Inner World

The Sight

by David Clement-Davies

From Publishers Weekly
As in his Fire Bringer, Clement-Davies's new fantasy novel features talking animals (Vargs, or wolves, instead of deer), a militant pack with a power-hungry leader, a prophecy involving a newborn that proves gifted (a white wolf who has the Sight, which can be used to see the future, heal and even control others) and the author creates imaginative mythologies (here drawing on everything from Christianity to Little Red Riding Hood). Also, both prophecies speak of a marked one (this time it turns out to be a stolen human child) and the revelation of a secret. But readers may find the creative plotting here even more compelling than in the author's first novel and the cryptic prophecy's meaning will keep them guessing. Larka, a white wolf, and her family are hunted, initially by Morgra, who strives to become the powerful Man Varg (also foretold in the prophecy); a rebel pack also hunts them (Slavka, its leader, seeks to destroy all that claim to have the Sight). After Larka loses members of her pack, she embarks on a solo journey and finds teachers who help her master the Sight, using it to heal the "human cub" and to prepare to face Morgra. Despite sophisticated language and some complex concepts, such as the origins of evil, the author's clever plot twists (such as which wolf eventually claims to be Wolfbane) make the thick novel well worth the commitment. Strong female characters also provide a refreshing change to the often male-dominated science-fiction/fantasy field.

The Hollow Kingdom

by Clare B. Dunkle

From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-Kate and her younger sister, Emily, are orphans, sent to live with great aunts at remote and mysterious Hallow Hill. Hugh Roberts, their guardian, is a surly and somewhat sinister cousin. One afternoon, the girls come upon some strange people and an abnormally huge cat in a clearing. One of these folk, Marak, is a goblin king. He needs Kate to be his human bride, for goblins may not marry their own kind. When Emily disappears, Kate assumes that he is responsible and agrees to marry him in exchange for her sister's freedom. Once in the goblins' vast underground kingdom, Kate is sure she will die from not being able to see the stars. But she does marry Marak and assumes her life as a queen. At this point the plot takes an unexpected turn. A sorcerer attacks Marak, and Kate discovers some surprising things about herself and her relationship with her husband. This is an interesting fantasy world with well-realized characters. Hugh Roberts is a true villain and Kate is a feisty heroine. Marak is frequently described as an ugly monster, and he definitely comes across as something other than human. However, he has a good nature and a sense of humor as well as a great love for his chosen wife. The goblin kingdom itself is beautifully described, as are the strange creatures that inhabit it. The story moves a bit slowly in places, but overall it should attract readers who like magic and adventure. Kate is surely a heroine to be reckoned with, and girls will relate to her predicament.

Dark Sister

by Graham Joyce

From Library Journal
When Maggie discovers a witch's diary and herbal compendium hidden in the old fireplace of her house, she becomes the recipient of occult knowledge that leads her to a place of decision and gives her the power to harm or heal the family she loves. The author of The Tooth Fairy tells his eerie tale in language devoid of frills and sensationalism, creating suspense and dread within the normality of everyday life.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Commemorative Pop-up

by L. Frank Baum, Robert Sabuda

Amazon.com
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the publication of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, master paper engineer Robert Sabuda has created a pop-up version of Dorothy's adventures in Oz that fans will find hard to resist. Modeling his depictions of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the rest after W. W. Denslow's original art, Sabuda adds a third dimension that would have rocked Denslow's--and Baum's--world. A rapidly spinning cyclone actually casts a breeze over the startled reader's face. Glorious red poppies wave seductively in a field. And the Emerald City positively glitters with green, especially when young readers try on the special tinted "Spectacles for You" provided in a pocket on the page. The abridged text, provided in minibooklets set onto each page, covers enough basics for the Oz novice, but we recommend a read-aloud of the original, as well, for all the glory and detail of Baum's fantastic tale. Sabuda's homage to the classic is truly spectacular; even purists will gasp in delight at the sight of the humbug wizard floating away in his shiny green, gold, and blue hot-air balloon. This great introduction to the story of Oz doubles as a fun collector's item.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

by Haruki Murakami

Amazon.com
Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.

Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.

If it were possible to isolate one theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. --Simon Leake --

The Atlantic Monthly, Phoebe-Lou Adams
Mr. Murakami's long and devious novel opens in a resolutely mundane way, with the narrator cooking spaghetti. The significant items in the ensuing phantasmagoria soon appear, however--a dry well, a house abandoned because of a series of tragedies, a so-called alley blocked at both ends, the statue of a bird looking sadly unable to fly, and the unidentified wind-up bird that creaks invisibly in a nearby tree. "Wind-up" can mean either an end or a preparation for action. Whether his target is Japan or the world, Mr. Murakami's work sums up a bad century and envisions an uncertain future. His protagonist is a harmless fellow who merely wants to recover his cat and his wife. The troubles, real and delusional, that he encounters can be seen as extravagant metaphors for every ill from personal isolation to mass murder. The novel is a deliberately confusing, illogical image of a confusing, illogical world. It is not easy reading, but it is never less than absorbing.

Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

Amazon.com
Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."

An award winner in Canada (and winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize), Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to be a breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book. --Brad Thomas Parsons --

O Caledonia

by Elspeth Barker

From Publishers Weekly
In this ebulliently imaginative cross beween bildungsroman and fable, Barker makes magic with both her language and her subject. Janet, the protagonist, is born in Edinburgh during WW II. Her inattentive, eccentric parents, after a course of alternately baiting and tolerating their daughter, finally leave her to her own devices--serious mischief, books and the isolation of a misunderstood intellectual adolescent--while they increase their fold by four more offspring. By then the family has moved to a sprawling old castle in the lonely north of Scotland called Auchnasaugh ("the field of sighing"). Darker intimations of mortality mix with childhood escapades as Barker's quick, urbane narration and high-flown, wicked humor convey as well the passions and pain of her protagonist. The fate awaiting Janet in the final pages, though clearly foretold in the preface, comes with a shock, as this entrancing first novel, winner of Britain's David Higham Prize, casts a spell that will make readers willingly forget what they know.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This touching coming-of-age story takes as its heroine Janet, one of five children growing up after World War II in a gloomy, underheated castle in northern Scotland. As a headstrong, bookish young girl, she goes to comical lengths to rid herself of her irksome younger sisters--who, fortunately, come to no harm. Preferring animals to humans, Janet manages to alienate her family and, through an ungainly adolescence, remains aloof and friendless. Her mother's many schemes to cultivate Janet's femininity and to bring her out socially all meet with failure as the girl continues to favor birds over beaux. Barker, the wife of English poet George Barker, has written a poignant first novel whose quirky but appealing heroine meets an untimely fate.

Stargirl

by Jerry Spinelli

Amazon.com
"She was homeschooling gone amok." "She was an alien." "Her parents were circus acrobats." These are only a few of the theories concocted to explain Stargirl Caraway, a new 10th grader at Arizona's Mica Area High School who wears pioneer dresses and kimonos to school, strums a ukulele in the cafeteria, laughs when there are no jokes, and dances when there is no music. The whole school, not exactly a "hotbed of nonconformity," is stunned by her, including our 16-year-old narrator Leo Borlock: "She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl."

In time, incredulity gives way to out-and-out adoration as the student body finds itself helpless to resist Stargirl's wide-eyed charm, pure-spirited friendliness, and penchant for celebrating the achievements of others. In the ultimate high school symbol of acceptance, she is even recruited as a cheerleader. Popularity, of course, is a fragile and fleeting state, and bit by bit, Mica sours on their new idol. Why is Stargirl showing up at the funerals of strangers? Worse, why does she cheer for the opposing basketball teams? The growing hostility comes to a head when she is verbally flogged by resentful students on Leo's televised Hot Seat show in an episode that is too terrible to air. While the playful, chin-held-high Stargirl seems impervious to the shunning that ensues, Leo, who is in the throes of first love (and therefore scornfully deemed "Starboy"), is not made of such strong stuff: "I became angry. I resented having to choose. I refused to choose. I imagined my life without her and without them, and I didn't like it either way."

