Peter and Max by Bill Willingham with illustrations by Steve Leialoha

From the jacket: “When an unspeakable tragedy befalls a family of traveling minstrels, they become stranded and left for dead. Here in the heart of The Black Forest, Peter Piper and his older brother Max encounter ominous forces that will change them both irreparably. Thus begins an epic tale of sibling rivalry, magic, music and revenge that spans medieval times to the present day when their deadly conflict surfaces in the placid calm of modern-day Fabletown.”

My take: Peter Piper and his wheelchair-bound wife, Bo Peep, live on a farm in upstate New York. Actually, they live on the outskirts of The Farm, which is an annex of Fabletown, the modern New York City neighborhood that is home to all manner of refugees from other, parallel worlds that inspire our fairy tales.

Peter (it was just one pickled pepper, not a whole peck, by the way) and Bo (she does love her sheep) get along pretty well in the modern world until one day Peter is informed that his brother, Max, has been sighted. Gathering intel from the Wolf (still huge and now married to Snow White) and the Witch (who has renounced her more wicked ways and these days is mostly just enigmatic), Peter sets out to track down Max — and to kill him.

Of course, there’s more to the story. Max is also looking to kill Peter. And he means business. Remember the Pied Piper of Hamelin? Cleared the town of rats and then took their kids, too? That was Max. He’s a charming fellow.

In case brotherly intrigue is not enough for you, there’s also a family heirloom in the form of a magic flute; a second, evil flute; a rebounded curse; and a curse on all of Fabletown. Max and Peter’s showdown might be secret, but everyone’s invested in its outcome.

The story, which alternates between Peter’s preparations to find his brother and flashbacks to his childhood and youth, is part of a larger Fabletown oeuvre by author Bill Willingham. I haven’t read the rest, most of which, I believe, are in the form of graphic novels, but this story has piqued my interest. I feel like this novel would be a good recommendation for reluctant teen readers, as it has the pacing of a comic, but in the fleshed out format of a novel. It would also be a good read for anyone who enjoys fairy tales or those who like alternate takes of classic stories.

Pages: 389

This was my fifth and final book for this spring’s Once upon a Time Challenge.

For tonight, I’m skipping a review of Peter and Max in the interest of finishing a post and going to bed.

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

From the jacket: From my brain: Honestly, you know the summaries as well as I do. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, does not die when his parents are killed by the most evil wizard in ages. Instead, the one-year-old is sent to live with his non-magical and abusive aunt and uncle and cousin, where he survives until his 11th birthday, when he finds out he’s a wizard and that he’s going away to a special school for other magical British kids. Once at Hogwarts, he makes friends, has trouble with schoolwork, and flies on a broomstick — typical stuff for the average pre-teen. We follow Harry through the years as he’s nearly killed by a possessed teacher, a memory, a house-elf (okay, that time he was only nearly grievously injured), another possessed teacher, several other evil witches and wizards, and the wizard who killed his parents and who’s now gunning for him. Ultimately there’s a showdown between the two, but not before Harry builds himself the family he lost as a child and finds himself to be the leader he never expected to become.

My take: It seems only appropriate to list all seven books together, as the tale would be incomplete without reading them all.

I pulled them out earlier this spring, when I needed a refresher before seeing the last movie. It’s interesting to see how much of what I remember is clouded by having seen the movies over the years.

I can say that the books are just as enjoyable after the most recent reading as they’ve been all the other times I’ve read them. And if you’ve somehow missed out on reading the series, you are in for a treat.

Pages: 4,083

Today’s Booking through Thursday assignment should be an easy one:

It’s National Book Week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you. Go to page 56. Copy the 5th sentence as your status.

Unfortunately, the closest book to me, Tea: A Global History, ends a chapter on page 56, and there is no 5th sentence on that page.

And while the book I’m currently reading, Diamond Ruby, also concludes a chapter on page 56, it has more than five sentences on the page. Here’s the appropriate one:

“As the front door slammed, Ruby sat very still for a few moments.”

For being located in a really emotionally draining scene, that’s a really dull sentence.

