Gillian ShieldsRecensioni

There were parts of this story where I wished Helen would just hurry up and tell her friends what was happening and then ask them for the help she so desperately needed. It became a little annoying hearing her continues to go on about her problems, when they could have easily been solved by involving her friends.

Immortal by Gillian Shields is a fantasy YA novel focused on witches.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series (aka this book, Immortal). The take it has on witches was different than what I had read about before, and I enjoyed it's uniqueness. It wasn't on my top list of YA books I read years ago, but it's still a good book.

Gillian Shields is a skilled writer, and I really want to pick up more books from her. This novel isn't an A book, but I can only imagine how much she has grown since she first wrote this book. With so much potential, it's hard to believe she won't write an even better book in the future.

I did think there was a pinch too much romance in this book. If there was more focus on the plot line and witches I think it could have peaked up to an even higher rating on my end. I'll have to pick up the rest of the books in the series again to see if it gets any better or if my ratings change from when I first read this series. It also features some cliche characters and plot lines...

So, for me, it's a little bit boring.

It's still a sweet book, and I think there's lots of room to grow for Gillian. Hopefully she has more books out because I absolutely LOVED her writing style within this. Her books are easy to read and move at a relatively fast paced!

Three out of five stars.

Title: Library Lily
- Author: Gillian Shields
- Illustrator: Francesca Chessa
- Publisher: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
- Date: 2011 (year published)
- Pages: 31
- Type of Book/Genre: Picture book, realistic fiction
- Short Summary of the plot: The story begins with a girl named Lily and her mom, and that once Lily learned to read she took her to the library to get a library card; Lily loved going there because it felt like an adventure every time. Lily was an avid reader, once she started to read she could not put a book down, no matter where she was; she even earned the nickname library lily because she always had a book. One day Lily and her mom went to the park, her mother encouraged her to go play instead of reading. So Lily walked out and began to read signs around the park, and then someone called to her. The person explained how they hate reading, they like doing other things instead, and invites Lily to hang from a tree with her (her name is Milly). The girls shared adventures with eachother through books, and going out and about, they became best friends. Lily wrote about all the adventures they had together in a book.
- Tags/subject headings that describe the content: love of reading, friendship, library, adventure.
- My response: I enjoyed reading this book, I can relate because I was also that kid that was always reading. However, I felt like the story ended kind of abruptly.

This is a nice story about an unlikely friendship between a girl whose only interest is in reading, named Lily, and another little girl named Milly who hates to read. Through their friendship, each learns to accept the other's point of view and Milly learns to appreciate books while Lily learns to value doing things and exploring with Milly. Its a pretty straightforward message for children to not be afraid to try new things, and to find friends that have different interests so that you can learn new things.

This was interesting until I was thinking about the Fallen series [which I read first]...which this felt a lot like - teen girl at a school she doesn't want to be with, mystery boy, a ghost that looks suspiciously like the girl, secrets, rando shit happening...

I got bored with this and stopped reading.

**All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

A little boy learns to love his gold fish when he cannot have a dog. He figures if he can’t have a dog, maybe he can treat his fish like a dog. And it works.

A penguin discovers that the grass isn't greener on the other side mostly because at his holiday destination there isn't any grass at all.

I liked the book, “Library Lily” by Gillian Shields. I especially enjoyed the contributions made by the characters and the illustrations. Lily is a very relatable character, a girl that loves to read. Her new friend, Milly, is also relatable, as she loves to explore and be outside. These two new friends balance each other out, because at the end of the day they both just want to learn more and explore. The illustrations in this book are vibrant and bright. They also bring some silliness to the book. The big idea of this book is to find balance. It is important to read to learn new things and it is important to physically explore new things, but it is better to both, together.

Falling in love with the mysterious Sebastian, Evie Johnson, a scholarship student at the Wyldcliffe Abbey School, is haunted by a sisterlike figure that seems to be sending her a warning.

Lily loves to read. Efforts to get her to "have fun" like other girls failed until she met Milly in a park. Each girl shared her interests with the other. The illustrations by Francesca Chessa add a lot to the book. It's one that will be savored by book lovers. This book was published by a Christian publisher; however, there is nothing in it which makes it a Christian book. It's just a nice book that can be enjoyed by any child (or adult).½

As a parent of an adopted child, this was a book that spoke to me. With muted, lovely illustrations of Elizabeth Harbour, a tiny baby is alone in the universe. Beseeching everything he/she comes in contact with, seeking love and care, the baby pleads to the sun, the wind, and the west wind. All turn the baby away. Asking to be loved, to be warmed, and to be mothered, the child is in a basket, at the mercy of fate.

