A Wizard of Earthsea

A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. LeGuin
Reviewed by Mrs. Jones

I love the Harry Potter books.  I've often read that the Harry Potter books are very good, but not very original; that they pull elements from lots of other good books.  They borrow from the British tradition of boarding-school books, from mythology, and also from an old kids' fantasy novel called A Wizard of Earthsea, which is also about a boy wizard at wizard school.

Now I've finally read A Wizard of Earthsea, and I don't think it's very much like Harry Potter at all.  Yes, they both have young wizards who go to wizarding school, but that's the end of the similarity.  In LeGuin's novel, the young wizard is Ged, who shows magic talent as a boy, and is sent away to be an apprentice wizard.  In his ignorance, he uses his magic to unleash something very big and very dangerous, and then goes to the great wizard academy to learn to control his power.  He learns, and grows, and begins to come of age, but through everything, the dark power he awoke as a boy is following him.  This book is a lot more serious than Harry, slower paced, and with more emphasis on beautiful language.  Also, Ged doesn't actually spend that much of the book at wizarding school

One thing A Wizard of Earthsea does have in common with the Harry Potter series is that they're both coming-of-age stories, showing how a child grows into a man.  I loved the way that Ged isn't a perfect child.  He makes big mistakes and wrong decisions, and he has to live with the consequences of his decisions, even when he has learned better.

I also loved the emphasis on the power of language in this novel.  The magic system is based on the power of words.  Wizards speak an ancient language in which it is impossible to lie, and knowing the true name of a person or thing gives you a tremendous amount of power - therefore, a great deal of the work of being a wizard involves trying to discover the real name and nature of whatever one wants to control.  The language of the novel was truly extraordinary.  I've often been irritated at the phony lyricism of some fantasy novels.  I can't read too many sentences of "Forsooth, thou must go unto yon castle, for a geas is laid upon thee" before I get annoyed and quit reading.  But LeGuin uses language that is beautiful, lyrical, and old-fashioned, while still being perfectly readable.  I found myself pausing to re-read an especially beautiful sentence or paragraph more than once.

I loved reading A Wizard of Earthsea, and I can't believe I'm only now reading it for the first time, because I would have loved it as a teenager.  It's wise and beautiful and true, and I hope the second book in the series is as good as the first, because I already have it on hold at the library.

Welcome

Welcome to Race Street Station!  Here are the formal guidelines for submitting writing to this blog.                                          
I'm Heather Jones, and I'm a teacher at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  The posts on this blog reflect my own opinions, and the opinions of my students, and are not the official opinions of the School for Creative and Performing Arts.  This blog is not an official publication of SCPA.

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Purpose

Race Street Station's purpose is to inform our readers about middle grades books they might enjoy and about what it's like to be a young artist in Cincinnati, while entertaining our readers.

Audience

Our audience is 11-15 year olds who read for pleasure, and their parents and teachers.  

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Book reviews should be 250-500 words long.

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We publish positive book reviews, positive opinions, good advice, and personal stories about learning, growing, and making good choices.

We do not publish negative book reviews or negative opinions, bad advice, or personal stories that would be likely to hurt or seriously embarrass a person.

We review books that are specifically written for middle-grades readers, and also books that are written for teen or adult readers, but that middle-grades readers are likely to enjoy.  Please do not submit reviews for teen or adult books that include scenes of explicit sex or violence.    

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Students are invited, but not required, to submit their writing to be published on Race Street Station.  Not all submissions will be published; I will select the writing that I think best meets the needs of the blog.  I am looking for posts that are informative and entertaining, that are written with excellent grammar and a strong sense of voice, and that bring something to our readers that isn't already on the blog.

I will edit posts for spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but submissions with more than a few errors will not be accepted for publication.  I am available during private tutoring sessions to help you polish the mechanics of your writing before you submit it; please schedule an appointment with me.

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Ratpunzel

Ratpunzel
by Ursula Vernon
Reviewed by Mrs. Jones

Ratpunzel is number three in Vernon's "Hamster Princess" series.  I love Ursula Vernon - seriously - and I will read and enjoy anything she writes, even chapter books intended for second-to-fifth graders.

Besides, the "Hamster Princess" books are adorable.

Harriet Hamsterbone is a princess.  She's brave, and intrepid, and would rather go on an adventure than stay home learning how to drink tea.  She's also very fond of fractions.  All of her adventures involve Harriet adventuring her way into a classic fairy tale, and then resolving it in her own straightforward and funny way.

In this volume, Harriet meets Ratpunzel, a rat princess with an unusually long tail, who is trapped in a tower by Mother Gothel.  Ratpunzel also loves to cook, but since she has lived in a tower for her entire life, learning to cook only from cookbooks, her cooking is a little... strange.  Unless you like smoked salmon on your birthday cake, in which case, it isn't strange at all.

I like these books because they're funny, and cute, and the artwork is adorable - Vernon is the illustrator as well as the author.  I love that Harriet is always very practical, looking for simple, straightforward solutions to very silly problems.  And the little details are fantastic - like the way that the Kingdom of Sunshine is so relentlessly cheerful that Harriet gets annoyed by it, and finds it a relief to enter the Forest of Misery.

Technically, these books are meant for younger readers than the tweens this blog is targeted for.  But they're so cute and so entertaining that I think a tween reader looking for something fast, easy, and fun might still enjoy them.  I definitely do.

Just Listen

Just Listen

by Sarah Dessen


Once there was a family - father, mother, and three sisters.  All three sisters were beautiful, each in her own way.  And all of them were professional models.  From the outside, their lives would have seemed perfect.  They weren't.

Can I just start by saying that this is not at all the kind of thing I normally read?  I keep away from romance novels like they were contaminated with the Cheese Touch, in general, and am more likely to read about dragons, witches, or daring space adventures.  But one of my students has been reading so much Sarah Dessen this year, and enjoying it so much, that I had to give it a try.

And do you know what?  I liked it.  A lot more than I expected to like it.

Just Listen was a page-turner.  Every time my interest in the three beautiful sisters started to falter, a new question was introduced that made me feel that I had to read just a little further, to find out its answer.  Why won't anyone deal with Whitney's obvious eating disorder?  Does the mother's mental health depend on her daughters' modeling, and will she fall apart if they quit?  What really happened the night Annabel and Sophie's friendship fell apart?  Each question led to another, until I found myself at the final page, satisfied with all of their answers, sincerely moved by how far all three girls had come.

The character I really liked was Owen.  I don't think I'll be giving anything away to say that he's Annabel's love interest - anyone who has ever read a romance is going to see that coming from his first appearance in the book. Owen is intensely dedicated to weird music, total honesty, and the principles of anger management, and I loved his intensity.  He was exactly the kind of strange, passionate kid I would have been friends with in high school, and I thought he was just wonderful.

Will I be looking for more Sarah Dessen?  Maybe not.  I still would rather read about thrilling space adventures than about the pressures of being a beautiful teenage girl.  But I'll be a lot more open to giving her work a chance, and I think that if you do like romances, you might love this.