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Archive for the ‘Fantasy’ Category

Colin Meloy (with illustrations by Carson Ellis)–Under Wildwood (2012)

Posted in Adventure, Animals, Big Books, Carson Ellis, Children's Books, Culture Shock, Death, Fantasy, Fears, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Magic, Quasi, Trees, Trilogy, Violence, War on November 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: QUASI Live at SXSW, March 8, 2010

I really enjoyed a few Quasi albums back around the turn of the century, and then I kind of forgot about them.  But this set is really great.  The always excellent Janet Weiss on drums and harmonies and the wonderful Sam Coombs on guitar and vocals. Around the time of this album, American Gong, they added Joanna Bolme on bass which really fills out their sound.  The first song, “Repulsion,” rocks harder than any of their older stuff (which was more keyboard based).  Indeed this album was apparently much rockinger than any of their earlier releases–I must check it out.

This set was recorded during SXSW  from the Gibson Showroom in Austin.  They play five songs in about 20 minutes.  “Never Coming Back Again” has a far more country feel (especially the backing vocals which have a real twang.  The lengthy instrumental section of “Black Dogs and Bubbles” is great–especially check out Weiss’ drumming.  “Little White Horse” is a shambolic rave of a song–fun and noisy.

The set ends with the inspiring Rise Up, a short stomper that encourages you to, yes rise up.  Weiss and Coombs both have other bands that they play in, so Quasi never seems like a full-time project.  But that seems to make their music all the better.  Listen here.

[READ: November 1, 2011] Under Wildwood

I enjoyed Wildwood, but I wasn’t blown away by it.  So I admit I wasn’t totally excited to read this one (especially since I had some other books lined up).  But Sarah managed to get it from the library (I guess it was not as a big a deal as I assumed it would be?) and I decided to give it a go.

I found it a little slow at first, but after about 40 pages, the book totally took off and I was fully engrossed.  Whether it was because there was less exposition since this was a sequel or because the story itself was more exciting, I couldn’t put the book down.  And, more importantly, the book did not feel like its 550 pages were excessive.  He really filled up every page with story.

But I was a little concerned because part of the story is set in an orphanage–a setting rife for cliché.  But Meloy has some great ideas and although he does use the orphanage as a scary setting (and employs some clichés from all orphanages) he transcends the conceit with some great characters and some evil owners who use demerits to completely move the story along outside of the orphanage–a great plot idea.

But let’s back up. (more…)

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Adam Blade–Beast Quest Special Edition: Spiros the Ghost Phoenix (2009)

Posted in Adam Blade, Adventure, Animaniacs, Children's Books, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Magic, Supernatural, Threats on October 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ANIMANIACS-“Nations of the World” (1995).

I was a little too old for Animaniacs when it was first on.  And boy am I mad I missed it then, because it is hilarious.  And, astonishingly, educational.

Check out the countries of the world as sung by Yakko.

Genius lies within.

Incidentally, this isn’t the cleanest version of the video I’ve seen, but it has closed captioning so you can see all the countries!  For a clearer picture click this link.

[READ: September 2012] Spiros the Ghost Phoenix

After reading Book 12, Clark noticed on the back cover of the book that there was a cover for a book we hadn’t read yet.  So I looked it up and it was this one, a Special Edition.  There are several Beast Quest Special Edition books just like in the Droon series.  I never quite understood the purpose of the Special Editions in Droon–they were bigger, but you had to read them in sequence or the series didn’t make sense, and if you skipped them, you missed out on a huge plot development, so it was just an odd thing to do.

So I wasn’t surprised to find out that there were Special Editions in Beast Quest  but I was surprised to find out that the Special Edition has no relation to the sequence at all.  Indeed, they work fine as introductions to the series. (more…)

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Adam Blade–Beast Quest: The Golden Armor #7-12 (2008

Posted in Adam Blade, Adventure, Children's Books, Dan Zanes, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Magic, Short Books, Supernatural, They Might Be Giants, Threats on September 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: OUT WITH THIS KIDS MUSIC MONTHLY PODCAST (2012).

I am bummed to have literally just discovered this cool podcast.  Each month Out with the Kids plays some ten songs that are kid-friendly.  They’re not all “kids songs” but they are kid friendly.  And it’s a fun way to learn about new music that kids may like.

