I'm in the midst of marking 100+ exams right now so can only handle really light reads: thank goodness then for kiddie lit - big font, no deep thoughts, and lots of adventure. I'm reading Eoin Colfer's fourth installment in the Artemis Fowl series, The Opal Deception. I've read all three of the books preceding this one but can't keep them straight and remember details only of the second one, The Arctic Incident. It's high quality stuff, I tell you, and it's keeping me entertained.
The Artemis Fowl series features an adolescent criminal mastermind (Artemis) who is always getting into some kind of trouble involving the People (the fairies who, as the result of the rise of Mud Men (humans), were pushed underground). There are lots of clever jokes about the relations between Mud Men and the People and western stereotypes about Ireland - e.g., the Lower Elements Police are the source of the name leprechaun (LEPrecon - har har).
In The Opal Deception, Opal Koboi has returned to take vengeance on both the People and Artemis for imprisoning her - apparently this happened in the last book, but I didn't even recognize her name! Anyway, it doesn't seem to matter - the book is easy as pie to follow.
Anyway, how I got The Opal Deception is more interesting than this book will be to me when I try to remember it in a year's time, I'm sure. I was staying at my mother-in-law's last February working on a paper for the Shakespeare Association of America annual meeting, and I found this book (along with several empty wrappers that had once housed beef jerky) in the closet of the guest bedroom. B. made some jokes about how thorough her cleaning lady was and then concluded the book must have been F.'s, my brother-in-law's. F. is the most prolific reader I think I've met, and I'm pretty sure he never keeps the books he buys new and then reads in 10 minutes. If he had a book blog I'd have to go hide my head in shame.
(R., if you're still reading, which I doubt you are given that this post is about a series of kiddy lit books, I first heard of Eoin Colfer through my friend at Queen's who teaches kiddy lit.)
No comments:
Post a Comment