The Pocket and the Pendant

This is a review of the podiobook.

Author: Mark Jeffrey

Reader: Mark Jeffrey

Producers: Mark Jeffrey and Dragon Page

Production Year: 2005

Most of the listeners will be: Middle and high school boys and girls.

Listener's Advisory: In Pullman's His Dark Materials series tween age children also act older than their age and save the world.

Summary:
Max Quick, who has to punch himself in the face every morning in order to ride the bus, is an unlikely hero. But when he finds himself, and a few other children, alone in a time-frozen world, he has to step up to the challenge. First he rescues Casey who has fallen into a mirror. Then the two of them run super-fast (a power they have developed because of time being frozen) to a nearby city, only to be captured by a gang of children calling themselves the "Serpents and Mermaids." One of the "Serp" VPs, Ian, has had enough and helps them escape into a magical book. Into and out of books and across the country the children travel until they arrive in New York. An alien queen, Jadeth, and her followers, have landed there and stopped time so they can look for something called "The Pendant." Using yet another book, Max, Casey, Ian, and Sasha (a former "Serp" gone alien slave gone run-away slave) find the much talked about Mr. E who explains to them exactly what is going on, and gives them the tools (if not all the instructions) on how to stop it. Can the four children keep Jadeth from acquiring The Pendant, or will they fall victim to "the tyrrany of the page"?

My favorite passage:
When Ian comes to bust Max and Casey out of Serpant and Mermaid prison he explains to them how he has come by the magical book he intends to use to escape. The story he tells is rather gruesom as it invovles an overweight kid becoming so addicted to magical food from the book that he withers away and dies. But the reason I like this passage is because the overweight kid is named "Sweet Lid." The first time the leader of the Serpants and Mermaids meets him he is wearing a cool hat and the leader says, "sweet lid." That becomes the kid's name.

What I really think:
The author himself compares this book to the Narnia series and to His Dark Materials. Both of these series are fantasy/sci-fi and put forth a specific religious (albeit one of the religions is atheism) view of the world. The Pocket and the Pendant does give an explanation of how our world came to be (i.e. how humans became intelligent), but I don't think Jeffrey is trying to defend an "aliens are gods" religion. This is more of an exercise in "what if" than "this is what I think happened."
Being a classics junky I loved all the talk of ancient civilizations and how the aliens influenced them. But, being a classics junky I was also too smart for Jeffrey. The aliens use magical stones which Jeffrey calls "omphalos." The problem is that "omphalos" is a real word from ancient Greek that is still used in English as a medical term. The singular form is "omphalos" but the plural is "omphali." Jeffry uses "omphalos" for the singular and plural, and it kind of bothered me. He also uses the word "chthonic" a few times and pronounces it with a "ch" sound like in "choo choo" instead of a "ch" sound that is more like an aspiration before the "th" sound. Also slightly bothersome.
Jeffrey has included music in the backround of most of the podiobook. I think it adds to the feel of the story. Sometimes it is ironic (cheerful and serene while we hear about Max having to punch himself), other times exactly what the listener is feeling (intense when bad guys show up).
Aside from my nitpicky language complaints, this is a smart and well researched combination of history, legend, fantasy, and science fiction. The characters are unique (and uniquely voiced). They are complex, most neither all good nor all bad. I was pleased to learn, upon looking up the website, that this is the first of a series.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the podiobook is free!

Kiki Strike Inside the Shadow City

Author: Kirsten Miller

Publisher (In Great Britain): Bloomsbury

Publication Year (In Great Britain): 2008

Most of the readers will be: Middle school girls.

Reader's Advisory: For another book with a strong female protagonist try The Secret Scroll by Lynne Ewing.

Summary:
Ananka Fishbein wakes up one morning to see a giant sink hole in the park across the street. Being chronically curious, she jumps in the hole to investigate. She sees a troll, a room, and a book. Ananka escapes with the book before the authorities come to fix the hole, and from it learns that there is a secret collection of tunnels and rooms beneath New York called the Shadow City. She would love to explore the Shadow City, but how will she get in?
Then Ananka meets Kiki Strike, the girl who wants to grow up to be "dangerous." Kiki recruits Ananka and a collection of delinquent girl scouts to join her on a journey into the Shadow City. What's more, she has found a way in through a crypt in a private cemetary. The girls call themselves the "Irregulars" and with their combined talents, almost nothing can stop them.
Ananka knows why she wants to explore the Shadow City, but she isn't so sure about Kiki's intentions. Then an accident floods Shadow City (and some of the streets of New York) and Kiki disappears. When the Irregulars find her again, should they trust her? Is she a villian they need to stop, or does she need their help to stop someone else?

My favorite passage:

"Did you hear about the rats?" I heard the woman ask. My stomach flip-flopped.
"What rats?" replied the man in a bored voice.
"It was on the news this morning. They said that a ship in the middle of the Hudson River was attacked by thousands of rats last night."
"Rats can swim?"
"Apparently," said the woman.
I had to bite my tongue to avoide offering the bit of trivia that sprang to mind. According to The Devil's Army rats are champion swimmers. During the plagues that laid waste to old New York, the dead were often buried in mass gravs on islands in the East RIver. Whenever the graves were left unfilled, the city's rat population would swim across to picnic on the exposed corpses.
"But what were a bunch of rats doing in the Hudson River?" asked the man.
"Nobody knows," the woman answered. "The reporter said they might have been swimming to New Jersey."
"That makes sense. New Jersey's a good place for them."
"They said the boat just got in the way."
"What happened to it?"
"Well from what I could gather, the crew abandoned the ship and escaped in life boats."
"That bad?" At last he was intrigued.
"I guess. The reporter said they ate the crew's dog."
"Rats eat dogs?"
"They eat anything, don't they?" said the woman.
The light changed, and the happy couple strolled off, arm in arm. I reached in my pocket for my Reverse Pied Piper. I had never imagined it could be quite so powerful, and I suddenly felt a little guilty. I wondered how my grandfather would have felt about what we had done. He probably would have packed up his bags and followed the rats to New Jersey. (pg 134-135)

What I really think:
The theory goes that girls will read books that have a male or female protagonist but boys will only read books with a male protagonist. But even if girls will read about boy heroes, why shouldn't they sink their teeth into a novel filled with girl power once in a while?
What makes this book even more empowering is that the Irregulars don't have super powers, they just have things they are really good at, like chemistry and forging documents. Most of the chapters end with advice, like the kind you would find in a guide book. So the reader can try her hand at spying and crime solving, too!
I found the passage of two years in the middle of the book to be a little weird. I'm not sure why Kiki couldn't have turned up again a month or two after she disappeared. But I suppose growing the girls up helped the storyline in some ways.
Over all, I love Kiki Strike and I love that there are books like this for girls.