Lila: The Sign of the Elven Queenby Mark J. Grant
ISBN: 978-1-62086-357-2
$11.88 (hardback)
$9.95 (kindle)
230 pages
About the book:
About the book:
Lila
(www.princesslila.com) is a
polite six-year-old girl who lives with her mama and papa in New York City. She
has 2 cats and would now like to have a dog – except dogs are not allowed in
her apartment building. After thinking about it for awhile, Lila asks her
parents if she can have an invisible dog. Her parents agree, and together they
decide to name the dog Fluffy. On their way to the pet store to buy invisible
supplies for the invisible dog, a black and white Aussie appears from around
the corner and introduces himself to Lila, saying, “My name is Fluffy.”
In
a series of fun adventures that follow, Fluffy introduces Lila and her family
to the invisible people of Iceland, who live inside the boulders of Central
Park and the cornerstones of new York City buildings. One day, the invisible
people discover that the birthmark on Lila's left forearm is the sign of their
Elven Queen, and just as she turns seven, Lila is made a princess. Can anything
be better than that?
My
thoughts:
Well,
Lila is definitely a polite little girl altho she is a bit of a deep thinker
and a little chatty. Lila, The Sign of the Elven Queen, is a very long book
that is targeted toward the 4 to 10 year old but it's not a book my 4 year old
(who has a very long attention span) could of read with me. I personally think
it would be better for the 6-8 year old crowd and should be read with a parent
who just happens to be a good reader. There are a lot of descriptive passages
and passages which are composed of just a 6 year old's thoughts. Nothing wrong
with that at all – my 2 just didn't connect with it.
Personally
this book reminded me of the old classic “Heidi” by . Lila reminded me a lot of that little
girl in some ways. Perhaps it's the age range or perhaps it's the writing
(which is very good) and the verbiage that Mr Grant uses in the story. I'm
thinking it's the latter. I personally would of loved to see more action in
this story, more kids being kids – but then I think “how could there be much
action in a story that takes place in Central Park – New York City. It's not
like Lila & Fluffy could go off on their own exploring, getting into
mischief or having picnics with the goat boys.
I'm
looking forward to seeing where this series goes. You have a little girl who is
the first human to have the “sign” in hundreds of years. There are visits by
real live princesses and short little round elves who can blink in and out of
view. The book ends with a banquet in Central Park, in an actual boulder, with
fancy clothes, princesses and many Icelanders which is where the elves are
originally from. I have no clue where the book is going from there – perhaps a
glimpse into the next book to entice me to purchase it would have been a good
addition.... hmmmm
I
would suggest Mom or Dad that you do this first: if you are
considering adding this to your little girls Christmas Stocking or picking up a
copy to read... READ the first chapter to see if your child's
attention span and comprehension are ready for long descriptive passages. This book should be on every child's bookshelf right next to Alice in Wonderland and Heidi - It's perfect for a little
storytime at bedtime.
Read the first chapter:
Lila had learned to be polite at a very early age. She was six years old now
and she recalled that her mother had given her instructions about being polite
more than once, but she could not remember exactly when her instructions
started. She seemed to think that it began at about three, but she was not
quite certain. Three was a half a life ago and it was similar to being sixty
and trying to remember something that took place when you were thirty, but she
wasn’t exactly sure about that either, being nowhere close to sixty.
To be more precise Lila had only learned about sixty recently, and it seemed
such a large number that there must not be many numbers past sixty and if there
were they couldn’t be that important. She knew that adults frequently mentioned
numbers bigger than sixty but she could not imagine what they were for or why
anyone would care. Sixty was quite large enough, thank you, and it hurt her
head to try to imagine any numbers that might exceed that one.
Five dolls was something she could understand, and perhaps ten or fifteen
might be useful as you wanted to have different conversations with your special
friends, but it would take many days to converse with sixty dolls so that she
dismissed that amount of dolls out of hand. Lila had met a girl once at school
that claimed to have zillions of dolls bought by her father who worked in some
street with really high walls or something, but she saw no value in any of it
and anyway, she didn’t believe her because so many dolls would not allow for
any space for people or cats or dogs and everyone knew that parents and
children and pets must have someplace to eat and sleep. Dolls were important,
of course, but people and animals more so, of that much she was certain.
Lila had asked her mother about this once. “Mama, why can dolls sleep
anywhere, but people all sleep in beds and our animals all seem to have places
that they have chosen for sleeping?” Her mother had explained that people
prefer comfy places, and floors and the like are not comfy, while the cats and
dogs chose sleeping places for reasons that people could not understand. She
got the first part of this as she had personally tried to sleep on the floor
just to see what it was like, and it was not nearly as comfy as her bed. Floors
were useful for walking or perhaps crawling when you were much younger but she
was in agreement with her mother that floors were not so much for sleeping.
