Parenthetical.net

What I didn’t want to announce when I read the first Bartimaeus (because it was still in the works) was that I read it in preparation for a school visit from its author! He was here yesterday, signing loads of books and talking to my middle schoolers about the writing process.
He read [...]

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Quickie backlog Cybils review:
Beautifully detailed line drawings and a wordless story featuring young Ivy “and her gifted Korgi cub, Sprout.” The Characters page in the back describes Korgis as “loyal, fox-like creatures with big ears and large smiles.” Do they look an awful lot like Welsh corgis? Gosh, they do! Does [...]

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Nathaniel is a magician’s apprentice in modern London. In his England, magicians control everything: the Prime Minister is the most powerful, and the rest of the government is made up of other magicians, all constantly jockeying for power and full of contempt for “commoners” (ie., everyone else). What the commoners don’t know is [...]

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Awhile ago I reviewed Inkheart, the first in this trilogy. I’ve finally finished Inkspell and Inkdeath, and after all the poetic waxing I did about Inkheart, my ultimate conclusion is… don’t bother.
Funke introduces way too many characters, throws their balls into the air (…enjoy that image!), and then forgets they’re up there. [...]

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Boyfriend E, video game fan extraordinaire, caught sight of this lying on my coffee table and cracked up. He played the original game as a kid, of course (if someone wants to fix that Wikipedia page, by the way, it could apparently use some fixing), and expected from the cover that this would be [...]

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