What do you think?
Knock on Wood
This "novel novel" comes with Magic Sight Glasses that enable readers to see hidden images (such as the fairy) within exciting computer-generated illustrations!
135 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 19, 2013
(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I found this book to be a really interesting, entertaining read, though even for a children's book, it came across as a bit simple in places. It only took me about an hour to read, but I did really enjoy it.
I've always liked fairy stories. The hints of magic in a usually mundane world are always fascinating - and this was no exception.
I felt the author did a really good job of writing interesting characters while keeping the children reacting in realistic ways.
The origin of fairies was a particularly unique one and I liked the way them growing up was based more on them changing as characters, rather than reaching a certain age. I particularly liked how people's wishes were granted, too - like the girl who Althea mentioned being shown a new way to communicate, rather than changing who she was.
I liked how Sara decided she loved Althea so quickly. Although I don't like books where characters fall in love at first sight, this sort of love was tolerable and even cute. In a way, it was like loving a pet (like a cat, dog, etc.) when it's been seen for the first time - though not exactly the same, of course.
I especially liked the use of the magic eye pictures in the book. They really added to the atmosphere of the story and it was nice to experience the sights along with the characters.
I would definitely be interested in checking out more books by this author. I plan to pass this book onto my niece, who I'm sure will enjoy it as well.
(This review may contain spoilers).
I found this book to be a really interesting, entertaining read, though even for a children's book, it came across as a bit simple in places. It only took me about an hour to read, but I did really enjoy it.
I've always liked fairy stories. The hints of magic in a usually mundane world are always fascinating - and this was no exception.
I felt the author did a really good job of writing interesting characters while keeping the children reacting in realistic ways.
The origin of fairies was a particularly unique one and I liked the way them growing up was based more on them changing as characters, rather than reaching a certain age. I particularly liked how people's wishes were granted, too - like the girl who Althea mentioned being shown a new way to communicate, rather than changing who she was.
I liked how Sara decided she loved Althea so quickly. Although I don't like books where characters fall in love at first sight, this sort of love was tolerable and even cute. In a way, it was like loving a pet (like a cat, dog, etc.) when it's been seen for the first time - though not exactly the same, of course.
I especially liked the use of the magic eye pictures in the book. They really added to the atmosphere of the story and it was nice to experience the sights along with the characters.
I would definitely be interested in checking out more books by this author. I plan to pass this book onto my niece, who I'm sure will enjoy it as well.
October 22, 2013
First Paragraph(s): Tears welled up in Sara’s big, green eyes as she gazed out her bedroom window at the tall pine tree grove. The trees—her trees—waved their branches to and fro, slowly, sadly. It looked as if they were waving goodbye. Home just wasn’t the same now that she was moving.
She imagined the branches reaching out toward her. The soft pine needles stroked her coppery-red hair off her forehead, like a mother soothing her. The wind whistled through the branches, “Shh, shh, shh, t’sokay, t’sokay....”
In some ways, those two opening paragraphs tell the story of The Secret in the Wood. Not too many ways, of course, or S. L. Lipson wouldn't have written the full book:) But if you're looking for tips on writing a great opening, you could do worse than to take a page out of this book.
The first sentence presents immediate conflict because Sara's in tears. I'll wager readers will at least make it to the end of the page to find out why she's crying and by then most will be hooked. More, the well-written description of Sara's imagining branches reaching out to her will assure readers that we're in the hands of a capable word smith who's not going to let us down. Finally, the image of trees soothing a girl is pretty much a micro version of the full story, setting the tone, even if there are some important details yet to come.
Meet 10-year-old Sara Connor. She's one day going to give birth to the leader of the human resistance during "the rise of the machines." But for now she's in love with her room and terrified to lose it. And something strange and magical is hiding in her wooden wall. No, not a cyborge sent from the future to terminate her. Instead, a relatively even-tempered tree fairy:
Suddenly, she detected a slight movement on the wall. A bug?
No, it wasn’t a movement on the wood, but rather, within the wood. Weird! A rippling movement—kind of like when she’d throw pebbles into puddles. A pattern of rings formed within the knot. It looked like a tiny, lovely woman’s face. The woman’s long-lashed eyes seemed to blink at her.
Nah! Sara told herself. I must’ve just blinked my own eyes. That's it. Of course...
But those long-lashed eyes grew rounder. They stared directly at Sara.
As is usually the case in middle grade land, the imaginary being that our child protagonist encounters is a proxy for her own id. Sara's got some issues to work out and like Elliott hashing out his parent's divorce with his alien pal, Sara's going to accept the changing nature of her life through the help of a tree fairy named Althea. Specifically, Sara has to accept she and her mother have to move from their home now that her father has died:
Mom had been very picky about everything being in its place when home-buyers visited. “Clutter makes rooms seem smaller, Sara,” was Mom’s favorite line these days. Secretly Sara imagined herself dumping all of her drawers onto the counters and floors. She would rather make the house look as small as possible to discourage anyone from buying it. But she knew a sale was important to Mom. With Dad gone, Mom couldn’t afford to keep this house anymore. “Oh Daddy,” Sara whispered to herself, looking in the bathroom mirror, “this was our house.” Sighing deeply, she moved the hand lotion, her bag of hairbands, and her toothpaste into the cupboard under the sink.
