Tory is an intelligent and imaginative 15-year-old boy who becomes obsessed with Colin, a mysterious new neighbor of his, to the point of recording anything even remotely odd about his life and activities and convincing his mom to enroll him in a private school that he has to spend two hours commuting to just so they'll both be attending the same place (yes, Tory is basically a stalker). Tory is convinced that Colin may be hiding something and, after a year, finally begins to find evidence that he may be right. His efforts uncover something about a mysterious Gaia Project. Then there's the fact that Colin seems to be sick a lot.

I decided that I'm going to try to attack my immense manga backlog by concentrating on some of the shorter series in my collection, as well as anything I only have one or two volumes of, and reviewing them as soon as I finish each volume. We'll see how long I can keep this up. Knowing my past history, probably not long.

Anyway, this series as a whole is only three volumes long but has a somewhat complicated publication history due, I'm guessing, to Tokyopop's general problems. It looks like Tokyopop was restructuring in 2008, at about the same time volume 3 was supposed to be published. In the end, volume 3 was completed in 2014, and the entire series has since been published/reissued by Sparkler. I only have Tokyopop's releases, volumes 1 and 2, and it looks like volume 3 isn't available in a physical format, so I'm going into this series knowing that I probably won't ever read the end of it.

At this point in the series, though, that doesn't really bug me. It's tough to tell what I'm even reading, so far. There are several moments that indicate Tory's interest in Colin has an explanation he isn't willing to admit, even to himself, but at the same time, like Tory's friend Paul said, it looks like there might actually be something mysterious going on. So will this series have sci-fi elements in addition to potential romance between Tory and Colin (or stalker-ish one-sided interest on Tory's part)? Mystery elements? Something else?

It can't be anything too complicated, or it wouldn't be possible to wrap it up in only three volumes. This first volume didn't even accomplish that much - Tory spent most of it sneaking around, trying to shake his classmate Mandy off (who is clearly interested in him but may have realized it's a lost cause), and coming up with a new plan to get closer to Colin and hopefully find out more. Volume 2 should give me a better idea of what's going on.

Art-wise, I'm not all that fond of this series. I don't particularly like Quick's style, and the quality seems to be a bit inconsistent. I noticed two thirds of the way through the volume that it was rare for two or more characters to be standing anywhere near each other, and I realized that the reason for this seemed to be due to Quick having difficulties with perspective and the characters' respective heights. Still, some panels are really nice and I've certainly seen worse.

All right, on to volume 2...

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

     This book is an all time favorite and classic. The main character is a quiet young boy who is the fastest runner in the fifth grade. That is until ,Leslie Burke, the new girl in school outruns him. Leslie and Jess become fast friends and create a magical forest together. Jess and Leslie have awesome adventures until one day Leslie visits the garden alone and tragedy strikes. Jess now has the deal with the grief of losing a close friend. 

     Targeted for a bit more mature audiences, this books reading level is ages 8 and up. A great way to use this book in your classroom is, of course, helping your students deal with loss and grief. This book a great one to have for any child that has lost a loved one or close friend. You could also use this book to help students get started on creating their own narratives.

Originally published at midureads.wordpress.com on November 25, 2017.

I distinctly remember buying this book at the same time I bought The Bad Beginning. I never finished A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I read all of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. I really want the nine-year-old to read them. I think she'd enjoy the series.

I think of this series as fantasy for non-fantasy readers. It's fantasy, but there's lots of accessible references to other fairy tales/myths. I meant to read them in publication order this time around (Book 4 was published first and then the others came after), but I forgot when it actually came time to read them. I thought about skipping ahead and then backtracking, but I think I'm just going to press on to Book 2.

Princess Cimorene, after a being told that everything she wants to learn and do just isn't done by Princesses, runs away. She uses the advice of an enchanted frog and becomes the princess of the dragon Kazul. She is soon having the time or her life. There's something funny going on between the dragons and the wizards though, and Cimorene has to figure out what before its too late for her new friend.

This series turns fairytale expectations on their heads. There's a lot of that going on these days in middle grade and young adult, which is awesome, but it was much more rare back when I was combing the kids section at the library for something new to read. I remember being intrigued by the watercolor covers of the original editions. and checking out all four in the series at once, the librarian and I were on good terms.

I read this a long time ago and remembered loving it. I'm glad the series was recently reissued - these editions all come with a foreword from Wrede detailing how she was inspired to write the 'Enchanted Forest Chronicles' and what she was attempting to do. I love it. Except for the covers, each is more hideous than the last. I tried selling a customer on the story, and she took one look at the simpering Cimorene and blushing, eye-lashed Kazul on the cover and turned away with all the scorn a 9 year old girl can muster.

Put a little more effort into these please, give the artists more money, get better focus groups, something.

Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Next: 'Searching for Dragons'