Skip to main content

The Darkest Part of the Forest




Summary: 
In Fairfold, regular people live side by side with magical Folk. Tourists come to visit Fairfold and its main attraction, a strange faerie prince lies sleeping in a glass casket. Hazel and her brother pretend they are his knights, but Hazel knows he will never wake up. Then one day, he does. Hazel discovers that in her past she made a bargain with the Fae so that Ben could go music school, but has kept this a secret. Hazel and Ben both have to remember and use their pasts to save the present.

Strengths:
The Darkest Part of the Forest is an urban fantasy. Black merges the real world with that of the Folk seamlessly. She also incorporates a gay romance subplot that doesn't feel forced or unnecessary. The book is dark and has some creepy elements. Characterization is handled well with Hazel, Ben and Jack being multi faceted and complex. The plot progresses through fractured pieces of present and past chapters, mostly told by Hazel, though a few are told from Ben's perspective. This keeps the mystery of the novel going.

If you liked this book, try these!

Sabriel
Graceling

 Black, H. (2015). Darkest Part of the Forest. New York, NY: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Library Communication and Social Media

When social media became a "thing", businesses were one of the first entities to jump on board. Many companies realized that social media created an essentially free way to advertise. As social media developed, targeted marketing using social media became an even more effective way to communicate and advertise with specific consumer bases. Educational entities eventually got on board as well. What does this have to do with your library? Plenty. Let's take a look at most popular social media platforms - Facebook and Twitter, and how they are being used by libraries to promote and communicate with their clients as well as help educate and connect library staff members worldwide. Stay tuned for a future post on the social media platform that is ahead of Twitter in teen use, Instagram. Facebook The brain child of Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard classmates, Facebook was created in 2004 as a way for college students to connect online. Myspace, a Facebook predecessor, had al...

Bloom's Taxonomy for a Digital Age

Bloom's Taxonomy. One of the things we are constantly hearing in our school is the push for increased rigor in our classroom, as a result of the STAAR tests and others like it becoming more rigorous. We are told to push for higher order thinking and questioning from our students. One of the tools we use to look at how we can increase rigor is Bloom's Taxonomy. But some things about Bloom's don't translate exactly when we are talking about the digital age and the classroom or library. For example, remembering is the lowest piece of the triangle for Bloom's, but remembering looks different when you have instant access to a powerful computer that can use essentially limitless online resources to find answers. I've mentioned to my husband just how much more this and future generations will know about the world around them simply because they no longer have to remember everything they're interested in knowing. If I pass a historical marker for a place I haven...

QR Codes, Animoto and Youtube

Many libraries are already doing great things with youtube for their students. I browsed several school library youtube channels and found some gems.  First, here are two videos from BBMSmedia's channel, which can be found here. The video I found most useful for students would be the tutorial on how to use Noodle to create a book citation.    A video I found that I think students would love from this channel is this one that is a parody of Let It Go from Frozen about returning library books.  Norman High School Library has a great library of youtube videos, including this really helpful tutorial for their students on how to access the library webpage and use the resources contained there.  And this hilarious Harry Potter Dark Lord Funk video is definitely going to be a hit with students! The Unquiet Library includes this really useful video of how to embed a Prezi presentation into a wikispaces page.  And the...