Do You Believe In Magic?

This week, I finally got around to reading the enchanting tale The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo. Having completely adored The Tale of Despereaux, I was very much looking forward to her newest book.

The Magician's Elephant is a story of wonder, hope, and believing in the impossible. When orphan Peter Augustus Duchene espies a fortuneteller's tent in the middle of the Baltese market square, he has little idea that life as he knows it will change forever. To find his long-lost sister, the fortuneteller says, Peter must track down the missing piece of the puzzle, a great elephant. Dejected, the little boy walks home. After all, an elephant in the city is like water in the desert - a wonderful thought, but not going to happen.

By some lucky stroke of fate, an act of sheer impossibility occurs that night, undermining all rational thought and confirming Peter's wildest hope. A magician performs his greatest trick yet, conjuring an elephant who comes crashing through the theater ceiling to the audience's dismay. Suddenly, Peter knows the truth. His sister, believed to be dead, is alive. From that moment on, a sequence of events occur in a dreamlike guise - so simple, yet so deftly interconnected. DiCamillo writes a beautiful story with an extraordinary ending, illustrating how life is comprised of tiny moments and magic happens when these moments sync together in perfect harmony.

That being said, DiCamillo has a way of making her characters speak in riddles through repetition and vague statements. I don't believe this to be an accidental move on her part. The story is remarkable as most dreams are remarkable and the dialogue lends itself decidedly to the hazy landscape of a dream rather than reality. Both the dialogue and narration, fairly poetic in tone, create the impression that the characters all have parts to play and are waiting for the pieces to fall together, certainly adding to its overall magic.

Secrets, Secrets, Are SO Fun

There's nothing I love more than reading about a crumbling old mansion containing secrets within its walls. You get the eerie feeling that they've witnessed more than you could ever know. And, if you wait around long enough, all will be revealed in due time.

It's one thing to read about decaying houses. It's another thing entirely to live in one. Olive Dunwoody has always had a vivid imagination - one that her parents, both absentminded mathematicians, don't really understand. When they move to their new home, a sinister-looking mansion, Olive knows there's something not quite right... How do you explain the fact that cats, patrolling the residence like sentries, can speak? And why do the creepy paintings, permanently mounted on the walls, give Olive the feeling like they're hiding something?

"The painting looks scared.  It's like the houses are trying to pretend they're asleep and stay quiet...like something bad is coming."

In The Shadows: The Books of Elsewhere, Jacqueline West fashions a world with portals that take Olive on a terrifying quest for survival - all within the confines of the house. As she travels inside the dark and dangerous paintings with the help of antique spectacles, she comes closer to unlocking the truth about the mansion's history. Lurking in the shadows, someone wants Olive gone for good. And it's up to a girl afraid of the dark and her unusual allies - an insolent boy with a temper, talking house-cats, and a pair of spectacles - to piece together the mystery and reclaim the house.

This book was exactly what I was hoping for and so much more. Delightfully haunting and deliciously secretive. After reading this book, you'll start wondering about paintings. And whether their insides are really as beautiful as they seem from the outside.

Let's Pretend...I Work At An Ad Agency

When you were young, didn't you ever want to go to work with your mom or dad? As a kid, the grown-up world is an exciting place where you could be whatever you want to be. I know I was fascinated when I saw my mom's beautifully-upholstered office with bridal magazines neatly splayed out on the coffee table (she was an event and wedding planner). I loved "helping out" by sharpening pencils and dog-earing the pages with my favorite wedding gowns.

Well, this is precisely what Lyle the Crocodile does in Lyle at the Office by Bernard Waber. One day Mr. Primm brings Lyle along to visit his office and meet all the people he works with. Lyle is so eager to be of assistance and make new friends. He does important jobs, like delivering memos and making photocopies. He plays with the children in the day-care center. He even sits in on an important meeting. Lyle is a huge hit at the advertising agency!

Before he knows it, this enjoyable jaunt to the office becomes more than just a day of "seeing what Dad does." Lyle makes such a good impression on Mr. Primm's boss, Mr. Bigg, that he gets an offer that people all over New York City - let alone crocodiles - would die for. Will Lyle take the offer and compromise his values or turn down the offer and put Mr. Primm's job in jeopardy?

The story keeps you guessing and the pictures keep you smiling! Although it's impossible not to smile when you're reading about the beloved crocodile who lives on East Eighty-Eighth Street... If you love playing "let's pretend" like I did, you'll get a kick out of this story.

Kickin' It Old School

One of my favorite series growing up was The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids. I used to take these books out of the library all the time! It was exciting to think there could be fantastical creatures walking secretly among us, disguised as unassuming characters, such as school teachers or camp counselors. Adults, of course, wouldn't suspect a thing - even if strange things were happening. It's kids that are the most perceptive, especially Liza, Howie, Melody, and Eddie, our fierce mythical creature detection team. Now whether these grown-ups are actually monsters or not is never truly disclosed. Readers have to decide that for themselves!

