June 28, 2010
Shulman (Enthusiasm) intermingles classic fairy tale elements and modern-day conflicts in this clever novel set in New York City. The story begins when teenager Elizabeth Rew lands a plum part-time job, working as a page in the "New-York Circulating Material Repository," an institution housing rare objects to be lent to an exclusive circle of patrons. The most secret and by far most interesting section of the building is the basement, where magic objects mentioned in the Grimm Brothers' tales are stored. Much to the librarians' dismay, however, some of these valuable items go missing. With the help of her fellow pages, Elizabeth gets to the bottom of the mystery, but catching the thief poses enormous danger and necessitates the aid of some powerful equipment, including Snow White's mirror, a pair of winged sandals, and a magical golden key. Mixing tongue-in-cheek humor (like the magic mirror's blunt appraisal of Elizabeth's beauty: "Bitsy Rew is brave and true./ A pity she's not pretty too") with suspense, Shulman conjures an enticing slice of magic realism that fairy tale buffs should relish. Ages 10–up.
June 15, 2010
Fairy-tale and romance devotees, museum aficionados and budding librarians will pine for Elizabeth's afterschool job. Lonely in New York City, her family straight out of Grimm (dead mom, inattentive dad, cold stepfamily), Elizabeth agrees to work at the New-York Circulating Material Repository. She passes the button-sorting interview and begins work in the stacks, where call slips arrive via pneumatic tubes. The Repository houses historical articles (textiles, wigs, tea sets), including the Grimm Collection, all circulating. Shulman's prose sparkles describing the Grimm objects' magic powers (recognizable from tales) and the profound deposits required to borrow them (a "long, translucent, sweater-shaped thing" is "somebody's sense of privacy"; a future firstborn looks "infinitely vulnerable and undefined, like a thought before you put it into words"). The pages are a multiracial group, but the white librarians unfortunately romanticize the Akan peoples, constantly spouting proverbs from those "great men and women. Chiefs in Africa." Some structural implausibility pales before vivid sensory descriptions (hexed gingerbread tastes "[s]weet and dark, like roast duck or cedar pencils") and delightful magical happenings both thrilling and nefarious. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
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May 15, 2010
Grades 6-9 Is there a better antidote to a lonely teen existence than a dose of fairy-tale magic? Elizabeth has yet to make friends at her tony Manhattan private school, and she feels equally alone at home with her remote father and taskmaster stepmother. Then Elizabeths teacher recommends her for a job at the New York Circulating Material Repository, and as Elizabeth befriends the other pages, she begins to learn that fairy tales arent just fantasy and that many of the special collections artifacts belong to her favorite childhood stories, including the magic mirror from Snow White. Just as Elizabeth learns about the repositorys impossible wonders, some of the most powerful objects, and then some of the pages, disappear, and she finds herself leading the dangerous rescue. Captivating magic fills the pages of this exciting new novel from the author of Enthusiasm (2006). The story occasionally loses momentum, but action fans will find plenty of heart-pounding, fantastical escapades as the novel builds to its satisfying, romantic conclusion. A richly imagined adventure with easy appeal for Harry Potter fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)
January 1, 2011
Elizabeth works as a page at the New-York Circulating Material Repository. Housed in the basement is the Grimm Collection, an assortment of fairy-tale items (e.g., seven-league boots, spinning wheels), and someone's been replacing the materials with nonmagical replicas. Shulman combines down-to-earth teens with a wonderfully occult magical world; the repository itself permeates the story with its musty, mysterious presence.
(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
July 1, 2010
When Elizabeth takes a job as a page at the New-York Circulating Material Repository, a lending library for objects instead of books, she's let in on the repository's secret. Housed in the basement is the Grimm Collection, an assortment of items such as seven-league boots and spinning wheels that are normally found in fairy tales-amazingly, the items (and the magic) are real. But someone's been removing the materials and replacing them with nonmagical replicas, and Elizabeth doesn't know which of her fellow pages to trust: Marc, the handsome basketball star who's been taking liberties with his borrowing privileges; Anjali, who has all the male pages at her feet; or sullen Aaron, who resents the others' looks and good fortune. Tracking down the thief will take all four of them on a dangerous quest, where they will need their wits and the objects in the collection to succeed. Shulman combines down-to-earth teens concerned with fitting in with a wonderfully occult magical world-the repository itself, with its stained-glass windows, miles of stacks, and pneumatic tubes for routing call slips, permeates the story with its musty, mysterious presence. The pages must figure out how to work with objects that sometimes function in tricky ways (the magic mirror, for instance, tells the truth but in the most slanted and unflattering manner possible). But just as in a fairy tale, Elizabeth's good choices and kind heart allow the story to spin out to a happy conclusion.
(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)