![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Sep. 5th, 2008 10:44 amAbout a month ago, I was babbling about sibling-tastic fantasy stories and why they made me happy, and babbling about that made me want to go reread more of my favorite sibling-tastic fantasy stories! So I have two of those to log today. I have loved both of them for years and I would recommend them to anyone who enjoys . . . well, I will actually let the first book explain itself what it is like, because I feel it has had a profound impact on my own tastes and preferences.
"The best kind of book is a magic book."
"The best kind of magic book is when it's about ordinary people like us, and and then something happens and it's magic."
"The best kind of magic book is the kind where the magic has rules. And you have to deal with it and thwart it before it thwarts you. Only sometimes you forget and get thwarted."
"If you could have a brand-new magic book, specially made for you, what would you choose?"
"One about a lot of children."
"One about five children just like us."
"And they're walking home from somewhere and the magic starts suddenly before they know it . . ."
Edward Eager's Seven-Day Magic starts out with this conversation between the characters in the book, but that could so easily have been me and my childhood best friend and our little brothers at that same age - with the obvious caveat that we never actually found a magic book, all about us, that took us on magical book-related adventures. ( BUT I SO WISH WE HAD, BECAUSE THESE ARE AWESOME. AND INVOLVE MARTY STU FANFIC )
Diana Wynne Jones' The Ogre Downstairs, by contrast, is not quite so much of a joyous meta romp through literature, but it is just about the awesomest example of low-key sibling magic stories ever. The main characters are part of a blended family, and there are all the brewing issues that you might expect when you squeeze five children of two different class backgrounds into a too-small house with a newly-married couple, one half of which (the stepfather, aka the Ogre) has always sent his kids off to boarding school and never had to deal with having children around full-time. In other words, they all hate each other and get into constant screaming fights. At the beginning of the story, one boy from each half the family receives a chemistry kit; the chemistry kits turn out to do things like make people fly, bring inanimate objects to life (the toffee-bars are terrible; they get bigger and bigger and then melt all over the radiators), make motorcycle gangs grow out of the pavement, and create WACKY BODY-SWITCHING HIJINKS. In one of my favorite parts, the little girl also (AWESOMELY) tries to use them to poison the stepfather with a cake (THE CAKE IS A LIE).
My favorite part of this book is the way the magic works to bring the family together, but it's not at all sledgehammery; they argue and compete and slang each other all the time, but it gradually becomes the way siblings do, not the way that people who hate each other do. ( One of my favorite moments is a great example of this. ) There is also one of the best and creepiest depictions of the dangers of invisibility that I have ever read. And bright pink footballs, and a contest to find all the ugliest knicknacks in the house, and - well, basically, if you had not gethered, I love this book. And I love fantasy sibling stories. And that concludes my gushings of love for today. FOR NOW.
"The best kind of book is a magic book."
"The best kind of magic book is when it's about ordinary people like us, and and then something happens and it's magic."
"The best kind of magic book is the kind where the magic has rules. And you have to deal with it and thwart it before it thwarts you. Only sometimes you forget and get thwarted."
"If you could have a brand-new magic book, specially made for you, what would you choose?"
"One about a lot of children."
"One about five children just like us."
"And they're walking home from somewhere and the magic starts suddenly before they know it . . ."
Edward Eager's Seven-Day Magic starts out with this conversation between the characters in the book, but that could so easily have been me and my childhood best friend and our little brothers at that same age - with the obvious caveat that we never actually found a magic book, all about us, that took us on magical book-related adventures. ( BUT I SO WISH WE HAD, BECAUSE THESE ARE AWESOME. AND INVOLVE MARTY STU FANFIC )
Diana Wynne Jones' The Ogre Downstairs, by contrast, is not quite so much of a joyous meta romp through literature, but it is just about the awesomest example of low-key sibling magic stories ever. The main characters are part of a blended family, and there are all the brewing issues that you might expect when you squeeze five children of two different class backgrounds into a too-small house with a newly-married couple, one half of which (the stepfather, aka the Ogre) has always sent his kids off to boarding school and never had to deal with having children around full-time. In other words, they all hate each other and get into constant screaming fights. At the beginning of the story, one boy from each half the family receives a chemistry kit; the chemistry kits turn out to do things like make people fly, bring inanimate objects to life (the toffee-bars are terrible; they get bigger and bigger and then melt all over the radiators), make motorcycle gangs grow out of the pavement, and create WACKY BODY-SWITCHING HIJINKS. In one of my favorite parts, the little girl also (AWESOMELY) tries to use them to poison the stepfather with a cake (THE CAKE IS A LIE).
My favorite part of this book is the way the magic works to bring the family together, but it's not at all sledgehammery; they argue and compete and slang each other all the time, but it gradually becomes the way siblings do, not the way that people who hate each other do. ( One of my favorite moments is a great example of this. ) There is also one of the best and creepiest depictions of the dangers of invisibility that I have ever read. And bright pink footballs, and a contest to find all the ugliest knicknacks in the house, and - well, basically, if you had not gethered, I love this book. And I love fantasy sibling stories. And that concludes my gushings of love for today. FOR NOW.
