djinn tagged posts

The Golem’s Eye—buy it
by Jonathan Stroud—his website
Recommended Ages: 13+

If a boxed set of Harry Potter were to fall through the looking-glass, what came out the other side might be a lot like the “Bartimaeus Trilogy,” of which this is Book 2. The fantasy world in this series is somewhat of a bizarro, backward-land version of Harry’s wizarding world, which forms a secret enclave within the present-day world of us ordinary muggles. In Bartimaeus’ world, the British empire is openly run by magicians, while the majority of the population—dismissively called “commoners”—toils in a condition not far above slavery. The press and the schools feed them a steady diet of pro-magician propaganda. The scales of justice are rigged in favor of the magicians. The security and police forces keep the people too frightened to rise up, including an elite squad of werewolves known as the Night Police—without even the ironic touch of a silent K...

The Eye of the Forest—buy it
by P. B. Kerr—his website
Recommended Ages: 12+

Book Five of “Children of the Lamp” continues the series’ ABC-order sequence of titles. Brought to you by the letter E, it’s such a fun book that you’ll hope the pattern holds through all 26 letters of the alphabet. In this installment, teenage djinn twins John and Philippa Gaunt visit the moist, mysterious rain forest of the Peruvian Amazon, together with their resourceful Uncle Nimrod, his ex-thief butler Groanin, and other friends—including, naturally, one who is a traitor. The reason for this journey, made longer than usual by having to fly by airplane rather than the djinn’s preferred whirlwind, is partly to sort out the environmental reasons whirlwind travel has suddenly become so dangerously unreliable. The other, and even bigger, reason: Someone has been stealing Incan artifacts out of museums from Berlin to New Haven. The first Incan emperor, who happened to be a djinn, has risen from the dead...