A BOOK REVIEW OF THE MOVIE

Coraline
by Neil Gaiman
Bloomsbury | August 4, 2002 

      The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring...
      In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.
      The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.
      Only it's different.
      At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.
      Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES | HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED

Anne of Green Gables
by L.M. Montgomery
Puffin Classics | June 1908

       Everyone's favorite redhead, the spunky Anne Shirley, begins her adventures at Green Gables, a farm outside Avonlea, Prince Edward Island. When the freckled girl realizes that the elderly Cuthberts wanted to adopt a boy instead, she begins to try to win them and the reader over.

TWOSPELLS REVIEW | REVISITING MIDDLE GRADE

TwoSpells
by Mark Morrison
Independent | February 21, 2018

     Sarah and her twin brother Jon are heirs to an ancient magical realm and its most valuable treasure, an enchanted library. The library endows readers with the supernatural means of crossing into the uncharted inner-sanctum of the second dimension, inhabited by peculiar and sometimes perilous creatures.
     The children are emboldened with a wondrous mystical gift that no other being has ever possessed. But fate intervenes and triggers a disastrous inter-dimensional war that disrupts the fabric of time and space spanning multiple universes, tearing destiny a new and savage pathway.
     The two must rescue their world from a phantom hybrid alien race controlled by a demented dark-wizard, Jeremy Sermack. They will either assimilate or be exterminated.
     Will they be the saviors the prophets spoke of, or will they retreat to the perceived safety of their distant homeland?

OASIS IN THE CLOUDS REVIEW

Oasis in the Clouds (When Worlds Collide #1)
by C. Esther

Self-Published | July 19, 2016

Status: Completed

       Niri wakes up in a beautiful garden, and finds that she has no memories. She is sure she will spend the remainder of her days there, until an unknown friend comes to her aide and reveals the truth about her personal paradise. Discovering that she is Wicca, she embarks on a journey to learn about her powers, the extent of which surprises her at every turn. She must ultimately retrieve her memories and help the higher order of witches imprison the Wicca who stole her memories before she takes the kingdom for herself. A mighty task for a woman of only twenty.

PICTURES, TONGUE TWISTERS & OTHER THINGS

So, I'm reviewing a picture book...

Tongue Twisters: For Girls

Written by: Honeysuckle Hale

Illustrated by: Aline Jorge

Publishing information: February 6, 2016

The cover is assaulting my senses, and not in a good way. The lime, electric, fluorescent green with this Bloody-Mary red... *shiver* It contrasts each other but it's so harsh. The drawing and its color do not compliment the background and the rest of the cover. I looked at the artist's work and most of her backgrounds are pastel and compliment her drawings. 

The Illustrator's Works

I really like the artist's vibe and her style. The pictures in this book were different, in style, compared to the ones on her website, but I still really liked them. The shape and colors were different. I think, the artist was somewhat restricted and limited artistically. The author showed her the tongue twisters, which aren't really tongue twisters because they're rather simple (more on that later), and the artist drew whatever the tongue twister depicted/drew the best representation they could. It didn't seem seamless to me. I really want to read a Patricia Polacco book now.

Spelled Review

Spelled by Betsy Schow

Publish Date: June 2, 2015

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Fairy Tale Survival Rule #32: If you find yourself at the mercy of a wicked witch, sing a romantic ballad and wait for your Prince Charming to save the day.

No thanks. Dorthea is princed out. Sure being the crown princess of Emerald has its perks-like Glenda Original ball gowns and Hans Christian Louboutin heels. But a forced marriage to the brooding prince Kato is so not what Dorthea had in mind for her enchanted future.

Talk about unhappily ever after. 

Trying to fix her prince problem by wishing on a (cursed) star royally backfires, leaving the kingdom in chaos and her parents stuck in some place called "Kansas." Now it's up to Dorthea and her prince to find the mysterious Wizard of Oz and undo the curse...before it releases the wickedest witch of all and spells The End for the world of Story.

Love Fortunes and Other Disasters Review

Love Fortunes and Other Disasters by Kimberly Karalius

Publishing: Swoon Reads on May 12, 2015

          In the tradition of Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic, one girl chooses to change her fortune and her fate by falling in love.
          Love is real in the town of Grimbaud, and Fallon Dupree has dreamed of attending high school there for years. After all, generations of Duprees have successfully followed the (100% accurate!) love fortunes from Zita’s famous Love Charms Shop to happily marry their high school sweethearts. It’s a tradition. So she is both stunned and devastated when her fortune states that she will NEVER find love.
          Fortunately, Fallon isn’t the only student with a terrible love fortune, and a rebellion is brewing. Fallon is determined to take control of her own fate-even if it means working with a notorious heartbreaker like Sebastian.
          Will Fallon and Sebastian be able to overthrow Zita’s tyranny and fall in love?