 after many rejections and won the prestigious Waterstones Children’s Book Prize that same year. In the first volume of the trilogy about the adventures of the Widdershins girls, the three girls, Betty, Fliss and Charlie, realize that they are being held captive by a terrible family curse. The only positive thing is that special objects are inherited also with the curse. With the help of these, the girls try…
Kind Vampires
Laura Ellen Anderson: Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball (HarperCollins Publishers 2017) Laura Ellen Anderson: Amelia Fang and the Unicorn Lords (HarperCollins Publishers 2018) Laura Ellen Anderson is a London-based artist, author and illustrator of children’s books and comics. I had written about her before when I presented illustrators who are famous abroad and whose works have already been published in Hungary. You can read the post here. After graduating, Laura Ellen Anderson worked with several English and American publishers as an illustrator. Her first book, which she also notes as a writer, Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball, was published in 2017 and won several prestigious awards that year. In the first volume of the series, we get to know Amelia, who is a vampire girl, but you don’t have to be afraid of her because she doesn’t bite. She really likes her little pet pumpkin, Squashy and her…
The Realm of the Midnight Hour
Benjamin Read – Laura Trinder: The Midnight Hour (Chicken House 2019) Benjamin Read – Laura Trinder: The Midnight Howl (Chicken House 2020) Benjamin Read – Laura Trinder: The Midnight Hunt (Chicken House 2021) Laura Trinder and Benjamin Read first met during the making of an independent film. After realizing that they were both in love with comic books and novels, they co-founded an indie comics studio. Benjamin has had such an experience before, as one of his comics has been nominated for various awards several times. Their debut work in their studio, Improper Books, was the Night Post where a Postman must deliver weird items in his night shift to even weirder recipients. The comic is also special because it consists only of pictures, there are no texts. The couple loved the subject so much that they envisioned background stories and other characters as well, until a whole world came…