Jerry Spinelli, author of Newbery Medalist Maniac Magee, Newbery Honor Book Wringer, and many other excellent books for teens, elegantly and accurately captures the collective, not-always-pretty emotions of a high school microcosm in which individuality is pitted against conformity. Spinelli's Stargirl is a supernatural teen character--absolutely egoless, altruistic, in touch with life's primitive rhythms, meditative, untouched by popular culture, and supremely self-confident. It is the sensitive Leo whom readers will relate to as he grapples with who she is, who he is, who they are together as Stargirl and Starboy, and indeed, what it means to be a human being on a planet that is rich with wonders. (Ages 10 to 14) --Karin Snelson --

Watership Down

by Richard Adams

Book Description
A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Richard Adams's Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures (rabbits) on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.

Affinity

by Sarah Waters

Book Description
An upper-class woman, recovering from a suicide attempt, visits the women's ward of Millbank prison as part of her rehabilitation. There she meets Selina, an enigmatic spiritualist-and becomes drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina's freedom, and her own.

"Unfolds sinuously and ominously...a powerful plot-twister. The book is multidimensional: a naturalistic look at Victorian society; a truly suspenseful tale of terror; and a piece of elegant, thinly veiled erotica." (USA Today)

"Gothic tale, psychological study, puzzle narrative-Sarah Waters' second novel is all of these wrapped into one, served up to superbly suspenseful and hypnotic effect." (The Seattle Times)

Waking Dream

by Rhiannon Lassiter

Synopsis
When Bethany's father dies she feels her life is over. Forced to spend the summer with her awful cousin Poppy, she escapes into her daydreams instead. Poppy is always the centre of attention. Pretty and popular, she uses black magic to keep it that way. But secretly she'd like to leave it all behind. When Rivalaun, a beautiful, strange boy, arrives out of nowhere to claim he's their cousin, all three start to doubt that what they've been told about themselves is true. Unable to resist the chance to find out who they are, they follow the truth that calls from their dreams. But, as sleep closes in, can they be sure they will wake again?

In an astonishingly dark and powerful story, magic and reality interweave to produce a heart-stopping, sometimes terrifying glimpse of another world - is it death, or dream? On a table lie three books, each with a name on the front: Bethany, Poppy and Rivalaun. Bethany's father has just died and she feels abandoned by her mother, who has sent her to spend the summer with her awful cousin Poppy. Poppy is spoiled, loved and thinks she's a witch. Rivalaun says he has travelled from another world to be there - and that only he knows what the three books mean. The three have little in common... until they sleep when, in their dreams, they suddenly seem connected. But their dreams tell them something else as well - that everything they have known about themselves is a lie. Which should they believe - their lives or their waking dreams...?

The Spook's Apprentice or The Revenge of the Witch

by Joseph Delaney

Book Description

Capturing witches
Binding boggarts
Driving away ghosts

For years, Old Gregory has been the Spook for the county, ridding the local villages of evil. Now his time is coming to an end. But who will take over for him? Twenty-nine apprentices have tried–some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive.

Only Thomas Ward is left. He's the last hope; the last apprentice.

Can Thomas succeed? Will he learn the difference between a benign witch and a malevolent one? Does the Spook's warning against girls with pointy shoes include Alice? And what will happen if Thomas accidentally frees Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the county ... ?

In The Land of Winter

by Richard Grant

From Library Journal
This delightful modern fairy tale blends myth and magic with intolerance and hysteria to deliver the message: don't mess with a witch. Single mom and do-it-yourself witch Pippa Rede works in a trendy shop, lives with her disapproving great-aunt, and nurtures her beloved nine-year-old daughter, Winterbelle. When voices in the village raise cries about ritualized abuse (escalated to QROST, quasi-ritualized occultic sexual traumatization), Pippa loses first Winterbelle (to the authorities), then her job and home. With a small band of supporters?a civil libertarian lawyer, a witch friend, an elfin boy, a representative from Witches Against Negativity and Discrimination, an elderly woman, and a gentleman who goes on duty two weeks a year as a werewolf?Pippa prevails, calling on her inner resources and beliefs and emerging a stronger witch and woman than ever. Grant (Tex and Molly in the Afterlife, LJ 9/15/96) has a wonderful, witty feminist fable here, suffused with the supernatural yet grounded in morality. Highly recommended.?

