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Showing posts from November, 2010

100 Cupboards

Henry York has just moved to Henry, Kansas where he and his cousin Henrietta have discovered something very curious in his attic bedroom. A strange thump in the night has dislodged the plaster on the wall above his bed, exposing a curious set of compass dials. The more they chip away at the plaster, the more they discover: specifically, 99 cupboards, the key to their late-grandfather’s room that has been impossible to open for two years, gateways to other worlds, and that Henry York is not at all who he thinks he is. In N.D. Wilson’s 100 Cupboards, he lays the foundation for a new world-hopping fantasy series that has amazing potential, but also some serious flaws. I drank in fantasy books when I was younger. I'd go to the library and scan the shelves for cool covers with dragons or flip through their pages in search of the word "faery". I could explain to you in detail why it was ludicrous that J.K. Rowling suggested a "witch" was the female equi...

Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule

"Pascal had always thought freedom would be like Joshua and the walls of Jericho in the Bible... God would raise up Joshua to blow a horn; and colored people would all shout. And those walls would come tumbling down forever. That would be freedom!" But apparently, Pascal has been free... for two years. Two years ago President Lincoln freed the slaves, but the Masters are still buying and selling them. Pascal's Mama was just murdered for asking for more food for the starving slaves. And now the War Between the States is over. And he is free? But what is freedom? Throughout Harriette Gillem Robinet's Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule Pascal struggles to answer that very question. Does owning land make you free? Does going to school make you free? Does having gold make you free? Or is it something deeper? Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, the text follows Pascal, his brother Gideon, and their family of friends through the...