The blog was started by Jeff Bogle, and he does proper DJ intros and outros (fortunately no “Morning Zoo zaniness”).  The songs are often connected thematically, and he plays a diverse collection of music (for his October podcast, I’d heard of none of the artists before, which is great if all of your kids music awareness comes via Dan Zanes and They Might Be Giants (nothing nothing nothing wrong with them, I love them both) or, heaven forbid Kidz Bop.

So, check him out, and subscribe via iTunes.  What have you got to lose?

[READ: August 2012] Beast Quest 7-12

I wasn’t all that excited to continue this series.  I liked some of the things in the first books, but I was on the fence about whether to continue.  But Clark enjoyed the series, so I figured I’d continue (but hopefully not do all 72 books).  Well, I was pleasantly surprised by this next series.  Although the formula is still in place, Adam Blade played around with the ideas a little bit and made them much more interesting.  Rather than having to rescue beasts who were turned evil, this time, Tom, the 12 (!) year old hero, must go in search of pieces of the golden armor.

But a step back first.  After competing the first 6 quests, Wizard Aduro shows Tom and Elenna the beautiful golden armor that resides in a special room in King Hugo’s castle.  But when they get there they discovered  that the armor has been stolen (in the prologue we see how the  armor was stolen and we know it was Malvel’s doing).  As Book 7 takes off we learn of Tom’s new quest–to find all of the stolen pieces of the armor which are now being guarded by beasts that Malvel has created.  It was kind of fun wondering what the six pieces of armor would be.  They turn out to be a helmet, chain mail, a breast plate, leg armor, boots and gloves and each one gives Tom a special power. (more…)

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Adam Blade–Beast Quest #1-6 (2007)

Posted in Adam Blade, Adventure, Children's Books, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Magic, Norsewind, Short Books, Supernatural, Threats, Tony Abbott on September 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NORSEWIND-“Landvaettir” (2011).

On September 2, we went to ScanFest, a festival of all things Scandinavian.  We had a wonderful time (despite the downpour).  The food was great, the stalls were selling cool wares and the entertainment was stellar (I loved the wife carrying contest–win your wife’s weight in beer!).

There were also musicians.  We were only able to see a couple, but one was Norsewind, a folk band from Berks County, PA, who play traditional Scndinavian music (and Irish pub songs).  I don’t know any of the songs they played that day, but I happened upon their reverbnation site, where you can hear 11 tracks.  And I chose this title because I have no idea what it means.

Live, the band was loud and really dynamic.  I especially enjoyed what I think was the intro to a song–three members on stage pounding the hell out of traditional drums–it was very cool.  These studio recordings are a little anemic–at least compared to their live show.  But they do display a nice range of sounds and styles and I enjoyed them very much.

[READ: August 2012] Beast Quest 1-6

When we finished Droon we wanted to move on to a new series.  Beast Quest was heavily advertised in the back of the Droon books, so we thought we’d give it a try.  Adam Blade (really?) has created a vast world in Avantia.  As of this writing, there are 72 books in the series (not including several special edition).  Yes, that is eighty-three books in total.

Sadly I just learned that Scholastic, the American publishing company of Beast Quest has only released 24 books (plus 2 special editions) in the United States.  A brief rant here.  I think Scholastic books is really wonderful.  They have released  some amazing books over the years.  I can’t even count the number of awesome series that Scholastic has picked up.  HOWEVER, Scholastic has a horrible track record of starting to release series and then ceasing in the middle.  The biggest crime has been Ulysses Moore, which they have ceased after 4 books (even though the series is up to Book 10 or 11 in their native Italy AND they are releasing the author’s newer series now.  Now we have this.  As you’ll see in the post, I’m the first to admit that the first six books in the series aren’t very good.  But now that we’re up to 20, the books and plots have gotten so much better.  And just as we’re getting really into it, the plug has been pulled?  I understand the economics of publishing and that if something isn’t selling you give up on it.  But seriously, you’re heavily advertising a series that you’re not going to finish?  How expensive can it be to produce these series of kids books?  It’s so disappointing.

End rant.

Begin review. (more…)

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Tony Abbott–Danger Guys series (1994-1996)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, C., Children's Books, Chris Rock, Fantasy, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Mad Scientists, Madagascar, Star Wars, Technology, Tony Abbott, Waffles on August 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: “Neverending Afro Circus” (2012).