The Abhorsen Trilogy

by Garth Nix

From Booklist
The mage Abhorsen is an "uncommon necromancer," who, rather than raising the dead like others of the art, lays the dead back to rest or binds those that will not rest. Sabriel, his daughter, has been sent for her safety to boarding school outside the Old Kingdom, where she is in her last year when she receives her father's sword and necromancy tools, which means that Abhorsen is either dead or trapped in the realm of Death. Determined to find her father, Sabriel enters the Old Kingdom, which is under attack from the minions of Kerrigor, an evil being who once was human. There, with the aid of Mogget, a Free Magic elemental who is bound in feline form to be the servant of Abhorsen, and Touchstone, a young man whose past harbors a terrible secret, Sabriel goes up against Dead spirits, Shadow Hands, gore crows, and the like, in a desperate quest to find her father's body and fetch his spirit back from Death. Nix has created an ingenious, icy world in the throes of chaos as Kerrigor works to destroy the Charter that binds all things for the good of the land and its inhabitants. The action charges along at a gallop, imbued with an encompassing sense of looming disaster. Sabriel, who entered the Old Kingdom lacking much of the knowledge she needs, proves to be a stalwart heroine, who, in the end, finds and accepts her destiny. A page-turner for sure, this intricate tale compares favorably with Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass and will surely appeal to the same audience. Sally Estes --

The Interpretation of Fairy Tales

by Marie Louise Von Franz

Book Description
Of the various types of mythological literature, fairy tales are the simplest and purest expressions of the collective unconscious and thus offer the clearest understanding of the basic patterns of the human psyche. Every people or nation has its own way of experiencing this psychic reality, and so a study of the world's fairy tales yields a wealth of insights into the archetypal experiences of humankind. Perhaps the foremost authority on the psychological interpretation of fairy tales is Marie-Louise von Franz. In this book—originally published as An Introduction to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales —she describes the steps involved in analyzing and illustrates them with a variety of European tales, from "Beauty and the Beast" to "The Robber Bridegroom." Dr. von Franz begins with a history of the study of fairy tales and the various theories of interpretation. By way of illustration she presents a detailed examination of a simple Grimm's tale, "The Three Feathers," followed by a comprehensive discussion of motifs related to Jung's concept of the shadow, the anima, and the animus. This revised edition has been corrected and updated by the author.

About the Author
Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) was the foremost student of C. G. Jung, with whom she worked closely from 1934 until his death in 1961. A founder of the C. G. Jung Institute of Zurich, she published widely on subjects including alchemy, dreams, fairy tales, personality types, and psychotherapy.

The Buried Soul

by Timothy Taylor

From Booklist
Taylor's entertaining, if grisly, interpretative history turns the raw gleanings of two centuries of archaeology on their head. Referencing his own experience, as well as others' documented discoveries, he expounds on the pervasiveness of such practices as funerary cannibalism, vampirism, and human sacrifice, and he poses the question, Which came first, the notion of the soul or the ceremonial burial of remains? His conclusions, as he acknowledges, may be somewhat unsettling. Caches of bones, pottery shards, and tools reveal only the most basic clues, and the majority of archaeologists, filtering those clues through their modern "visceral insulation" from things pertaining to death, are, by Taylor's lights, unable to acknowledge how prevalent cannibalism and ritual sacrifice were and are. Furthermore, while widespread popular thought maintains that humans acquired belief in the soul first and then developed ritual burial, Taylor considers the reverse to be more accurate: the immortal soul was invented as a result of the first burial ceremonies. Taylor demonstrates, albeit in highly scholarly style, the value of postulating well-developed, opposing points of view. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
'I never would have thought that archaeology would be so interesting, so relevant to how we think today . . . and so disturbing. In The Buried Soul, Timothy Taylor tells a provocative and often grisly tale. This is a fascinating book, grippingly written, of considerable scope and ambition.' -Paul Bloom, professor of psychology, Yale University

In The Forest of Serre

by Patricia A. McKillip

Book Description
In the tales of World Fantasy Award-winning author Patricia McKillip, nothing is ever as it seems. A mirror is never just a mirror; a forest is never just a forest. Here, it is a place where a witch can hide in her house of bones and a prince can bargain with his heart...where good and evil entwine and wear each others' faces... and where a bird with feathers of fire can quench the fiercest longing...

