Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel

Released March 2009

This is the third book in the series by Kenneth Oppel that started with Airborn and Skybreaker. I loved Airborn when I first read it. It was like a high seas pirate adventure but in the sky on an airship. It had adventure, suspense, action, and a little romance. Skybreaker was good but I didn’t like it as much as Airborn, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Starclimber. However it only took me a couple of pages and I was off and running into the unique world that Oppel has created with this series. The book hooked me right away and I didn’t quit reading until the end. Starclimber reunites us with Matt Cruse, the former cabin boy who’s now attending the Airship Academy, and Kate de Vries, the fiesty and brilliant girl who’s more interested in discovering new lifeforms than living her family’s wealthy lifestyle. Matt and Kate are going on a new airborn adventure this time around – they’re traveling in the first attempt at reaching outer space. (Oppel’s series is set in a kind of alternate reality – it feels like it’s in the past, but it is also very futuristic. A time and place where space travel hasn’t happened yet, but it’s completely normal to travel in giant airships.) Going to outer space isn’t so strange, but the way they are getting there is. And you can be sure there are several exciting and action-filled sequences and daring circumstances along the way. If you haven’t read any of Oppel’s books, I’d start with Airborn, then keep reading in this fun adventure series.  –Becky Fermanich, Youth Services Librarian

Fairies and Magical Creatures by Matthew Reinhart & Robert Sabuda

Released: July 30, 2008

“Delight in all things fairy is a bustling industry today, and Encyclopedia Mythologica: Fairies and Magical Creatures is a fascinating little gem of a book that should be on every girl’s “must have” list. Longtime collaborators Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda, both masters of paper engineering with many pop-up books to their joint and individual credit, have created a book that is both marvelously simple, yet wondrously complex. Shakespeare’s Titania rises majestically to life as the reader opens this amazing centerfold. She stands more than six inches tall, and her skirts, adorned with flowers, billow impressively about her. Her tiara is of flowers, and her wings are a translucent lavender that complements the royal purple of her skirts. In other words, she looks exactly as a fairy queen should. Open another flap to reveal King Arthur’s Lady of the Lake, who was “sole protector of thirteen Celtic treasures,” including Excalibur. A tiny flap introduces us to the Tooth Fairy, who “may have arisen from a seventeenth-century French tale.” The authors are also the creators of the Encyclopedia Prehistorica series as well as The Young Naturalist’s Handbook: Insect-lo-pedia. Watch for more from this talented pair!”  ForeWord Magazine