The Lamorna Wink by Martha Grimes

From the jacket: “With his good friend Richard Jury on a fool’s errand in Northern Ireland, Melrose Plant tries — in vain — to escape his aunt and his Long Piddletown lethargy by fleeing to Cornwall. There, high on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea, he rents a house — one furnished with tragic memories. But his Cornwallian reveries are tempered by the local waiter/cab driver/amateur magician. The industrious Johnny Wells seems unflappable — until his beloved aunt disappears. Now, Plant is dragged into the disturbing pasts of everyone involved — and a murder mystery that only Richard Jury can solve ….”

My take: There comes a point in nearly every continuous series where the reader thinks, “My god, the author is sick of writing about these characters.” While skipping from the first two books in the Richard Jury detective series to the 16th disallows me from nailing down that moment with pinpoint accuracy, I can safely say that prior to book sixteen, Martha Grimes hit that point.

D.I. Richard Jury is nearly nowhere to be found in this book. The first part of the novel tells of his friend, playboy Melrose Plant’s quest to escape his overbearing aunt, his wealthy life, and Jury’s absence by renting a mansion along the Cornwall coast. He intersperses his midlife crisis with investigations into a current local missing person case (at the request of the woman’s teenage nephew, whom he’s known all of a day), the unsolved deaths of two young children, and a recent murder. Luckily, the detective called in on the case is Jury’s compatriot, Brian Macalvie, who asks for the help of both Plant and Jury’s hypochondriac assistant, Sergeant Wiggins.

Jury shows up eventually to help solve the case, but not before we are treated to sulky whinings about his absence by his supervisor, his tenants, and the police department cat. Honestly, I nearly threw the book across the room at that point. (Clearly I didn’t and clearly it was not so bad I couldn’t finish the novel.)

The tying up of the mysteries was worthy of a disturbing tv crime show episode. Nearly no one is happy at the end of the story, the crimes turn out to be far more gruesome than expected, and I just couldn’t help but think perhaps Martha Grimes needed a Cornwallian vacation of her own rather than to write another book in the series.

Pages: 420

Plain Kate by Erin Bow

From the jacket: “Plain Kate lives in a world of superstitions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver’s daughter, Kate held a carving knife before a spoon, and her wooden charms are so fine that some even call her ‘witch-blade’ — a dangerous nickname in a town where witches are hunted and burned in the square. For Kate and her village have fallen on hard times. Kate’s father has died, leaving her alone in the world. And a mysterious fog now covers the countryside, ruining crops and spreading fear of hunger and sickness. The townspeople are looking for someone to blame, and their eyes have fallen on Kate. Enter Linay, a stranger with a proposition: In exchange for her shadow, he’ll give Kate the means to escape the town that seems set to burn her, and what’s more, he’ll grant her heart’s wish. It’s a chance for her to start over, to find a home, a family, a place to belong. But Kate soon realizes that she can’t live shadowless forever — and that Linay’s designs are darker than she ever dreamed.”

My take: When Plain Kate’s father suddenly falls ill and dies, she is left without an advocate in the world. Not yet old enough to belong to the guild that would allow her to serve as the master-carver for the town, she is unceremoniously evicted from her home and forced to tell anyone interested in buying her wares that there is another carver they should try first. Settling in a stall in the marketplace, she makes her bed in the drawer of a dresser and sells to those familiar with her work, who like the elegant knifework she is capable of. Yet, in a world where superstition runs strong, a girl with mismatched eyes and a long shadow who lives alone is not safe. When Linay, a wanderer, comes to town and offers to buy her shadow from her, she refuses; unfortunately, he has the magic to force her hand, causing Plain Kate first to pull in a bounteous haul of fish, then for everyone else’s fish to become inedible. When the fishermen start dying, a mob turns on her, and Plain Kate has no choice but to flee with what supplies Linay’s purchase can get her and her trusty cat, Taggle. Oh, and a gift that Linay says is her true heart’s desire.

Adopted on a trial basis by a gypsy band of horse sellers, Plain Kate at last finds a friend in Drina. But what will become of Plain Kate when Drina and her family discover her secrets? And what will become of them all as a specter of death follows in their footsteps each night in the fog?

