Curio by Evangeline Denmark - OPTIONAL

Denmark, Evageline Curio, 429 pages.  Blink, 2015.  $18.  

Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: PG.

Grey is in danger from one of the magicians/scientists who have taken over her small town.  Something has changed within people’s blood and every day they must take a draught supplied by the “government” in order to survive, instead of eating food.  Grey finds out almost too late that her family is different.  In order to protect Grey from the magicians’ wrath, she is pushed through a portal and finds herself within a different dimension – one that is inhabited by porcelain statuettes and clockwork figures that move like humans.  Even if she survives this strange world, Grey has no idea how to keep herself, her family, and her friends safe from their rulers’ antagonism. 

There is enough story in the “real” world to occupy an entire novel, so I am not sure why there is an alternate dimension of porcelain beings in this fantasy world.  Grey doesn’t really learn anything there that would help her in her own reality, so the dual worlds seem superfluous, even if they are interesting.

HS – OPTIONAL.  Cindy, Library teacher