I am a collector of “The 12 Dancing Princesses” The original “12 Dancing Princesses” by the Grimm Brothers is well grim as is most of the stories that were never originally intended for children. I love how writers interpret this fairy tale and “Princess of the Midnight Ball” is no exception.

Princess of the Midnight Ball brought a different spin on the story although retained some of the originally story plot. Princess Rose and her sisters were put under a curse that was struck by 2 bargains with their mother, Queen Maude and King Under Stone. The price: Queen Maude had to pay was to dance for King Under Stone every two weeks. When the Queen would miss a ball, the number of nights increased. Queen Maude died when the youngest princess, Petunia, was 2 years old. The princesses then had to take up the payment for the two struck bargains made with King Under Stone.

Along comes Galin, the hero of the story, home from the war. It took a while for the war to end as well as for him to get home. Since his father and mother both died during the war, he went to find his mother’s family to see if they could let him stay with them for a while and know of a job for him. His Uncle Reiner was the chief gardener of the castle so Galin was given a job as an under-gardener. Galin’s first meeting with one of the princesses, Rose, that resulted in a mishap. Galin eventually picks up the task of wanting to find out the reason for the princesses’ shoes to be worn out every three days. He guessed that they had to be going somewhere. He received permission from the King to monitor the grounds to see if the princesses came outside to go to their intended destination. No luck. Eventually, he was able to get permission to find out what was going on by sitting in the Princesses’ room. He has a few tricks up his sleeve to help him be unnoticed and to follow the princesses. He becomes determined to save them from King Under Stone.

Since this is a retelling of a fairytale, you know there has to be a happy ending. But it’s how Jessica Day George gets to the happy ending that keeps the reader in suspense.

Because I have been reading various adaptations of “the 12 Dancing Princesses”, I had no idea how the story would go. I love how authors can take the premise of the story and change it to a new location with more or less details depending on the intended audience.

I could imagine the storyline in my head as I was reading, what the characters looked like and the scenery. I like a book that brings out my imagination. So I would recommend this book to everyone who loves to use their imagination.

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Read by: John, a teen at the Copley Teen Room

Graffiti Moon is a brilliant story about the awkward moments and true aspects of teenage love.
Ed is a graffiti artist who goes by the name of Shadow, spraying raw emotions onto the city walls.
Lucy blows glass, crafting her memories into tranperant art.
Lucy wants to find shadow. He is here dream man. Simple enough? No.
Lucy and Ed have actually dated before, which ended with Ed touching her butt and Lucy breaking his nose.
On their last night of senior year, follow them on a misadventure of expression of art, poetry, reality vs.
expectation, and a struggle to accept one’s self.
I enjoyed this and laughed for the first time in a long time reading about Ed, his poetic yet mischevious friend,
lucy and her supposedly psychic friend as each chapter shows different aspects of the same amazing night. I couldn’t
put the book down and regreted finishing it so fast.

Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Read by: Anna / Copley Teen Room

Are you looking for an enchanting read? Night Circus is the story of a young man and a young woman pitted against each other in a strange, twisted magical challenge that could very well last for years, maybe even until they die. There are no set parameters for the challenge that they know of. Both of their instructors are vague on the details, but what each of them does know, is that the strange circus, unlike any circus you’ve ever been to, is their playground, the place where they can experiment with real magic, and challenge each other. These are not parlor tricks they play. They do not pull rabbits out of hats or slot rings together. They do not ride on the backs of elephants or send large cats through hoops of fire. Instead, they make wishing trees, and caves of ice, places where the circus patrons can venture through and explore, things they can create for each other. Even as love blossoms between them, they rarely ever meet in person.

This is no ordinary circus. The gates don’t open until dark, and they don’t close until dawn. The circus arrives one day with nothing to announce it’s coming. And it leaves just the same. It is simply there one day, and gone the next. The cast of characters that inhabit the circus are just as interesting as the two main characters, for it is they, who make up the circus: The fortune teller, who’s in love with one of the challengers, the illusionist, the contortionist, the two twins with shocking red hair, one born just before the first ever opening of the circus, and the other born just after.

This is a riveting read you won’t be able to put down until the very end. Trust me on this. Pick up your copy today, and give it a read. You will be glad you did. And maybe someday, somewhere around the world you’ll see those famous black and white striped tents, and the magical clock striking midnight in your backyard…

This is the fantasy/gay romance trilogy by Mercedes Lackey which begins with the book Magic’s Pawn, which I’ve previously reviewed here. All three books contained in this large, single volume are these: Magic’s Pawn, Magic’s Promise, and Magic’s Price.  Now that I’ve finished all three books, I cannot speak highly enough of all three. Mercedes Lackey is one heck of an amazing author. All three books deal with many serious issues (such as rape, death of a loved one, suicide, and others) in a straightforward way. Some issues can be hard to deal with in a real life setting, and she shows just how hard they can be even in a magical place. Yet, at the same time, you won’t find these books hard to read. The characters are easily relatable, and most of the magic is easily understood. Here, there are no wands or Harry Potter-like magic. Within the world, the magic used is commonly referred to as “mind magic”. Hard to explain, but once you read it, it makes perfect sense.

