Magic's Child

Magic's Child, by Justine Larbalestier (book three in the Magic or Madness trilogy), as reviewed by The Lazy Bookworm:

After a slow second book, this book pulled me right back into the story of Reason Cansino. The book begins around 24 hours after creepy Raul Emilio Jesus Cansino gave Reason his powerful magic and crumbled to dust right before her feet. In an intense account of a fascinating transformation, Reason begins to rapidly change, the essence of magic rushing into her. But she becomes more magic than human.

During this, Reason's friends Jay-tee and Tom begin to chose between magic or madness.

Being a die-hard fantasy buff, this book put a interesting perspective on magic that set it apart from other YA books. I also really liked most of the characters, finding them easy to relate to. By the end I had even warmed up to Reason.

All in all, this was the best book I have read this year so far.
--The Lazy Bookworm

Note: some minor "adult" content

It's dead, Jim

Last print issue of Book World:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021203265.html

Rest in peace.

Leaning forward into Freddy the Pig

There's enough in the Freddy the Pig series for several doctoral dissertations, but no time for that now. But Freddy cannot be resisted. We'll stall him a bit with the link for his fan club:

http://www.freddythepig.org/

The Ugly Vegetables

At first, this appears to be nothing more than another cheerfully-illustrated picture book about the pleasures of small girl working with her Mom in the garden. But trouble soon appears. Mom keeps doing things differently from the neighbors, marking the garden with mysterious Chinese characters instead of seed packets with flower pictures.

Sure enough, this garden turns out all wrong. The neighbors all have beautiful flowers, but the girl's mother has planted nothing but vegetables. And these are ugly vegetables.

Because this is a book for children, there is a miraculous happy ending that affirms the worth of the vegetables. Even more miraculous, the little community grows to make room for vegetables and flowers both.

Like most of Grace Lin's work, this lovely book aims to portray the Chinese-American experience in particular, but anyone who has ever stood outside mainstream culture can identify with this story.

The Ugly Vegetables, by Grace Lin, ISBN-10: 0881063363, ISBN-13: 978-0881063363

No More Book World

The Washington Post continues to approach the vanishing point:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/books/29post.html?em

Welcome to our opinionated little book blog....

In which the Lazy Bookworm and I will offer our opinions about books we've read. (Hey, if the Washington Post is getting rid of Book World, someone has to pick up the slack.)