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Seven Chinese Brothers |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0590420577 |
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From Publishers Weekly
In colorful language well suited to a story of ingenuity and valor, Mahy presents the Chinese folktale about brothers with amazing powers. Although the broad outline is the same as The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop, illustrated by Kurt Wiese (first published in 1938), Mahy's stirring retelling is very different from and just as good as the earlier effort. She has elaborated on the story, spicing it with more action and adding ironic humor. Replete with striking character portraits, the Tsengs' dramatic watercolors evoke the Orient and provide authentic, historical details. As in all fine picture books, text and illustrations blend, creating an inviting world for young readers and listeners and heightening the story's dramatic impact. Children will be caught up in the many narrow escapes and will... |
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17 Kings and 42 Elephants: Margaret Mahy |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0803704585 |
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From Publishers Weekly
Mahy's jocund verse, first published 15 years ago, has been dressed in colorful new clothes. MacCarthy's vivid batik paintings on silk gleam like the eyes of the "white toothed crocodiles" or the sleek stripes of the magnificent tigers. The story is simple: 17 kings sing and dance their way through the jungle on the backs of 42 elephants until the "deep dark jungle" swallows them. Their mysterious destination is not as important as their obvious joy in the journey; the characters are not asimportant as the rollicking language. Like Vachel Lindsay, Mahy has penned a foot-stomping poem; it sways like the backs of the elephants past peacocks, pelicans, hippopotomums and other "watchers in the jungle, moist and mistalline" that "bibble-bubble-babble to the bad break herebing-bang-bong!" Ages 4-8. Copyright 1987 Reed... |
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When the King Rides by |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0613061721 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
Card catalog description
A cumulative rhyme describes the increasing commotion that results as dogs and babies, cats and ladies, soldiers and mice all join the king's parade.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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The Tricksters |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613192486 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From Publishers Weekly
In one of Mahy's best works, three brothers show up at Harry's house and she doesn't know whether they are aspects of her own imagination, or terrifying supernatural forces. Ages 12-up. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up A Christmas story that takes place on the beach in a sunny New Zealand December. Mahy's fans will not be surprised to learn that it is also a love story in which one of the lovers is a ghost. To most of the Hamilton family, the three young men who drop in on their holiday seem to be ordinary, although eccentric, visitors. To 17-year-old Ariadne (always called Harry), they are much more than that, perhaps ghosts, or even characters... |
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Young Warriors: Stories of Strength |
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| Author: |
Tamora Pierce (Editor) |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0375829628 |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up–What does it take to be a warrior? Fifteen different fantasy writers offer answers to this question in this well-written and carefully arranged collection of new short stories by experienced writers. Their examples include both males and females fighting physically, mentally, and spiritually; in times ranging from prehistory to World War II; and in distinct settings including Central America, a Russian shtetl, the Near East, Australia, the Sudan, India, the African savannah, and an Irish convent, as well as fantasy worlds. The protagonists are mostly teenagers, some driven by the nature of their world to rise to heroism, others seeking out adventure and potential glory. It is the nature of short-story collections to be uneven, but these selections are almost all strong, with quickly sketched... |
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My Mysterious World |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
1878450581 |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 1-3?Composed in short, simple sentences, these sketchy autobiographies focus almost entirely on what each author might say in response to children's questions. Because Kuskin's descriptions of how she writes are interspersed with selections from her poetry, Thoughts might prove to be a more lively read-aloud experience than Mysterious World; and Kuskin's whimsical illustrations provide additional interest. Some of the information is available in other sources, such as Major Authors & Illustrators for Children & Young Adults (Gale, 1992) or the sound filmstrip, First Choice: Poets & Poetry: Karla Kuskin (Pied Piper, 1979). Mahy's story is unique because of setting (rural New Zealand), and because of the high quality of the accompanying photographs showing the author at work and play. There are some... |
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Memory |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613228936 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From Publishers Weekly
In a novel PW called "intricately structured" and "profoundly satisfying," a 19-year-old boy, unable to come to terms with his sister's accidental death five years earlier, finds unexpected solace in a friendship with a woman with Alzheimer's. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)r Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up Memorythe crucial center of our identities, its joy and pain, and the consequences of its dislocationis the theme of Mahy's latest novel. Nine teen-year-old Jonny Dart is both run ning away from the painful memory of his sister's death, and towards under standing his role in that death. In a mo ment of crisis he meets Sophie, an Alz heimer's victim in... |
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Alchemy |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0689850549 |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-This book can be read on several levels. As a story of magical powers, alchemy, and spirits, it may attract readers looking for a suspenseful thriller. But it can also be read as a metaphor, cautioning of the dangers of denying one's true self. Outwardly, Roland, 17, appears to have everything-popularity, good grades, and a terrific girlfriend. But he also has a strange, recurring dream and hears inner voices warning him away from something he does not understand. Then, inexplicably, he shoplifts some inconsequential items from a local store. A teacher confronts him with his crime and makes an odd proposal: he will tell no one of the incident if Roland will find out what is going on in the life of classmate Jess Ferret. As Roland begins to investigate her, he learns that his terrifying dream is... |
