Book Review: The Lost Prince

When I first bought my kindle, I wanted some books on it, but I didn’t want to pay for them (since I had just spent a bunch on the kindle). I was going through the free book list on kindle, and I saw some books by one of my favorite childhood authors, Frances Hodgson Burnett. Of course, I grabbed The Secret Garden, just to have it, but I also downloaded a book of hers that I had not yet read, The Lost Prince. (It’s still available for free on kindle, by the way.)

The main character, Marco, is a boy (early teens) who lives with his father in a poor area of London. The pair is in exile from their home country, Samavia, which is in political turmoil. Marco’s father, Stefan, has raised him to be a patriot, even though Marco has never been to Samavia. Marco meets and befriends a crippled boy known only as “The Rat.” Together, the two boys imagine fighting for Samavia and concoct intricate plots involving restoring The Lost Prince, a mythical figure who is the rightful heir to the throne of Samavia.

By now you have probably guessed the “big surprise” of the book. Nonetheless, I’ll continue the review. It is impossible for me to review this book other than with reference to Burnett’s other, better-known books that I loved as a child: The Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and A Little Princess. The common theme of these books is a child in wretched circumstances who, by the end of the book, is in a situation better than could have ever been imagined by anyone anywhere. This book follows that same pattern. The difference is first that there is no suspense whatever. Second, the children in her more popular books (at least the girls) grow through their difficulties. Marco is perfect throughout the book, so he isn’t very interesting. The Rat is much more interesting, but he is never allowed to be more than a supporting character.

The other major flaw in the book is the intrusion of some strange religious beliefs. Burnett herself was a well-known religious seeker, especially after the death of her oldest son. She was, at different times, a Christian Scientist and a spiritualist. The religion that crops up in this book wasn’t recognizable to me, but it had to do with a spiritual source of power known as “The One” and implied (perhaps Buddhist?) doctrines of peace, fearlessness, and destiny. There are sections of the book that go into these beliefs in an almost sermon-like way—not quite as bad as Ayn Rand, but nearly so.

In spite of the problems I’ve mentioned, I found myself caring what happened to the boys and looking forward to the revelation of the “secret” which every reader knows from the first few pages (or before, if you have read this review). The real payoff of Burnett’s books is the ending, where “happy” would be a severe understatement, and this book didn’t disappoint. I was reading the final few chapters while on the elliptical, and in spite of my exertion, I actually found myself with chills at one point. Any book that can give me chills must have something to recommend it! Bottom line: Don’t read this book until you have read her better books that I mentioned earlier. If you still haven’t got enough Burnett, this one is fine. It would be fine for kids, as long as you don’t mind your kids praying to The One now and then.

Article first published as Book Review: The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett on Blogcritics.

Book Review: Shadow Castle (Expanded ed.)

Author: Marian Cockrell

Title: Shadow Castle expanded ed.

Description (source): In the middle of a deep forest is an enchanted valley and a castle where only shadows live, shadows of kings and queens who have waited for hundreds of years for the spell cast upon them to be broken. One day, a girl named Lucy follows a little dog through a tunnel into the valley and meets the mysterious red-haired Michael, who takes her into the shadow world to meet Prince Mika and his mortal wife Gloria, their children and their children's children, and learn the magic that will lift the spell. This new expanded Author's Edition contains additional chapters never published before! (Amazon)

Review source: purchased

Plot: Some basic information: this was my favorite, favorite book when I was a child. I would read it at least once a year, sometimes more. I never knew anyone else who had even heard of the book or the author. As an adult, I’ve found that there’s a small group of us who love this book—apparently enough to produce a reissue, with two additional stories. So, the review is mostly about the two new stories, since it’s a given that the rest of the book is 5*.

Characters: One of the new stories is about Robin and Mika when Robin was a toddler. It gives a little more backstory to Robin’s interest in goblins, as he is abducted by them, and Mika has to go to the rescue.  The second new story is about a descendant of Meira and Julian, Princess Flame, and her recalcitrant genie, and a fire fairy we meet in the Robin/Mika story.  The first story is mostly action; the second is mostly romance, although the second story does introduce witches and genies, who have been absent from the book until now.

Writing style: There are some phrases in this book that are so familiar to me that when I read them, they just echo, because I’m repeating them as I read them. The new writing is similar, but of course, it’s new and not so well-known, so doesn’t have that same reverberation. Nonetheless, the new segments aren’t a let-down.

Audience: Me. Other than me, girls from the age of five on up (though the younger ones might have to have some help with the reading. If they can sound out Flumpdoria, they’re good). My son liked the book as well when he was a preteen, though he would never admit it.

Wrap-up: I think one reason I loved the book as a youngster was the beautiful illustrations. They are still there in this edition, for which I’m grateful. The pictures of Mika and Gloria at their wedding and Robin and Bluebell alone are worth the price of the book. I still have my old copy; now the new one sits next to it. 5/5*

Newbery Awards, my version

The Allen County Public Library has a Newbery Book discussion group that recently ranked all of the Newbery winners from best to worst.  Since a couple of my library friends have weighed in on these rankings, I had to follow suit. Because I love lists and rankings.

The first thing I noticed was how few Newbery Books I’ve read.  I can only say for certain that I’ve read 17 of the 89, way worse than the BBC list (interesting blog post about it).  I guess that means that I jumped to the adult section before I was done with the kids’ section (though I have to admit that there were only 57 Newbury winners when I graduated from high school!)

Another thing I noticed was that I feel differently about the books depending on whether I read them as a child or as an adult. I’m not one of those adults who prefers children’s books; there is always a sense of remove (“oh, how nice for the little ones”).

Read as an adult (*indicates both). My ranking:

8. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien (1972). Had a boyfriend who loved this book for some reason.  I’ve never been much of an animals-as-main-characters book lover (except for Watership Down)

7. Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson (1981). Meh

6. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (1978). I read this after I heard her speak at the Festival of Faith and Writing. I enjoyed her speech more than the book. 

5. *A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (1963). I enjoyed it more as a kid, but really love some of her other work. 

4. The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo (2004). I got it for free at ALA. Thought it was cute.

3. Holes by Louis Sachar (1999). Vince and I love to watch the movie together, so I read the book after seeing the movie, which is one of my least favorite things to do.

2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2009). Didn’t like it as much as I had hoped to, based on who the author is. Still pretty good.

1.    *The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (1979) I still liked it when I read it as an adult with Vincent.

Read as a youngster:

11. Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt (1967). No memory of this book.

10. Sounder by William Armstrong (1970) Had to read this for school. A downer.

9. The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare (1962). Don’t remember much about it.

8. The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli (1950). I know I read it. That is all.

7. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (1961). I remember being traumatized by a film version of this book before I was seven.  In grade school, this was the “hot” book in the school library and always had a waiting list of several weeks.

6. Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry (1941). Remember those Scholastic Book flyers, and you’d save up your money and buy as many books as you could?  This was one I bought.

5. *A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (1963)

4. Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Brink (1936). Another Scholastic Book purchase. Looking at the date on this, I’m surprised that Scholastic was selling some of these books so many years after their publication.  I really liked this book and read it several times.

3. *The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (1979) LOVED this book as a kid.

2. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg (1968). For a good part of my childhood, this was my favorite book, and I longed to go live in a museum somewhere.

1. The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley (1985). She’s still one of my favorite authors, and this is still one of my favorite books.