Blue-Footed Musings

I have only 12 books left to read from the Top 100 Children’s Books list. Finishing the list will be a great accomplishment. But, in a way I’m not looking forward to it, because I will miss having a goal to work toward. My friend suggested that I choose another list to work on next, but the other lists I’ve seen haven’t been that appealing.

But then the BBC posted a new list of top 100 children’s books. It looks pretty good, and I’ve decided to go for it. I thought it would be cool for Livia (a.k.a. Luigi) to read the Top 100 Children’s Books while still a child, so I asked her to join me, and she agreed. Then my husband signed on. And Marshall (a.k.a. Mario) said he might read some of the books, too, once he finishes the series that he’s currently reading. So we’re going to try to read our way through the list together, starting from the bottom and working our way up roughly in order, skipping only the books that we’ve already read. School just ended on Friday, making this a great time to get started. No summer is complete without some good reading!

P.S. I’ve created a page for keeping track of my progress on this list.

The Magician King by Lev Grossman, B+

I read The Magician King for three reasons: 1. I liked the first book in the series enough to want to continue reading about that fictional world, 2. I’ve been grooving on books with “magician” in the title lately (it’s a sort of reading theme for the year), and 3. I recently watched the TV adaptation of the series and enjoyed it.

While I also enjoyed reading The Magician King, I thought it was underdeveloped (spoilers ahead), which is especially noticeable when compared against the television adaptation. The main action of the novel–a quest to find the seven keys that are needed to keep magic from disappearing from the world–is handled better in the TV series. In the book, there’s a legend about the keys that is barely touched upon. The characters sail around randomly until they find the keys, only two of which require much effort to attain. In the TV series, there is a magical book that provides clues to finding the keys, each key requires its own mini quest, and each key has its own particular power. There’s a beautiful episode in which two characters grow old and die in their quest to find one of the keys. Kudos to the writers of the TV show for adding so much great detail.

The other focus of the novel is how one of the characters came into her magical powers and how her experiences, including a brutal rape, affected her. Her story in the TV show follows similar lines, but it too is handled better. In the book, the rape itself literally empowers her (i.e., gives her more magic). In the TV series, she earns the extra magic through her actions in the wake of that terrible experience. Big difference.

So, I expect that readers will find a lot that is interesting in The Magician King and be able to enjoy the book for that reason, while also feeling that it doesn’t quite live up to its potential. I will read the final book of the series (The Magician’s Land), but mostly to see how it differs from the TV show. As for the show, I recommend it to those who enjoy dark humor and don’t mind a little violence, gore, and debauchery.

I finished The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DeCamillo. Edward is a china rabbit doll that belongs to a little girl, Abilene. She loves him, but he doesn’t know how to love her back. Then she loses him at sea. He’s rescued, and then lost again, several times. During this “miraculous journey” he learns how to love the various people who find him and care for him. It’s a sweet little book, and a nice palate cleanser after Where the Red Fern Grows. The short chapters and beautiful illustrations would make The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane an excellent read-aloud book. Having finished it, I now have only 14 of the Top 100 Children’s Books left to read!

I also finished Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. Emily Wilde is a fairy scholar who travels to a small town in the far north to gather more material for the encylopedia that she’s writing. Part fantasy, part romance, totally enjoyable.

I had planned to read Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne next. In this ghoulish romance, Angelika Frankenstein worries that she’s not going to find the perfect mate. Being a Frankenstein, she has it within her power to literally create the man of her dreams, so she goes to the morgue and starts looking for the perfect body parts. That’s as far as I got into the story. There were a lot of crude references to the male anatomy in the morgue scene. That wasn’t a deal breaker, but it did suggest that I ought to check the reviews before getting too far into the book. The reviews were not promising. I decided to return the book to the library without finishing it. So I’m not sure what I’m going to read next. I guess it will depend on what seems appealing later today.