Synopses & Reviews
Grace Pizzelli is the average sister. Shes nothing like her brilliant older sister, Emily, who works for Rasmussem, creators of the worlds best virtual reality games. They seem so real that you can taste the food and smell the flowers.
The games arent real, though—or at least they werent. Now that Emily has hidden herself inside one , its clear that the technology can only keep her safe for so long. Something must have gone terribly wrong for Emily to retreat into the pink and sparkly Land of the Golden Butterflies, but no one seems to know what.
Grace may consider herself average, but shes the only one who can save Emily. So Grace enters the game, hoping to find her sister and talk her out of virtual suicide. There isnt much time left before sustained exposure to the technology will have dire results. Unless Grace can find her sister soon, Emily will die—for real.
Review
“Readers...will not be able to put this swashbuckler down.”—
Publishers Weekly
“Vivid and diverting.”—Kirkus Reviews
Review
[star] "The most entertaining magical world since Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest . . . Another winner."--
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Vande Velde knows her way around fairy tales and fantasy and has a wicked sense of humor about both."--The Bulletin
"Lighthearted and sly."--Booklist
Review
"A nicely accomplished, entertaining read, with strong potential for reading aloud to younger children."--Booklist"This is a good naughty-boy-makes-good book for reluctant or easy-chapter-book readers. It's clear, uncomplicated, and entertaining."--School Library Journal
Review
[set star] "Features confident storytelling and suprise endings."--School Library Journal. "This collection of ten witchy tales has something to appeal to everyone . . . The tone . . . varies from funny to haunting, rueful to gothic . . . [For] readers who are ready for some sophisticated tales of the supernatural."--The Bulletin
Review
"Sherlock and Amy will have readers cheering for them. The accessible vocabulary, quick-moving plot, and humor make the novel appealing for reluctant readers."--The Horn Book"Rendered with an abundance of charm and wit."--Publishers Weekly
Review
"Slapstick adventure . . . funny."--
The Horn Book"Vande Velde has created an intriguing story, using familiar facts about the Middle Ages and [her usual] sly humor."--Library Talk
Review
[set star] Filled with engaging characters, witty dialogue, and lots of action, this is an entertaining blend of fantasy, whodunit, and comedy.”School Library Journal (starred) Universally appealing and difficult to put down.”Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Wicked wit and charm . . . as well as a gutsy heroine and a sexy dragon."--
Booklist"Alys herself is a worthy heroine, with a capricious gift for irony. A thoughtful mainstream fantasy."--Publishers Weekly
"[A] dark, bittersweet romance."--Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Delightful . . . Vande Velde's sly humor and snappy dialogue make this story a joy to read."--
School Library Journal"[A] charming and funny fantasy . . . The plot playfully wanders all over the map; readers will likely get just as much enjoyment from Wendy's sly and self-deprecating humor as from the whimsical adventure itself."--Publishers Weekly
Review
"It'll make you want to sleep with the lights on."--
Teen People "These spirits are destined to find their audience."--Booklist
"There are no duds here. . . . Vande Velde again chills, charms, moves, and startles with her customary effectiveness."--Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Vande Velde's takes on this fairy tale are always humorous and often heartwarming." Publishers Weekly, starred review Publishers Weekly, Starred
"An effective and amusing collection, with just the right amount of snappy sarcasm to snag the junior-high set." Kirkus Kirkus Reviews
School Library Journal (12/00) School Library Journal
Synopsis
Its the most advanced computer role-playing game ever: When you play youre really
there—in a dark dream teeming with evil creatures, danger-filled fortresses, and malevolent sorceries.
The game plugs directly into your brain--no keyboard, no modem, no monitor. And for game hacker Arvin Rizalli and his friends, no cash up front, no questions asked . . . and no hope of rescue when the game goes horribly, deathly wrong.
Synopsis
From Edgar Award-winning author Vivian Vande Velde comes the suspenseful story of a virtual reality RPG (role-playing game) that can result in real death for a young hacker looking to explore the danger-filled fortresses and malevolent sorceries of the video game world.
