Happy Birthday, Harry!

In lieu of Harry Potter's birthday today, I've decided to compile a list of some of my personal favorite stories featuring magic, some nonsensical, some more serious, some just fun, to overflow your days with delight. Of course they can't compete with Harry Potter, but they are still fantastic and worth a read! So go grab a mug of Butterbeer and pull out your to-read list. 


1. The Two Sisters of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine 
I adore this book! It's the tale of two girls, one of whom must fight her fears, specters, and dragons to save her sister's life. Magical gadgets and creatures dot this story, but the real magic is the sisters' love for each other.  

2. Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George 
This is a lighthearted, whimsical story of a girl who's captured by a dragon. She eventually becomes friends with another dragon as she's on her way to the city to find a job as a seamstress. There's not much magic in this book but the dragons and the slippers, but it's a lively read! The adventure continues in Dragon Flight and Dragon Spear, both equally entertaining and rife with action. 

3. Stardust by Neil Gaiman 
I read this book this year for the first time, and loved it. I enjoyed it more than Neverwhere by him, which was a lot stranger and creepier. The magic in Stardust rotates around the world of fairy and the boy who travels through it looking for the fallen star to give to his girlfriend. This world is definitely worth getting lost in. 


4. Sorcery and Cecilia by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
This is not my favorite magical book or series (yes, it's one of those), due to an under-developed plot or something else; I'm not quite sure. However, it is a magical tale that takes place in Victorian England, so I give it points for that unique twist. It's also an epistolary novel, written as letters between two friends. So, if you're longing to read something in a different format, this novel's for your eyes. 


5. All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater 
This novel will have a place on my bookshelf as long as I have one (so, forever). It's full of magical realism, a magic that takes the contemporary world and turns it upside down so you, the reader can find your own miracle. See my full review here. 

6. The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker 
This is another jocund tale that I loved (and probably would still love if I re-read it) when I was a child. Instead of turning a frog back into a prince when she kisses it, the main character changes into a frog herself! This is a great twist on the fairy tale and riveting as the frustrated frogs venture to find the witch who cast this curse in order to break it. There are also many books in the same series, all easy reads. 

7. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin 
If you need a taste of more serious magic, you might find it in Wizard of Earthsea. It follows a young wizard who is being chased by something sinister and evil. This book chased me too, to lunchtime, to my bed, as the events became more thrilling and dangerous. 


8. The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time series) by Robert Jordan 
I'm not sure yet if this series is one of my favorite magical books. I haven't finished it yet, and I've been listening to it for two years. In my defense, I only listen to it when I wash the dishes, and the series is looong: fourteen novels, dicken-sized (each one). So beware before diving into this monstrosity. Despite some irritating characters and mountains of detail, the series is well-written with a very believable magic system and well-built world. 

9. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson 
Sanderson is the king of magical systems; each one in his novels are well-defined with specific rules and consequences. The one in the Mistborn series focuses on people with the ability to perform magical feats based off of burning different metals. It's a unique concept, and well-done. 

10. Eragon by Christopher Paolini 
More dragons! I appreciate and applaud Paolini for his dragons more than probably any other author who has written about them. His are the most detailed, the most wise and powerful. Their relationship with each other and humans is fascinating and complex. If you love the fire-breathing species, you can't read any other book about them until you read this one!

A Cyborg Cinderella

Cinder 
By Marissa Meyer
#1 in the Lunar Chronicles 
YA Fantasy 

"Sixteen-year-old Cinder is considered a technological mistake by most of society and a burden by her stepmother. Being cyborg does have its benefits, though: Cinder's brain interface has given her an uncanny ability to fix things (robots, hovers, her own malfunctioning parts), making her the best mechanic in New Beijing. This reputation brings Prince Kai himself to her weekly market booth, needing her to repair a broken android before the annual ball. He jokingly calls it 'a matter of national security,' but Cinder suspects it's more serious than he's letting on. 

"Although eager to impress the prince, Cinder's intentions are derailed when her younger step-sister, and only human friend, is infected with the fatal plague that's been devastating Earth for a decade. Blaming Cinder for her daughter's illness, Cinder's stepmother volunteers her body for plague research, an 'honor' that no one has survived. 

"But it doesn't take long for the scientists to discover something unusual about their new guinea pig. Something others would kill for." 

