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This fantastic tale aimed at 8 - 12-year old readers will resonate with strains of Alice in Wonderland and Coraline. The book is filled with magic, enchantment, things hardly to be believed and other elements of the surreal.
At the same time, it teaches the importance of loyalty, true belief, and the inexorable and enduring quality of love.
Oliver's tale begins thus:
One night when Liza went to bed, Patrick was her chubby, stubby, candy-grubbing and pancake-loving younger brother, who irritated and amused her both, and the next morning, when she woke up, he was not.
That beautiful opening line conveys much in its usage of rhyme (an element the author revisit often); the compound sentence challenging young readers; and the sense of irony and humor.
Liza is forced to confront the stygian underground to rescue her little brother. She must defeat tree snakes, the Court of Stones, shape-shifting creatures and much more in order to reach the spindler's nest.
The Spindlers is a wondrous story deftly handled by this veteran author with five previous books to her credit.
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Steven Rosen/2012 for curled
up with a good kid's book |
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For grown-up fiction, nonfiction and speculative fiction book reviews,
visit our sister site Curled Up With a Good Book (www.curledup.com)
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The Spindlers