If you’ve seen the movie Madagascar 3, you’ll recognize this song as the earworm that you will be singing all the way home.  And that your kids will no doubt be singing for days.

I actually want to jump in and say that I saw Madagascar 3 without seeing Madagascar 2 and I was quite lost (and missed a lot of in-jokes, apparently) for the first 20 or so minutes.  Who would have guessed that a kids movie could do that to you?

Anyhow, back to this song.  C. and T. love it.  And it turns out that YouTube loves it too.  There are dozens of different videos of varying lengths (from 10 seconds to 59 minutes!!) repeating this wonderful nonsense.  But for real neverending Afro Circus, please visit AfroCircus.com and see how much you can stand.

For a measly ten minute loop, please enjoy this:

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aELcXyjpts%5D

[READ: July 2012] Danger Guys series

We loved Droon so much we had to see what else Tony Abbott had written.

Turns out that he has written a lot of books and a bunch of series.  In addition to Droon he has written four books that are not part of any series, a series called The Haunting of Derek Stone and a brand new series called UnderWorlds.  UnderWorlds looks like a great series for C., although Haunting and the stand alone books seem like they might be a little too old for him.  He also has some older series like Don’t Touch That Remote!, Goofballs, Time Surfers and The Weird Zone.  (I think that’s all of them).

He also has this Danger Guys series, which I believe comprised his first novels.

My major complaint about the series is…why is it out of print?  Why was it so hard for me to find?  I had to do an Inter Library Loan and the copies I received were so beat up that we may wind up being the last people to read them!  This is a real shame because these books were fantastic!  The series is about two boys Noodle (the smart one) and Zeke (the athletic one).  They are best friends and do everything together.  I’m not exactly sure how old they are…I’m guessing middle school?  In each book they get into an escalating series of adventures which can be resolved by logic, brains, strength and sometimes a little luck.  The books are mildly scary (the Halloween one is the most scary but even that…not really), they’re not violent or gross, but they are full of adventure and they’re very funny (an Abbott specialty).  There were several moments that C. was laughing very hard at these.

There are six books in total in the series.  And because the books aren’t radically different from each other, I’m only going to say a few lines about each. (more…)

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Tony Abbott–The Secrets of Droon: Special Edition 8: The Final Quest (2010)

Posted in Adventure, Children's Books, Demons, End of the World, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Magic, Minecraft, Mystery, Supernatural, Taio Cruz, Threats, Time Travel, Tony Abbott, Violence on August 10, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: “TNT” – A Minecraft Parody of Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” (2011).

How do you top Clark’s favorite song?  By making a parody of it in the style of his favorite game!  This song and video are based on the game Minecraft, Clark’s most recent obsession.  The song is funny, mostly.  It’s got to be hard to think up a full songs worth of parody material–one verse is easy, Sarah and I do that all the time.  But the chorus is a good one: “I shoot my arrows in the air sometimes/saying ay-oh, creeper’s KO’d.”

The music is pretty good (although the vocals aren’t quite as strong as the original).  But the video is really quite funny, and well crafted.

So, enjoy the video:

By the way, Clark hasn’t seen this yet…I’m kind of afraid he’ll never leave the computer if he does.

[READ: mid-June 2012] The Secrets of Droon: SE8

After 44 books the saga has ended.

Will the kids rescue Eric?  Will the kids stop Gethwing?  Will the kids stop Ko?  And what will happen to the kids if they do save Droon?  Does this mean their quest, and their adventures in Droon, are at an end?

As this book opens we are reminded of the ancient prophecy that Gethwing is immortal.  Gethwing has even told of the prophecy himself:

Five shall pass away, four shall wear the crown, three shall fall, two shall rise together and one…

What about the one?

What can this prophecy mean?  Gethwing knows: The five are the cycles of Droon’s millennial calendar.  The four are  the Crown of Wizards–Sparr, Neffu, Ungast and Gethwing; The three include Ko (who has fallen to his death) and Zara (long dead).  And the two are Eric (as Ungast) and Gethwing, rising together.  But the funny thing about prophecies is that they can be read different ways (and there’s a wonderful payoff to the prophecy at the end of the book). (more…)

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Tony Abbott–The Secrets of Droon: Books 35-36 and SE#7 (2009-2010)

Posted in Adventure, Children's Books, Demons, End of the World, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Magic, Mystery, Supernatural, Taio Cruz, Threats, Time Travel, Tony Abbott, Violence on July 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TAIO CRUZ-“Dynamite” (2010).

