The Doll Graveyard by Lois Ruby
If you don’t mind creepy stories, and can leave your rational thought at the front cover, The Doll Graveyard by Lois Ruby is a great book for a rainy Saturday afternoon!
First, we have a family in turmoil (divorce) making a change (big move to inherited house) in the near countryside (Colorado) with daughter Shelby (12) and son Brian (9) protesting all the way.
Next, add in a possible haunting of not only the big house, but also two smaller houses up the road and then a very strange doll graveyard out back, and it’s time for full creep factor. One creepy problem is that the dolls won’t stay where they’re put! First they’re in the dirt, and then they’re in the attic in a doll house that’s the exact replica of the house.
Finally, toss in a possibly wicked former resident, a possible murder, and a possible wish by the dolls to do harm.
Stir in all sorts of little twists and turns, and come out with a satisfactory answering of all the questions that showed up along the way.
This was a Sequoyah Award nominee for 2017. It’s fun and quick and has a few really creepy pages!
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Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
Reading Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt is like reading an old friend. The narrative is of a story spun by Keturah in order to stave off Lord Death’s intentions in her small village. It is reminiscent of the story of Scheherazade and the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.
Keturah is from a small village in Angleland, rich in poverty and characters. She has two very best friends, Gretta and Beatrice, who remain staunchly at her side throughout. She assists her grandmother as a midwife, but it is known that if the child or mother is going to die, Keturah absents herself from the room.
There is already an aura around her when she encounters Lord Death in the woods. She is to be taken by him, but she bargains with him – one, with a story which she must return to finish, and two – if she can find and marry her true love by day’s end, she will be allowed to live.
Each villager ultimately is touched by Keturah, including Lord Temsland’s handsome son, John, and finally, she does find her true love. The ending is sweetly predictable, but the journey is pleasant.
This is a National Book Award Finalist from a previous year, and can be found in the new book display at the front of the library.
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Stitching Snow by R. C. Lewis
Stitching Snow by R. C. Lewis combines several genres to make a really good book! Lewis mixes science fiction – especially robots – romance, and government resistance to form a narrative about a hidden princess.
Essie “ran away from home” at a young age and lived on the fringes of a mining community on the planet of Thanda. She makes her spare money by cage fighting, and has earned the wary respect of most of the miners who come into contact with her. Her love and her job is robotics, with the robots sharing duties in the mines and saving lives due to her expert “stitching.” “Stitching” is how she refers to the almost mystical task of programming and rewiring the robots.
She is kidnapped/rescued by, of course, a prince in disguise, Dane. Dane is a young man of many talents, and he assumes the role of Essie’s bodyguard. And thus their adventure together begins with the goal of reuniting the four planets of this dysfunctional world into their proper whole. In the process, they have to deceive not only Essie’s (Princess Snow) father, the king, but others in the royal palace. And they have to bring to light the hidden parts of the king’s wife, Princess Snow’s evil step-mother.
Only after reading the book does the meaning of the title come clear, and Ms. Lewis has been very clever in her choice. This is an engaging book and easy to like. It was one of the 2017 Sequoyah Award nominees, and is available in our library.
—Reviews by Jan Cravens, Youth Services Assistant