Ink, Iron, and Glass Series, Book 1

Starred review from December 15, 2017
Elsa's homeland can't be located on a map: Veldana and its people exist as a result of scriptology, a craft whose practitioners can scribe new lands into existence. Veldana is the creation of a white Frenchman, but Elsa's mother, a Veldanese master scriptologist, advocated for her people's autonomy and is now the fabricated world's caretaker. (Among other colonialist acts, the creator scribed pregnancies against the brown-skinned Veldanese women's will.) The dark-skinned, green-eyed, 16-year-old Elsa, also a brilliant scriptologist, will one day proudly inherit the responsibility. When her mother is abducted, Elsa leaves Veldana for Earth--the real world--to find help. Events lead her to a yet-to-be-unified Italy, where she finds herself a resident of the Casa della Pazzia ("House of the Madness"), a sentient residence for orphan pazzerellone, or "mad scientists." Each student possesses one of three "madnesses": alchemy, mechanics, or scriptology. There, the fiercely independent Elsa reluctantly finds allies: olive-skinned Italians Leo and Porzia and brown-skinned Tunisian Faraz. As the four get closer to finding Elsa's mother and learning the reason for her capture, they discover an enemy who will stop at nothing to use scriptology as a weapon to "edit" the Earth. This debut novel is fully realized steampunk-fantasy, offering an alternate history that deftly and creatively adopts the politics of 19th-century Italy to create a compellingly unique world. Although the book uses the language of mental illness to describe its characters' specific magical talents, in this world "mad" seems to carry none of the baggage it does in ours.Exciting and original. (Fantasy. 12-adult)

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February 1, 2018

Gr 9 Up-Elsa is a scripted being. She was called into existence as subtext by a scriptologist, a maker of worlds who made Veldana, the place where she lives. Elsa's mother is a scripted being who was trained to be a scriptologist herself. She continues the work of creating Veldana, and she has trained Elsa to do the same. When her mother gets kidnapped, however, Elsa's life is thrown into chaos. She follows the trail of the kidnapping back to Earth, where she finds refuge with a secret society of pazzaerallone-people with gifts in scriptology, mechanics, alchemy, or all three. With their help, she eludes assassins, tracks down her mother, and stages a rescue that is successful in every way except for one. This entry is clearly the first in a series about a team of teenagers who have to save the world from greedy, wrongheaded adults. Set at the end of the 19th century, the novel samples historical figures the way a hip-hop album might sample a classic riff: it opens a window to European history, lets in fresh air, and sends facts flying. An author's note sets the historical record straight. In the meantime, Clare spins an entertaining adventure tale that also addresses colonialism, inclusion, and musings on the nature of being. VERDICT This novel is a source of serious fun; a must-have choice for YA collections.-Sheri Reda, Wilmette Public Library, IL

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