M is for Melly of Halitor the Hero #AtoZChallenge

 

#M is for Melly

But first, a bonus M character.

Mariusz:

In a nutshell: bullishly confident ruler of Castle Hattan, and head of the Wozna cola 'global' enterprise, explorer of time tunnels and places he shouldn't put his nose into.  Strong sense of right and wrong, as long as right is in his favour.

Biggest secret: he's really very kind and considerate, especially with his employees, as long as they don't notice.

Mariusz is from the Princelings of the East series. 

 

Now for the featured character!

In a nutshell: Melly is a kitchen-wench in a village in Duria, where Halitor meets her under difficult circumstances. She has a mission to accomplish and she’ll do whatever she must to do it.

Biggest secret: her real name. (What? You think I'm giving that away?)

Favorite line:  Halitor is worried that Melly might be a princess, since she's just needed rescuing from an ogre. She responds, "Princesses don't peel potatoes. I'm a kitchen wench. Besides, princesses have long blonde hair."

Melly joins forces with Halitor for the adventures in Halitor the Hero.

Excerpt
From the opening of Halitor the Hero:

Halitor’s career as an apprentice Hero ended with a girl’s scream.

The cry echoed through the woods of Loria where the young Hero and his apprentice-master rode, looking for trouble and hoping not to find it. The two riders turned toward the sound, drawn by duty to somebody’s doom.

As they neared the source of the disturbance, Bovrell the Bold waved Halitor forward, and the boy spurred his horse toward the screams. His sweating hands could scarcely hold the reins as his Master shouted instructions. Halitor burst into a clearing and reined to a halt so abrupt that he nearly flew out of the saddle.

A girl with dark hair and a torn gown struggled in the grip of an ogre, and it was Halitor’s job to set matters right. Under his breath Halitor muttered, “I am a Hero. I am a Hero,” over and over in hopes of convincing himself it was true. He thought of the Hero’s Guide in his saddlebag. He’d memorized the section on fighting ogres, but it didn’t seem helpful now.

As Halitor prepared to dismount, the monster turned its attention to him. When it did, it loosed its grip on the Fair Maiden, who pulled herself from the ogre’s grasp. Instead of running, she stood watching her rescuers. Fair Maidens, Halitor knew, were so often too frozen with fear to escape when they might.

“That’s right,” Bovrell the Bold called from where he sat on his horse, well away from the fight and ready to fly back down the mountain if necessary. “Fight monsters afoot, lest your horse spook and spill you.”

Halitor, distracted by his apprentice-master in the act of dismounting, landed with his legs tangled. He wobbled, nearly fell, and dropped his sword, clutching at his saddle to save himself. The ogre stepped toward him with an evil grin. Before Halitor could right himself, the Fair Maiden caught up the fallen sword, turned, and stabbed the monster between the plates of its armor. Green blood poured out and the ogre fell, twitching and thrashing as it died. The girl jumped back, looking rather green herself. She turned her back on the corpse and let the sword fall, swaying. Behind her, the ogre gave a final twitch, and the clanking of armor died away as the monster stopped breathing. Bovrell rode up and jabbed the ogre once with his lance.

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Following the suggestion of fellow blogger and amazing author Jemima Pett, I'm doing a very simple A to Z with characters from my writing and the books of my author friends! I'm just posting a brief profile, sometimes a quote, and the book cover with links. Though you may also see some of my typical reviews (when I feature other peoples’ books) and the usual Friday Flash Fiction.

Middle Grade Audio Book Review: Goose Girl

Title: The Goose Girl (The Books of Bayern #1)
Author: Shannon Hale
Publisher: Full Cast Audio, 2005 (Original: Bloomsbury Children's, 2005)
Source: Library (digital)

Publisher's Summary: 
Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, spends the first years of her life under her aunt's guidance learning to communicate with animals. As she grows up Ani develops the skills of animal speech, but is never comfortable speaking with people, so when her silver-tongued lady-in-waiting leads a mutiny during Ani's journey to be married in a foreign land, Ani is helpless and cannot persuade anyone to assist her. Becoming a goose girl for the king, Ani eventually uses her own special, nearly magical powers to find her way to her true destiny.

Review:
A note on the production quality first: while the reader is very good, the recording itself has strange hesitations in it, as though the splices weren't quite smooth. I found this distracting, as it at times disrupted the meaning of a sentence, or made it seem we were starting a new paragraph or section when we were not. I am currently listening to the second book in the series, and it has the same quirk. I may shift to print. I have never encountered this in any other Full Cast Audio books I have listened to, so don't know what's up with that.

This book is the author's re-envisioning of the old fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm tale of the Goose Girl, a princess who is forced by her evil maid to trade places so the maid can marry the prince of a distant country. Hale looked at the obvious questions (like why the princess was so spineless as to let the maid force her that way) and came up with some very inventive answers.

