Mabel Gray and the Wizard Who Swallowed the Sun The Adventures of Mabel Gray Volume 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Clayton Smith Veronica Leckie Books
Download As PDF : Mabel Gray and the Wizard Who Swallowed the Sun The Adventures of Mabel Gray Volume 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Clayton Smith Veronica Leckie Books
All is not well in Brightsbane, the village of eternal night. An evil wizard - the very wizard who swallowed the sun, in fact - has stolen the Boneyard Compendium, a book of powerful spells that could bring about the destruction of the entire town. When an elder enlists the orphans of St. Crippleback's Home for Waifs and Strays to help track down the wizard, the ever-intrepid Mabel Gray sets out to find the three keys of bone that unlock the Compendium before the wizard gets his diabolical hands on them.
Armed with only her wit and a frightfully small bit of magic in her pocket, Mabel embarks on an adventure that brings her face-to-face with talking scarecrows, high-ranking monsters, babbling witches, ill-tempered daemons, a riddlesome owl who fancies himself a raven, and more. But the wizard isn't a wizard for nothing, and his evil magic may prove to be more powerful than Mabel ever imagined....
Mabel Gray and the Wizard Who Swallowed the Sun The Adventures of Mabel Gray Volume 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Clayton Smith Veronica Leckie Books
Plucky, practical, polite and steadfast, with a keen appreciation of irony, and an appealing touch of wistful melancholy, Mabel is a heroine you can really take to heart and root for.She's launched on her adventure because she really wants a "Letter of High Station", the reward she's been promised and the item she needs in order to advance in her socially regimented world. But like Dorothy in Oz, what she really needs is to find her home and her family. So, sent on a hopeless quest to frustrate an evil Wizard's evil plans, she charms, reasons, argues, and lucks her way from adventure to adventure, always tantalizingly close to realizing her dreams.
This book has a lot of moving parts, but they all fit together seamlessly. The narrator is ever present, frequently confiding to the reader or wandering off on whimsical digressions. This device is often, ultimately, cloying or distracting, but Smith pulls it off, and manages to use this narrator's voice to keep the younger reader focused and on track, while amusing the older reader. The world in which the action is set is nicely imagined and realized without being so overbuilt and overexplained that it becomes top heavy or tedious. Interestingly, most adults are a bit unreliable and a bit devious, and it's the supposed bad guys, (Riddle Raven, Bad Witch, the Viceroy, Reginald the Dragon, and so on), who are more forthright and honest. That's a neat trick to pull off.
On top of all that there is some really funny, dry and deadpan, throwaway business that is not in any way essential to the story, but just punches it up enough to make fun of the material in an I-kid-because-I-love sort of way. (For example, there's a Good Witch, a Bad Witch, and a "Witch of Neutral Position". I'm sorry, but that just cracks me up.)
There's also just enough of an edge in some of the throwaways and narration to make this more than a love and kisses homage to fairy tales and storytelling. Between the sometimes tart dialogue, the deviousness of some characters, and the ambiguity of some of the fixes in which Mabel finds herself, there is plenty to think over here.
So, for any younger reader this should be a treat. For the right, or ready, younger reader this should be a feast. An absolutely compelling Kindle find. (Please note that I found this book a while ago while browsing Amazon Kindle freebies. It is currently a kindleunlimited choice. I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
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Mabel Gray and the Wizard Who Swallowed the Sun The Adventures of Mabel Gray Volume 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Clayton Smith Veronica Leckie Books Reviews
It's not their fault. They're born that way and it's our job as parents to make them smart enough to one day replace us. That brings me to Mabel Gray.
In Mabel Gray and the Wizard Who Swallowed the Sun, Clayton Smith has created a fantastic world of eternal night and sent a small girl out into the dark to explore it, mostly, alone. Through Mabel we discover the bizarre and engaging history of the world of Brightsbane as she looks to defeat the wizard that swallowed the sun.
Smith's style is that of a playful fairy tale mixed with a little of the macabre—all age appropriate, of course. And through it all, Smith refuses to talk down to children. In reading this book you'll think to yourself, "That's a pretty big word for a kid. If my kid reads this, they're going to be bugging me the whole time asking 'what's this mean,' 'what's that mean,' 'what's that word?'" And that will seem like a lot of work, because you're a lazy parent. But once you get past that you'll realize that Smith created a story so engaging with characters so likable that your kid is willing to read through the hard words and learn a thing or two in the process. And, then maybe they'll get a little smarter.
