The Gecko & Sticky: Villain’s Lair by Wendelin Van Draanen

Released February 2009

“A wittily offbeat and action-packed adventure. Readers are immediately plunked into the action as Dave and his talking gecko, Sticky, make their way to Damien Black’s creepy mansion through a bat-infested, oozing cave. They are after the magical ingots, which, paired with a wristband already in their possession, give the wearer various amazing powers. Black is an old-fashioned villain, with a ‘Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!’ sense of devilishness, and things get hairy when Dave and Sticky—a reformed (?) thief formerly in Black’s employ—are trapped in Black’s Pit of Doom. The two narrowly escape with one ingot, the one that provides wall-walking abilities, with Black and his bumbling cohorts in pursuit—all in the first half. The second half is less of a romp, as the villains look for Dave and mistake another boy for him. By tale’s end Sticky and Dave learn to trust each other, and, of course, the power of good prevails over evil. A dastardly good read that benefits from its quirky drawings and may well become a can’t-wait-for-the-next-one series.”  –Kirkus Reviews

Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve

Released: Nov. 1, 2008

“Reeve’s brilliant, brutal re-creation of Arthurian myth is a study in balance and contradiction: it is bleak yet tender; impeccably historical, yet distinctly timely in its driving sense of disillusionment. Reeve’s Arthur is just another brigand vying for loot and power; it is Myrddin, a scheming storyteller convinced that Arthur can unite Britain against the encroaching Saxons, who methodically sets him up as iconic hero. Rescued by Myrddin after Arthur’s soldiers burn her home to the ground, narrator Gwyna’s first task is to play the lady of the lake and bestow upon Arthur his legendary sword. She then joins Arthur’s band — as a boy; when she grows too old for that deception, she becomes handmaiden to Arthur’s new, unloved wife Gwenhwyfar. Reeve’s prose is vivid (Gwyna sees Arthur’s invaders ‘heaving uphill on a steep sea of horse muscle’), and his characters — notably Gwyna, with her “quickness and cunning” and keen survival instinct, and Myrddin, with his ruthless agenda and rare flashes of humanity — remain true to themselves within an ever-intensifying plot. The relationship between story and history, myth and reality, is richly explored by a narrator whose very self is a conscious creation; gender is just one of many concepts Reeve subverts here with a deft hand. The well-known touchstones of Arthurian legend are cleverly alluded to and undercut throughout, and Myrddin’s constant myth-spinning heightens readers’ awareness of the painful contrast between the cruelties that shape this novel and the utopian dream Arthur represents elsewhere in literature.”  –Horn Book