Showing posts with label Moriarty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moriarty. Show all posts

Friday, August 9, 2013

Moriarty, Jaclyn. A Corner of White.


Moriarty, JaclynA Corner of WhiteScholastic/Arthur Levine  2013  373p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-545-39736-0 hs          Fantasy     E-BN 

This is the story of two teens, Madeleine and Elliot, learning to live without their dads, but each lives in one of two parallel worlds. In the real world, Madeleine cannot understand why she and her mother left her dad, and why he doesn’t write back to her. In the fantastical world, Elliot is looking for his dad, who may in fact be dead. Madeleine and Elliot communicate and help each other via letters that they send through a crack that has opened between the two worlds.  This is an absolutely delightful read. The author has done a marvelous job of weaving together the colorsof words to create a story that instantly draws in the reader.  Beginning with teenaged Madeleine, her quirky mother and friends and recent life in the fast lane, and moving to Elliot’s world, where colors take on certain characteristics, this was just a fun book to read. The foreshadowing of the plotline and the lives of the protagonists as we get to know them divulge some of the end of this book, but I still had difficulty putting the book down. All in all, it’s a very good book.      

Families, Fantasy                                                 --Lynn Fisher    

Monday, April 9, 2012

Moriarty, Chris. The Inquisitor’s Apprentice. Harcourt


Moriarty, Chris.       The Inquisitor’s Apprentice.  Harcourt Brace/Houghton Mifflin(Macmillan), 2011.        343p.   $16.99.            ISBN 978-0-547-58135-4           ms/hs   Fantasy           E-BN
Thirteen-year-old Sacha Kessler can see witches.  This would probably be an asset in any place other than the Lower East Side of New York City at the turn of the twentieth century.  Sacha’s world is an alternate universe where magic is an ordinary way of living and everyone uses it to some extent.   After Sacha discovers his abilities, he is quickly apprenticed to the great Inquisitor Wolf to help stop magical crime in the city.  He is paired with Lily Astral, a girl from Millionaire’s Mile, whose life is the opposite of life in Sacha’s Hester Street tenement.  The three become entangled in a web of intrigue that revolves around attempts to assassinate Thomas Edison through the machinations of a magical dybbuk.   Sacha’s world is a rich and colorful one, filled with all the ethnic groups that were found in New York at the time (each with a special kind of supernatural ability), and inhabited by some important historical figures like Harry Houdini and Teddy Roosevelt.  The rich atmosphere of the city is fully realized and adds a great deal to the story line.  As the plot unfolds, Sacha must make use of his Jewish heritage to prevent the dybbuk from stealing his own life.  This exciting fantasy will appeal greatly to readers.  The Yiddish words are explained mostly in context, and the twists in the names of the important personages are easily deciphered.  The Inquisitor's Apprentice is very much in the style of "Harry Potter meets the Lower East Side" and leaves you ready for a sequel.                   Subject: Magic -- Fiction            Susan Ogintz