If you don't feel for Sara, Esteemed Reader, you have no heart:) I liked Sara straight away and you will too. Soon she meets the boy who's going to be living in her room. Of course, she hates him, but before the novel's end she and Johnathan are working together along with Althea to a conclusion likely to warm your heart.
Of particular note is the way Althea's back-story mirrors Sara's own, making her the perfect proxy for this situation and this story:
“No, you couldn’t. No one does.” She hugged her knees to her chest.
“Then call me ‘No One’, because I truly do know. You see, I didn’t merely fall asleep and then suddenly awaken to find myself on the wall of your room. Actually, the last thing I recall was being in my tree, within my cozy grove, among my fairy friends. All of us were happy in our trees, all of us happy to be part of Moriah’s fairy kingdom.” Althea frowned and shut her eyes. “And the last voice I heard was King Moriah’s, shouting, ‘Flee, fairies, flee! The lumberjacks are here! Our homes are no longer ours! Remember what I told you and don’t look back! Flee...’ His voice was drowned out by a horrible whirring sound and a crash of wood. I’ll never forget it.” The lady’s face shook, shuddered, and then she continued, “Everyone fled for greener groves, I suppose. Everyone, that is, except me.”
“You mean you stayed while they were cutting down your forest? You stayed with your tree, alone?”
“Yes, Sara. I couldn’t bear to leave my comfortable home. I was, well, stubborn, I suppose. And foolish, for now I have no tree, only a slice of one nailed to a human family’s wall.”
Originally, The Secret in the Wood was published as Knock on Wood, a print book sold with a set of magic sight glasses. When worn, the glasses revealed hidden details in the illustrations. In the ebook, The Secret in the Wood, readers need only tap their device to reveal the hidden details in each picture, which I quite enjoyed. At the end of the book is sheet music for "Dance of the Trees" as well as a link to S. L. Lipson's website to hear a recording of it.
These types of innovations make me excited as an ebook reader and as an ebook writer. Gimmicks are rarely welcome, but hidden objects within an illustration are fun and appropriate to this book, which is very much about shifting one's perspective. I also pay extra to watch movies in 3D. It's fun and I'm looking forward to see what sorts of enhancements ebook writers continue to come up with.
As always, I'll leave you with some of my favorite passages from The Secret in the Wood:
The girl in the glass looked fuzzy, like an old painting, her freckles hardly visible.
Magic had definitely arrived!
“Friends can be found, but not recognized until a sharing of emotions takes place. Then we say we’ve made a new friend, when in fact, the friend had already been given to us. We are all like specks of dust, swirling around each other, bumping into each other, settling down together—all at the whim of a heavenly breeze.”
Althea chuckled like a brook on a summer day.
Time flies when you’re in fairyland!
“I know you told me that ‘amoré’ means ‘love’ in Italian. But what does it mean here—” she pointed at the song sheet—“when they say ‘when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amoré’? Why would love be like getting hit in the eye? And how could the moon hit your eye anyway?”
She imagined the branches reaching out toward her. The soft pine needles stroked her coppery-red hair off her forehead, like a mother soothing her. The wind whistled through the branches, “Shh, shh, shh, t’sokay, t’sokay....”
In some ways, those two opening paragraphs tell the story of The Secret in the Wood. Not too many ways, of course, or S. L. Lipson wouldn't have written the full book:) But if you're looking for tips on writing a great opening, you could do worse than to take a page out of this book.
The first sentence presents immediate conflict because Sara's in tears. I'll wager readers will at least make it to the end of the page to find out why she's crying and by then most will be hooked. More, the well-written description of Sara's imagining branches reaching out to her will assure readers that we're in the hands of a capable word smith who's not going to let us down. Finally, the image of trees soothing a girl is pretty much a micro version of the full story, setting the tone, even if there are some important details yet to come.
Meet 10-year-old Sara Connor. She's one day going to give birth to the leader of the human resistance during "the rise of the machines." But for now she's in love with her room and terrified to lose it. And something strange and magical is hiding in her wooden wall. No, not a cyborge sent from the future to terminate her. Instead, a relatively even-tempered tree fairy:
Suddenly, she detected a slight movement on the wall. A bug?
No, it wasn’t a movement on the wood, but rather, within the wood. Weird! A rippling movement—kind of like when she’d throw pebbles into puddles. A pattern of rings formed within the knot. It looked like a tiny, lovely woman’s face. The woman’s long-lashed eyes seemed to blink at her.
