I think this rather dark fantasy about a witch, three children, and some marionettes is my favorite of all Ms. Schlitz’s books that I’ve read. I like the fact that her books are all different from each other and that they all stand alone. A Drowned Maiden’s Hair, the book that won the Cybils Award for Middle Grade Fiction in 2007, was historical melodrama, set in the New England in the early twentieth century, with some historical characters and (fake) seances thrown into the mix. Her Newbery award-winning book, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, is a series of 22 monologues told from the point of view of 22 different medieval characters who live in a typical village. The Night Fairy is more of a fairy tale for younger children, those who are just entering the chapter book reading phase.

And now we have Splendors and Glooms, Ms. Schlitz’s latest offering, set in Victorian England, which tells the story of two orphan children who are under the care and domination of an Italian puppet-master named Grisini. Grisini is appropriately greasy and nasty and villainous. Cassandra, the witch of the tale, appropriately lives in a sort of castle with a tower, and she’s, of course, clairvoyant and insane, just like the mythological Cassandra. The orphans, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall seem like typical Victorian street urchins at first, but each one is much more complicated and multifaceted than the typical Oliver Twist character in a Victorian novel. Lizzie Rose is a good girl, motherly and always seeing the best in people, but she manages to lead Parsefall and their friend into danger and still remain strong and compassionate to the end. Parsefall is the Artful Dodger of the piece, but he has a secret wound and turns out to be a true knight who saves the “princess” from death.

The final major character in this ensemble cast is Clara Wintermere, who is the only child from her rich family to survive a cholera epidemic that killed her five siblings when she was only five years old. Clara’s been living in the shadow of those siblings, called the “deaders” by Parsefall, ever since. Clara is the Poor Little Rich Girl who’s so protected and spoiled that she has only a hint of a personality in the beginning of the book, but it is Clara who manages to defeat the witch and her magic and free the children from Cassandra’s evil spells.

The title comes from the poem Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, canto 13, by Percy Bysshe Shelley. I’ll leave you with the section of the poem that’s printed in the beginning of the book because it sums up the atmosphere of this brooding and haunting novel that turns out to be a rather down-to-earth story of the rescue and redemption of three children and a witch:

And others came . . . Desires and Adorations,
Wingèd Persuasions and veiled Destinies,
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,
Came in slow pomp;–the moving pomp might seem
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.

Splendors and Glooms is eligible to be nominated for a Cybils Award in the category of Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction. Nominations are open October 1-15, 2012.

AHGTSYK has a Princess Bride tone and humor to it with lots of The Three Stooges thrown in. Only it has four stooges, or rather Princes Charming, and one of them, Duncan (Snow White’s Prince Charming), is completely insane, bonkers. These are NOT the princes you would choose to have around when you’re in need of a rescue. The only one who’s any good at rescuing, Liam (Sleeping Beauty’s Prince Charming), is going through a popularity crisis. He’s always been quite beloved of his people and popular, but the waspish Princess Briar Rose, who’s a spoiled brat, has spread false rumors about him ever since he said he wouldn’t marry her and become her slave. Now she says Liam dumped her (true), threw rotten eggs at the royal family’s prize poodles, and drew a mustache on the queen’s portrait (or maybe on the queen, depending on who’s telling the story). Everybody hates Liam for spoiling the royal alliance. The other two princes, Frederic (Cinderella’s prince) and Gustav (Rapunzel’s prince) have their own issues, and the resulting adventure/how to manual is a laugh a minute.

Guys and girls should be able to enjoy this comedy of errors and slapstick and sarcasm, but the humor may lean toward the guy-side. As I said, Three Stooges, slapstick, ridiculosity (should be a word, even if it isn’t). The book does tend to be on the long-ish side,436 pages, but those who like it will want more, and those who don’t will quit.