The Earthsea Quartet

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Often compared to Tolkien's Middle-earth or Lewis's Narnia, Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea is a stunning fantasy world that grabs quickly at our hearts, pulling us deeply into its imaginary realms. Four books (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, and Tehanu) tell the whole Earthsea cycle--a tale about a reckless, awkward boy named Sparrowhawk who becomes a wizard's apprentice after the wizard reveals Sparrowhawk's true name. The boy comes to realize that his fate may be far more important than he ever dreamed possible. Le Guin challenges her readers to think about the power of language, how in the act of naming the world around us we actually create that world. Teens, especially, will be inspired by the way Le Guin allows her characters to evolve and grow into their own powers.

In this first book, A Wizard of Earthsea readers will witness Sparrowhawk's moving rite of passage--when he discovers his true name and becomes a young man. Great challenges await Sparrowhawk, including an almost deadly battle with a sinister creature, a monster that may be his own shadow. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

We Borrow the Earth

by Patrick Jasper Lee

Amazon.co.uk Review
The gypsies, or Romanies, have long been known for their esoteric spirituality, even if it's only Gypsy Rose Lee reading tarot cards at seaside fairs. Patrick Jasper Lee trained himself from childhood to be a Chovihano, a Gypsy shaman or healer. This fascinating book is an account of how he followed that path, what he has learnt and how it is relevant to all of us today. The title comes from the gypsy belief that we cannot own the Earth or what it produces; we can only borrow it. According to Lee, "the words 'own' and 'possession' [have] no equivalent in the Romani Gypsy language".

Shamanism involves journeys to the Other world, journeys of imagination and visualisation. The book contains many examples of these, which read like traditional fairy stories--which is significant because gypsies are fond of storytelling, and have always had a close link with nature, especially woodland and all that is associated with it. Lee writes unselfconsciously of his conversations with trees and his meetings with fairies--the Biti Foki or Small Folk.

This is a very personal story; Lee tells of his great-grandfather Jack Lee, also a Chovihano, who brought a curse on the family by moving into a house; and of his Puri Dai (old mother) or grandmother, who was a formidable force in his clan, and who taught him much of what he knows about the deeper side of gypsy beliefs. Now, as the old family ties have broken down, he believes he may be the only Chovihano left in Britain, possibly even in Western Europe. As he shares his story with gaujo, non-gypsies, we can only be saddened at the fading of this unique culture. --David V Barrett

Women Who Run With The Wolves

by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Book Description
UPDATED, WITH NEW MATERIAL BY THE AUTHOR"WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES isn't just another book. It is a gift of profound insight, wisdom, and love. An oracle from one who knows."--Alice WalkerWithin every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women. But she is an endangered species. In WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES, Dr. Estés unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, and stories, many from her own family, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine. Dr. Estés has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul."This volume reminds us that we are nature for all our sophistication, that we are still wild, and the recovery of that vitality will itself set us right in the world."--Thomas Moore Author of Care of the Soul"I am grateful to WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES and to Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. The work shows the reader how glorious it is to be daring, to be caring, and to be women. Everyone who can read should read this book."--Maya Angelou"An inspiring book, the 'vitamins for the soul' [for] women who are cut off from their intuitive nature."--San Francisco Chronicle"Stands out from the pack . . . A joy and sparkle in [the] prose . . . This book will become a bible for women interested in doing deep work. . . . It is a road map of all the pitfalls, those familiar and those horrifically unexpected, that a woman encounters on the way back to her instinctual self. Wolves . . . is a gift."--Los Angeles Times"A mesmerizing voice . . . Dramatic storytelling she learned at the knees of her [immigrant] aunts."--Newsweek