HORTEN'S MIRACULOUS MECHANISMS: MAGIC, MYSTERY, & A VERY STRANGE ADVENTURE
By Lissa Evans (Sterling Children's Books, 272 pages, $14.95)
I read this book to see if my 7-year-old might like it (he did), but it also has a lot to offer older kids, and it's a delightful two-evening read for a grownup, too. Stuart Horten is a 10-year-old with a few disadvantages: He's really short for his age (and did you notice his initials? S. Horten), his parents have just moved the family to a small town where he knows no one, it's summer and there's nothing to do, and his parents are hopeless nerds. His dad, who writes crossword puzzles, uses greetings like "Dawn salutations to our esteemed offspring!" Yes, I sympathized with the word-geek parents. But then Stuart discovers a clue to the magic workshop of Great Uncle Tony, who disappeared after the war, and the town of Beeton suddenly holds mystery and excitement for Stuart and the friends he makes along the way. Evans is a master of the end-of-chapter cliffhanger, which led to many evenings of pleading to read "just ONE more chapter! Please!" Some of the Britishisms are over a first-grader's head, but any reader of Harry Potter will have no trouble with them. This is a great read, not deep or serious, but with strong lessons about perseverance and friendship.
CATHERINE PREUS, COPY EDITOR
HALF-BLOOD BLUES
By Esi Edugyan (Picador, 319 pages, $15 paperback)
In her novel "Half-Blood Blues," Canada's Esi Edugyan tells the story of the struggling remnants of a jazz band in Europe at the beginning of World War II. The year is 1940, and the music of the "Hot-Time Swingers" is scorned as degenerate by the Nazis, and its musicians banned from the stage in Germany and Paris. The band's trumpet player, Hieronymous Falk, is a German-born musical sensation. But he is hunted by the Gestapo just the same, and the secret police finally catch up with him in a Paris café. As he disappears into the Nazis' clutches, his fellow band members scatter. The novel is told through the eyes of the band's former bass player, Sid Griffiths, an American who decades later looks back on what happened and confronts a difficult truth. This book was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, winner of Canada's Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and, last week, received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for 2012. Recommended.
DAVID SHAFFER, BUSINESS REPORTER
