The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz.

I hate books that seem to say, “Oh, kids like gross, nasty, slimy stuff. Let’s take the really loathsome parts of this tale and make them the centerpiece of the narrative because that will draw the kids in.” That’s what I wrote about Mr. Gidwitz’s book, In a Glass Grimmly, and it applies to this story, too. It’s a shame that this author has such a penchant for poops and farts and crude humor because otherwise he’s a good writer. The scatological attempts at humor aren’t usually very funny, and they just don’t add to the story at all.

The story: On a dark night in the year 1242, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children: Jeanne, a peasant girl who has visions, William, an oblate who is half-Saracen and half French, and Jacob, a Jewish boy with a gift for healing. These children may be saints, or they may be using evil magic to do wonders that will deceive the faithful. And the dog, Gwenforte, who once saved a child from a deadly serpent, may be resurrected, but can a dog really be a saint? The children’s adventures take them from a farting dragon to a meeting with the king to a plot to save the illicit, mostly Jewish, books that are scheduled for burning by Good King Louis and his mother, Blanche of Castile.

So, Louis IX and his mother were real people, and so were several of the other characters in the novel. The three children are composite character, partly taken from the hagiographic stories of medieval saints and partly from Mr. Gidwitz’s fertile imagination. Other real medieval characters in the book include: Chretien de Troyes, a late 12th century poet and trouvare, Francis Bacon, the late medieval (1561-1626) scientist and philosopher, Rabbi Rashi of Troyes, an 11th century Jewish scholar, and various other minor characters imported from the pages of medieval French stories and poems. In addition, the girl, Jeanne, bears an affinity to Joan of Arc, the storytelling reminds one of Chaucer, and the burning in Paris of some 12,000 manuscript copies of the Talmud and other Jewish books actually took place in 1243.

So, as he did in his other series of books based on Grimm’s fairy tales, Mr. Gidwitz took the elements from several French, and even British, lives and tales of the middle ages and stirred them into a stew which turned out to be something completely different. And it could have been a delight. Instead, it’s sort of a mish-mosh of good scenes and bad, crude and insightful, funny and flat. If I could extract the bad parts and leave in the good, I would recommend it.

The illustrations, or illuminations, that adorn the pages of this medieval tale are a delight.

For a much more thorough and positive review of The Inquisitor’s Tale, check out this post by Sara Masarik at Plumfield and Paideia.

Cutting-edge and in touch with contemporary concerns (Creepy Clown Craze), this book needs its own trigger warning. Zozo, the villain of this piece, is a Creepy Clown, and his trashy flunkies, made of random toy parts, are rather sinister, too. Coulrophobics, this book is NOT for you.

Zozo, the clown king, and his toy henchmen, the Creeps, have sworn to steal and imprison “Faves” (favorite toys) in their subterranean lair beneath a defunct carnival. When Billy’s favorite toy, Ollie, is stolen, Billy sets out to rescue Ollie. Will they ever be able to find each other again? Or will the hatred of the heartless Zozo triumph?

Ollie’s Odyssey is precious, very, very precious, Velveteen Rabbit precious. Toy Story precious. In fact, if either of those stories is your favorite, then Ollie’s Odyssey is a sure bet. Otherwise, you may overdose on the sweetness—or get scared silly by the evil clown. There are a few internal inconsistencies, mainly having to do with how or why or by what logic things come to life or don’t. A lot of normally inanimate objects—junk from the junkyard, old toys, carnival paraphernalia, tin cans–come to life in this odyssey, but it was never clear how or why some things could move and communicate while others couldn’t. Or some things could move around by themselves sometimes, but not at other times.

Otherwise, the story is well told, like a movie, complete with memorable characters and movie-ready accents and speech patterns. I could imagine this story with computer animated or claymation characters, and I would guess that the author was imagining it that way as he wrote. From the creator of The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, one would expect no less, and the beautiful illustrations add to the movie-effect. (Fantastic Flying Books “was created using computer animation, miniatures and traditional hand-drawn techniques.” And according to Wikipedia, “Joyce created conceptual characters for Disney/Pixar’s feature films Toy Story (1995) and A Bug’s Life (1998).”) I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about the movie version of Ollie’s Odyssey sometime in the future.

In the meantime, since it’s written about a six year old, but the almost 300 pages will be a little too much for most six, or even seven and eight, year olds to handle on their own, I would suggest Ollie’s Odyssey as a read-aloud book. Or just wait for the movie.

The Wrinkled Crown by Anne Nesbet.
Time Stoppers by Carrie Jones.

The “wrinkled” or magical mountain village of Lourka where “stories have a way of coming true.”

A twelve year old girl named Linny who breaks the law and makes her own musical instrument, also called a lourka.

Linny’s best friend and almost twin, Sayra, who pays the price for Linny’s rule-breaking.

Add in the apprentice, Elias, a wrinkled half-cat, and the city of Bend at the foot of the mountains where the people are divided between wrinkled and plain, magical and logical, tradition and progress. Linny must find the medicine in Bend that will cure Sayra, but she also runs into numerous other obstacles and diversions that take her into danger, conflict, and finally, a very hard decision. Will she be able to take the medicine back to Lourka to cure Sayra, or is she the prophesied Girl With the Lourka who must stay in Bend and save everyone?

I found this story slow going, and by the time the action picked up in the middle, I still didn’t really care about the characters. And the ending was . . . weird, probably a set-up for a sequel. Which I probably won’t read. However, if the synopsis of the first part of the novel sounds like something you would enjoy, you might get more out of it than I did.

