| Number | Call Number | Branch | Status | Volume |
| 1 |
YA F Barker Clive |
KL |
In at KL (Kathryn Linnemann) |
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| 2 |
YA F Barker Clive |
SP |
Out: Due May 20 2013 |
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| /*Starred Review*/ Gr. 7-12. In the first of a planned four-book series, Barker imbues the traditional conventions of fantasy with a whimsical Wonderland quality, providing a host of bizarre characters, a fabulous landscape, and a coherent underlying mythology. Teenage Candy Quackenbush of Chickentown, Minnesota, begins (unbeknownst to her) a prophesied journey toward her destiny when she dives into a mysterious sea that appears outside the town. She is carried to Abarat, an unusual archipelago of 25 islands. Happy to get away from her abusive father, resigned mother, and boring town, Candy eagerly enters a series of zany adventures, making friends and eluding enemies as she finds herself caught in the struggle for power between the Lord of Midnight and the architect of the high-tech Commexo City. The multilayered adventure story not only embraces the lands of Oz, Wonderland, and Narnia but also offers a wink and a nod to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. More than 100 full-color paintings by Barker are appropriately quirky, grotesque, and campy, effectively capturing and expanding on the nuances of the tale. ((Reviewed September 1, 2002)) Copyright 2002 Booklist Reviews | | | |
| Quakenbush goes back to her future Chickentown, U.S.A., the setting for Clive Barker's magical new novel for young people, is the most boring place in the world. Tired of a purposeless life with her perpetually depressed mother and alcoholic father, Candy Quackenbush is desperate to escape the monotony of a Minnesota town notable only for its chicken-processing plants. The opportunity comes on a day when, fed up with her mean-spirited teacher, Candy walks out of school and is drawn to the prairie at the edge of town. There, she finds a broken-down lighthouse, a thief named John Mischief with seven extra heads, and an ocean that appears and carries her to another world called the Abarat, where each island represents a different hour of the day. Once in the Abarat, Candy is targeted by Christopher Carrion, the malicious Lord of Midnight from whom John Mischief stole a mysterious key. As she travels across the islands, however, it soon becomes clear that Candy is under Carrion's scrutiny for more reasons than her involvement with Mischief. The more time she spends in the Abarat, the more it seems that she has been there before, and that her role in the changing future of the islands will be greater than she could have thought. In this novel aimed at young adults, Barker presents the reader with a host of very disturbing characters: deformed men created from mud, giant moths formed from mummified corpses, and a powerful magician who comforts himself by literally drinking in his insane thoughts. Without encouraging too many nightmares, Barker tempers the horror factor with elements of fantasy and adventure that will entertain and fascinate his readers. Accompanying the text are more than a hundred spectacular full-color paintings that Barker himself spent four years completing to illuminate his fantastic tale. With the presence of so many bizarre creatures throughout the book, illustrations that exemplify just what the author had in mind when he dreamed them up are welcome. The paintings are often integrated into the text, enhancing the surreal atmosphere of the story and drawing the reader further into the world they depict. From preteens to adults, readers who love fantasy and excitement will lose themselves in Barker's intricate narrative and eagerly await the next installment in the series. Emily Morelli is a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Copyright 2002 BookPage Reviews | | | |
| Only intending to find a subject for her term paper, Chickentown, Minnesota, resident Candy Quackenbush finds herself in a strange and perilous otherworld. Like the dozens of sophomoric but intriguingly baroque paintings that illustrate this hefty fantasy, Barker's writing features a host of arresting images and odd characters, but its narrative line meanders with the arbitrary twists of a computer role-playing game. Copyright 2003 Horn Book Guide Reviews | | | |
| A new series revives the almost-extinct genre of the fantasy travelogue. Candy Quackenbush is fed up with her life of "boredom, violence, and tears" in unbearably ordinary Chickentown, Minnesota. After a typically brutal school day, she runs away to the prairie, only to fall into a most extraordinary adventure. Helping the improbable John Mischief (whose seven brothers all grow from horns on his head) escape creepy Mendelson Shape, Candy magically summons the Sea of Izabella, which links our world to the archipelago of Abarat, where the chief islands are each governed by a single Hour of the day. Candy easily finds friends and guides among its fantastical inhabitants, including Samuel Klepp (publisher of the indispensable Almenak) and the downtrodden slave Malingo; but she also accumulates powerful enemies in the dastardly wizard Wolfswinkel, the ambitious tycoon Pixler, and Shape's terrifying master Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight. Eventually Candy realizes that her journey is no accident, but part of a mysterious destiny. Abarat is an intriguing creation, deserving of comparison to Oz. Filmmaker and adult-novelist Barker (Coldheart Canyon, 2001, etc.) pours out an utter phantasmagoria, ruled by the logic of dreams. Yet there is a peculiar lifelessness to all this imaginative fecundity; fascinating in its minutiae, the world fails to cohere about a compelling narrative or charismatic central character. Like the dozens of illustrations by the author, it dazzles with color and detail, but on closer inspection proves curiously flat, all surface and no depth. Still, with three promised sequels on the way, many readers will, like Candy, want to "trust to Mama Izabella" to take them somewhere worth the trip. (Fiction. 12+)Film rights to Disney; author tour Copyright Kirkus 2002 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved | | | |
| Like The Thief of Always, Barker's first book for children, this tale finds a bored protagonist venturing into a fantastical world. The novel begins with a rather cryptic scene of three women on a "perilous voyage... [emerging] from the shelter of the islands." The action then shifts to Candy Quackenbush of Chickentown, Minn., who hates her life as the daughter of an alcoholic father and a depressed mother. One day, humiliated by her teacher, Candy skips out of school and heads for the prairie, where she stumbles on a derelict lighthouse and a creature with eight heads, John Mischief. The opening scene and the thrust of the novel gradually connect, as Candy begins an adventure to a mysterious archipelago called Abarat. Skilled at fantasy, Barker throws plenty of thrills and chills at readers. Candy becomes a pawn between Mischief and the man (Christopher Carrion, "Lord of Midnight") from whom Mischief has stolen something of great value. However, by the middle of the novel, readers may feel that Barker pulls out too many stops; he floods the pages with scores of intriguing characters and a surfeit of subplots (some of which dead-end, perhaps to be picked up in one of the three planned sequels). The author's imagination runs wild as he conjures some striking imagery ("Dark threads of energy moved through her veins and leaped from her fingertips" says one of the three women in the opening scene) and cooks up a surreal stew of character portraits (rendered in bold colors and brushwork, they resemble some of Van Gogh's later work). But much of the novel feels like a wind-up for the books to follow and, after this rather unwieldy 400-page ride, readers my be disappointed by so many unresolved strands of the plot. Ages 10-up. (Oct.) FYI: A national marketing campaign is planned for the Abarat series, for which movie, theme park and multimedia rights have been purchased by Walt Disney Pictures. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information. | | | |
| Gr 7-10-Candy Quackenbush is tired of her humdrum existence in boring Chickentown, MN. After skipping out on a particularly frustrating day of school, she wanders into an empty field at the edge of town, and suddenly her life takes a remarkable turn. Through a series of most unusual events, she finds herself transported to the Abarat, a magical realm composed of 25 islands, each representing one hour of the day, with the mysterious Twenty-Fifth designated for Time Outside of Time. As she travels around the islands, Candy becomes involved in a power struggle between two ruthless and bitter rivals, Rojo Pixler of Commexo City and Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight. Each man seeks to control the island chain, and Candy may be the deciding factor in its survival or destruction. Barker is obviously more comfortable in the Abarat than he is in our more mundane world; the chapters that take place in Chickentown don't seem fully developed. Once Candy is safely in the fantastical realm, however, the story takes off. The rendering of the Abarat's locales, cultures, and mythology, combined with the author's own full-color illustrations and well-realized characters, allows readers to become quickly immersed in this beautiful and frightening world. In spite of a less-than-credible, almost preternatural calm in the face of the bizarre, Candy makes a fine protagonist, displaying strength, vulnerability, and a lack of the forced spunkiness displayed by some adventurous heroines. This first book in a series of four sets the stage nicely for what is sure to be a rollicking, epic ride.-Alison Ching, North Garland High School, Garland, TX Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information. | | | |
| Candy Quackenbush, intelligent, creative, and outspoken, lives a life of quiet desperation in Chickentown, Minnesota. Raised by two stereotypes-abusive, alcoholic father and beaten-down, apathetic mother-she feels alienated from her family and her peers. All of that changes when her English teacher assigns a paper on the history of Chickentown. Mrs. Quackenbush sends her daughter to talk to the manager of the Comfort Tree Hotel, who tells Candy the story of the mysterious and tragic Henry Murkitt. Because of hearing the story, Candy walks away from school and out into the prairie where she meets an antlered man. He induces her to call the sea, and she is summarily swept away from quotidian Minnesota to the Abarat, a world composed of twenty-four islands, each set at a particular hour of the day, plus one mysterious island-place that is out of time. Adult market horror writer Barker's first novel for teens is a weird but workable combination of Ken Kesey and Lewis Carroll. Candy's adventures have a definite hallucinogenic feel to them. As she moves from peril to peril, relentlessly pursued by old bad magic and new bad technology, she meets strange allies in unlikely places and begins to suspect that she has a destiny to fulfill in the Abarat. Character development is a bit thin, but the plotting is strong and the world building competent, at times even inspired. Numerous murky drawings accompany the text but add little to what could be supplied by the author's manic yet supple prose and the reader's imagination. A great introduction to more complex works of fantasy featuring strong female protagonists-the work of Robin McKinley and Tamora Pierce come to mind-this novel has the same antic charm as Paula Volsky's The Grand Ellipse (Bantam, 2000/VOYA April 2001), though without the polish. Sequels are promised and will undoubtedly be anticipated by young fantasy buffs.-Ann Welton. PLB $26.89. ISBN 0-06-051084-6. 3Q 3P M J Copyright 2002 Voya Reviews | | |
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