#jonathan auxier

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

Have you read Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier (2011)?

yes

no

I didn't finish it

I've never heard of it

Voting ended onJan 1

[picturebookshelf]

The Fabled Stables: Willa the Wisp (2020)

Story: Jonathan Auxier -- Art: Olga Demidova Canadian

[mollyhats]

Historical Fiction meets Fantasy (Middle-Grade and YA)

Here's a list of books that take real world history and give it a supernatural spin. Sometimes it's a full alternate universe (1860s NYC--WITH DINOSAURS) and sometimes it's more subtle.

Middle-Grade (about 8-12)

Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older

When?: 1863

Fantasy element?: There's dinosaurs around that people can ride and it's AWESOME

Elevator pitch: During the Draft Riots of 1863, a group of Black and Latine children escape the destruction of their orphanage and must outwit a gang of kidnappers--by riding pterodactyls!

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier

When?: the Victorian era

Fantasy element?: a tree that grants wishes...for a horrible price

Elevator pitch: An Irish girl and her disabled little brother manage to get a job at an English estate after their parents are lost. But they soon learn their new refuge is haunted by a strange spectre guarding a mysterious tree. An excellent spooky story.

The Inquisitor's Apprentice by Chris Moriarty

When?: the turn of the 20th century

Fantasy element?: magic, in many specific cultural forms, is real, and there's a lot of politics and regulation around its use

Elevator pitch: Picture your standard turn of the century immigrant New York coming of age story: All Of A Kind Family or An American Tail. Now imagine that in this world, magic is real, and much like any valuable tool, there's a whole lot of laws and discrimination governing who can use it and how. Sacha can see magic, and is immediately pressed into service helping an investigator. He's thrust into a deadly world of politics, labor rights, organized crime, and strange new magic technologies that threaten everything Sacha holds dear.

The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz

When?: 1242

Fantasy element?: 3 magical children and their holy dog

Elevator pitch: The Middle Ages were weirder than even comedy has led us to believe, and this book taps into the stories and history of the era. Many people in an inn take turns telling tales of three children with superpowers (one super strong, one gifted with visions, and one healing) and their dog (who's a saint). Somehow these unexpected friends made an enemy of King Louis IX, and the road to get there (and how it resolves) is unpredictable, playful, yet grounded in a solid context of medieval history and literature.

Deephaven by Ethan M. Aldridge

When?: the Great Depression

Fantasy elements?: A boarding school full of occult secrets.

Elevator pitch: Nev Tallow receives an invitation to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere that no one has ever heard of, but it's the Great Depression and options are limited. Mysteries soon abound--the prefects aren't quite right, the classes include occult languages, and nobody's supposed to talk about the collapse that killed a student last year...despite the wing where they supposedly died still standing. They're going to get to the bottom of this with help from their friends, even if they have to take on a monster with nothing but a fencing foil and some barely-understood spells. The first in a series!

Ophie's Ghosts by Justina Ireland

When?: the 1920s (particularly the Great Migration)

Fantasy elements?: ghosts

Elevator pitch: Ophelia first starts seeing ghosts after her father is murdered in an act of racial violence. Now she works with her mother in an old manor in Pittsburgh, dealing with the racist lady of the house. And the ghosts. Ophie becomes determined to help one of them, but the price--and the secrets buried with her--may destroy the fragile life her mother has made.

Young Adult (13+)

Lovely War by Julie Berry

When?: World War I

Fantasy element?: A peanut gallery made up of half the Greek pantheon

Elevator pitch: Hephaestus catches Ares and Aphrodite cheating in his net, so to teach them all about love, Aphrodite launches into the stories of four young adults caught in WWI, torn between their ambitions, their pasts, and love. Other gods drop in and out to put in their two cents, and on occasion they influence the story in mortal guise.

The Shadow War by Lindsay Smith

When?: World War II

Fantasy element?: Mysterious shadow magic that grants visions and can tear people apart.

Elevator pitch: Picture Inglorious Basterds but some of the ultraviolence is from extremely horrifying shadow magic. It's a roaring rampage of gay, Jewish, Black, and Algerian teens and young adults avenging themselves on Nazis and keeping them from acquiring the power of Eldritch horrors beyond our world. It's a tough balance to get right tonally, but imo they made it cathartic instead of trivializing.

If you have any questions about any of these, message me, shoot me an ask, or comment!

[ms-tillus]

I just got done re-reading Peter Nimble and the Fantastic Eyes, and Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard. Honestly these two books defined so much of what I love in fiction, so drawing this scene from Sophie Quire MADE MY DAY!