I want to tell you that I really liked this book, which has garnered a lot of acclaim, all of it deserved. I can say I liked Plain Kate and Tag, and I liked Drina and her grandmother, and ultimately I understood Linay’s motivations. The characters were all well-written, and the plot was well thought out. However, this was, in the end, an absolutely heartbreaking book for me, and I sobbed through the last third of it, in a way that surprised me and left Rudi at odds for how to comfort me. And it’s impossible to talk about why without giving away all sorts of plot points.

In several ways, my reaction to it reminds me of how affected I was by Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake when I read it last year. It ultimately ended up on my best books of 2010 list because I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

All I can say in the end is that it hurt me to read this book, and I can’t think of anyone I know whom it wouldn’t also pain. You may choose to read Plain Kate in spite of that (for some pain is worth pushing through, of course), and I certainly can’t say it isn’t a story worthy of your time. But know if you do, a little bit of your soul likely will break off and stay behind in the book when you close its covers for the last time.

Pages: 314

This was my fourth book for this spring’s Once upon a Time Challenge.

This week’s Weekly Geek‘s assignment:

It’s still the first week of August, but many of you, like me, may be already in the back to school mode. For us, it’s only two weeks away! So I thought I’d do a back to school edition of Weekly Geeks and ask you these questions:

• What’s your favorite bookish school memory?

There was a year or so (I suppose it might just have been a summer; I’m a little foggy on that detail) when I was in early elementary school when our town library was closed in order to move from its old building to a brand-new, freshly built one. In order to encourage students to come get library cards, one of the librarians came to my elementary school for a couple of weeks in a row and read the start of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to us.

• Did your teacher read aloud to you? Do you remember what book it was?

I have vague recollections of sitting on the rug in kindergarten and being read to, but have no books associated with the memory. I also don’t recall being read to in first grade, although I’m sure we were. In second grade, however, we used to jam both classes together and have to share chairs when we’d go into Mrs. Young’s classroom to listen to her read Amelia Bedelia books to us. I’m sure my fondness for those who take things a little too literally began then.

• Do you remember what books you checked out at the school library?

In elementary school, I was particularly enamored with Snow White and Rose Red, a fairy tale I’d been unacquainted with until I encountered near the Beatrix Potter books on the windowsill near where we’d line up to go back to class. I know I checked it out several times, probably the only book in the library to merit such an honor.

I also read every Nancy Drew book on the shelf and all the Little House books, although some of that series was definitely borrowed from the public library.

There was also a series of biographies of famous people that focused heavily on their childhood days, and I definitely read every single one about women (including Julia Ward Howe, Annie Oakley, and Clara Barton), and some of the ones about men (FDR and Thomas Edison seem likely subjects).

In middle school, I remember Gone with the Wind (probably the first time I ever had to renew a book because I wasn’t done reading it yet), Pilgrim’s Progress, and A Nun’s Story. Also, the magazines Cat Fancy and Seventeen, but that’s a different story.

In high school, our library was dismal and I don’t remember taking anything out of it that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

In college, we had a children’s book section, and I read the Harper Hall trilogy associated with Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series. Also, the Bridge to Terabithia.

• What was one of the first book reports you did for school?

Hmmm… I don’t remember. I was and remain a reluctant report writer, so clearly I’ve blocked them from memory.

I do remember in fifth grade misunderstanding the line between fiction and biography and reading Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself as an autobiography. Clearly this was just a foresight on my part into the future of memoirs, when publishing houses would come to have an equal lack of insight.

• Do you have a favorite book or author that you first heard about from a teacher or school project?

My junior year English teacher loved Tolkein and made us read the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

• Do you have a not-so-pleasant bookish memory from your school days?

Not unless you count being assigned Moby Dick. That was probably the only book I was ever assigned in school I didn’t read. At least until I got to college…

However, I do have a pleasant memory of third grade where our reading group (maybe all the groups; I don’t remember) was doing a mythology section. To celebrate the end of that section, we had a party where Mrs. Caretta had us dress up as gods and goddesses.