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I love music–all kinds of music.  So how did I wind up with a seven-year old who is indifferent to music.  It took going to Cub Scouts, gym class and a friend who is far more opinionated than he is to finally get a song that he liked.  Taio Cruz’ “Dynamite.”

I don’t know anything about Cruz.  I think I had vaguely heard the song at some point (parts sound familiar but it’s not a terribly original song so it could have been anything).  I also had no idea this song was two years old.  I assumed it was a 2012 hit.  Huh.

So, it may not be the greatest song in the world, but hearing my son sing first the melody to himself while he played and then singing the lyrics when he figured them out and then even dancing around a little bit to them (showing off a bit for our friends–a major breakthrough), it makes this song pretty important to me too.

I even noticed him expressing interest in thudding bass notes coming out of a passing car (god help me).  But hey, I throw my hands up in the air sometimes saying Ay oh, gotta let go.

I just hope he doesn’t see the video for a few more years.

[READ: mid-June 2012] The Secrets of Droon: 35, 36 & SE7

These are the final few books of the Droon Series (except for Special Edition 8 which actually ends the series).  Clark and I were pretty excited to get to these two final-numbered books.  And it was worth the build up.  And, of course, it was wonderful to see a whole book devoted to Neal.

Book #35 is The Lost Empire of Koomba.  The cover drawing is really quite beautiful.  I haven’t talked about the art much in the series. It’s kind of cartoony (which works for the tone), but this cover and the next are striking in their realism. It’s very cool.  At one point I think I noticed a change in style of the art within–I didn’t like it quite as much.  But the covers, wow.

At the End of SE#6, Eric told the kids that they had 5 Droon days before Gethwing would begin his all-out assault on Droon.  So, they have five days to get the elixir that will be the antidote to his poison, they need to find the Moon medallion.  Oh and they need to find Galen, and, geez, stop every outpost in Droon from being destroyed.

So who would have guessed that this book would be located primarily in a place we’ve never seen before—the lost Empire of Koomba.  Koomba was a beautiful city in the desert.  But over the years the city disappeared and all that is left is a star-shaped dune and a small trading post.  But it’s more like the Bermuda triangle with travelers getting lost and things going missing every time anyone approaches. (more…)

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Tony Abbott–The Secrets of Droon: Books 32-34 and SE#6 (2008-2009)

Posted in Adventure, Children's Books, Demons, End of the World, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Harry Potter, Magic, Mystery, Supernatural, Threats, Time Travel, Tony Abbott on July 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: グラスハープ　ハリーポッター HarryPotter [The Harry Potter theme played on wine glasses] (2011).

I have always been fascinated by musical wine glasses.  And it’s always fun to find a glass that you can play music on (it definitely won’t happen at the diner).   And if you can find a couple, it’s great fun to play different notes with different amounts of water.

I will never have at my disposal enough glasses to do this.  I think I could probably figure it out on glasses if I had enough time (and glassware).  But since that will never happen, I will just enjoy this.  It works especially well for the fantasy genre–some wonderfully spooky sounds.

Incidentally I included this song here because I have mentioned before that people accuse this series of ripping off Harry Potter.  You know, because there’s three protagonists and magic.  I’m not going to speak to that because it’s silly.  But I did want to mention that in one of these books (and I’ve now forgotten which one, which is driving me crazy), the kids say something about “You know who” and Eric’s mom says “Voldemort?”  That had me laughing out loud (although since Clark doesn’t know Harry Potter yet–you see, some books are meant for younger kids) he didn’t get the joke.

[READ: April 2012] The Secrets of Droon: Books 32-34 & SE#6

Droon grows more and more exciting with each book.  I have high hopes that we may finish this series before Clark’s school is over (sometimes it’s fun to set little goals for ourselves, even if they are meaningless).  [Since this is being published after he finished school, I know whether this came true or not, but you’ll have to wait to find out]. (more…)

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Tony Abbott–The Secrets of Droon: Books 29-31 and SE#5 (2007-2008)

Posted in Adventure, Children's Books, Demons, End of the World, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Juliet, Magic, Mystery, Supernatural, Threats, Time Travel, Tony Abbott on July 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JULIET-“My First Hardcore Song” (2012).