[carriagelamp]

Man I got lucky this month, I got to read a bunch of excellent books, including some really neat queer novels. Nothing like a break to really get to kick back and enjoy reading for the sheer pleasure of reading rather than a desperate escape

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua v1

Unsurprising to absolutely anyone who’s been reading these, I picked up the first book of the manhua adaptation of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. It covers the first part of the first book, which basically amounts of Wei Wuxian’s revival and his flight from Mo Manor to the mountain and the Night Hunt. Besides for WWX, we get to meet Lan Wanji, the juniors, and Jiang Cheng, all of which have great designs. Like the rest of this series, it was a pleasure to read, the adaptation was done really well, and I’m excited for the next volume.

The Ice Monster

This book was very… meh. I was pretty disappointed, because I’ve really enjoyed the other two books I’ve read by David Walliams so far, and this was probably the one I was most excited about, but it was… incredibly middling compared to the others.

The Ice Monster is about a Victorian orphan, Elsie, who escapes from the brutal orphanage she had been raised in and was making her way on the streets. During this time, a great mammoth that had been found in the Arctic was being transported to the museum for display. Elsie feels a kinship for this “monster” and begins a series of events that lead to it being freed from the ice and set loose in London.

There were good moments in this book and I’m sure a kid would enjoy it, but ultimately it felt like way too many fart jokes and not enough substance compared to Walliams’ other books.

I Think Our Son Is Gay v2

A very sweet manga series I’ve been reading from the library. It follows the POV of a mother who suspects that her son is gay but who isn’t quite ready to come out yet. It’s a nice balance of humour — the art is cute and the characters have fun reactions to various silly things that happen in their lives — and love while still asking what it must be like to be gay in a homophobic society. A good read.

Legends & Lattes

SUCH a fun novel, it was exactly what I needed this month.

The story is about an orc mercenary called Viv who, after 20 years of fighting and killing, has had enough and is ready to settle down. Using the mysterious reward from her last adventure, Viv leaves her old company to find what she hopes will be the perfect city to open a coffee shop. Which is a daunting task in a part of the world that has never ever heard of coffee before and is suitably leery of this “bean water”.

If you want an action-packed, edge of your seat adventure book… don’t read this. This is the epitome of “cosy” fiction — its tag line is “high fantasy and low stakes”. If you want a dnd coffee au in novel form that’s about friendship and food… then this is THE perfect novel. It made me feel so warm and happy (and hungry).

Lucky Luke: The Oklahoma Land Rush // The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke

Lucky Luke is a BD series I’ve heard a lot about, and after seeing a couple episodes of it on Prime I decided I needed to actually pick up a volume or two. I’m delighted I did and I think I’ll need to read more now! 

The general premise is that of a western. The titular character, Lucky Luke, is a clever and nearly unflappable gun-slinger who can “shoot faster than his shadow”. Luke gets into a range of silly, comedic Wild West adventures and inevitably comes out on top for the sake of justice. Naturally, the genre being what it is, the whole First Nations thing is… rough, but the books were enjoyable if you can look past that.

The first book I read was The Oklahoma Land Rush which is fairly indicative of the series I believe and is about Luke being hired to help police the desperate rush of settlers to claim land in Oklahoma. The second was The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke which was written by Matthieu Bonhomme instead of Morris and is a slightly grittier, more serious take on Luke. I enjoyed this one just as much — it still managed to be funny, but the stakes felt much higher. And the art was just stunning.

The Night Gardener

A fun, creepy middle grade horror. A story about two young Irish immigrants trying their best to survive in the absence of their parents. In a last desperate attempt to get work they find themselves way out at a desolate, crumbling English manor that has been almost completely consumed by a strange tree. The family there is as desolate and strange as the grounds, pale and sickly and carrying a mysterious secret. The siblings realise just how strange and dangerous this estate might be as they’re drawn deeper into the secrets and begin to suspect that there’s something else living and working on the grounds…

I really like Jonathan Auxier's writing and I’ve been meaning to try this novel for years. I was glad to have finally done it.

Doctor Who: The Runaway Tardis

Just a cute little picture book. Pop Classics does some fun work and the art style really worked for Doctor Who. It’s about a little girl who has moved and is struggling with needing to make whole new friends in a place she doesn’t know. The themes of loneliness and goodbyes and needing to move on and make new friends was actually perfect to pair with Doctor Who; despite being quite simple and silly looking, it actually made me feel things for both the Doctor and the little girl.

Sandman v1/2

Everyone has been so hyped about The Sandman! I’ve been wanting to get in on it but I’m not very good at sitting down and watching shows so I thought I might try the original comics. Honestly I should have known better. I don’t really like this harsh style of American comics and if we’re being totally honest I don’t generally like Gaiman’s longer prose. This, unsurprisingly, combined two things I don’t like and ended up with a comic I didn’t like. Things only went down hill when fucking Batman appeared. It didn’t even really feel like it had the humour I would at least expect from Gaiman besides for a few brief glimmers. I appreciate that other people really like this series but oof. Not for me. 

