MARGO LANAGAN is an internationally acclaimed writer of novels and short stories. She is a two-time Printz Honor winner and a three-time World Fantasy Award winner. Ms. Lanagan lives in Sydney, Australia, and can be found online at amongamidwhile.blogspot.com and on Twitter as @margolanagan.
Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, February 25, 2013:
"Haunting, gorgeous, and sometimes painful, Lanagan's stories are
unlike anything else in fantasy literature." Starred Review, Kirkus
Reviews, April 1, 2013:
"Lanagan unravels familiar myths and fairy tales, weaving them into
unique, sharply resonant forms in this characteristically stunning
collection...Familiar roots and accessible themes make this strong
collection a good introduction to Lanagan's mind-bending work."
Booklist, February 15, 2013:
"Lanagan's literary chops are nearly unrivaled in YA lit, and any
release from her will draw excitement, scrutiny, and awards
consideration." The Horn Book, May/June 2013:
"These imaginative works demand much of their readers, occasionally
providing catharsis and unfailingly provoking thought and
discussion." School Library Journal, April 2013:
"This is meaty fare, layered with meaning and thick with a richness
of imagination. Yellowcake is as much about the telling as it is
about the tales." The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books,
June 2013:
"The familiarity of the stories and themes provide an access point
to Lanagan's innovative sentence structure and dense, eloquent
prose, while the emotional rawness of the tales, focusing intensely
on loss and disillusionment, is powerful enough to grab even less
sophisticated readers. The opening dialogues of each story serve as
both an invitation and a disorientation, and by the end of the
collection, readers will have the satisfying feeling that they have
just assembled a strange and wondrous puzzle." VOYA
"Exquisite. Lanagan's prose is challenging and rewarding in equal
measure, creating resonances that most writers can only dream of;
and her characters and situations seethe with emotional power."
Library Media Connection:
"Lanagan, master of the strange, disturbing, and familiar has again
written a collection of stories which will entertain, enthrall, and
challenge readers."
Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, February 25, 2013:
Haunting, gorgeous, and sometimes painful, Lanagan s stories are
unlike anything else in fantasy literature.
Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2013:
"Lanagan unravels familiar myths and fairy tales, weaving them into
unique, sharply resonant forms in this characteristically stunning
collection...Familiar roots and accessible themes make this strong
collection a good introduction to Lanagan s mind-bending work."
Booklist, February 15, 2013:
"Lanagan's literary chops are nearly unrivaled in YA lit, and any
release from her will draw excitement, scrutiny, and awards
consideration."
The Horn Book, May/June 2013:
"These imaginative works demand much of their readers, occasionally
providing catharsis and unfailingly provoking thought and
discussion."
School Library Journal, April 2013:
"This is meaty fare, layered with meaning and thick with a richness
of imagination. "Yellowcake "is as much about the telling as it is
about the tales."
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, June 2013:
"The familiarity of the stories and themes provide an access point
to Lanagan s innovative sentence structure and dense, eloquent
prose, while the emotional rawness of the tales, focusing intensely
on loss and disillusionment, is powerful enough to grab even less
sophisticated readers. The opening dialogues of each story serve as
both an invitation and a disorientation, and by the end of the
collection, readers will have the satisfying feeling that they have
just assembled a strange and wondrous puzzle."
VOYA
"Exquisite. Lanagan's prose is challenging and rewarding in equal
measure, creating resonances that most writers can only dream of;
and her characters and situations seethe with emotional power."
Library Media Connection:
"Lanagan, master of the strange, disturbing, and familiar has again
written a collection of stories which will entertain, enthrall, and
challenge readers."
"
Gr 9 Up-Ten tales examine unexpected occurrences of magic in everyday lives. Most of the stories appeared in various anthologies published between 2006 and 2011, but they have not been available to American readers until now. Additionally, while this collection was released in Australia in 2011, one story ("Heads") has been swapped for another ("Catastrophic Disruption of the Head") in the U.S. release. Ranging in length from 10 to 34 pages, some of these literary fantasies are wholly original (a boy's mother prepares to ascend to a higher calling, circus oddities find someone else to stare at and speculate about, a shopping mall sheds its parasitic humans) and some are inspired by other tales (Passover and Exodus, Rapunzel, Charon and the River Styx). But in all of Lanagan's worlds, the familiar becomes unfamiliar and then wondrous. Each story is tightly crafted, dropping readers into a culture without much preface, letting the events spin out and the characters be forever changed, and leaving those turning the pages haunted afterward. Less-sophisticated readers might be frustrated by the density of these selections and their focus on character rather than plot, but for those willing to invest, the payoff is powerful. This is meaty fare, layered with meaning and thick with a richness of imagination. Yellowcake is as much about the telling as it is about the tales.-Gretchen Kolderup, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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