Skulduggery Pleasant (Skulduggery Pleasant, Bk 1)
Author:
Genres: Children's Books, Teen & Young Adult
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genres: Children's Books, Teen & Young Adult
Book Type: Hardcover
Think The Nightmare Before Christmas without any holiday correlation.
Humor author Derek Landy combines a dry, British humor with a compelling adventure involving an ill-intent, necromancing sorcerer and a young girl seeking reprieve from her small-town life. Unfortunately for her, she ends up with much more than she bargains for when 12-year-old Stephanie Edgley inherits her uncle's estate and possessions. With her inheritance came a world of magic and mayhem, her only protector being Skulduggery Pleasant, a walking, talking and fire-throwing skeleton.
With help from her skinny, witty friend, Stephanie is submersed into the secretive world, where people's names are a source of control and injuries & car wrecks are cured in a day or two. Oh, and an ancient scepter is the key to ruling the world. I didn't mention that, did I?
Landy has an excellent niche for combining adventurous mystery with ironic and gut-busting bits of humor that are subtle, but clear and concise. His placement of a skeleton, a usual symbol of fright and scare, as the center hero is very sneaky, but appropriate for this particular good versus evil tale. His characters are uniquely ormed in an unbiased view, putting everyone at the top of the suspicion list of evil-doing and intent. And unlike other novels that emphasize the gore and guts of the battle, this book focuses on the principle behind the uprising war and its affects on the individual people and the population as a whole. Pretty good for a book categorized in the children's section.
Stephanie's - or Valkyrie's - unfinished involvement with the magic world and its skeletal hero has spawned a sequel that is currently awaiting my attention on my bookshelf. With Derek Landy as the story-teller, I have little doubt Skulduggery will continue getting himself - or itself, rather - into heaps more trouble.
Humor author Derek Landy combines a dry, British humor with a compelling adventure involving an ill-intent, necromancing sorcerer and a young girl seeking reprieve from her small-town life. Unfortunately for her, she ends up with much more than she bargains for when 12-year-old Stephanie Edgley inherits her uncle's estate and possessions. With her inheritance came a world of magic and mayhem, her only protector being Skulduggery Pleasant, a walking, talking and fire-throwing skeleton.
With help from her skinny, witty friend, Stephanie is submersed into the secretive world, where people's names are a source of control and injuries & car wrecks are cured in a day or two. Oh, and an ancient scepter is the key to ruling the world. I didn't mention that, did I?
Landy has an excellent niche for combining adventurous mystery with ironic and gut-busting bits of humor that are subtle, but clear and concise. His placement of a skeleton, a usual symbol of fright and scare, as the center hero is very sneaky, but appropriate for this particular good versus evil tale. His characters are uniquely ormed in an unbiased view, putting everyone at the top of the suspicion list of evil-doing and intent. And unlike other novels that emphasize the gore and guts of the battle, this book focuses on the principle behind the uprising war and its affects on the individual people and the population as a whole. Pretty good for a book categorized in the children's section.
Stephanie's - or Valkyrie's - unfinished involvement with the magic world and its skeletal hero has spawned a sequel that is currently awaiting my attention on my bookshelf. With Derek Landy as the story-teller, I have little doubt Skulduggery will continue getting himself - or itself, rather - into heaps more trouble.
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