Nah! Sara told herself. I must’ve just blinked my own eyes. That's it. Of course...
But those long-lashed eyes grew rounder. They stared directly at Sara.
As is usually the case in middle grade land, the imaginary being that our child protagonist encounters is a proxy for her own id. Sara's got some issues to work out and like Elliott hashing out his parent's divorce with his alien pal, Sara's going to accept the changing nature of her life through the help of a tree fairy named Althea. Specifically, Sara has to accept she and her mother have to move from their home now that her father has died:
Mom had been very picky about everything being in its place when home-buyers visited. “Clutter makes rooms seem smaller, Sara,” was Mom’s favorite line these days. Secretly Sara imagined herself dumping all of her drawers onto the counters and floors. She would rather make the house look as small as possible to discourage anyone from buying it. But she knew a sale was important to Mom. With Dad gone, Mom couldn’t afford to keep this house anymore. “Oh Daddy,” Sara whispered to herself, looking in the bathroom mirror, “this was our house.” Sighing deeply, she moved the hand lotion, her bag of hairbands, and her toothpaste into the cupboard under the sink.
If you don't feel for Sara, Esteemed Reader, you have no heart:) I liked Sara straight away and you will too. Soon she meets the boy who's going to be living in her room. Of course, she hates him, but before the novel's end she and Johnathan are working together along with Althea to a conclusion likely to warm your heart.
Of particular note is the way Althea's back-story mirrors Sara's own, making her the perfect proxy for this situation and this story:
“No, you couldn’t. No one does.” She hugged her knees to her chest.
“Then call me ‘No One’, because I truly do know. You see, I didn’t merely fall asleep and then suddenly awaken to find myself on the wall of your room. Actually, the last thing I recall was being in my tree, within my cozy grove, among my fairy friends. All of us were happy in our trees, all of us happy to be part of Moriah’s fairy kingdom.” Althea frowned and shut her eyes. “And the last voice I heard was King Moriah’s, shouting, ‘Flee, fairies, flee! The lumberjacks are here! Our homes are no longer ours! Remember what I told you and don’t look back! Flee...’ His voice was drowned out by a horrible whirring sound and a crash of wood. I’ll never forget it.” The lady’s face shook, shuddered, and then she continued, “Everyone fled for greener groves, I suppose. Everyone, that is, except me.”
“You mean you stayed while they were cutting down your forest? You stayed with your tree, alone?”
“Yes, Sara. I couldn’t bear to leave my comfortable home. I was, well, stubborn, I suppose. And foolish, for now I have no tree, only a slice of one nailed to a human family’s wall.”
Originally, The Secret in the Wood was published as Knock on Wood, a print book sold with a set of magic sight glasses. When worn, the glasses revealed hidden details in the illustrations. In the ebook, The Secret in the Wood, readers need only tap their device to reveal the hidden details in each picture, which I quite enjoyed. At the end of the book is sheet music for "Dance of the Trees" as well as a link to S. L. Lipson's website to hear a recording of it.
These types of innovations make me excited as an ebook reader and as an ebook writer. Gimmicks are rarely welcome, but hidden objects within an illustration are fun and appropriate to this book, which is very much about shifting one's perspective. I also pay extra to watch movies in 3D. It's fun and I'm looking forward to see what sorts of enhancements ebook writers continue to come up with.
As always, I'll leave you with some of my favorite passages from The Secret in the Wood:
The girl in the glass looked fuzzy, like an old painting, her freckles hardly visible.
Magic had definitely arrived!
“Friends can be found, but not recognized until a sharing of emotions takes place. Then we say we’ve made a new friend, when in fact, the friend had already been given to us. We are all like specks of dust, swirling around each other, bumping into each other, settling down together—all at the whim of a heavenly breeze.”
Althea chuckled like a brook on a summer day.
Time flies when you’re in fairyland!
“I know you told me that ‘amoré’ means ‘love’ in Italian. But what does it mean here—” she pointed at the song sheet—“when they say ‘when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amoré’? Why would love be like getting hit in the eye? And how could the moon hit your eye anyway?”
December 19, 2013
"Knock on Wood" which I won from Goodreads Giveaways is a magical story with multiple timely messages about family relationships, friendship, mentoring, nature and society which promote growth in a child's outlook. As the story opens young Sara Connor has discovered a tree fairy living in a wall panel in her room. Althea's tree home has been chopped down, her family's missing and she's awakened to a dismal reality. A friendship develops which gives Sara new insight into the loss of her father and the sale of her family's home, both which make her miserable. But as this relationship grows Sara also makes another friend in the son of the family buying her house, but also an ally who will help her free Althea.