So if you really think about it, Smith is doing your job for you. So you can go back to be a lazy parent. And your kids will be less dumb.
There seems to be a magical age for kids to appreciate it. I first discovered this book two years ago, and loved it so much I tried to get my (then) 8 year old to read it. She pronounced it too scary. Fast forward two years My now 10 year old found this book lurking on her this week and absolutely adores it. Her main complaint is that there's no book two yet (although there appear to be a couple of Brightsbane fairy tales).
When I asked her who she thought would enjoy it she said "Anyone who likes fantasy, really crazy stuff. Not scary, just weird sort of post-apocalyptic stuff, like when they trade the sun for a potato. Anyone who likes crazy stuff like that would like this book a lot.”
The genius author behind the world-end skewering Apocalypticon brandishes his whimsical imagination upon fairy tales this time, and the form becomes fresh again because of it! Mabel Gray is a waif full of pluck and cleverness as she makes her way through the ever-night village of Brightsbane in hopes of foiling a dastardly wizard’s evil plan to destroy the town. Smith puts his irreverent spin on treasured fairy tale archetypes and adds some new ones with grand character-creating flair...the Boneyard Warden is a particular favorite! The story sparkles as Mabel traverses the Brightsbane terrain, gaining courage and working to get one step ahead of the wily wizard – and, of course, the dialogue is winsome and masterful. Smith carries readers of all ages along on Mabel’s journey as only he can do with incredible charm, amazing heart, and a sense of magical playfulness that are his stock-in-trade. Three cheers for Mabel Gray and Brightsbane, and three more for all their stories yet to come!
Here's a book i never would have picked up normally. It's a fantasy story, a fairy tale, and a children's book. I picked it up because i like the author. He's written some strange and interesting stories that i really loved, so i picked this up. Although i don't love the genre, i do love a good story and this is a good story. If i had to compare it to other stories, i think i would lump it in with Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. Not a bad lump to be lumped in with. The story involves Mabel, a small orphaned waif, who is set on a quest to stop a wizard from opening a dangerous book by retrieving at least one of three keys which open locks to open the book. Along the way she runs into all manner of monsters and beasts. Though it's a children's story, there is plenty in it to amuse adults. It's told with lots of humor and the plot has lots of twists and turns. If i had small kids, this book would be required bedtime reading.
Plucky, practical, polite and steadfast, with a keen appreciation of irony, and an appealing touch of wistful melancholy, Mabel is a heroine you can really take to heart and root for.
She's launched on her adventure because she really wants a "Letter of High Station", the reward she's been promised and the item she needs in order to advance in her socially regimented world. But like Dorothy in Oz, what she really needs is to find her home and her family. So, sent on a hopeless quest to frustrate an evil Wizard's evil plans, she charms, reasons, argues, and lucks her way from adventure to adventure, always tantalizingly close to realizing her dreams.
This book has a lot of moving parts, but they all fit together seamlessly. The narrator is ever present, frequently confiding to the reader or wandering off on whimsical digressions. This device is often, ultimately, cloying or distracting, but Smith pulls it off, and manages to use this narrator's voice to keep the younger reader focused and on track, while amusing the older reader. The world in which the action is set is nicely imagined and realized without being so overbuilt and overexplained that it becomes top heavy or tedious. Interestingly, most adults are a bit unreliable and a bit devious, and it's the supposed bad guys, (Riddle Raven, Bad Witch, the Viceroy, Reginald the Dragon, and so on), who are more forthright and honest. That's a neat trick to pull off.
On top of all that there is some really funny, dry and deadpan, throwaway business that is not in any way essential to the story, but just punches it up enough to make fun of the material in an I-kid-because-I-love sort of way. (For example, there's a Good Witch, a Bad Witch, and a "Witch of Neutral Position". I'm sorry, but that just cracks me up.)
There's also just enough of an edge in some of the throwaways and narration to make this more than a love and kisses homage to fairy tales and storytelling. Between the sometimes tart dialogue, the deviousness of some characters, and the ambiguity of some of the fixes in which Mabel finds herself, there is plenty to think over here.
So, for any younger reader this should be a treat. For the right, or ready, younger reader this should be a feast. An absolutely compelling find. (Please note that I found this book a while ago while browsing freebies. It is currently a kindleunlimited choice. I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
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