Time Stoppers features another magical village in the mountains where magical creatures like elves and dwarfs and hags and witches go to be safe. They are protected by a garden gnome. Yes, a magical garden gnome statue protects the village of Aurora until it is stolen by trolls. And little Annie Nobody is the child who is destined to be a Time Stopper, find the gnome, bring it back to Aurora, and defeat the evil Each Uisge and the Raiff. With her friend Jamie, the dwarf fighter Eva, and the elf Bloom, Annie does manage to complete some, but not all, of those tasks, leaving plenty of room for Time Stoppers, Book Two.

The action in this one was non-stop, but the whole thing was an outlandish caricature from the beginning. The bad guys, trolls, are horribly, outrageously bad. They eat children, but also before they chow down, they abuse them, refuse to feed them, send them out to sleep with the dogs/wolves, make them smell underwear(?), cackle at them, insult them, etc. The trolls are ridiculously bad, almost laughable, but then they’re not really funny because they are abusive in ugly, bad-parent ways. And the good magical beings of Aurora also behave in outsized, but stereotypical ways. Eva is a loudmouthed, battle-hungry, boastful, warrior maiden. Bloom is quietly strong and spends most of his time annoyed with Eva, which is understandable. Annie and Jamie are bewildered and timid, just happy to find themselves in Aurora where the trolls can’t get them, until the trolls, and other creatures even worse, invade. Then, Annie and Jamie are told that they must be brave.

The Wrinkled Crown felt dream-like (Alice in Wonderland) and over-wrought, with too many directions for Linny to follow and too many tasks to complete. Time Stoppers felt grotesque and buffoonish, slapstick but not very funny. Kirkus says about The Wrinkled Crown: “With hints of a sequel to come, this agreeable adventure introduces an appealing, spunky heroine and sets the stage for more conflict and compromise to come.” And SLJ called Time Stoppers: “”An imaginative blend of fantasy, whimsy, and suspense, with a charming cast of underdog characters.”

I just don’t think either of these is the best middle grade fantasy has to offer.

The author of The Mysterious Benedict Society brings to middle grade readers (at least to those who like LONG books) a standalone story of secrets, lies and hiding places.

Reuben is a loner, a poor boy and an only child who lives with his single mother in a small apartment on the wrong side of the city. He spends his days in solitary exploring, finding hidden nooks and crannies in the crumbling city of New Umbra. He spends his evenings watching TV or designing dream mansions with his mom. Then, one day he finds a hidden object, an object that bestows great power on its owner, but also an object that is sought for by a lot of very, very bad people, including the arch-villain of New Umbra who is known only as The Smoke. Can Reuben unlock the secrets of his newfound magical powers before The Smoke finds him and takes his discovery away?

Reuben comes to realize that he must destroy the Ring of Power, but in order to do he must enter into The Smoke’s lair. And he must give up the only thing that has ever made him feel special and protected and powerful. Whoops, not a ring, but you get the idea; there are definitely echoes of Lord of the Rings here, at least plot-wise, although the setting is completely different. No hobbits, no elves, no dwarfs, no wizards. Instead, the setting is darker and grittier than Middle Earth, in a fear-ridden city ruled by a crime lord whose influence stretches into the most hidden and secret sectors of New Umbra.

Borrowed plot notwithstanding, The Secret Keepers was a fun ride. It will appeal to the kind of kid who likes finding secret hiding places, concealing buried treasures, and designing dream mansions with trap doors and secret passageways. The book is 500 pages long, so if you can’t take 500 pages of secrets and pursuits and getaways and traps and puzzles, this book isn’t for you. But if that sort of thing appeals to you, as it does to me, The Secret Keepers is just as much fun as The Mysterious Benedict Society was.

The first question you must ask yourself before you decide to read this book: can you accept the premise of the cremated ashes of his deceased father speaking aloud from the funeral urn to a twelve year old boy? Second question: do you like golf? If you answer both of these questions in the affirmative, this book is for you. If you can deal with the talking ashes, but you’re not much of a golf fan, you might still want to go along fro the ride. (I did.)

Ben Hogan Putter (get the pun, “putter”, as in golf?) just lost his dad to cancer. Now Ben has a permanent lump in his throat that he believes is an actual golf ball, and his barbecue-loving, golf-loving daddy is speaking to him from beyond the grave, asking Ben to take his ashes to Augusta, Georgia, home of the most famous golf course in the world. That’s where Ben’s daddy, Bo Putter, wants his ashes to rest: Augusta National Golf Club.

On the journey from his home in Hilltop, Alabama to Augusta, Georgia, Ben Putter acquires a traveling companion, a girl named Noni. The two of them beg, borrow, and steal their way across country to get to Augusta in time for the Masters Tournament. Both children have secrets, and both have daddy issues. The suspense in the story is tied up in whether or not they will be able to get to Augusta in time for the Masters, but also in how the two will resolve their respective relationships with their fathers. It’s a tearjerker, very emotional.

Almost too emotional. Ben Putter works out years of grief, anger, estrangement and misunderstanding over the course of a few days. And Noni has a deep-seated trauma of her own to work though. There are several very sentimental and pathos-filled scenes in which Ben Putter talks to his dad, in which the two children take a stand against the segregationists of the early 1970’s, in which Noni forgives and reconciles with her father, in which Ben says good-bye to the father who never really understood him. Much Sturm-und-Drang. Father issues. Tears and trials.

But it’s not a bad little Mississippi, golfing, and dealing with death story.