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Sep. 5th, 2008 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsAbout 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. As you might guess, Seven-Day Magic is pretty much jam-packed with meta - the five children are thoroughly aware that they are on Magic Book-Related Adventures, and are determined to learn all the rules and do the thing properly. Awesome Magical Book-Related Adventures Include:
1. Semi-hemi-demi-Oz, including a Sensible Household Witch who thwarts a dragon with handy house-cleaning tips and cleaning products.
2. A totally blatant shout-out to Edward Eager's previous book Half Magic, which is, like, meta squared, because the kids have in fact read Half Magic and then go on to get involved in a kind of Half Magic sequel anyways.
3. Semi-hemi-demi-Little House on the Prairie, involving the younger version of the children's grandma being a BADASS TOMBOY SCHOOLTEACHER. (Hilariously, all the children flee the magic adventure before they have to see pre-grandma kissing pre-grandpa.)
4. Wacky TV adventures (which the kids worry is cheating, because it's not really book magic!)
5. Most hilarious of all, adventures INSIDE THE MAIN CHARACTER'S OWN PERSONAL MARTY STU ORIGINAL FIC, in which he is BARNABY THE WANDERER and rides around defeating bad guys and ladies throw themselves on him and he is like "No, ladies, I only do this for GLORY," and the other kids have to chase him around his fic and it's awesome.
I also feel the need to mention that, like all of Edward Eager's books, this is in large part a love letter to E. Nesbit, including a section at the beginning that basically sums up to "BY THE WAY E. NESBIT I LOVE YOU MARRY ME!" Which, you know, I can get behind.
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 small moments occurs when one of the younger boys says something rude to his oldest step-brother, who smacks him:
"You might say something, Caspar! He hit me! Did you see him?"
"Yes, I saw him," said Caspar. It was hard to know what to do about it. Douglas was technically the eldest, and no one denied the eldest his right to thump younger ones who cheeked him. And Johnny had cheeked Douglas. And Douglas had not hit him hard. And Caspar had no wish to stir Douglas up in case he remembered about the night the Ogre caught him. And he owed it to Douglas that he was not still Malcolm [of the WACKY BODY-SWITCHING HIJINKS]. But of course, Caspar was really Johnny's older brother, not Douglas. He could think of only one solution. "It should have been me to hit you, I suppose. I will if you like."
COMPLICATED FAMILY DYNAMICS. They make me so happy! 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. As you might guess, Seven-Day Magic is pretty much jam-packed with meta - the five children are thoroughly aware that they are on Magic Book-Related Adventures, and are determined to learn all the rules and do the thing properly. Awesome Magical Book-Related Adventures Include:
1. Semi-hemi-demi-Oz, including a Sensible Household Witch who thwarts a dragon with handy house-cleaning tips and cleaning products.
2. A totally blatant shout-out to Edward Eager's previous book Half Magic, which is, like, meta squared, because the kids have in fact read Half Magic and then go on to get involved in a kind of Half Magic sequel anyways.
3. Semi-hemi-demi-Little House on the Prairie, involving the younger version of the children's grandma being a BADASS TOMBOY SCHOOLTEACHER. (Hilariously, all the children flee the magic adventure before they have to see pre-grandma kissing pre-grandpa.)
4. Wacky TV adventures (which the kids worry is cheating, because it's not really book magic!)
5. Most hilarious of all, adventures INSIDE THE MAIN CHARACTER'S OWN PERSONAL MARTY STU ORIGINAL FIC, in which he is BARNABY THE WANDERER and rides around defeating bad guys and ladies throw themselves on him and he is like "No, ladies, I only do this for GLORY," and the other kids have to chase him around his fic and it's awesome.
I also feel the need to mention that, like all of Edward Eager's books, this is in large part a love letter to E. Nesbit, including a section at the beginning that basically sums up to "BY THE WAY E. NESBIT I LOVE YOU MARRY ME!" Which, you know, I can get behind.
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 small moments occurs when one of the younger boys says something rude to his oldest step-brother, who smacks him:
"You might say something, Caspar! He hit me! Did you see him?"
"Yes, I saw him," said Caspar. It was hard to know what to do about it. Douglas was technically the eldest, and no one denied the eldest his right to thump younger ones who cheeked him. And Johnny had cheeked Douglas. And Douglas had not hit him hard. And Caspar had no wish to stir Douglas up in case he remembered about the night the Ogre caught him. And he owed it to Douglas that he was not still Malcolm [of the WACKY BODY-SWITCHING HIJINKS]. But of course, Caspar was really Johnny's older brother, not Douglas. He could think of only one solution. "It should have been me to hit you, I suppose. I will if you like."
COMPLICATED FAMILY DYNAMICS. They make me so happy! 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.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 08:40 pm (UTC)(BARNABY THE WANDERER, Gen! And everyone in that book-land speaks in terrible Fake Middle English! Have I mentioned internal fanfic is my kryptonite? One of my many kryptonies?)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 08:50 pm (UTC)Which, to be fair, I do plan to.
(*giggling* I would NEVER HAVE GUESSED, Becca. Never ever.
Sometime, you and I should collaborate on, like, the uber-us YA novel. With siblings and parents and internal fanfic and gender and class dynamics and wacky hijinks and ordinary people and ridiculous stoics ALL IN ONE BOOK. ...I am actually kind of ridiculously tempted by this prospect.)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 09:03 pm (UTC)(. . . DUDE, I AGREE. It would be the best YA novel ever!
We could call it "Five Children And Lan." *solemn*)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 09:14 pm (UTC)(*snork* TRULY YOU ARE GENIUS. Er.
It would be fabulous, though. *wistful!*)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 09:20 pm (UTC)(I know right? *serene*
And yes it would be! Someday when we are up at 4 AM again we should Scheme. >:D)