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A Summery Saturday Morning |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613239849 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From Publishers Weekly
With bustling watercolors and catchy cadences borrowed from "This is the way we wash our clothes," New Zealanders Mahy (Boom, Baby, Boom, Boom!) and Young (Adam Pig's Everything Fun Book) offer a buoyant story of a walk to the seaside that takes some unexpected turns. The multiethnic party consists of four children and an adult, plus two dogs. The canines get up to high jinks as they chase first a cat, then a boy on a "rattly" bike ("Chasing things is what dogs like/ On a summery Saturday morning"). But the dogs outdo themselves when they go after an unamused family of geese. The children and their caregiver try to catch the dogs but get mired on the beach, a problem deliciously described as: "The mud begins its guggliwugs,/ Its guggliwugs, its guggliwugs./ Our sandals slide like slugliwugs/ On a summery Saturday... |
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Alchemy |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0689850530 |
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| Availability: |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-This book can be read on several levels. As a story of magical powers, alchemy, and spirits, it may attract readers looking for a suspenseful thriller. But it can also be read as a metaphor, cautioning of the dangers of denying one's true self. Outwardly, Roland, 17, appears to have everything-popularity, good grades, and a terrific girlfriend. But he also has a strange, recurring dream and hears inner voices warning him away from something he does not understand. Then, inexplicably, he shoplifts some inconsequential items from a local store. A teacher confronts him with his crime and makes an odd proposal: he will tell no one of the incident if Roland will find out what is going on in the life of classmate Jess Ferret. As Roland begins to investigate her, he learns that his terrifying dream is... |
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24 Hours |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0613732669 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
Book Review
Seventeen-year-old Ellis isn't quite sure how he got into this mess, but it's so interesting that he just can't bring himself to get out of it. "Now was the time to say a polite good-bye and make for home. But wouldn't that good-bye be rather like walking out before the end of the film?" On holiday from school, Ellis is accosted by barefoot Jackie, a distant childhood acquaintance, who commandeers his car and introduces him to Ursa, Leona, and Fox--siblings who are as otherworldly as "three sisters in a castle." Their strange abode, the ramshackle Land of Smiles motel, is a magnet for the wild and weird. Once there, it is as if conventional Ellis has fallen down the rabbit hole. His four new friends draw him into their upside-down world, and before he knows it, Ellis has liberated a stolen computer, rescued a baby,... |
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The Birthday Burglar and a Very Wicked Headmistress, Vol. 2 |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Audio |
| ISBN: |
0862200768 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
Readers who enjoyed the rambunctious, lively nonsense of Mahy's The Great Piratical Rumbustification & The Librarian and the Robbers will find in this book two similarly energetic tales. In The Birthday Burglar , young Bassington, who has never had a proper birthday, begins stealing the birthdays of others; when an unlikely but determined group sets out to reclaim its rightful celebrations, what results is friendship, a new vocation for the birthday burglar and even romance. A Very Wicked Headmistress the more sophisticated and satisfying of the two storiesfocuses on the nefarious schemes of Miss Taffeta, a former circus performer, blackmailer and cardsharp who decides to open an exclusive girls' boarding school. How Taffeta plots to gain control of a neighboring farmer's fortune creates more than one hilarious... |
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Catalogue of the Universe |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
068985353X |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
In this exuberant, thoughtful story, Angela finds romance in an unexpected place while she searches for her unknown father. Ages 12-up. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up Both Angela and Tycho had romantic notions: she about her unknown father, whom her mother had never married, and he for beautiful, sensual Angela. As Angela locates her father and plots a course to make him discover her, she learns that commonsense is a neat, symmetrical, misleading circle whereas truth is slightly elliptical and wobbly. As short, homely, brilliant Tycho contemplates the stars and planets to understand his family problems and hopeless love, Angela's confrontation with her father... |
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Don't Read This! |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
193242525X |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
Readers with a taste for the eerie should ignore the advice proffered in this book's title. Most of these 11 entries boast suspenseful, usually unpredictable plots and believable characterizations despite the sometimes otherworldly scenarios depicted; taken from 11 different countries, the stories also feature smooth translations. Among the standouts is the title entry, by Italian Robert Piumini, in which the reader, warned repeatedly by the story itself ("Do not read me. Reading me brings bad luck"), is held accountable for three disasters. In Mahy's "Fingers on the Back of the Neck" (from Australia), a boy kills his great-grandmother, who had an annoying habit of stroking his neck, but her arthritic, "knobbly" fingers return to continue that practice forevermore. Bjarne Reuters (Denmark) and Uri Orlev (Israel)... |
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Down the Back of the Chair |
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| Author: |
Margaret Mahy |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0618693955 |
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From Booklist
PreS-Gr. 2. Like Shel Silverstein's poetry, Mahy's exuberant rhyme bounces with nonsensical humor and begs for guitar accompaniment. On a bleak day, when money is low and the car keys are lost, a young girl and her siblings console their depressed dad by sharing their own technique for cheering up and finding missing items: see what's under the cushions. Sure enough, a magical storehouse of wonderments emerges from an armchair, and the girl describes the mayhem in infectious rhymes: "Some hairy string and a diamond ring . . . pineapple peel and a conger eel." Children may need help with some of the vocabulary (drake and docket, for example), but the wild assortment of objects, which include a pirate and a "lion with curls," will easily delight, as will the cacophonous, sunny, paint-and-paper collages of... |
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