The plot is filled with a rare magic- wisdom -as Althea grants wishes that are based on balancing a person's perspective of themself under challenging circumstances. For Sara that means developing a new positive outlook, of leaving the past behind and moving forward in her life. S.L. Lipson uses idioms like "a family tree" and "knock on wood" to conjure new ideas in a child's mind which is not only a creative but imaginative technique in storytelling. As well, she gives fresh insight and life-changing messages that provide profound truths for young and old alike - "worries like hurdles; once you've put them behind you, you can move easily forward toward the finish line." I even loved the unique way of using 3D glasses to blend magic into the stark reality of the story. The writer has even added elements of hope, unselfish love, sacrifice and deliverance into this well-written and thought-provoking plot.
The characters are as fascinating as they are realistic especially Sara and Jonathan, with their fatalistic attitudes as they struggle with change, their likeability , curiosity and their search for self-confidence, inner-strength and determination. Althea is the gentle and loving tree fairy who's filled with hope and love and whose words Sara clings to in her changing world. Janet Connor is Sara's determined, loving, but realistic mother who understands and tries to shelter her daughter from the further pain of loss even though she knows it's inevitable. All these characters add depth and dimension to the warmth of a story that can't help but capture the reader's heart.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend this story for children of all ages.
The plot is filled with a rare magic- wisdom -as Althea grants wishes that are based on balancing a person's perspective of themself under challenging circumstances. For Sara that means developing a new positive outlook, of leaving the past behind and moving forward in her life. S.L. Lipson uses idioms like "a family tree" and "knock on wood" to conjure new ideas in a child's mind which is not only a creative but imaginative technique in storytelling. As well, she gives fresh insight and life-changing messages that provide profound truths for young and old alike - "worries like hurdles; once you've put them behind you, you can move easily forward toward the finish line." I even loved the unique way of using 3D glasses to blend magic into the stark reality of the story. The writer has even added elements of hope, unselfish love, sacrifice and deliverance into this well-written and thought-provoking plot.
The characters are as fascinating as they are realistic especially Sara and Jonathan, with their fatalistic attitudes as they struggle with change, their likeability , curiosity and their search for self-confidence, inner-strength and determination. Althea is the gentle and loving tree fairy who's filled with hope and love and whose words Sara clings to in her changing world. Janet Connor is Sara's determined, loving, but realistic mother who understands and tries to shelter her daughter from the further pain of loss even though she knows it's inevitable. All these characters add depth and dimension to the warmth of a story that can't help but capture the reader's heart.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend this story for children of all ages.
April 4, 2014
Sara Connor doesn’t want to move out of her house. Her dad died the year before and he loved the house, putting years of work into it. Sara loves the house and all the memories. Sara doesn’t want to leave her house behind. When she finds a tree fairy in her bedroom, stuck in a wood panel on her wall, Sara is desperate to stay. Sadly, the day she finds Althea, the tree fairy, her mother sells the house. The home’s new owners’ son, Jonathan, also saw Althea. Luckily, Sara and Jonathan come up with a plan to help Althea get back to a tree for her home. But, will it work?
This was a well-written story with a very good message of moving on. It turns out that even though Sara is trying to help the fairy, Althea really helps Sara accept what is going on in her life. Althea is an awesome character and I love the “lore” of the tree fairies that Althea tells Sara. Jonathan is another character that the reader cares about. I like that he’s kind and understanding. The book is short (only 91 pages) but the story never felt rushed and I think it felt complete. The writing was good and the story flowed well. I’m not super fond of the cover, but that’s a minor point. At the end of some chapters, there is an image, with a hidden image in it, which if you flip the page or click the link, it reveals the answer. The hidden pictures are layered in color – but I’m color blind so I either saw what you were supposed to right away or didn’t see what you were supposed to. ;) There is also a little song called “Dance of the Trees” at the back of the book. The author wrote it to go along with the book.
*NOTE I got a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review
This was a well-written story with a very good message of moving on. It turns out that even though Sara is trying to help the fairy, Althea really helps Sara accept what is going on in her life. Althea is an awesome character and I love the “lore” of the tree fairies that Althea tells Sara. Jonathan is another character that the reader cares about. I like that he’s kind and understanding. The book is short (only 91 pages) but the story never felt rushed and I think it felt complete. The writing was good and the story flowed well. I’m not super fond of the cover, but that’s a minor point. At the end of some chapters, there is an image, with a hidden image in it, which if you flip the page or click the link, it reveals the answer. The hidden pictures are layered in color – but I’m color blind so I either saw what you were supposed to right away or didn’t see what you were supposed to. ;) There is also a little song called “Dance of the Trees” at the back of the book. The author wrote it to go along with the book.
*NOTE I got a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review
December 19, 2013
A good book for younger readers, about finding friends, loosing friends, and when to know its time to move on, might be a good book for a child thats recently dealt with a loss and having trouble coming to terms with things. One of my firstreads books
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