Oh, boy. Am I ever in trouble! And it's all because of this book.
This Carnegie-Award-winning children's book is another stand-alone tale based in the fertile soil of Pratchett's legendary Discworld, though not a part of the "Discworld" series as such. Based loosely on the classic tale of the Pied Piper, it takes off in a completely new direction.
In a grim but possible future world, a unique boy named Matt experiences a unique childhood, made of equal parts privilege and horror, leading to a unique opportunity to change his world. And in this National Book Award winning novel by the author of the "Sea of Trolls" series, you get to go along for the ride.
Although this book's connected to the "Wolves" series by the bleak setting of the industrial city of Blastburn, last heard from in "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase", I believe it is separate from the series. It shares the series running theme of good children, through the malice and greed of bad adults, being stripped of their wealth and privilege and forced to find their own way in the world.
Welcome to Huntsdale, an American industrial city in decline. Factories are decaying. The streets are getting meaner. Even the Catholic prep students are deep into the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll scene. And the town is infested with faeries.
If copies of "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" and "The Castle in the Attic" got together in the Hogwarts Library and magically brought forth a baby book, it might be this first installment in what promises to be a nifty series.
The sixth of seven "Chronicles of Narnia" takes us back to the beginnings of it all. Here we see kindly old Professor Kirke (of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe") as a little boy named Digory, staying with his strict Aunt Letty and his weird Uncle Andrew in a row house in London in the days of hansom cabs and Norfolk suits. His father is in India and his mother is seriously ill, and poor young Digory no longer has the count…
The fifth of the "Chronicles of Narnia" is a story that was mentioned in one of the earlier books, as taking place during the long reign of Kings Peter and Edmund and Queens Susan and Lucy. It's the first story in the series that doesn't focus on a character from our world who is magically transported to Narnia.
The fourth of the seven-book "Chronicles of Narnia" gets its name from a magical piece of furniture seen only briefly, at the climax of the story. In it, Eustace Scrubb returns to Narnia with a fellow-sufferer at the tender mercies of Experiment House in England - a school bent on meddling with human nature, overrun with vile examples of it.
The shipwreck was caused by a storm. The storm was caused by a dragon, which even in pre-Norman-conquest Britain would be thought beyond belief. And the only two survivors owe their lives to a mysterious chest whose lock has no keyhole.