Miraculously, the forces of nature now heed and help a single, lonely woman as together they combine to hear the calls of the baby and pave a path to love.

As the light shines through the darkness, the woman and the child are united.

Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this book as well since the illustrations are large and childish which matches the childish descriptive language. The story goes through feelings of sad, scared, sunny, frightened and loved. With each new feeling a childish large drawing is displayed of the child displaying that feeling. With this the illustrations and childish language of “ I sometimes feel funny, like a crazy, clownish, clown,” the storybook is more engaging and creates a warm fuzzy feeling within the reader. The story continues to go through more emotions with illustrations and language similar to that listed above. The books main idea is to explain that everyone has different emotions on different days and what those emotions feel and look like.

3.5 stars

Evie is sent away to a girls' boarding school and has some trouble fitting in. She meets a boy she is drawn to, but there's something a little different about him. In fact, there's something going on at the entire school.

I enjoyed this, but probably would have liked it better in print. I listened to the audio, and my mind tended to wander so I did miss a few things. The book does go back and forth in perspective between Evie and Agnes (through Agnes's journal), who lived at the school in the late 1800s. That's partly why I lost where I was a few times. In a print book, I could have flipped back to see whose perspective we were looking at at various times, but with the audio, that's trickier. It is a series, but I'm not convinced that I'll keep going.½

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Evie Johnson is a new student at Wyldcliffe Abbey School for Young Ladies, which resides in (you’ll never guess) a gothic mansion on the moors. Surprisingly, there are some severe headmistresses there (coiffed with scraped-back buns) and a clique of mean rich girls. They tease Evie for arriving on the train and make discourteous comments when the school mistress announces that Evie is their new “scholarship student.”

You won’t believe it, but Evie has red hair and a seemingly innocuous silver pendant which belonged to her mother (who was drowned), grandmother, and other maternal ancestors who have some connection to the area around Wyldcliffe Abbey. Needless to say, I was astonished when Evie started experiencing strange sensations and hallucinations when she arrived at school. These visions are connected to the tragic deaths of two young ladies, one of whom grew up in the Victorian age and wisely kept a diary detailing her experimentation with witchcraft.

In an unpredictable twist, there’s also a mysterious and exotically beautiful boy with no personality who sneaks around on the grounds at night and has fallen hopelessly in love with Evie for no apparent reason. With the help of Sarah, the only nice girl at Wyldcliffe Abbey, and Helen, the strange loner, Evie tries to figure out what’s going on.

Immortal, by Gillian Shields, is a disappointing Wuthering Heights wannabe whose plot so closely mimics Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty, that it begs comparison. And so I will compare it. I didn’t particularly enjoy Bray’s book because of the unlikable girls, but I did find some pleasure and wit between its covers and the audio narration was truly beautiful.

Immortal, however, has nothing going for it. Evie is an ineffective heroine. We’re supposed to root for her because she’s the protagonist of the story, but she’s not particularly engaging or interesting. The only reason to root for Evie is that Celeste (the “ice princess” who’s the classic mean girl caricature) is against her. Likewise, the beautiful boy who falls in love with Evie has nothing to offer. He’s supposed to be tragic and romantic, but I found him annoying and wondered when Evie would ask herself what was wrong with this ridiculous romance. The only tolerable person in Immortal is Sarah, the nice girl. Unfortunately, though the audio version performed by Emily Durante was otherwise well acted, the voice used for Sarah was so highly pitched (sometimes becoming sharp and shrill) that it made even Sarah intolerable.

So, there’s no reason to like any of Shields’ characters, and there’s no charm, wit, beauty, or style to make up for it. Immortal isn’t likely to entertain most adults and most well-read teenagers will also find it derivative, emotionally vapid, and generally unsatisfying. Other than disappointment, while reading Immortal I never felt anything but déjà vu.

I read the first book a lllloooonnnngggg time ago, way before I was a blogger. I liked it and when Waldenbooks (AKA Borders) went out of business, I end up picking up this book. I hoped that since the first book fell a little flat for me, the sequel will pick up.

Plot: This plot remains the same as the first with a few differences. Evie is back at the border school, picking up what is left of her life. We all know that in a border school no secrets stay hidden. And before you know it, Evie is back into the same mess she was before, this time alone. I think the plot follows what most people will enjoy. It has that border school feel, with drama and lots of mystery. The beginning felt a bit slow since Evie was recapping what happened in the first book but once you hit mid-middle, things starts to pick up.

Love: I found this love to be really…strange. He is supposedly dead but not quite. Not sure if that makes any sense, but he gives her clues and helps Evie gain the tools she needs to fight evil at the school. The story also switches pov of both Evie and Sebastian. I found Sebastions pov kind of pointless. He pretty much said the same things over and over. I do however, like that his love for Evie help me stay strong.

