Nameless
Luca Dorottya Kaszab: Nameless* (Maxim Könyvkiadó 2024) Many thanks to Maxim Könyvkiadó for sending me the book! Does our name define us or do we decide what they will remember about us when they hear our name? Once upon a time, in a country called Country, a bored king decided to bring a little excitement to the lives of his bored people and determined the names that could be taken and the corresponding professions. However, there were those who remained nameless in the end. Five hundred years later, the protagonist of our story, Nameless, is enjoying a peaceful day on the shore of a lake, when fate throws his nephew – also Nameless – into his path and Mildred, the little girl who has a name, but is not satisfied with it and the life that belongs to it. Willingly or unwillingly, the task will be waiting for them to…
The symbol
Charles Waters – Traci Sorell: Mascot (Carlesbridge Publishing 2023) In Rye, Virginia, an English teacher gives eighth graders a special assignment. ‘Write a poem about yourself and your feelings.’ Based on the poems, it turns out that the newly arrived Native girl feels very bad because of the school’s mascot, a tomahawk-wielding Indian. Added to this is the battle hymn chanted at sports competitions and matches. Upon further research, it turns out that the caricature is hated by at least as many people as it is adored by. We can learn about the events in the form of verse, from the point of view of six children: Callie: Black Cherokee Nation citizen who just moved to town Franklin: Black, but he doesn’t want to know more about his own Black heritage, he prefers football Priya: her grandparents came to the States from India, she wants to be a journalist Sean:…
Fire and ice
Aisling Fowler: Fireborn – Phoenix and the Frost Palace (HarperCollins 2023) Many thanks to Maxim Könyvkiadó for sending me the book! The Hunters left behind their names, their families and their entire lives to protect the clans. Twelve also has a new name: Phoenix, which she chose because of her magical ability. Her friends, Five, Six and Seven, went with her, when the Hunting Lodge was destroyed. But now they have a new task. Their old enemies are active again, but something much more dangerous has set in motion, which threatens the entire Ember. They can only trust Phoenix. In this volume, we get to know the characters much better, who are lovable each and every one of them. However, the world they live in does not spare them. Danger lurks everywhere and they can only count on each other. The main point of the story for me is that…
The end of the Story
Anna James: Pages & Co – The Last Bookwanderer (HarperCollins Publishers 2023) The whole world is open to you if you read. Tilly Pages and her friends have even more possibilities, as they are bookwanderers, some of the few who can read themselves into the books and meet the characters. All they need for this is their imagination. All of this is in danger, however, because the Alchemist wants for himself all the magical powers that lie in books and in people’s fantasy. Tilly, Oscar, Milo and Alessia therefore set out on a mission that first leads them to the Arthurian legends and then to the world of Greek and Norse myths. Here they also experience that the old heroes, if you look at them more closely, are less heroic than they seem at first. One of the main points of the final volume of the series is that the…
Back to School – TBR
Phil Hickes: Shadowhall Academy – The Whispering Walls (Usborne Publishing 2024) When Lilian Jones begins her studies at the creepy, cold, and shockingly large Shadowhall Academy, she fears she won’t make friends or being able to navigate the building. If only she knew that these are the least things she should worry about… When strange things start happening at school: knocking on the walls, disturbing stories of missing students and rumors that the school is haunted, Lilian realizes that the stories are not just fiction and that the school hides real secrets. Jill Murphy. A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch (first published by Allison & Bushby in 1974) Future witches study at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches. Outside, gloomy gray walls and towers rise to the sky, and inside there are long narrow corridors running between the staircases and the sunlight almost never gets in. The girls who study…
Back to School – Book recommendations
Sylvia Bishop: The Midnight Thief (Scholastic 2021) Freya Robinson is a student at a prestigious boarding school. She doesn’t like it because she doesn’t find it interesting enough. She preferred to live with her archaeologist father, but when he found all seven legendary Eldrida Dragons, the statues featured in Anglo-Saxon legends, he decided that his daughter would receive a proper education. Freya is disliked by both the headmistress and her classmates at school. Her situation is not too rosy, as breaking the rules is part of her everyday life. However, that bat changes everything. Or maybe the Dragons are responsible for this turn of the story? Jacqueline Harvey: Alice-Miranda series (Penguin Books Australia) We all know the protagonists who get into trouble with their every move throughout their history. Alice-Miranda is not like that. She is a phenomenal seven-year-old girl who enrolls herself in a boarding school called the Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale…