The Indian in the Cupboard, by Lynne Reid Banks

This is a children's/young adult fantasy novel. An interesting premise: a young boy is given a plastic Indian (native American) figure, the kind of toy that comes in a package of many. There are many kinds of these sets: cowboys and Indians, soldiers, farm animals. Not very grateful for the toy, he stashes it away in a "cupboard" (medicine cabinet to Americans; Ms. Banks is a British author) and locks it with a very unusual old-fashioned key that his mother's grandmother had given to her long ago. Next morning, he awakens, hearing mysterious noises in the cupboard which he is keeping on his nightstand.

The Indian, though still very tiny, is alive! Alive, and not at all happy to be snatched from his Iroquois people of 1700s North America. Gradually, the boy, Omri, and the Indian, Little Bear, begin to understand and respect one another. As one might imagine, it is of utmost importance to keep Little Bear a secret from Omri's parents and brothers and his best friend Patrick, who gave him the plastic Indian. As Little Bear understandably becomes more and more insistent on having his needs met, Omri feels a deepening sense of responsibility that begins to weigh on him heavily. As he thinks of the future, he realizes that decisions must be made, and soon.

This book was made into a movie, and several sequels were written.

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

(my photo)


I had this book a year before I started reading it, and once I started, it was not easy going. It took me several weeks growing into a couple of months to finish, and several pages of notes, just to keep characters and plot turns straight.

Not my usual genre, but a very intriguing book; in fact, a sort of collection of six books, about six different sets of characters in six different places and periods of time, loosely connected by a strange comet shaped birthmark and by various references to one another.

Beginning as a 17th century travel journal of trading and missionary endeavors in the south Pacific, then a collection of letters from a British exile in 1931 Belgium, to an account of investigative journalism involving trade secrets and death threats surrounding a nuclear energy plant in California, to the tragi-comic events that befall a London book publisher, to a far-off future interview of a servant class clone in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic Korea, to an even more distant post-apocalyptic future setting in Hawaii, then back down through the other settings in reverse order.

The themes of greed, world domination, slavery, belief in reincarnation, and hope predominate. Speaking of ancient civilizations, Meronym of the Prescients teaches Zachry (in Hawaii), "Old'Uns tripped their own fall." Hae-Joo Im declares, "Neo So Copros (future Korea) is poisoning itself." In Belgium, M. Dhondt philophosizes, "Another war is always coming...What sparks wars? The will to power..the threat of violence, the fear of violence or actual violence is the instrument of this dreadful will...The nation-state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence." Near the end of his Pacific Journal, Adam Ewing writes, "...one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul, for the human species, selfishness is extinction." But hope endures; Adam also writes, "If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, ...divers races & creeds can share this world..., if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass."

The House on the Strand, by Daphne du Maurier

Read, reviewed, and released in April-May, 2013

This is a book of suspense, historical fiction mixed with fantasy - time travel. A 20th century man agrees to participate in an unusual experiment, urged on by his friend, a biochemist doing independent research into the workings of the brain. With the use of a mysterious drug, he is taken back into the 14th century as an unseen witness to the lives and loves of the people who lived in the house where he is staying, his friend's house.What would make an apparently happy, healthy middle-aged man walk into the path of an oncoming freight train which didn't exist in 1334?

Now & Then, by Jacqueline Sheehan

Read, reviewed, and released in February-March, 2012

It seems to be sort of fantasy genre, which isn't usually my choice, but I tried it.
I'm glad I did, it was an interesting and enjoyable book with a mixed-up plot. In the midst of a family crisis (the near-fatal accident of the protagonist's brother), a busy young professional woman and her teenage nephew are suddenly whisked through the ocean and back in time to 19th century Ireland, just before the great potato famine. The woman finds herself in the household of a poor servant class family, while the young boy becomes the pampered foster child of an English aristocrat.

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

Read, reviewed, and released in March, 2010

Wow! What a wild ride! I'm still breathless, and now, of course I'm wanting to reread Jane Eyre, in a whole new light!

Thursday Next is a Literary Detective, or LiteraTec, in the United Kingdom in 1985, but the Crimean War is still going on, her father is a time traveller and she never knows where or when he'll show up, and Jane Eyre is being held hostage from her own book.