2018 School Spending Survey Report
A Box of Gargoyles
368p. HarperCollins/Harper. 2013. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-06-210425-0.
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By the end of Nesbet's The Cabinet of Earths (rev. 1/12), Maya has vanquished her immortality-hungry relative Henri de Fourcroy to his proper state -- ashes and dust. But in the time-honored tradition of sequels, Maya's nemesis doesn't quite sputter out: he reappears as a "bent-over smoke streak of a man" who hides his mind in the stones of a Paris wall, casting a spell that will force Maya to restore his vitality. Maya and her friend Valko struggle to outwit the spell (since they can't resist it), contending with gargoyles, a gargoyle egg, and a very bad violinist, as well as convulsive waves of magic that promise to change not just Paris but all the world. The logic of Nesbet's plot is rather ornate, but there's plenty of strength and charm here -- especially in the animated, personal voice of the narrator, who seems to speak out of Maya's own head but, at the same time, offers its own sympathetic interpretation of events. And Nesbet's style is both animated and animating: through pervasive personification -- "the smell of rocks beginning to lose their temper"; drizzle moving on "to bother somebody else's day"; memories that are "pretty shy creatures" -- all elements of her story fairly quiver with life. deirdre f. baker
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