End: The ending has a bittersweet moment in which Evie has to face loss all over again. There are few minor characters that peaked my interest and I’m anxious to see what roles they will play in the next book.

Overall, indeed this book did pick up some. This story does give the reader a bit more meat to chew. We learn more history on the school and why the evil resides there. Betrayal brings more emotions to the readers and more depth to the story. Betrayal is good.

The basic story line of the book is typical of a book in this genre but I decided to read it anyway.

The Good
I liked how the author added a twist with the magic in this book and didnt just make the standard witch stuff. I loved how she included the journal entries throughout the book. I think it made the story that much more interesting to the reader and it also aided in figuring out a lot of the story. I also liked how I thought the ending was going to be predictable, but it wasn't. I was both happy with the way it ended and relieved that I didn't always know what would happen.

The Bad
The romance was the only part of the story that was predictable. I knew that they were gonna fall in love. The guy would say sweet things, tell her how he can't live without her then out of nowhere say that they can't be together. I hated when the book took that turn. Way to typical of a male lead these days.

Overall
Overall I didn't hate the book, but it wasn't a book where I absolutely had to know what happened. It was a book that I could set down and go a day without reading it. That is the exact reason why it got 3 stars, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't amazing either. But I would recommend that you read the book, it just didn't exactly suit my taste.

I like the bold, colorful illustrations. Children will want to open up the book right away and see what it's about.
The story is about Lily, a bookworm who finds all sorts of adventures in her books, and her new friend, Milly, who helps Lily learn to have adventures in the real world while learning to share Lily's love for books.

I can honestly say this book holds absolutely no entertainment to me. It sounds a bit like the Gemma Doyle Triology but to not make it too similar to that story, the author plops in stuff about ghosts and the like. I just don't know why - maybe it was the 'light' writing style- but this just wasn't a captivating read in any aspect. I feel bad for hating on a book, so I suppose one thing that perked my interest was the communication between the horses caretaker Josh (I think that's his name) and Sarah. But that only happened like twice in the story for a good 3-4 sentences. I won't even mention much about the main couple; like the book, I was not emotionally attached to either of them. Anyways, give it a shot for sure but I didn't enjoy my experience with this book. I checked out the sequel and I'm definitely going to delay reading that.

This story was about a mother bear who is protective of her baby and a mother wolf who is also protective of her baby. The two babies meet and become friends and the mothers see that the wolf and bear are not as dangerous as they thought. This is a great book that shows that friendship can be between anyone. It also shows that you should not judge people before you truly know them. Overall, this book is wonderful for children to read or for parents to read to their children.

I was a little hesitant because I hadn't read the first two books in this series and because you just never know how much cheese you're going to get with your YA books. The writing was easy to follow and it was easy for me to fall into the story.

First, I thought that the author did a good job of bringing me up to speed with this book so that I didn't feel too lost or confused having not read the first two. The descriptive detail was nicely done, it was easy for me to picture the school, the stables, the pictures, and even the horses (it is evident to me that the author both loves horses and has good knowledge of them). I was a bit confused though by the fact that this was supposed to be an upstanding finishing school for proper young ladies and the three main characters seemed appalled by straying from the rules but then were all into their coven and witch craft like it wasn't a bit odd at all. Maybe that was because I missed the first two books, I don't know. There was of course the teenage romantic angst and the fear that their friendship wasn't going to make it through another school year and that was an interesting story to walk through while they were trying to fight the super natural evil that is threatening Sarah and those around her.

This gentle bedtime book, with its rhyming text and luminous watercolor illustrations, is sure to be a winner with very young children and the adults responsible for getting them to sleep. "When the world / Is ready for bed, / The sky grows dark, / The sun glows red" it begins, following the evening activities of a family of rabbits. From steaming cups of soup around the dinner table, to the ritual of kisses, hugs and prayers that precede climbing into bed, the little rabbits are surrounded by love every step of the way...

Anna Currey's endearing illustrations, which depict a world of warmth and light, are the ideal accompaniment to Gillian Shield's sweet narrative. The reassuring final passage: "Today has nearly / Slipped away; / Tomorrow brings / Another day. / Always lovely, / Always new, / Tomorrow's waiting / Just for you" offers the perfect conclusion to this lovely tale.

Heavy on the "Awww" factor.

Girl who reads nonstop becomes best friends with girl who doesn't like to read, but likes to have adventures. They become good friends and share their passions.
Ages: 5-8
Source: Pierce County Library, UP Branch

Had a few weak points, especially toward the end, but it continues the tone set by the preceding books. I found it refreshing to hear the story from a new character's perspective although she didn't feel particularly distinctive.