God Bless the Gargoyles

God Bless the Gargoyles
By Dav Pilkey
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996

I told myself I wasn't going to do it. This blog would be dedicated to reviews of books teenagers and adults might enjoy, and nothing else. I would NOT review children's books, no matter what the subject matter, no matter how good they were...

Aw, who was I kidding? I have always loved children's books. When I don't have the time or patience to sit down for a full-length novel, I take a quick break with a kid's picture book. There are so many fantastic artists and authors out there who dedicate their lives to creating these miniature works of literature, and I have laughed and cried over many a children's book in my day. Even today I count Rosalie Seidler's Panda Cake, David Shannon's No David!, and Maurice Sendack's Where the Wild Things Are among my favorite books (a list that also includes Life of Pi, Eragon, and Mary Brown's Unicorn Ring books), and Mercer Mayer and Dr. Seuss will always rank up there with Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey on my favorite authors list.

That said, Dav Pilkey, the creator of the popular Captain Underpants and Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot series as well as hilarious stand-alones like The Silly Gooses, Kat Kong, and Dogzilla, has produced a book quite different from his usual style. Rather than slapstick humor and lunacy, God Bless the Gargoyles provides us with a rich and loving fable that both children and adults will enjoy.

Pilkey's beautiful, darkly colorful oil paintings set a somber yet hopeful mood for the story, yet still bear his signature style. His rhyming text tells the story of the gargoyles guarding the European churches and cathedrals... and the cruel people who call them ugly and unfit to decorate the house of the Lord. Broken-hearted, the gargoyles weep... until angels descend to comfort them and take them on a night flight over the human lands, all the while singing blessings upon the poor, the sick, the suffering, the broken-hearted, and all who are unloved and unwanted.

God Bless the Gargoyles is a gentle tale that everyone, regardless of age or religion (or whether or not you like Captain Underpants), will enjoy. It is also a reminder that everyone is deserving of love and compassion, even those we consider undeserving.

Even the gargoyles.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
Vintage Contemporaries, 2004

In a review to a story on Fanfiction.net, fanfic author Anonymous-cat said "I really think that, for character development, first person is the best way to write." Having both read and written stories in first and third person, I must agree. While for most purposes, the third-person point of view in a story will do the job (especially if the story switches between the points of view of several characters), there are times when, to do a story the proper justice, it must be told by the one who experienced it firsthand and not by a third party. After all, an external narrator can only get so far into a character's head.

First-time author Mark Haddon could probably have written The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in the third person and gotten away with it -- the story of an autistic teenager who sets out to solve the mystery of a dog's death is an intriguing enough concept on its own. But instead Haddon has chosen to let young Christopher tell his own story (he is "writing" the book), and in the process gives us not only a great story, but a stunning and revealing look into the mind of a boy who sees our world differently than most.

Christopher's narration style takes some getting used to -- he uses description reluctantly (his guidance counselor told him it would make for a better book), he alternates narrative chapters with chapters relating to everything from the death of his mother to why he finds the prospect of an afterlife confusing to his love of Sherlock Holmes, and he tends to get bogged down in unnecessary details. But in my opinion, this does not detract from the novel. Rather, it shows how his mind works and how he sees the world around him.

Be warned that this book contains a moderate amount of explicit language. Otherwise, I would readily recommend it to anyone, whether they wish to learn more about autism or just want a reading experience that's a little bit different.

Star Lord

Star Lord
by Louise Lawrence
Starwanderer Books, an imprint of Harper & Row, 1978, reprinted 1988

It's long been said that, if you're going to go with an overused, bone-dry idea for a story, at least put a fresh spin on it. There's nothing worse than picking up a book, leafing through it, and realizing that you've read it before, just with a different title and a slightly different cast/setting. And while the familiar can be comforting, it can also be deadly boring.

Star Lord is advertised as another alien-crashes-on-Earth-and-is-pursued-by-the-government story -- even the cover, a boy standing in a field with a flying saucer buzzing overhead, offers nothing new. But there are many things that make Star Lord stand head and shoulders above its bone-dry cousins.

First, of course, is the setting, a small town in present-day Wales -- or as present-day as a small town in Wales can get. The people here embrace mysticism and superstition as eagerly as religious faith, and the recently-arrived main characters -- divorcee Enid, her teenage children Rhys and Gwendolyn, and grandfather Hywel -- feel every bit as alien here as does the star lord, an interstellar visitor who is found, bleeding, in the shed on their sheep farm, castaway of a spacecraft that just crashed into a mountain.

Second is Lawrence's writing style. Her choices of words are sheer poetry, evocative of Peter S. Beagle or a streamlined version of Shakespeare. I have often found that a writer's style can often save a bland idea more than an entertaining premise can save bad writing.

And third is the supernatural factor. Aside from the star lord, the book's other heavy fantastical element is the mountain Mawrrhyn. Rather than a geographical feature or background, the mountain is described almost as a diety, a sentient being with a cruel sense of justice. And to get the star lord home before the military finds him, Rhyn and his family must bargain with the mountain.

There is far more to Star Lord than meets the eye, and science fiction lovers must check it out.