Dreamwood

Lucy Darrington, on the run from a terrifically boring and lonely boarding school, is searching for her father, a ghostologist, in this sharp new story. While trying to find him and root out what he was looking for, a secret cure-all called dreamwood, Lucy encounters all manner of menacing scares, from prospective outlaws on the train, to werewolf princesses in the secret world of the dreamwood. Along with her father's ghost-finding gadgets and her new friends Pete and Niwa, she faces delight and danger alike. Lucy is a bright, hopeful young lead; her new friend Pete is an adventurer at heart; and First Peoples' royal Niwa is sparkling and bold. The book has a steampunk feel to it, thanks to Lucy's father's inventions, and it would be a good option for young readers not quite ready for young-adult genre titles such as the Finishing School series, by Gail Carriger. Mackey's descriptions of the creatures and hazards of the dreamwood are gorgeous and lush, a fantastic setting for a fantastic tale.--Comfort, Stacey Copyright 2010 Booklist

Gr 5-8-Lucy Darrington, daughter of an expert on all things supernatural, has run away from a prim and proper girls' school to find her father, whose work has taken him to a remote part of the Pacific Northwest called the Saarthe. Upon her arrival, she finds that he is missing and being blamed for a terrible scourge called "Rust" being visited upon the area. Lucy, who fervently believes that her father could never do such a thing, intends to prove that the indigenous peoples' sacred dreamwood trees could cure the other trees of the Rust plague, and she sets out on a dangerous quest to find her father, accompanied by Pete Knightly, a local boy, and financed by a wealthy Saarthe man. The two face terrible dangers which they counter with Lucy's steampunk anti-ghost devices. Indigenous lore, supernatural forces, human greed, and the children's pluck combine for a rollicking story with moments of violence and real beauty. Jennifer Grace's narration is steady, with a knack for building the pace whenever something bad is about to happen. She successfully portrays the sometimes frustratingly stubborn Lucy and skeptical Pete. This adventure, with its elements of the supernatural and human strengths and weaknesses, will excite listeners, especially in its breakneck second half.-B. Allison Gray, Goleta Library, Santa Barbara, CA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

"In any of your stories is there an uncanny place?" Lucy asked. "Graveyards where people see ghosts, hollows where people hear voices even when no one's around?" "Oh ho." Anya chuckled. "Stories like that are a penny a pound in Saarthe. But the stories your father most wanted to hear were about the Thumb." Lucy frowned at this. "What's that?" Anya pressed her floury hand onto the table. "This here's Saarthe." She pointed to her palm and fingers. "And this is Devil's Thumb." The cook's broad brown knuckle jutted out into the snowy white flour. "Why is it the Devil's?" Anya wiped her hands. Her eyes held Lucy's. "Because it's cursed." Excerpted from Dreamwood by Heather Mackey All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.