Synopsis
Nola's not much of a witch--she can work only a few useless spells, like the one that lets her spy on people. But there's no spell for keeping her crazy mother--who hears voices and is a magnet for witch-hunters--out of trouble. The two flee from town to town until the day Nola magically witnesses a murder. Which is bad enough, but worse is that the murderer may frame Nola and her mother for the crime. And then no amount of magic will save her.
And you think your teenage years are tough. . . .
Synopsis
This well-written . . . fast-paced adventure raises some interesting issues.” School Library Journal
Lisette Beaucaire was angry when her parents sent her away from Paris that September day in 1940. And although she knew that with the Nazis occupying the city shed be safer at her aunt Josephines farm in the Dordogne Valley, Lisette resented her exile.” Shed miss her friends and the excitement of being thirteen and starting a new school. Instead, shed have nothing to do but amuse her little cousin Cecile.
Thats what Lisette thought, but she soon found out that she wasnt the only visitor at the farmhouse. And then she encountered Gerard, a visitor from a long time ago, who proved to be a valiant ally at a crucial moment.
Synopsis
The wizard has big summer plans: to garden, to fish, and to nap. The only thing better would be if he had someone nice to share the days with. But the only people who show up want him to rescue yet another princess, lift the usual vile curse, confront a fearsome ghost, deal with a pack of magical hooligans, harvest a crop of golden cucumbers, and on and on. . . .
A wizard's work is never done!
Synopsis
If Howard had known the old hag was a witch, he never would have taunted her. But he did, and she did what witches do--cursed him--and now he's a goose! Howard is desperate to become a human again. But the only way to break the curse is to do three good deeds. How can you help others when you've got webbed feet, wings for hands, and can't say anything but "
Honk"?
Synopsis
A spell that gets you land, money, long golden hair, or a date to the prom cant be a curse, can it? A curse just gets you dead. Or does it?. . . In these ten stunning short stories, boys and girls learn firsthand just what magic spells, enchantments, and curses really can do.
Synopsis
Fifth grader Amy Prochenko is wildly unpopular. Then one day Amy meets Sherlock, a dog on the run from a university lab. Sherlock is not like other dogs: He can talk, he's smarter than most of Amy's classmates--and he needs Amy's help. Suddenly Amy's life is full of danger and excitement, and she finds she is becoming, of all things,
popular. Best of all, she discovers in Sherlock the sort of friend she's always longed for--and one she must protect no matter what the cost.
Synopsis
It's bad enough that Deanna has to waste her summer in France and her only friend is a mangy black cat, but now she's staring hopelessly into a well, trying to figure out what in the world to wish for.
Before she can make a wish, the cat scratches her, her watch falls into the well, and then . . . so has she! Except that now she's in medieval France, the cat is a handsome young man, and her watch has the power to completely change history.
Maybe a quiet summer would have been nice?
Synopsis
When Selwyn is accused of murdering his rival, Farold, he is sealed in the village burial cave with Farolds moldering corpse to await starvationor worse. Worse comes along quickly in the form of a witch who raises Farold from the dead. Selwyn thought he disliked Farold when he was alive, but that was nothing compared to working by the dead mans side as they search for the real killer.
Synopsis
A boy is trapped in a possessed car that has stalled in the path of an oncoming train. A girl is dragged into a crypt during a field trip to an eighteenth-century cemetery. A group of friends meet their fate after an unsettling visit with a backwoods psychic. And
that's just the beginning. Celebrated author Vivian Vande Velde is at her spine-tingling best in this collection of thirteen scary stories, all of which take place on Halloween night. With tales that range from the disturbing to the downright gruesome, this is one collection that teens will want to read with the lights on . . . and the doors locked.
Synopsis
Fifteen-year-old Raquel Falcone is, as one of her classmates puts it, the kind of kid who has a tendency to be invisible. That is until the night she's hit by a car and killed while walking home from the movies. In brief, moving chapters, we hear about Raquel from her classmates, her best friend, her family--and the woman who was driving the car that struck her. The loss of this seemingly invisible girl deeply affects her entire community, proving just how interconnected and similar we all really are.
