TBR Friday and a reminder for Fi50 October…

Fiction in 50 for October kicks off on Monday with a democratic prompt:

with-great-comes-great

You fill in the blank!

To participate, just create a piece of fiction or poetry in fewer than 51 words and then add your link to the comments of my post on Monday. For more information, just click on that snazzy typewriter at the top of this post.

TBR Friday

In a herculean effort that involved reading really thin books, I have managed to knock over THREE tomes for the Mount TBR Challenge this month – hooray!

Let’s get cracking then. First up was Oddfellow’s Orphanage by Emily Winfield Martin. Here’s the blurb from Goodreads:

What do an onion-headed boy, a child-sized hedgehog, and a tattooed girl have in common? They are all orphans at Oddfellow’s Orphanage! This unusual and charming chapter book tells an episodic story that follows a new orphan, Delia, as she discovers the delights of her new home. From classes in Cryptozoology and Fairy Tale Studies to trips to the circus, from Annual Hair Cutting Day to a sea monster-sighting field trip, things at Oddfellows are anything but ordinary . . . except when it comes to friendships. And in that, Oddfellows is like any other school where children discover what they mean to each other while learning how big the world really is.

Ten Second Synopsis:
Delia arrives at Oddfellow’s Orphanage only to discover an array of quirky and whimsical inhabitants. Gentle adventures ensue.

Time on the TBR Shelf:

Two years and six months. I ordered it in April 2014.

Acquired:

Purchased from the BD.

Reason I haven’t read it yet:

I bought it because the cover was so beautiful, but then I read some critical reviews on Goodreads about it, so I left it languishing, afraid it would be terrible.

Best Bits:

It’s short, gentle, episodic and whimsical. Nothing particularly bad happens and overall this felt like a hipsterish offering, but with good intentions.
Each chapter introduces a new cheerful adventure that is unconnected (for the most part) to the others, so the book can be read one chapter at a time over a long period. This is how I approached it.
The black and white pencil illustrations are gorgeous and fill out the characters a bit.

Less Impressive Bits:

There’s no connected plot, just a collection of stories about the people who live in the orphanage, so there is no particular motivation to finish the book if you’re bored.

On reflection, was this worth buying?

Nope.

Where to now for this tome?

Give away or sell at a suitcase rummage.

Next up, I read the first two books from Bruce Coville’s The Magic Shop series, starting with The Monster’s Ring. Here’s the blurb from Goodreads:

Twist it once, you’re horned and haired;
Twist it twice and fangs are bared;
Twist it thrice? No one has dared!

Russell is sure that the ring he gets at Mr. Elives’ shop is just a silly magic trick, but he follows the instructions and twists the ring twice anyway–and becomes a monster!

Ten Second Synopsis:
Russell has a problem with a bully at school. When he unexpectedly comes across a magic shop after getting lost, he finds that the solution to his problems might be right within his grasp.

Time on the TBR Shelf:

One year and eleven months. I ordered it in November 2014.

Acquired:

Purchased from the BD.

Reason I haven’t read it yet:

Laziness.

Best Bits:

This is a quick read, in which very few words are wasted on filler. It really is the kind of middle grade book you can knock over in a night or two, which is what the author intended according to the author’s note that is included with this edition.
The magic shop is appropriately creepy and mysterious – exactly the kind of magical establishment that a middle-grade aged kid would love to stumble across.
The ending is a little unexpected and quite funny.

Less Impressive Bits:

This is a re-issue of the original book, so the boy on the cover looks absolutely nothing like the boy in the interior illustrations.
The plot is quite predictable for the most part, and there are a few moments when the solution to Russell’s predicament is bleedingly obvious – use the ring! – but for some reason he takes a while to figure that out.

On reflection, was this worth buying?

I probably could have borrowed it for the library.

Where to now for this tome?

Give away to someone of the intended age group.

Finally, I finished the second book in Bruce Coville’s Magic Shop series, Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. Here’s the blurb from Goodreads:

Sixth-grader Jeremy Thatcher discovers a strange magic shop he has never seen before. He enters, and his life is changed forever. Buying what he thinks is a marble, he discovers he has really purchased a dragon’s egg.

Ten Second Synopsis:
Jeremy Hatcher is a fantastic artist but his art teacher hates how he only draws imaginary things. When Jeremy stumbles across a magic shop, he discovers that dragons may exist outside his imagination.

Time on the TBR Shelf:

Six months to a year. I picked it up sometime in 2015.

Acquired:

Bought at a second hand book sale because I knew I had The Monster’s Ring already on the shelf.

Reason I haven’t read it yet:

I hadn’t read the first in the series, so I was waiting until I had knocked that one over.

Best Bits:

This book is a little heftier than the first in the series and the characters were more fleshed out and felt more genuine.
There’s quite a bit of situational humour in this one, as well as the predicament of Jeremy having an unwanted love interest.
The problems that Jeremy has to face were pitched at exactly the right level for the middle grade audience, with friendships, forgiveness and facing criticism and disappointment some of the themes appearing in addition to the fantasy elements.
The scene in which Jeremy finds the magic shop follows the same scene from book one almost word for word, which I thought was a pretty cool way to link two stories in a series that are otherwise completely separate.

Less Impressive Bits:

The adult characters aren’t as authentic-feeling as the child characters.

On reflection, was this worth buying?

I probably could have borrowed it for the library.

Where to now for this tome?

Give away to someone of the intended age group.

Count that as three more chinks off the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted by My Reader’s Block and I have now achieved Level 1 of the challenge: Pike’s Peak, or twelve books!