This trilogy is roughly twenty years old now, but it’s no worse for the passage of time. If you enjoy fantasy books and like gay romance, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. Hands down.

SEAL Team Six, yes, it was on one of the school summer reading lists last summer. But did you stop to read it? Or did you pass over it for something that sounded more interesting? It took me awhile, but I finally sat down and read it last week, and let me tell you, I could not put it down. This is the story of one man’s life, from his abusive step father in his childhood, to his intensive Navy SEAL training, to the combat missions he went through on the other side of the globe. This is a DO NOT MISS book. Lots of hilarious stories, lots of action, lots of cool information on what it means to be a SEAL sniper in a SEAL “family”. Did you know you need a lot of math skills to be a sniper? This book will intrigue and surprise you.

If you’re interested in anything military, especially Special Ops, this is the book for you! It might be nonfiction, but it reads like a novel in first person point of view, making it an easy and accessible read. Check it out from your library today!

Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck

Read by: Anna/Copley Teen Room

 I couldn’t have read this book at a better time: Colleen Houck is coming to the Copley Teen Room on Saturday November 5^th at 3pm!!!

I LOVED this book. If you like fantasy/shifter type novels, especially if they involve hot guys and a little romance, this is the book for you. It’s the story of a girl in foster care who gets the opportunity to accompany a circus tiger inAmericato a special reserve inIndiawhere the tiger was supposedly born before being captured. But upon arriving inIndia, Kelsey realizes that the story she was told was anything but the truth, and the tiger, is anything but your typical circus tiger! Together, she and the centuries old tiger must go on a quest to end the curse put on Ren, the tiger. They battle plants that eat you alive, statues that come to life, a fear of snakes, a fear of love, and other things that are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.

 The page numbers are daunting at 400, but I couldn’t put the book down as soon as I’d started, and I finished it a lot faster than I’d ever predicted. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good fantasy read!  

 The second book in the series, Tiger’s Quest, came out just this year and the library already has several copies on order. You can put a copy on reserve through our catalog at www.bostonpl.bibliocommons.com. Library copies of the first book, Tiger’s Curse, will be available in the teen room when she’s here, so have your library cards ready!

Carmen, an urban adaption of the opera by Walter Dean Myers

I love the opera Carmen and I love Walter Dean Myers and I wanted to love this but I could not. It is set up exactly as a play– the settings, the stage instructions, the music. Set in El Barrio (Spanish Harlem) the characters are modern reincarnations of the original novela, pre-Bizet, infact– modeled after West Side Story. Factory workers, cops instead of soldiers, a Hip Hop Star instead of a Toreador, but the story remains basically the same. I still love the idea, but I thought the dialog was stilted and unnatural (“We’ll do the caper…”?) and many of the characters and settings were dangerously close to stereotyping. Please– I still love Walter Dean Myers and he added an author’s note explaining why he wanted to work with Carmen, he spoke about the very public music in the Harlem of his youth, about the stereotyping he had encountered in different versions of the novella– in fact I enjoyed the author’s note very much– much more than the novela.

Unfortunately, I can see adults liking this a lot, but i do not see it speaking to kids– only to an adult idea of what speaks to kids. Myers does not usually write about Latinos, and Carmen, unfortunately, is not what he does best. Sorry. It was very well reviewed but I was so disappointed.

Read by: Anna/Copley Teen Room

This is a nonfiction book that reads like a novel. The action starts at the beginning with a brief history of Compton, California and how it’s gangs got started, and doesn’t end until the last page. Sgt. “Rick” Baker tells the story of how the Compton Police Department fought to protect and serve their city in a time of gang wars, and how they fought against the city council and the city’s many mayors to get the support they needed to do their job.

These police officers were known to use forces other than their guns to bring criminals down. While the LAPD would shoot first and ask questions later, the Compton PD would handle cases in an entirely different manner seeing as they’d grown up with the criminals they were now fighting. Everyone knew everyone, and the criminals, though they worked against the law, respected the cops enough to call for help when an officer was down.

Does it matter whether the general public knows what the Compton cops did? Does it matter whether we know how hard they fought to keep themselves going when things weren’t looking so good? They were only 130 officers strong while they were outnumbered with 10,000 criminals. In the end one of those officers said it didn’t matter, because THEY knew what they’d done. But Sgt. Rick Baker knew the public needed to know the truth, and so he gave us Vice.

This is a book I would HIGHLY recommend to anyone looking for a good nonfiction read, a memior, and the history of many of our most prominant gangs as well as the history of the city itself. Check it out TODAY!