The Secret Garden

I love The Secret Garden, it’s one of those comfort books that I need to reread every few years. I was listening to it as an audiobook this time and it was so lovely to see the first signs of spring appearing while listening to this story. If you want something feel good I highly recommend starting it because we are in the season for it.

If you’ve never read The Secret Garden, the premise is of a young, spoiled, but horrifically neglected child who was raised in British-occupied India. She is a bad-tempered, sour, and demanding child known to others as “Mistress Mary quite contrary”. When her parents die of a cholera outbreak she is sent back to England to live at her uncle’s manor on the Yorkshire moors. This relative is also distant and bitter, apparently hunchbacked and widowed. Once more alone, Mary is suddenly expected to do things for herself and isn’t given her every demand — instead she begins to befriend the cheerful, plain-spoken maid and starts spending time outside, exploring and playing for what feels like the first time in her life…   

Wallace & Gromit: Crackers in Space

I stumbled across this as an audiobook. After the fact I realised it’s also a comic. Oddly enough, the comic seemed profoundly bad — I’ve never really liked any of the Wallace and Gromit comics — but the audiobook version was a delight. It has the actual voice actor for Wallace, so it sounded completely like I had just put an episode on in the background that I had never watched before. They were also very clever about giving Gromit a “voice” despite him being a non-verbal character! It was actually a lot of fun!

Wallace decides to attempt making his own cheese out in the garden shed… only things go badly, as they’re wont to. Instead of making a lovely cheese, the whole thing ends up getting launched into the atmosphere because of a helium mishap… which might not be so bad if the zero gravity wasn’t making the Home Brew Cheese Kit kick into overdrive. They’re going to have to figure out how to deal with the massive, mutated cheese comet that’s now threatening all of West Wallaby Street. 

Wave Me Goodbye

An absolutely charming book, I didn’t want to put it down. This book takes place at the beginning of the Second World War, when children were being evacuated from London (which was at risk of bombing) and being sent out to live with volunteers in the country. Shirley is one of the children being sent out, but right from the beginning she finds herself struggling with feeling like the odd one out. She doesn’t feel like she fits in with her rough-and-tumble classmates, and when she does make a new friend on the train it’s clear that she doesn’t properly fit in with the posh covenant girls either. Things only get worse when she is one of the only children not picked to go with a family, and suddenly she and two other unwanted boys find themselves foisted on the unwilling inhabitants of the Red House. But in wartime, one has to make due, so she, Kevin, and Archie begin to explore this strange, half-empty house and get used to a very different way of life way out in the country.

Shirley is a huge reader in the book, and it actually made me pause reading to go and read some of the books she references! It was a lot of fun! Some of the books I read last month that Shirley reads are Ballet Shoes and The Squirrel, The Hare, and the Little Grey Rabbit. It’s also what made me decide to reread The Secret Garden, since they feel like similar genres.

When the Angels Left the Old Country

I read some great books this month and it would be hard to say for certain which was my favourite since they were in quite different genres, but this would be a strong contender. Holy shit was it good. The tl;dr is that it’s a bit like a Jewish Good Omens but also nothing like that at all.

The Angel (as angels don’t have permanent names, but rather names that describe what they are currently doing) and the demon Little Ash have been study partners for centuries, happily existing in their little Shtetl without feeling much need to change things. But things are changing and with the press of poverty and rise of violent anti-Semitic feelings many residents of the Shtetl are now leaving for America in the search of work and safety. Little Ash is determined that they should join these immigrants, and when a member of their Shtetl goes missing on her own voyage it seems inevitable that they go and track her down to ensure she is safe and well.

At its heart this is an immigrant story about people and prejudice and love, and it’s really written beautifully, the way you see all the hardship that goes into such a voyage even for supernatural beings.

[corvid-gremlin-official]

Day 3 of posting a ramble or infodump about something I know probably too much about

Today’s topic, via spinner wheel, is my favorite books and literary works! 

I used to be an avid book reader, but now I don’t read many physical books, in favor of internet stories (read: fanfiction). Here’s a list of my favorites of both, with a brief synopsis (without spoilers) and notes on why I liked the story so much!

The Inquisitor’s Tale (Adam Gidwitz) - this is hands-down one of the best books I’ve ever read! The subtitle is “Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog” and that sums up the idea nicely. The book centers around these children, being hunted down by the king of France for heresy, in a fictional iteration of medieval France. The story is full of religious themes, and a feeling of family. 

