Story summary: Jinx, the apprentice of the crabby and possibly-evil magician Simon, learns cool new kinds of magic, meets a werewolf with spectacles, gets his memory wiped by creepy elves, and gets even closer to his new friends, the trees of Urwald.
Sequel to Jinx.
- Characters and relationships and humour and human insights and adventure! So good.
And Why You Might Not:
- Cause you don't like kids entertainment, even the awesome stuff like Narnia and Pixar? Only reason I can think of really, because these are great books.
Thoughts: I don't have too much to say here that I didn't say in the review for the first book, Jinx. I still love Simon immensely, as well as Jinx and Simon's relationship and Simon and Sophie's relationship. This book also had a lot more of the land of Samara, which meant the cool addition of libraries, studies, and "knowledge is power". That's definitely a plus.
And like for the first book, I found some great illustrations by the Russian illustrator Nikita Golubev. You can find them here and here, but I'm putting some of my favourites here:
And like for the first book, I found some great illustrations by the Russian illustrator Nikita Golubev. You can find them here and here, but I'm putting some of my favourites here:
Grade: 4 1/2 stars
If You Like This, You Might Also Like: I'm just going to repeat the recommendations from the first book, since the two are so closely linked:
--Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, or maybe Dark Lord of Derkholm or Archer's Goon or Charmed Life or The Ogre Downstairs or...: because DWJ is one the most entertaining children's authors there are, with wit and cleverness and complicated character relationships.
--The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis: nothing can beat Narnia. But the Jinx series has some insights into human nature that remind me of Narnia a bit.
--Ordinary Magic by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway: because it has a similar realness of characters and relationship and family. It's a fantastic book.
--Ordinary Magic by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway: because it has a similar realness of characters and relationship and family. It's a fantastic book.
2 comments:
Hey! These may be some good ideas to add to the Dennison canon of bedtime stories. We are currently nearing the end of the Little House series. I'd like to do Tom Playfair next. But then....this might be the ticket. Any other recs are welcome. It's funny but I have maybe 3 to 4 years of bedtime stories and then that's it forever, other than maybe the odd night here or there with a grandchild.
daddy
Yeah, that would be super fun! Add this to the list! At least try the first one, and see if you like it enough first.
And I'm sure you'll get a fair number of grandchildren nights. Depending on where everyone's living, I guess...
Post a Comment