The Fairy of the Enchanted Lake by Kris Nedy

 

Genre: Young Adult, Middle Grade Fantasy
Source: I won a copy from LibraryThing. The opinions expressed here are my own.

 

This was an absolutely wonderful book. I read it in about four hours. We start off with a young girl who has no friends. Michaela is constantly taunted about her size and appearance.  One day while playing outside she runs into the woods and gets lost. She keeps walking until she finds a lake. She meets the fairy in the lake and she meets a talking beaver. He givers her a stick that will take her home. He also tells her that it can bring her back if she only says some magic words. She buries the stick until the day she can no longer take the taunting. She takes the stick, says the magic word and is brought back to the lake. She makes a wish to be beautiful like the fairy in the lake. The fairy tries to talk her out of it, but she insists.  Michaela becomes beautiful on the outside. Unfortunately, something else happens to her and her insides begin to turn dark. 

This is a wonderful story of consequences of our actions. It is a story of Good versus evil, light versus darkness.  The characters are all very well developed. The world building, although fantasy is so well written the reader is made to feel like they have entered the world as they are reading. This is a brand new author to me. However, I love reading stories that are allegorical and I am sure I will be reading more of this author’s work.  I highly recommend this book to young and old alike.

Twell Town by Harriet M. Winter

 

Genre:  Children, Middle Grade, Fantasy

Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

I absolutely loved this book.  It was fun and full of humor. The author created an alternate world that is so interesting. All the characters of Twell Town are made from fabric, yarn, and other recyclable items.

Bunny Thread is a very unique character. Bunny lives with her mother at the back of her mother's button shop.  Bunny has no school friends.  She doesn't exactly fit in with them.  She makes all her own clothes.  They are very unique to say the least. One day she comes home from school and decides to make herself a friend. She gathers up her materials and sews up a friend. Her first few tries are rejected as they aren't quite good enough. Finally she grabs some yarn and knits herself a bear. She goes to bed with him that night and when she wakes up in the morning he is gone. She finds him sitting in her window. When she goes to him he speaks to her. He makes sure she knows his name is Dexter, not Buttercup, like she had named the bear she created. He tries to explain where he is from. Finally he takes her hand and off they go to where he lives, Twell Town.

Bunny is given a tour of the town which is quite fascinating.  Everyone accepts her there. Then they get to his house. She is impressed, but he is not. Someone has been in his house. She doesn't understand how he figures that since everything is in place. That is when we learn he is definitely not a neat freak.  He is sure he know who was in his house and what they are looking for.  He tries to explain that to her but she doesn't quite understand. But she will. Dexter must get her back to her land and then try to stop the fiends from getting what he has hidden from them. But, what happens when they find Bunny and the item?

Fun adventure from the very beginning.  I loved the author's play on words.  When they visit a clothing store in Twell town the owner of the store starts listing off clothing designers whose names are very similar to those we know today. She also used a lot of figurative language that made the images jump off of the page.  Everything was well thought out and planned.  At the end I wondered if maybe there would be a sequel to this book.  It was wrapped up nicely. However, there could be more adventures down the road. 

Student Saturday: Boys of Blur by N.D.Wilson

 

Genre: Middle Grade, Adventure
Student Reviewer: Dominick O.

This mystery fiction book is a book about Boys in Taper, Florida. These boys only like one thing and that is football. But when they aren't on the field they are running through the miles of muck. But when they go at night, they are not the only ones there. Things roam at night. Things that cannot be explained, and these boys are about to find out why. In my opinion this is a pretty good book. I would recommend this book to people who like suspenseful books or movies. I would also recommend this book to people who like the author N. D. Wilson.