First sentence:
"Once upon a time—for that is how all stories should begin—there was a boy who lost his mother."
Description:
"High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in the myths and fairytales so beloved of his dead mother he finds that the real world and the fantasy world have begun to meld. The Crooked Man has come, with his mocking smile and his enigmatic words: 'Welcome, your majesty. All hail the new king'
And as war rages across Europe, David is violently propelled into a land that is both a construct of his imagination yet frighteningly real, a strange reflection of his own world composed of myths and stories, populated by wolves and worse-than-wolves, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious, legendary book... The Book of Lost Things." -- from the back cover
My thoughts:
This was a great book about love and loss and facing one's fears. I liked the way David's wishes and fears influenced the kingdom as well as the interesting twists on the familiar fairy tales, myths and nursery stories. I especially liked the extensive section after the main story in which the author describes the origins of these stories, recommends some variations by other authors and then provides the original story.
Date read: 1/6/2009
Challenge: Winter Reading Challenge 2009
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Fantasy
ISBN-10: 0340899484
ISBN-13: 9780340899489
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughten
Year: 2006
# of pages: 348
LibraryThing page
2 comments:
This sounds very interesting and I've never heard of the book before. Thanks for the review.
I think I would really like this book, but everytime I pick it up to read it, something else catches my attention. One of these days!
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