In Witches Don't Do Backflips, the Bailey School Kids sign up for gymnastics lessons at the new gym in town (which is kind of creepy). To make things complicated, their gymnastics teacher Miss Brewbaker flips like she can fly, recites rhymes that could be spells, and has a broom that seems to move about on its own. Plus she HATES dogs. The fact that Eddie's dalmatian Prince Diamond enjoys terrorizing her black cat Merlin is not lost on Miss Brewbaker and she might just decide to do something, er, witchy about it.

Fascinating read the whole way through! Perfect mysteries for young readers who like spooky things and believe that sometimes the weirdest explanation is the most logical one.

Good Girls Don't Talk to Wolves

Enchanted by all things fairy tale-related, I know the film Red Riding Hood will be sure to impress. In just a few short weeks, I'll be at the movies, enraptured by Amanda Seyfried's performance as Little Red while chewing away on some twizzlers. What particularly draws me to this film is the fact that it's a darker interpretation of a childhood classic. I love it when someone takes an archetypal story and reinvents it completely, adding unexpected twists that bring the tale to a new level. This being so, I couldn't resist checking out Sarah Blakley-Cartwright's book version of the screenplay written by David Leslie Johnson. Besides which, a recent Barnard graduate with a published novel? Impressive.

As director Catherine Hardwicke explains in her introduction, Red Riding Hood the novel was written to draw out the relationships of the characters in fuller detail, tackling the emotions felt and what it means to grow up in a village crippled with fear of the big bad wolf. A wolf hunter's arrival triggers a witch hunt of sorts where innocent villagers are accused of being werewolves and loyalties are tested like never before. In the midst of this, Valerie has to face the loss of her sister Lucie and choose between two suitors: the golden boy of the village and the town rebel that is wrong for her in all the right ways. Plus she has to sacrifice herself to the wolf before the blood moon wanes. No pressure at all. Don't worry, Grandmother is still in the story, but unlike legend says, she's more than capable of taking care of herself out there in the woods.

My first impressions? Hats off to Blakley-Cartwright. Her descriptions of the surrounding landscape and ensuing events are poetic in tone yet very relatable to the teenage girl. She captures perfectly the struggles of growing up and trying to do the right thing when you're tempted by something else entirely. However, I do wish she had explored the village relationships even more and strengthened Valerie's internal monologue. As a reader, I felt a little too far removed from the characters of the story so that when I finished the book, I still didn't know them well enough and sensed that there was more to tell.

I hope the film will answer my lingering questions!

Think Pink

As Valentine Season dictates, the more pink the better.  Love is in the air, pink is everywhere...and my attempts at being poetic flounder.  Despite practicing on my long distance best friend, I may be lacking in mushy lines this year, but nevertheless can deliver one gem guaranteed to spice up your Valentine's Day.

Pinkalicious, written by Victoria and Elizabeth Kann, introduces a little girl who loves the color pink more than anything else.  She is so devoted to her passion that she insists on eating pink cupcakes (because, let's face it, they taste better when they're pink).  After surpassing her cupcake limit tenfold, Pinkalicious wakes up the following morning to discover that her fleshy hue has undergone a dramatic transformation.  She doesn't mind so much, though.  Just like her favorite cupcakes, Pinkalicious feels more beautiful (and special) in her magenta shade.

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as too much pink, as this little lady is sure to find out.  Will Pinkalicious learn the art of moderation or will she indulge to the point of no return?  Marvel at the supremely fuchsia illustrations that seem to pop out of every page.  Chuckle at the influx of clever pink puns.  Overdose on pink (and love every minute of it).

It's So Fluffy, I Could DIE!

Are you someone who loves fluffy, cuddly animals? Do your parents refuse to bring you to the animal shelter out of the inevitability you're going plead, "Can I pleeeeeeease keep the kitty? Please? PLEASE!"

In Peter Brown's story, this is exactly what happens. To Lucy the bear, that is. Lucy is an exceptionally girly bear who wears a pink tutu and is a sucker for anything adorable. When she is out in the forest one day and discovers a little boy, she simply can't resist bringing him home. Unfortunately, Mom and Dad don't react with the same enthusiasm. Though Lucy is warned that "children make terrible pets," she's so lovestruck by cuteness, she couldn't care less. She and Squeaker do everything together, having just as much fun as she imagined. When playtime is over and it's time to adhere to the household rules, Squeaker goes rogue on the bear family in a hilarious fashion and Lucy quickly learns the difficulties of pet ownership.

If you're looking for a humorous tale about role reversal, Children Make Terrible Pets is the book for you. The trials of domestication - with a twist - had me laughing and wondering what my pets think of me when I smother them with attention...