Inky the Indigo Fairy, by Daisy Meadows.

 These books fly off the shelves at my library where they are waved about in joy by five and seven year old girls.  As a dutiful children's librarian I took it upon myself to figure out what kind of paper I'm peddling.

Ouch.  The content is even more vacuous than I feared.  I'm a couple decades too old, and have never been girly enough to handle this kind of sparkle.  I've listened to parents moan about how their intelligent little girls insist on being read these stories aloud.  Their greatest chagrin stems from same inane plot recurring in each and every book.

The positive spin on the series is that they motivate many new readers to persevere through 60+ pages of text on their own.  That's no small feat.

The Order of the Poison Oak, by Brent Hartinger

This sequel to Geography Club isn't quite as powerful as the original, but it's still a great read.  The characters are likable, fallible, and believable.  The Order of the Poison Oak follows Russel, Min, and Gunner to summer camp where they've all found jobs as camp counsellors in the hopes of avoiding all the hometown stares and gossip.  That's not terribly likely, now is it?

The Eternal Smile, by Gene Luen Yang & Derek Kirk Kim

This is a pleasant read.  Three well-structured short stories with great illustrations.  Each section features a character orienting him or herself within the real world and imagined worlds.  Sometimes reality is not straightforward or even preferable.  My favourite was the last story, where an under-appreciated office worker pursues a love affair with the sender of a "Nigerian prince" bank fraud spammer.

Waltz with Bashir, by Ari Folman and David Polonsky

This book is ideal for those of us who have watched the original film version of Waltz with Bashir and want to take more time to reflect on the powerful images and thoughts therein. Using still images of the animation, the book feels like the movie, but with timing dependent on the reader. 

I loved having the opportunity to reflect upon particular segments of the filmmaker/author's journey as he pieces together fractured memories of his role in the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon.  This film mesmerized me.  The style is simply gorgeous.  Each scene is captivating, and I'm fascinated by how relative human memory is and how normal people deal with traumatic experiences.

The graphic version is complete enough that it should be satisfying for those who have not seen the film, but as the film is the original, I'd recommend people watch this one before reading it.

Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales - Sanctuary (by Melissa Marr)

Desert Tales is a companion story to Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely novels.  In this literary universe, faeries are real, but only appear to those whom they choose to.  They are mischievous and often spiteful, best not tangled with.  Marr's stories all involve troubled romances between mortal humans and immortal faeries.  I enjoyed reading the first in the series which is one of this year's YRCA nominees, but I was less intrigued by the follow-up efforts as their character arcs were too similar to the first.

Fairies (or faeries) are second only to vampires when it comes to popular tropes in the teen urban fantasy / surreal romance genre.  Generally, I prefer Holly Black (Tithe, Valiant) to Melissa Marr (Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange), as I find Black's characters are richer, and Marr's stories are more formulaic.  This graphic/manga adaptation will probably be popular, but it's too slow and fluffy for me.  This volume introduces the primary romance and potential conflict, but so little happens that it may take several volumes to reach any satisfactory story development.  I'd been hoping for something different; perhaps a stronger lead character, but Rika seems just like all the others in Melissa Marr's stories.  I'll leave this for the real romance junkies.     

The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo

The Tale of Despereaux  is charming and well-written.  It belongs to the tradition of stories that teaches small people that they are valuable and powerful, provided they work hard and stay true to themselves.... At least, that seems to be the intention.

I am leery about expressing negativity about a gentle, soft-speaking, award-winning children's book, but some of the characterization rubbed me the wrong way.  The goodness of characters is related to who or what they are born.  The princess is pretty and kindhearted while the poor girl is overweight, incompetent, and stupid.  The mice are ethically neutral while the rats are innately evil.  As my two or so readers might suspect, the latter detail irritates me almost to the point of being unable to finish the book.  Stereotyping rats as evil may sound benign to most folks, but this perception contributes towards the casual mistreatment and cruelty that people unquestioningly direct towards this species. 

There are many unpleasantly misleading passages in this book, but one of the least warranted is this: "Rats are not beautiful creatures.  They are not even cute." 

We stridently disagree.

Ash (by Malinda Lo)

Ash is (very loosely) a retelling of the Cinderella story.   Most of the classic elements remain, such as the abusive stepfamily, magical outfits, and the prince looking for a bride.  However, Ash isn't particularly interested in said prince.  Her infatuations lie with a mysterious fairy gentleman and the intriguing royal huntress.

I wanted to like this book more than I did, and I think that's because of the pacing, and characterizations.  The first half of the book dragged out without much happening except for Ash moping about how much he missed her mother and vaguely trying to get abducted by mischievous fairies whom no one ever sees but her.  The huntress barely even appears until halfway through the book, and both her and the fairy's significance are unclear until well towards the ending. As soon as Ash discovers what's going on and how she and everyone else feels, she sidesteps the major conflict and ties it all up in half a dozen pages.  None of the peripheral characters are particularly well developed, and the reader is left to assume their motivations half the time.

A colleague of mine loved this book, but for me it's an almost-but-not-quite there.