Other voices:
There’s a Book: “Within the pages of The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom readers find characters that leave you in stitches and have you begging for more. This is a story about friendship, one in that ensures readers will never look at their favorite classic characters the same way and may even have young readers looking for what’s beyond the stereotypes in the people around them.”
The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia: “Healy combines the traditional stories of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel and Cinderella into the overall narrative, and from there things go haywire, sideways, and explosions feature prominently. It’s fun, silly, outrageous and a really good time.”
Small Review: “I’m contemplating bribery so I can get my little hands on more because I want more Frederic, Liam, Gustav, and Duncan (a.k.a. Prince Charming) right now.”

I’ve already enjoyed a couple of young adult fantasy novels by author Jessica Day George, Princess of the Midnight Ball and Princess of Glass, but this book is for a younger, middle grade audience, about third through fifth grade.

Eleven year old Princess Celie has a couple of older brothers and an older sister who love her dearly but are somewhat bossy and annoying at least some of the time, and she lives in a Castle that reinvents itself frequently, especially on Tuesdays. Castle Glower chooses and cares for the royal family, and the Castle loves Celie best of all. (It sort of talks to her.)

So when Prince Khelsh of Vhervhine comes for a visit and stays to usurp the throne and take over the Kingdom of Sleyne, it’s Celie who can (kind of) communicate with the Castle Glower and enlist its help in ejecting the intruders. The process isn’t easy, however, especially since Celie’s loving parents, King Glower the Seventy-Ninth and Queen Celina are missing, presumed dead, after a journey to fetch her oldest brother Bran upon his graduation from the College of Wizardry.

I tried to get my reluctant reader, Z-baby, age 11, interested in this book, but she said, “No pictures. No way.” Maybe I’ll read it to her, or at least start reading it to her. (Insert evil cackle, heh, heh, heh.) She might just want to know how it ends if I break off in the middle.

Tuesdays at the Castle was nominated and shortlisted last year for the Cybils Award for Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy, published in early October just about at the cut-off date. It’s a delightful story, and I recommend it highly.

Nancy Yi Fan was eleven years old when she started writing the first novel in her Swordbird series, entitled Swordbird. I haven’t read Swordbird, nor have I read the second novel in the series, Sword Quest. And I had no idea that Ms. Yi Fan was a teen author until I finished reading Sword Mountain and read the author blurb in the back. Nancy Yi Fan’s writing matches that any adult fantasy author, and her deft handling of story, character, and theme outdo many authors with far more experience than she has.

Sword Mountain is the ancestral of the Golden Eagles, and as the story opens exiled musician Prince Fleydur is returning home to the Castle of the Sky as a hero. He and his brother, Prince Forlath, and their Eagle Army have defeated the archaeopteryxes and saved the kingdom. Unfortunately, not all of their enemies have perished, and not much has changed at the Castle of the Sky in Fleydur’s absence. The Iron Nest, the tribe’s ruling authority, still holds to tradition and a rigid social hierarchy, and Queen Sigrid is still enmeshed in her own selfish ambitions for her son Forlath. And nobody understands Fleydur’s love for music nor his compassion in rescuing an orphaned valley eaglet named Dandelion and bringing her to the Castle of the Sky to associate with the eagle nobility.

Dandelion becomes the heroine of the the story as she struggles to find her place and identity in a very rigid, rule-bound society. Fleydur is good, but a bit clueless, thinking that everybird, including the villains of the piece, means well and only needs a taste of music to make them understand the beauty of equality and freedom.

I liked the way this one was written. I liked the aphorisms at the beginning of each chapter. I liked the anthropomorphic birds who felt like characters from a human fairy tale, only with flying. I liked the strong, female protagonist who did the rescuing instead of being rescued. I liked the centrality of the two books, The Old Scripture and The Book of Heresy. I liked the themes of “hope and change”, slow, sure hope and change. I liked it all well enough that I’m hoping to go back and read the first two books in the series when Cybils season is over.

Sword Mountain is eligible to be nominated for the 2012 Cybils Awards for Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy. Nominations open October 1, 2012.