The Ruby Redfort series (Lauren Child) - one of the best mystery/suspense spy series ever; it was initially written for middle-grade children but I think anyone can enjoy them. Centered around a thirteen-year-old genius code-cracker (and her “sidekick” babysitter butler sorry house manager Hitch), each book has a sort of “nerd-topic” driving the plot - think advanced mathematics, organic chemistry, or synesthesia - but the book does a really good job explaining these at a level for almost anyone to understand (in fact, they’re how I got into a variety of subjects!)

Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard (Jonathan Auxier) - also originally written for children but honestly a great book. Bookmender Sophie Quire is tasked with protecting a special book, the protecting of which sends her on a weird and suspenseful adventure with a boy named Peter Nimble and his cat-horse-man-thing named Sir Tode. I can’t say much about the plot without spoilers so that’s all...

The Golden Phoenix (emiartse) - this one is on Ao3, and it is the best Disney AU of the Dream SMP anyone has ever made. Can’t reveal much without spoilers, but basically Tommy is this story’s version of Rapunzel, and Techno and Wilbur are the “Eugene”s. There’s a lot of incredible worldbuilding in this one, and I absolutely love it. 

Tommyinnit’s Clinic For Supervillains (bonesandthebees) - I know a majority of the fandom has read this or at least heard of this, but it’s for good reason! I think this is one of my favorite hero AUs on Ao3, and it’s just so good. Civilian Tommy stumbles across an injured supervillain in an alley, and against his better judgement uses his own powers to heal him. This sets off a big long chain of events with Tommy, his roommates, the villains, heroes, and vigilantes, and Tommy has to deal with all that :3

17 hours (bonesandthebees, thanotaphobia) - say byebye to the U.S. coasts, because they just got nuked. Wilbur and Tommy set out to meet Techno and Phil in Nowhere, Oklahoma, where emeraldduo has built a doomsday bunker. Roadtrip shenanigans and apocalypse hijinks ensue. 

This Is Not an Act of Spite (Alex_Wants_To_Die, ellabellachicketychella) - Another Tommy-centric hero AU, but a little different - I love the characterizations and how they all interact! It’s not finished yet (still quite a ways to go) but I’m here until it’s done!

the stars and their children (bonesandthebees) - if you can’t tell, I love bee’s writing... basically, space royalty AU where Wilbur and Tommy get pretty much exiled off their planet and have to negotiate with the leaders of the Antarctic Empire for protection (which is not gonna be easy). Also not complete yet but I devour each chapter as it comes hehehe (also I’m one of bee’s named anons, she just doesn’t know, or which one heheee)

Tour En L’Air (CalistaWon) - hands-down, best short fic I’ve ever read. Tubbo is secretly a ballet dancer and by accident lets Techno know. Through a chain of events, Tubbo ends up telling all the others, then streaming teaching some of them some ballet. As a dancer this one made me so happy inside, I love fics like this!

I don’t know about any of the other authors but bee has a tumblr! @bonesandthebees! if you read these fics or any of hers, give her some love! 

That’s all I got for now, enjoy the rest of your day/night my lovelies :D

edit: OH MY PRIME EMIARTSE HAS A TUMBLR TOO AND SAW AND REBLOGGED THIS?! SO SORRY I DIDN’T KNOW THAT - I WOULD HAVE MENTIONED YOU!!

[college-quotes]

Student 1, talking about a book: Yeah so the kid gets his eyes pecked out by crows when he's a baby.

Student 2: That's out of pocket.

Student 1: I think it's out of socket, actually.

Student 2: Never speak to me again.

[onebluebookworm]

April Book Club Picks

- Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire: What happens to the children who visit magical worlds, only to be unceremoniously plunked back into reality when the magic is over? With any luck, they’ll attend Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children, learning how to readjust to everyday life, and maybe open up their doors again. A slim, fun novel full of interesting characters and concepts that even a fantasy cynic like me enjoys. 

- They Called Us Enemy by George Takei and Harmony Becker: A powerful graphic novel about Takei’s life, focusing mostly on his childhood in the Japanese-American internment camps during WWII, and dealing with that trauma as he grew. 

- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins: My doorstopper selection of the month. Widely considered the first sensation novel and responsible for redefining and refining the mystery novel as we know it now. It is literally impossible for me to give you a synopsis that won’t take up most of this post because so much stuff happens here and it’s all great. 

- The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier: A chilling and spooky middle grade book about two Irish orphans finding work at a crumbling English manor, and discovering the dark and potentially fatal secrets lurking in its musty, leaf-strewn halls. 

- My Friend Dahmer by Derf Beckderf: An honest and honestly kind of sad graphic novel memoir of a man who attended school with, and was almost sorta friends with, Jeffery Dahmer. Painstakingly researched and full of insight and regret, it offers an in-depth look into the life and times of a budding serial killer without glorifying or woobiefying him.