There are enough fairy-tale retellings nowadays to fill a ballroom. This one, though, is worth the trip to the library or bookstore. The fact that Cinder is a cyborg hooked me right away. Meyer does a great job, even though she's probably not a mechanic herself, of making Cinder's mechanical parts, their unique functions, and even her job as a mechanic, believable. Cinder is also a spunky, sarcastic, yet tender underdog-type character whom it's hard not to root for. Or possibly even shed some tears on behalf of. 

Kai is also a sweetheart, yet strong, and difficult not to like. This was my second reading of the book (yes, it's that good!), and I did notice this time around that there wasn't much foundation to the couple's feelings. I didn't quite understand why he liked her so much, and vice versa, so perhaps Meyer could have dived deeper into those reasons. But it obviously wasn't something that turned me off from the story. 

Also, who ever heard of a fairy-tale taking place in Asia, and a futuristic Asia, at that? The setting is fascinating and although not crafted in as many details as the world of Harry Potter (which book is?), it's still a place steeped in character. But the characters and the world-changing decisions facing them are what pulled me deep into every page and line. You might grow dizzy with all the plot twists and turns, but hang in there! The battle for this country and its people is worth fighting for alongside the characters. 

This is the first in a series, so you might want to have the second one, Scarlet-which follows another fairy-tale character, but in the same world-handy so you can dash right into it. Be on the lookout for a review of the sequel in the upcoming weeks. 

This novel deserves a shining four out of five stars, and I recommend it for 15 year olds and up. 

What I learned: First impressions are not typically true. It takes time and initiative to learn the depths of a person's soul.  

The Magic of Summer

Dandelion Wine 

By Ray Bradbury 

Adult Fiction 

"Twelve-year old Douglas Spaulding knows Green Town, Illinois, is as vast and deep as the whole wide world that lies beyond the city limits. It is a pair of brand-new tennis shoes, the first harvest of dandelions for Grandfather's renowned intoxicant, the distant clang of the trolley's bell on a hazy afternoon. It is yesteryear and tomorrow blended into an unforgettable always. 

But as young Douglas is about to discover, summer can be more than the repetition of established rituals whose mystical power holds time at bay. It can be a best friend moving away, a human time machine who can transport you back to the Civil War, or a sideshow automaton able to glimpse the bittersweet future." 

This book is rife with magic-the magic of summer according to two boys. But by the end of the book, you are sure to be as enchanted by this fictional town and its unique charm as the boys are by the rows and rows of green bottled dandelion wine lining their grandfather's cellar. 

This book is episodic: told in little episodes rather than weaving one plot throughout the book. I wasn't expecting that and haven't read many novels written in that style, but I quite enjoyed it. The style works well for the two boys who see the summer and life as a series of exciting or terrifying incidents. I didn't enjoy all the episodes the same, but they were definitely created of various flavours: silly, sweet, creepy, or just plain ridiculous, and I enjoyed most of them. Besides, if you don't like one particular 'story,' it's sure to be over in a few pages (by the end of the chapter, in fact). It was also nice that there were several threads connecting all the episodes or stories, since the two brothers play a part in each one, and they all occur in the same town in the same summer. 

The first chapter, or episode, was the most difficult for me to enter, just because I was still trying to nail down Bradbury's style and what was happening, but once you soar through that dramatic, vague chapter, you're good to go! The rest of the book is as lovely as a cup of tea during a rainstorm. 

I loved how lyrical this book is; similes, metaphors, and other various types of figurative language pop out on nearly every page like a sunset begging to be savored and admired. So beautiful! 

It was also quite different from the only other novel I've read by Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451. Dandelion Wine is as lighthearted and fun as that book is depressing and bleak. So, this is a great novel if you prefer the former, especially for a warm, bird-chatter filled summer day! It also helped that I read this book while being in Illinois, where the story takes place; it makes the story just lift off the page, alive and breathing. Have you read any books while being in the setting where it takes place? 

I give this tale a 4 out of 5 and recommend it for fifteen-year olds and up. The main characters are young boys, but the novel is written to be savored by an older audience. 

What I learned: I am alive, and each day is to be truly felt, from the delightful to the ordinary to the sorrowful.  

What great books have you been reading this summer?