Synopsis
Once upon a time there was a very nice but very plain princess named Jennifer, who, following proper fairy-tale protocol, fell for a very handsome but very conceited prince named Alexander. When Alexander offends a powerful witch, it falls to Jennifer to save him. In the course of doing so, she meets a wizard and soon wonders if sheand#8217;s such a proper fairy-tale princess after all--a good little princess would love Alexander, but does she?
Synopsis
Fifteen-year-old Alys is not a witch. But that doesn't matter--the villagers think she is and have staked her out on a hillside as a sacrifice to the local dragon.
It's late, it's cold, and it's raining, and Alys can think of only one thing--revenge. But first she's got to escape, and even if she does, how can one girl possibly take on an entire town alone?
Then the dragon arrives--a dragon that could quite possibly be the perfect ally. . . .
Synopsis
Wendy isn't as blind as a bat--there are bats that can see better than she can. Which is why, when her new glasses break, she's all too happy to wear the dorky pair of sunglasses she finds on the lawn. They seem to match her prescription, and that's all that matters if she's going to be able to make it through her school day.
But the glasses correct her vision too much. She begins to see things that no one else can see: cheerful corpses, frightening crones disguised as teenyboppers, and portals to other worlds--places where people are all too aware of the magical properties of her new shades . . . and will do anything to get them.
Synopsis
Vivian Vande Velde's spine-tingling collection of ghost stories--now in paperback!
Synopsis
A sixteen-year-old will give anything to be with her true love--even though he died two hundred years ago. . . . A sopping-wet little dead girl stalks a teen who had nothing to do with her death--honest! . . . A heartless man dances with his wife--
after she's passed away.
From the hilarious to the horrific, master storyteller Vivian Vande Velde explores the world of the dead--and the undead--in this surprisingly moving collection of unnerving tales.
Synopsis
Dark forces are taking hold in the kingdom of Camelot: King Arthur struggles to keep his knights in line as they steadily divide themselves into factions; the great Merlin has vanished at the hands of his lover and pupil, Nimue; wizards all over the countryside battle for whatever measures of power they can find. At the center of the maelstrom stands Keira, an innocent girl who possesses the ability to foretell the fate of her world. When Keira is kidnapped from her village home, her mother, Alayna, flees to Camelot and finds Mordred, an enigmatic knight who will ultimately become Keiras greatest champion, Alaynas greatest love, and King Arthurs greatest enemy.
In the long tradition of Arthurian legend, Mordred has been characterized as a buffoon, a false knight, and a bloodthirsty traitor. The Book of Mordred reveals a mysterious man through the eyes of three women who love him.
Synopsis
Have you ever wondered just what was going on when that odd little man with the long name stepped up and volunteered to spin straw into gold for the millers daughter? If you stop and think about it, there are some very peculiar and rather hard-to-explain components to the story.
Vivian Vande Velde has wondered too, and shes come up with these six alternative versions of the old legend. A bevy of millers daughters confront their perilous situation in very different ways sometimes comic, sometimes scary. Most of the time, its the daughter who gets off safely, but sometimes, amazingly, Rumpelstiltskin himself wins the day. And in one tale, it is the king who cleverly escapes a quite unexpected fate.
Synopsis
A human sacrifice teams up with the dragon meant to eat her.
About the Author
VIVIAN VANDE VELDE is the author of more than a dozen books for young readers, including Never Trust a Dead Man, which won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery. She lives in Rochester, New York.
Table of Contents
Table of ContentsPrologue
Glasses
Do You See What I See?
Vroom, Vroom
An Even-Worse-than-Usual Day at School
A Bad Day Gets Worse
Some Guys Need Magic Glasses to Look Cute
Conspiracy
School Bus Madness
Escape to the Nursing Home
Escape to the Garden
The More I Escape, the Deeper Trouble I Get Into
Magic Lesson
An Unexpected Side Trip
In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
The Relative Sizes of Hearts
So Close...
...And Yet So Far
Of Course More Complications
History and Bribes
The Fellowship of the Lens
The Bluebird of Unhappiness
Any Plan Is Better Than None-Isn't It?
A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing
The Plan: Part II, Stage C...or Was That Part III, Stage A? Or...Never Mind
Einstein's Theory of Relativity Didn't Include Bad Relatives
Letting Go
Epilogue