The Books of Elsewhere: The Shadows (audio)

The Books of Elsewhere: The Shadows (book 1) by Jacqueline West. Penguin Audio, 2010. Read by Lexie Friedel.
Audience: 3rd-5th grade

My Rating: 2.5* of 5
Summary: When eleven-year-old Olive moves into the crumbling old mansion on Linden Street, she's right to think there's something weird about the place, especially the walls covered in creepy antique paintings. But when she finds a pair of old-fashioned glasses in a dusty drawer, she discovers she can travel inside these paintings to Elsewhere, a world that's eerily sinister.
Comments: Well voiced by pip-squeakish Friedel. Sluggish and uneven for me, but with some original fantasy concepts that worked well. The painting element allows for wonderful imagery that is easily visualized by the listener. I didn't connect with the protagonist, Olive, nor her relationship with Morton, the foil character. However, the guardians of the house--three outlandish cats--provided much needed levity. The ending is handled in exciting fashion, though we were not left on much of a cliff to propel listeners into a second book.

Read-Alikes: Blubonnet list, 2011-2012
Read-Alikes: Coraline by Gaiman

Emerald Atlas (galley)

Emerald Atlas (galley) by John Stephens pub April, 2011 from Knopf.
Audience: 5th-7th grade
My Rating: 3* of 5
Summary: Kate, Michael, and Emma have been in one orphanage after another for the last ten years, passed along like lost baggage. Yet these unwanted children are more remarkable than they could possibly imagine. Ripped from their parents as babies, they are being protected from a horrible evil of devastating power, an evil they know nothing about.
Comments: Thank you, Cindy B., for loaning this ARC of Stephens' debut novel. Pacing was off for me and several aspects seemed too Harry Potter-ish to be original. Some compelling characters, though, in Dwarf, Witch, and Gollum-esqe categories. The climax was confusing and relied upon the reader remembering a detail from much earlier in the book; in general the time-travel "rules" were fuzzy to the point of disbelief. The late appearance of the true antagonist (very a la Voldemort) showed promise for the next two installments.
Read-Alikes: Harry Potter series, Series of Unfortunate Events