Thursday, November 17, 2016

The Good Neighbors: Book One Kin


Black, H., & Naifeh, T. (2008). The good neighbors. New York: Graphix.

Rue Silver’s mother has been gone for over 3 weeks.  Her dad can’t function with her mom missing and Rue starts to see strange looking things, but thinks her eyes are playing tricks on her.  As Rue is out one night with her friends her dad gets arrested for murder.  The police think he murdered a student of his and possibly her mother.  Rue’s mother returns, but is it really her mother?  Rue also discovers she is half faerie.  As Rue continues on her quest to find out about her mother and what happened to her she encounters her grandfather, whom she has never met, and other creatures she thought were only myths. 

Black is the master of fantasy.   As she did with The Spiderwick Chronicles she draws us into Rue’s story of human and faerie world colliding.  Rue has grown up not knowing anything but a human life although she does notice things that her mom does that seem somewhat strange, she takes it in as “normal” for her mom.  Black starts The Good Neighbor series at the start of the conflict of Rue’s mom missing, her dad being arrested, and her grandfather showing up all of a sudden.  Through the story and black and white illustrations the story gives us enough that we believe all of this could happen to Rue and we believe there are faeries among us, if only we can have the “sight” ourselves. Middle school and up would enjoy this book.  
                 
The Good Neighbors:  Book Two Kith by Holly Black
The Good Neighbors:  Book Three Kind by Holly Black

Also by Holly Black:
The Spiderwick Chronicles

No comments:

Post a Comment