Lars from NPR (I’m just going to call him Thor from now on) pointed me to this song.

Juliet is 8 years old and while she didn’t write the music, she sings all the words (and one assumes wrote the lyrics, right?).  Juliet can scream with the best of them.

And, of course when she opened up the pit, it made me want to get our pit ready at home, too….

There have been replies and haters, but none can compare to the original.  Juliet has destroyed out Old Skull as my favorite pre-adolescent hardcore band.

ooooooooooooooooooooh.  Oh.

[READ: April 2012] The Secrets of Droon: Books 29-31 & SE#5

Droon grows more and more exciting with each book.  I have high hopes that we may finish this series before Clark’s school is over (sometimes it’s fun to set little goals for ourselves, even if they are meaningless).  [Since this is being published after he finished school, I know whether this came true or not, but you’ll have to wait to find out].

Book 29 is Pirates of the Purple Dawn.  One of the fun things about Droon is that old enemies keep coming back.  In this book, an old enemy Ving, king of the hawk bandits of Tarkoom, comes back (from book 11!).  But this time, he has brought his twin sister Ming with him.  I enjoyed that although they are twins they not only don’t really like each other they’re not all that alike–Ving hates the water and Ming is in charge of a group of pirates!  They plan to bring dragons back from the past to destroy Droon.

The book opens up in a funny/tense way.  Eric is in school but he is dreaming of Droon.  And then he starts talking in his sleep–telling the whole class about Droon and even firing a fireball at the blackboard!  This gets the kids in class very excited–one even wants to go on a field trip to Eric’s house to see Droon herself!  And things grows even more chaotic when Galen’s twin Nelag shows up and confuses things tenfold.  When the kids finally get to Droon, they journey to the land of Jabar-Loo.

After this funny intro, things get more serious.  There is a Purple Dawn, which means a rift in time (which means Clark will have a slightly hard time grasping everything).  This means that they have to go see Portentia the oracle who was around for the first Purple Dawn.  Things grows even more serious when the pirates kidnap Keeah–as if  the kids didn’t have enough to worry about.  And what about that green mist and the vision that Eric had? (more…)

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Tony Abbott–The Secrets of Droon: Books 26-28 and SE#4 (2006)

Posted in Adventure, Ben Folds, Children's Books, Demons, End of the World, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Magic, Mystery, Over the Hedge, Supernatural, Threats, Tony Abbott on June 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS-“Rockin’ the Suburbs [Over the Hedge version]” (2006).

I love Ben Folds. And I love this song.  But it is not in any way kid friendly (he threatens to cuss on the mic and he does–a lot).  So I was surprised to hear these distinctive opening chords when Over the Hedge‘s credits rolled.

But Ben has nicely changed all of the lyrics to make it more relevant to the movie (it’s still funny for adults, and in fact, kids may not even get all the jokes: “around the block one more time…cause I can’t tell which house is mine”  “they got better looking fescue right across the cul de sac.”

It’s cool that he was completely able to change the song (the meaning is now entirely different) yet still have it retain that snarky attitude of Ben Folds.  True the grown-up version is funnier, but this one is still good.  Not least of which is from the crazy rant by William Shatner.  Shatner is the neighbor “Bill” who complains about their dog and threatens that he knows karate.  It’s quite funny (if perhaps a little exhausting to listen to more than two times).

I like that the end of the song includes the really heavy section (that really only makes sense with the original lyrics).  A perfect example of change that works.

[READ: April 2012] The Secrets of Droon: Books 26-28 & SE#4

As I mentioned in the last post I am completely hooked on Droon.  And my son is very excited that we are getting close to the end!  What will we do?  The series itself has always been good, but it keeps getting better, with the stakes getting higher and higher.  And with Sparr being a good guy now, everything is different!  There are only three books before the Special Edition this time–it’s a strange non-pattern he’s got going on.  The Special Editions are longer and SOME of them written in a different way, but sometimes they just seem like longer books. (more…)

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