Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George
My rating: 3 of 5 stars A Mostly Charming Magical Fantasy Home Alone “Whenever Castle Glower became bored, it would grow a new room or two. It usually happened on Tuesdays. . .” In addition to being able to alter its layout by adding or removing rooms or doors or stairways or furnishings and so on, the sentient Castle Glower also chooses the royal families to rule Sleyne, its kingdom. In the beginning of Jessica Day George’s pre-teen novel Tuesdays at the Castle (2011), the current King Glower the Seventy-Ninth and his wife go on a trip to see their eldest son Bran graduate from the College of Wizardry, leaving at home their three youngest children, “queenly and matronly” acting Lilah, fourteen-year-old Rolf the heir, and eleven-year-old Celie, “the fourth and most delightful of the royal children.” When the news comes that the King and Queen and Bran have been killed by bandits, the story turns into a magical fantasy Home Alone, as the three kids have to pull together to defend their Castle from treacherous counselors and suspicious princes from neighboring countries, all of whom seem eager to take advantage of the apparently orphaned royal children. Luckily, the siblings are spunky, clever, and loving and have plenty of help from the blacksmith’s son Pogue, who is so handsome that he’s always getting into fights, and especially from the Castle, with which (whom?) eleven-year-old Celie has a special bond. Multiple characters tell Celie at different times that she is the person the Castle loves best, and she has been working on an atlas of the Castle, a never-ending project because the Castle is always changing. The novel is often fun or funny and sometimes suspenseful or moving. Day George has a convincing feel for how kids think and act and how siblings interact. The book is cleanly written and should be an easy and fun read for elementary schoolers. This adult enjoyed it, too, and I’m curious to read further books in the series to see how the kids develop as they age and to find out more about the Castle. Just exactly what the Castle is and how it came to be sentient and who made it and why and how it is able to add or remove rooms and doors and furnishings at will is left unexplained, though some characters offer theories, like Bran’s idea that rather than make or delete rooms, the Castle pulls them out from or puts them into “another plane of existence,” or Rolf’s idea that maybe the Fair Folk made the Castle. Presumably future novels in the series will answer such questions. In any case, it is a neat concept, the Castle being of like a giant pet or parent or friend or playhouse, depending on the situation or person. The book does get a bit juvenile at times, when it’s most like Home Alone except with less slapstick, as the Castle aids the kids in sabotaging the clothes and beds and rooms of their foes (the manure is too much), but Day George does some neat things with gender as Prince Lulath—he of the perfectly coiffed long hair, an extensive wardrobe of fine clothes, and three lap dogs he calls his babies—turns out to be more than an effeminate fop, while Prince Khelsh—he of the ox-like neck, temper tantrums, and macho posturing—turns out to be less than a manly man. Although Celie is prone to fits of crying (hey, she is only eleven!), she is strong, brave, loyal, intelligent, and quick, and often comes up with good ideas. Each of the siblings is vital for the defense of their Castle. One slightly odd thing about the book is that Day George, an American, uses some British English expressions here and there (like Mummy and co-ee), while her characters do plenty of American sit-com things like rolling their eyes and raising their eyebrows. But she does a nice job of making the foreign princes from different countries, Khelsh from Vervhine and Lulath from Grath, speak English with strange syntax and diction, to simulate their inability to speak normal Sleynth. (And maybe it’s just because their characters are so different, but I think she differentiates between their “accents” and manners in speaking “English.”) A couple times Celie unconvincingly despairs or doubts her Castle or herself and needs her big sister Lilah to buck her up. For a small eleven-year-old girl Celie perhaps does some unlikely moves with hostile guards here and there. The too obviously treacherous Emissary is strangely forgotten in the end of the novel. A bigger flaw in the book is that if the castle is so magical and sentient as to help the kids as much as it does, you’d think it would just physically eject the villains. But then we wouldn’t have an exciting story, would we? But then Day George should address that somehow by having, for instance, a suggestion floated by Celie that the Castle is not exercising its full power in order to challenge the kids and make them grow. But the climax is exciting and the whole book entertaining. And I’ll probably read future entries in the series: Wednesdays in the Tower (2013), Thursdays with the Crown (2014), Fridays with the Wizards (2015), Saturdays at Sea (2017). Some day. View all my reviews
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