The Norumbegan Quartet, Volume 4:
The Chamber in the Sky. By M.T. Anderson. Scholastic. $17.99.
Junie B. Jones and the Stupid
Smelly Bus: 20th-Anniversary Full-Color Edition. By Barbara
Park. Illustrated by Denise Brunkus. Random House. $14.99.
It has taken almost
seven years, but M.T. Anderson has finally brought his Norumbegan Quartet to a conclusion with The Chamber in the Sky – ending a series whose first volume, The Game of Sunken Places, was quite
different from the three succeeding ones.
That initial book was a very exciting and rather old-fashioned
adventure, a revision of the first book that Anderson ever wrote, and it
connected rather imperfectly with the alien-invasion theme of The Suburb Beyond the Stars and the
otherworldly The Empire of Gut and Bone. But Anderson knits much of the tetralogy together
well in The Chamber in the Sky, which
picks up where The Empire of Gut and Bone
left off and absolutely cannot be read on its own. The new book quickly brings back Brian Thatz
and Gregory Stoffle, now on a quest with teenage Norumbegan royal Gwynyfer
Gwarnmore for a way to stop the evil Thusser Horde from taking over the
Norumbegan domain and, not incidentally, Earth.
The problem is that there is little to choose between when it comes to
Norumbegans or Thusser, the former being so self-involved and feckless that
they seem a poor alternative to their militaristic and determined opponents,
who have violated the Rules of the Game that started this quartet of novels and
are now simply invading and conquering – a fact that disturbs the indolent
Norumbegans not at all. So Brian and
Gregory, best friends when they are not in conflict about Gwynyfer, who spends
her time flirting with Gregory and patronizing Brian, must search for a way to
reactivate the Rules of the Game, which turn out to be contained in something
called the Umpire Capsule, which is traveling around the innards of the
gigantic maybe-alive-or-maybe-dead body first introduced in The Empire of Gut and Bone. This whole setting makes very little sense,
but then, the Thusser methodology is also rather weird – and actually fairly
scary: Earth people are absorbed into the structures of their own homes and
possessions to turn those things into items that the Thusser can use. The Thusser power themselves from people’s
dreams and spirits, while the Norumbegans – the nobility, anyway – have lost
interest in pretty much everything and while away their time in ridiculously
overdone language, petty games and occasional plots. Anderson creates some peculiar scenes of
shifting geography, as well as shifting time (time moves differently on Earth
from the way it moves in the world where Brian and Gregory are), and does some
interesting things with the motivations of the various races – automatons
called mannequins, created by the Norumbegans, are far more lively than their
putative masters, and the troll, Kalgrash, is in many ways a more interesting
character than the human teenagers. Anderson
makes sure that Earth is saved, but he goes out of his way not to solve every
mystery he has created – just what happens to the gigantic body in which the
Norumbegans have been living, for instance.
Actually, the ending is somewhat unsatisfactory, precisely because
Anderson leaves some ends hanging a bit more loosely than is really
necessary. And there are some odd
mistakes in the narrative, such as one reference to Gwynyfer as Guinevere and
some clearly unintended repetitions: “The machine was a drill, the floating
head realized. They were going to drill
a new passage into the Dry Heart. It
wasn’t a blade, the floating head realized. It was a drill. They were going to
drill a new passage into the Dry Heart.”
But the books in The Norumbegan
Quartet have all had their imperfections, and the sequence itself has
always been attached imperfectly. The
Chamber in the Sky assembles the series in final form about as well as
anything could. The very first book has
a level of excitement, simplicity and directness that the three later volumes
do not match, but given the complexity into which Anderson turned The Norumbegan Quartet, the final novel
does a commendable job of pulling everything together.
The saga of Junie B.
Jones has been going on much longer than Anderson’s: for two decades, during
which the plucky and outspoken kindergartner has barely aged at all (although
she did recently advance to first grade).
Now Barbara Park’s very first Junie B. book, Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus, has been reissued in an
edition that has several things to recommend it beyond the pleasure of
rediscovering how this redoubtable series began. For one thing, Denise Brunkus’ illustrations
are now in color, which gives them more punch than in the original
black-and-white and makes certain specific ones, such as the very first picture
of Junie B. at the start of the first chapter, even more appealing. For another thing, this edition incorporates
14 pages of supplementary material, including pictures and a biography of Park,
plus an interview in which Junie B. “asks” Park where she comes from (Junie B.
is based on a character from The Kid in
the Red Jacket) and why she has the middle name Beatrice (because Park
loves the name, even though Junie B. doesn’t).
There is also material on Brunkus’ illustrations, including early
character sketches and some successful and unsuccessful attempts to create
covers. All these additions are fun, but
the original story is more so, introducing the endearingly disheveled Junie B. and
her intense dislike of the school bus and determination not to ride it –
leading, in this first book as in so many successors, to a whole series of
unintended consequences, here including firefighters and police officers
showing up at school and Junie B. almost having a very embarrassing bathroom
accident. Junie B. generally gets in
trouble by saying exactly what she has on her mind, exactly when it pops up – a
pattern established in this book and showing no signs of growing old 20 years
later. She remains a delight to
not-quite-perfectly-behaved girls everywhere, including ones who have grown up
and now have children of their own.
Revisiting the book that started it all is a real joy, and the new
edition of Junie B. Jones and the Stupid
Smelly Bus will make a perfect replacement for any copy that happens to
have been around so long that it has become frayed and tattered but remains,
like Junie B. herself, very lovable indeed.
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