Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
Hey everyone,
I think a few posts ago I mentioned Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz series as being some of my fave Middle Grade books ever and that I was looking forward to the final book in the series. In a fortuitous twist of fate for me, I got to read it sooner than I expected thanks to obtaining an ARC :)
What’s so cool about Alcatraz?
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians (the title of the first book and the series itself) is kind of like Harry Potter but much more cynical and self-aware. Alcatraz is this kid in foster care who has been plagued by his ability to break things his entire life. He discovers the world has more continents than the maps they show you at school because of the Librarian conspiracy. He meets his grandfather and cousins, and together, they invade the local library for the Sands of Rashid, which were Alcatraz’s inheritance from his father and can supposedly be melted down to make super-strong Lenses (magical glasses) that the Librarians want to get their hands on.
The second book, which my brother and I both agree is our favorite, involves infiltrating the Library of Alexandria. Books 3–4 are about repelling the Librarian invasion in the Free Kingdoms, and Book 5 is the infiltration of the Highbrary, which is known to Hushlanders like you and me as the Library of Congress. Book 5 ended on a cliffhanger, which is why I was so excited to see the news last year that Book 6 would be /finally/ coming out 6 years after Book 5. The books are so funny they got me to keep picking them up at the library despite the original covers looking like this:
Alcatraz is a really funny, self-aware narrator of his stories—he warns the reader not to read his stories, and the books have fake bad endings where everyone dies at the end to discourage kids like me from skipping to the end. I think it was book 3 or 4 where he says that “Fame is like a cheeseburger” because it’s tasty and not nutritious, which is an analogy that I still think about sometimes. BTW his name is Alcatraz because he’s named after one of his ancestors, Alcatraz the Great, and the Librarians named prisons after important people in the Free Kingdoms. (Alcatraz has a cousin named Folsom and his grandfather is Leavenworth after the military prison in Kansas, and his bodyguard Bastille, full name Bastille Dartmoor the Ninth, has a big brother named Rikers. Librarians name themselves after mountains. Alcatraz’s mom is Shasta, and we meet a Himalaya and a K2/Kangchenjunga later.)
Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians
Alcatraz vs. The Dark Talent (Book 5) ended on a cliffhanger. I was actually pissed the first time I read through it because we were so close to the end of his adventures and yet it cut off right there. Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians is a throwback to the title of the first book—except with Bastille, who is a Crystin Knight assigned to protect him (and is also 12 like Alcatraz—Alcatraz and Bastille was one of my first bodyguard-inept royalty/important person being guarded ships too haha). She’s the one telling the final chapter of Alcatraz’s story and why Book 5 had to end on a cliffhanger. The issue with reviewing the final book in a series is that their main job is to wrap everything up. We sadly don’t get many new characters or worldbuilding details since the previous books have already done that. Still, as a huge Alcatraz fan, I can say with certainty that Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, which Brandon Sanderson co-wrote with Janci Patterson to make sure that Bastille’s POV was sufficiently different from Alcatraz’s, does a great job concluding Alcatraz’s adventures with all the self-referential humor we’ve come to know and love.
My eARC says not to quote in reviews (sometimes publishers do this because galleys haven’t gone through final copyedits yet), but there’s a bit near the end where Sanderson talks about how Alcatraz’s journey was about learning that the thing he hated the most about himself, his Breaking Talent, which he hated so much that he considered it a curse, could be a boon too. I think that’s a lesson not only 10–12 year-olds who like books with weird covers can learn from. I’ll leave it at that.
Other
Akata Witch: Back in 2011 when I was in the target Young Adult demographic, I found Nnedi Okrafor’s Nigerian folklore-inspired fantasy novel Akata Witch at the local library and loved it. I was sad when I couldn’t find a sequel at the library (because the ending was hinting toward one). The sequel Akata Warrior came out 2017 and the trilogy finished up this year with Akata Woman. I’m in the middle of Akata Warrior right now and it’s great! The world is so vibrant and colorful, and Sunny Nwazue is a great MC. Definitely recommend.
A bit of an update on this blog: I’ll be updating less consistently going forward because I’m being stretched thin by life. Thanks for sticking around!
tina