Blue Sword

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Robin McKinley is definitely one of the best YA writers.  It is little wonder she won the Newbery Medal for the Hero and the Crown, and the Newbery Honor for the Blue Sword.  I used to wonder why so many of my 7th graders were drawn to this book years ago, and now I now why.  It is an excellent story about a young girl named Harry Crewe, who is sent to Istan to join her older brother after her father dies.  Harry feels a kinship to the stark landscape of Istan, so different from the green hills of her home.  When the King of Damar comes to ask for help from the people of Istan in fighting their common enemy, magical things start to happen.  And, this is the beauty of McKinley, she blends the magical so seamlessly with the ordinary happenings of the characters that it is easy to suspend disbelief. Thoroughly enjoyable for middle schoolers and old lady librarians.



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Starters

Starters by Lissa Price

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I have to say, this book was a delightful surprise.  At first I thought that it was just another dystopian spin-off.  I listened to Legend by Marie Lu not too long ago, and thought this was way too similar in the beginning.  The main character, a girl instead of the boy who begins Marie Lu's novel, is left to take care of her brother after a genocide spore has wiped out everyone who was not vaccinated.  The brother is sick, just like in Legend.  I thought it another "here we go again," dystopian novel as she struggles to take care of her brother in a hostile world.  Her parents have been killed by the spore. All that was true, but Price took the novel in a different direction when Callie decides she can support her brother by having her body rented by "enders", (the elderly), who through technology can inhabit the body of the young and live as a young person again. The company who arranges this service is called Prime Destinations, run by a mysterious old man.  Callie's financial problems look as if they will be solved as she completes without difficulty her first rental.  But on a subsequent rental, the  neurochip implanted in her brain malfunctions, and she finds herself in the life of the rich woman renting her.  The novel then twists and turns and resolves in a surprise ending. A sequel follows, but the novel can stand on its own. Great read for middle school and up.



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