Aldo's Fantastical Movie Palace

June 18, 2012
Friesen (The Last Martin) pens a fantasy adventure with touches of magical realism in this novel about 14-year-old Chloe and her new friend, Nick. Chloe, ridiculed as Scarface by her classmates after an accident caused by her inventor father, has become a loner, retreating to the projection room of the movie theater her mother runs. Nick, a blind boy with a secret, moves to town. They begin to work on a screenplay about the magical land of Retinya and are transported there. Vaepor, an evil, shape-shifting cloud, is destroying the beautiful country and enslaving its people. Every year they are forced on a pilgrimage to a special pond that wipes their memories away, and by this act Vaepor maintains his hold over them. Secholit, their former leader, enlists Chloe to help them remember. One problematic aspect of the narrative is that readers know only what Chloe knows about Retinya. Her charming helpers in Retinya are almost as mystified as she is, and they too must struggle in confusion with her to the ending, which comes together in a satisfying way. Readers will also have to hang in there for enlightenment. Ages 11–up. Agent: Deidre Knight, Knight Literary.

July 15, 2012
A teenage girl with permanent facial scars and a blind boy enter an imaginary world through a combination of their own scriptwriting and a portal in an inherited old movie theater. Fourteen-year-old Chloe Lundeen has additional, social scars from endless schoolyard taunts of "Scarface." She's living evidence of one of her inventor-father's projects gone terribly wrong. Chloe finds solace in the family's old-fashioned movie house and develops a love/hate relationship with a fellow sufferer named Nick Harris. The two eventually enter a magical world together, where their pain can be forgotten, but not without a price. Told in close third-person narration from Chloe's point of view, this good-vs.-evil story moves from being fluent to disjointed and back again, several times. Accomplished author Friesen (The Last Martin, 2011, etc.) clearly has something to say to kids who have been emotionally or physically hurt by someone close to them. Yet he waxes didactic so often on the subjects of psychic pain, forgiveness and the inherent beauty that comes from overcoming adversity that readers may feel hit over the head with compassionate zeal. To make matters worse, the rules and characters of the fantasy world unfold in a sporadic way that feels more disorienting than helpful. This poignant and well-meaning premise ends up a disappointing read. (Fantasy. 10-14)

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December 1, 2012

Gr 4-6-Twelve-year-old Chloe lives with scars on her face and neck caused by an accident with one of her father's inventions, and she is constantly aware of them: at school, where she is called Scarface, and at home, which is full of her anger and her father's guilt. When she meets Nick, a blind boy who writes a movie script about a fantasyland called Retinya, they begin to work on the story together. In the projection box of her family's movie theater, Chloe and Nick are magically transported to the world they've created and find themselves engaged in a struggle against the evil spirit Vaepor, who wipes away people's memories, leaving them in his thrall. Nick quickly disappears, and Chloe is left to puzzle her own way through this dangerous and confusing world as she searches for him and follows enigmatic clues in order to defeat Vaepor. Friesen has created some compelling characters and settings, but the story line begins to wander much like Chloe herself. Ultimately, the world of Retinya does not fully come alive. It remains as confusing to readers as it is to Chloe, and the device of having her as a coinventor of the world along with Nick is not followed through consistently enough to be successful. Strictly an additional purchase.-Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York City

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2012
Grades 5-8 Metaphorical to the max, this begins with two damaged teens forming an entertainingly contentious bond as they work on a screenplay featuring a magic land. Then the story turns suddenly into a therapeutic quest fantasy set in that elaborately imagined world. Chloe, physically and psychologically scarred after a childhood accident, is both repelled by and drawn to blind, epileptic, and very angry Nick, who has created a country called Retinya where he can see. After a bitter fight in the projection booth of Chloe's family's movie house, Nick finds that he can crawl into the horror film that is showing. When Chloe follows, she finds herself in a darker version of Retinya, where she is charged with rescuing Nick and the other inhabitants from having their memories expunged. Chloe ultimately triumphs over both a monster and her own anger issues with help from a colorful supporting cast that has parallels in both worlds. Though reduced to a secondary character in Retinya, Nick also comes away with a measure of inner peace that lessens the impact of a tragedy that closes this somewhat contrived but action-filled adventure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2013
Chloe, cruelly nicknamed Scarface, spends her time in the darkness of her family's movie theater while Nick, blind, spends his dictating a film script. When they are transported through a movie screen into Nick's dangerous invented world of Retinya, Chloe must face her troubled past in order to make her way home. Fantastical creatures help build Chloe's courage in this rather didactic story.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)