On June 13 I wrote about “What I’m Reading” and my self-imposed reading for the Mythopoeic Awards. I also promised to “post my personal winner here before the Mythopoeic Society make their final announcement.” This latter date is now very soon, and sadly, due to my own writing, blogging, radio interviewing, and other general life commitments I have only managed to get through all the Children’s/YA Finalists. As you may recall, the five finalists are (in alphabetical order, by author):

Kage Baker, The Hotel Under the Sand (Tachyon)

This is a story for younger readers (say 8-10) and tells the story of Emma, a young girl who is swept away from her life and family, but survives, discovers a hotel that has been buried under sand, called The Grand Wenlocke, makes new friends and has some adventures in the process, not necessarily all in that order.

Shannon Hale, Books of Bayern consisting of The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born (Bloomsbury): YA readers

The Goose Girl is a retelling of the traditional fairytale (one of my favourites as a child) and the subsequent three books tell the stories of the Goose Girl’s friends, Enna, Razo, and Rin, as they also discover old powers related to those of the Goose Girl.

Grace Lin, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown)

Once again, this is a book for younger readers (8-10/11) and weaves a number of Chinese folk stories into the tale of Minli, who goes on a quest-journey to find the Old Man In the Moon and change her fortune; is joined by a dragon who can’t fly; and meets a number of friends and helpers, from an ox boy to a king, along the way.

Malinda Lo, Ash (Little, Brown)

Ash is a re-working of the Cinderella fairytale, one that keeps fairly closely to the original idea of the story, although with a twist on the fairy aid given to Cinderella. The most marked difference from the original is the lesbian take on Ash/Cinderella’s love interest. A book for YA readers.

Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars (Feiwel & Friends)

Another book for YA readers, Eyes Like Stars, introduces the story of Beatrice Shakespeare Smith, a foundling who has grown up in the Theatre, where the characters of every play ever written are bound by the Book. Clearly a “to be continued” story, this first novel is a coming-of-age story in which Beatrice begins to find out who she is and must decide whether or not to leave the Theatre.

So what’s my pick? First let’s talk parameters. The Mythopoeic Society is an organisation “devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of members of the informal Oxford literary circle known as the ‘Inklings,’ ” the most famous of whom were JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis.  The Mythopoeic Awards for adult and children’s fiction are given to “… the fantasy novel, multi-volume novel, or single-author story … published during the previous year that best exemplifies “the spirit of the Inklings”. For the children’s award the further proviso is given that the award: “honors books for younger readers (from “Young Adults” to picture books for beginning readers), in the tradition of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia.”

In terms of what “the spirit of the Inklings” constitutes, reference to the overarching wisdom of Wikipedia suggests three main threads: mythopoeic vision in terms of the incorporation of myth, legend, fairytale (elements that characterise both Tolkien and Lewis’s work); strength of narrative Fantasy; and the exposition of Christian values through the writing. In terms of the latter element, I  assume from looking at previous winners that the Mythopoeic Society judges will look more at the expression of values such as compassion, mercy etc rather than Christianity per se (although I may of course, be quite wrong.) At any rate, I proceeded with my reading on that basis.

Now, back to the five Children’s Award finalists.  Obviously to get to the final list I knew these were all going to be good books, although I will admit to being disconcerted by the difference in reading age, particularly between The Hotel Under the Sand and Where the Mountain meets the Moon and the other three finalists. Because the reading level was so much younger, it was more diffcult for these two books to engage me as an adult reader, so I had to be careful to allow for that when making my evaluation. The other difficulty I felt was in trying to fairly measure the four  Books of Bayern, which constitute four independent stories, but have to be evaluated as one entity against the other four finalits—one of which, Eyes Like Stars is the first of a proposed series and where the story is clearly not complete.

So, in terms of evaluating against the “strength of narrative Fantasy” criterion, I did find some difficulty in comparing apples with apples.  For this reason, I probably gave more weight to the second criterion: “mythopoeic vision in terms of the incorporation of myth, legend, fairytale.” In this case, my summing up of the five contenders was:

The Hotel Under the Sand: This is a charming story, with a lovely Edwardian feel to both the hotel and the characters, but—I felt—the weakest of all the five finalists in terms of incorporating the elements of “myth, legend, and fairytale.”

Books of Bayern consisting of The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born: I have always loved Shannon Hale’s retelling of The Goose Girl fairytale, and the way she wove it into a real and believable novel. I do have a slight, enduring caveat, in that as a child I always loved the role of Falada and was disappointed with how that played out in Hale’s retelling. In terms of the mythopoeic elements, the author has created her own magic system for the Bayern world, based around the natural elements of wind, fire, water, but I do feel that the incorporation of the elements of “myth, legend and fairytale” are strongest in the first book. Hence the quandary: do I weight my evaluation on the basis of that first book, or do I make it on the incorporation of mythopoeic elements across the four. In the end, on the basis of its finalist placing as The Bayern Tales, I  decided that evaluation did have to be on the basis of all four books.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon: as with  The Hotel Under the Stand I found this a charming story and I felt it was one of the strongest contenders in terms of weaving elements of traditional Chinese folklore into an entertaining and adventurous quest for the young heroine.  I also gave it bonus points for the clear thread within the story of values such as compassion and mercy, in terms of being written in the “spirit of the Inklings”.

Ash: All such views are subjective, but I felt Malinda Lo’s book was the strongest contender in terms of incorporating deeper mythic and magical elements into the retelling of the Cinderella fairytale. She incorporated a parallel, mysterious, and dangerous world of the fey; together with a change in mythos in the mortal world; and an overlapping tradition of legendary/folktale encounters between fey and human that both gave Ash’s story texture and also had a bearing on how it played out. And in terms of the narrative, I felt the lesbian love story angled worked well. ’nuff said.

Stars in her Eyes: This book also suffered from not being quite of like kind, i.e The Bayern Tales is a completed four book series, whereas Stars is the first book in the Theatre Illuminata series, with two yet to come. But I did love the idea of it, the foundling brought up in the Theatre with the cast of every play ever written  as her companions. Slight overtones of Neil Gaiman’s  The Graveyard Book, perhaps, but in a good way, i.e Stars is definitely its own story. The working in of Shakespearean elements, particularly some of the more fantastical characters, such as Ariel (The Tempest), Ophelia (Hamlet) and the four fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, are well done, as is the sea witch from The Little Mermaid story. But these were the strongest claim to including mythopoeic elements of “myth, legend, and fairytale”—but in the end, for me, not as compelling as the use of similar elements in Ash, Where the Mountain meets the Moon and The Bayern Tales.

So in the end, here’s my “order” for the Mythpoeic Children’s Award 2010:

1: Malinda Lo, Ash (Little, Brown)

2: Grace Lin, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown)

3: Shannon Hale, Books of Bayern consisting of The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born (Bloomsbury)

4: Kage Baker, The Hotel Under the Sand (Tachyon)

5: Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars (Feiwel & Friends) [mainly because the series is not yet complete.]

So now I have just have to wait, along with everyone else, to see who the Mythopoeic Award judges choose as their winner for 2010!  My breath is suitably bated. 🙂

But as I said at the beginning, these are all good books and I am just glad that the process of “reading for the awards” gave me the impetus to read all of them.

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Final Note: Kage Baker, the author of The Hotel Under the Sand, died earlier this year. The Hotel Under the Sand was her first book for children and, I believe, a testimony to “what might have been” if she had been able to write more books for younger readers.