A Tale of Two Castles by Gail Carson Levine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I am not terribly fond of the mystery genre for kids. Too often the mysteries seem to be more contrived than genuine - a large cast of suspicious characters, blatant clues, blatant red herrings, etc. This book had some of those characteristics, but not to excess and they were balanced, luckily, by some interesting characterizations. The dragon, IT, seemed especially interesting to me, but several other characters were also intriguing.
I found the use of the words mansioning and mansioner to be slightly distracting and I don't quite understand the impetus for their use. "Acting" and "actor" would have served just as well for me.
There were some slow spots in the narrative that didn't especially appeal to me - for example, the cavorting of the monkey and the long description of the play-acting with the guards. Those might appeal to kids, however, so I am discounting my impatience with them.
All in all a reasonably interesting book.
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