Now some of her dolls did sleep with her on her bed. This was one of the
decisions she made at night right before she went to sleep: which dolls would
accompany her to bed. Every night was different, she was one day older after
all, and so different choices had to be made, but this just seemed to be the
way of growing older. Of course, it also partially depended upon which dolls
behaved during the day and which ones had provided some sort of amusing
conversation. Dolls, just like her mother and father, could be quite cranky at
times, and so on those days they were not allowed to sleep with her. Lila had
decided that she had to put up with cranky parents because, what could be done,
but that her dolls were a different matter. It seemed quite unfair really. Her
parents tried to control her all of the time but she had no control over them,
and the difference between being a child and being a parent seemed quite
distinct, but if that was the way it was, at least she could control her dolls.
Now Lila was neither a big six nor a little six but she was certainly a very
big-eyed six. She had the largest eyes of any six-year-old in the city in which
she lived, which was New York City.
There are many people that lived there of course, and you could wander from Manhattan
to Brooklyn and look around, but she could claim the
biggest eyes. It was uncertain how this took place as both her father and
mother had normal sized eyes, but not Miss Lila. It may have been that God
decided she should see better than most, or that she should be set aside as a
very particular little girl. We will never really know the reason of course,
but the largest eyes on this side of the Hudson River
are what she had and of that there is no question.
They were not the bug-kind of eyes nor were they the protruding type, but
just eyes like saucers that she used for the tea parties that she had with her
dolls. Her mother favored fancy blue tea cups and saucers and Lila liked the
white ones with all of the interesting scrolls that she thought might mean
something, kind of like the writing that her mother kept trying to get her to
understand. It was just that the books with writing but without pictures seemed
so dull and commonplace, that it was hard to pay attention to them, especially
when the dolls wanted to have a conversation.
Each doll had a distinct personality. This was because each one reminded her
of some person that either she knew or wanted to know, such as some of the
people in TV shows or some of the singers that seemed quite beautiful to her.
She had no idea how one became a singer actually or even how one got to be on a
TV show, but they both seemed so glamorous that she supposed some of her dolls
must be relatives of these people. This did bring about a sort of problem for
Lila. She had asked her mother many times about this, but just who was a
relative and who was not was quite unclear. There was Mama’s mother and Papa’s
mother and she understood that they were her parent’s mothers like Mama was her
mother.
How one became a mother though was a great uncertainty, though Mama had said
she would explain when she was a few years older. Lila was actually quite glad
of this because even though she was a very inquisitive child, she had this
feeling in her tummy that the explanation would be long and complicated and
make her head hurt just like when she considered numbers larger than sixty.
Lila knew it had something to do with men and women and the difference between
them, but as far as she was concerned, Mama was her parent and Papa was her
parent and that was quite enough to know, thank you.
Now Lila’s family had two cats. One was a normal enough looking furball, but
the other was very strange and particular. His face was odd, his smile was
lopsided, and when he smiled, which was rarely, his fur stuck out in a very
peculiar manner. This cat did not look at all like the cats in the cat books
that Mama read to her, so it was a question of either having a strange cat, or
that Mama was showing her strange books. It took Lila almost three days to
decide this issue and it was somewhat painful because Mama had told her that
the cat book cats were perfectly normal. She finally concluded that Mama would
not mislead her so that it must be her cat who was not quite like other cats.
Lila did not love this cat any less however, as one might imagine, but accepted
him for who he was and as a member of the family. This decision was also useful
at school.
Some of the girls at her school, never mind the boys because they didn’t
really count, were also a little strange and they reminded her of her cat. She
at first thought to stay away from the strange girls, but then after the cat
decision, she realized that they might be her friends after all, even though
they were not quite like her. She was a well-liked child, and Lila was often
invited for sleepovers and here was where she learned why some of her new
acquaintances were similar to her cat. It was because the parents were similar
to the cat.
Lila then concluded that odd parents make odd children but that being
strange was not so bad in itself—they were just different, which could be
either good or bad. The trouble of course, was figuring out which was which,
but as long as they were nice and fed her and she was not scared, then she felt
that they were fine. This was a big revelation for Lila—strange could be fine
and the people that were strange could be fine, just in a different way from
Mama and Papa and her. She was relieved, finally, that she got this settled in
her mind because she was afraid it was going to be another some number over
sixty kind of problem.
Pump Up Your Book and Mark J. Grant are giving a Kindle Fire HD!
Terms & Conditions:
- By entering the giveaway, you are confirming you are at least 18 years old.
- One winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter to receive one Kindle Fire HD.
- This giveaway begins September 2 and ends November 29.
- Winners will be contacted via email on Monday, December 2, 2013.
- Winner has 48 hours to reply.
- Only U.S. citizens can win the Kindle Fire.
Good luck everyone!
ENTER TO WIN!
Author Mark J. Grant is better known in financial circles than in children’s literature. A fixture on CNBC and Bloomberg networks, for thirty-seven years he has held senior management positions on Wall Street, has run capital markets for four investment banks, and been on the boards of directors of four investment banks. He writes “Out of the Box,” a commentary on the financial markets that is distributed daily to approximately 5,000 large money management institutions in forty-eight countries.
What made him write a children's book? Find out @ http://www.princesslila.com/
I don't remember having an imaginary friend as a child - I was one of those very hyper kids that had no time for imaginary friends as EVERYONE was my friend! lol
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