I found the story a little slow at first, as we began with Ani's birth and a rather reportorial accounting of her early years. The story picks up, though, when Ani begins the journey to Bayern and we encounter her maid's treachery. I ended up enjoying a a great deal (aside from the problems with production values on the audio).

Recommendation: 
Although this book is pretty universally shelves with children's books, I would have to say that some aspects of it push it closer to YA (though I think the romance is not central enough for many YA readers). I would recommend for 5th or 6th grade, at least.

Full Disclosure: I borrowed an electronic copy of The Goose Girl from my library, and received nothing from the author or the publisher in exchange for my honest review. The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  

Middle Grade Classics: A Little Princess

This is the cover from the first edition in 1905

Title: A Little Princess
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Publisher: Warne Published in 1905, expanded from the serialized novel, Sarah Crewe, published in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1888.
I read the

Summary:
When the wealthy Captain Crewe brings his little daughter Sarah back from India to go to school in London, she is the prize boarder at Miss Minchin's boarding school. But when he dies and leaves her penniless, Miss Minchin turns Sarah into an unpaid drudge for the school. Sarah's resolve to always be a "princess" in spirit is sorely tested before everything resolves itself into a happy ending.

Review:
I won't pretend this is the first time I've read this book. For all it's dated and follows a stereotypical pattern (unbelievably good child keeps shining through tribulation and is given a great reward as a result), I  love the story, and I've read it many times. (Oddly, I don't think I ever read it when I was a child). Maybe I want to believe in happy endings. I love that Sarah uses her imagination to escape her intolerable reality, and that she can spin stories well enough to carry others away with her. The descriptions of the child's suffering of mind and body are moving to the point of pathos, but I have always been able to immerse myself in the story and enjoy it on it's own terms. And that is what is needed to enjoy this, as it is for many children's classics.

The lessons about generosity and selflessness ring a little old-fashioned (or at least heavy-handed, since after all, we might hope that generosity isn't an outdated virtue!), but the lesson about the power of imagination is one that every writer has long since learned.

Recommendation:
For fans of orphan stories and hard-luck school stories, as well as those who want to explore the classics of children's literature. The language will feel a bit odd and dated to modern children, but I think that most good readers would have no problem with it. The story will almost certainly appeal primarily to girls, though the lessons aren't bad for boys, either.


Full Disclosure: I long ago purchased A Little Princess, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

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Further musings: 

I have been watching old DVDs of a 2002 PBS show called Manor House, in which ordinary people are recruited to fill an English manor house as it would have been in 1905. They have everybody, from the lord of the Manor to the scullery maid. And therein lies the problem, because for the most part, 21st Century folks have trouble working as servants, especially in that extremely hierarchical society. The butler has to continually remind them that even the servant's hall isn't a democracy, and they have no "right" to time off, or even to complain.

This made me think about two things. One was Sarah Crewe and how she copes with her sudden shift from, effectively, lady of the manor to scullery maid (and those descriptions of her working 14 and 16 hours a day at a very tender age appear to be simply statement of fact as life was lived then). Now, being a child, she may in one sense adapt more easily than an adult (kids do tend to adapt to a new reality pretty quickly), but of course, her gracious acceptance is also exaggerated to show her noble personality.

The other thing I thought about was my own brief excursion into the servant's life. When I finished my undergraduate studies, I spent a winter working as an au paire in Monaco (!). Now, in some families, the au paire is part of the family. I drew a more wealthy family, where I definitely felt that I was seen as a servant. Shall we simply say that the experience suggests that I would have been one of the less successful "servants" in the Manor House? It's no small thing for a person who has grown up with a firm belief in equality to suddenly find themselves decidedly not equal. And that may be a good thing, outside of historical re-enactments.  As we used to say when I was an undergrad, "Question Authority!"

Cover Reveal: Halitor the Hero!

A Fair Maiden who breaks all the rules.

A would-be Hero who fails by the book.

It'll be a fantasy adventure like you never saw...

If they can survive past breakfast!

Halitor has failed at every apprenticeship under the Ice Castle. He figures it’s his last chance when his parents foist him on Bovrell the Bold as an apprentice Hero, and he pores eagerly over the Hero’s Guide to Battles, Rescues and the Slaying of Monsters. But Halitor infuriates his master when he drops his sword, and he gets hopelessly rattled around Fair Maidens. When his master abandons him at an inn in Loria, Halitor is ready to give up and just be a kitchen boy. But Melly, the young kitchen wench, has other ideas. She wants to go find her father, and soon the two are battling monsters and worse on a wild journey to her home. Before they are done, Halitor has learned more than just how to be a Hero.

Available now for pre-order from Amazon Kindle! 

Unfortunately, I am unable to use Amazon for pre-orders of paperback copies. If you would like to pre-order your real, live, concrete copy, please use the "contact me" link above or email Rebecca(dot)Douglass(at)ninjalibrarian(dot)com

Many thanks to Danielle English for the beautiful cover art, as always!