Emma and the Blue Genie

There are distinct benefits to hearing this audiobook read by its author. There's no ambiguity about the mood, and the pacing is perfect, with pauses in all the right places. When Emma goes for a moonlit walk with her steadfast dog, Tristan, she finds a blue genie trapped in his bottle and releases him. Karim, however, cannot grant Emma the customary three wishes because an evil yellow genie has stolen his powerful and magical nose ring. Emma and Tristan join Karim on a magic carpet quest to retrieve the stolen ring. Cornelia Funke delivers straightforward humor and breathless suspense in a style usually reserved for older listeners. Her soft, low, German-accented voice will captivate elementary school listeners with its exotic air of adventure. L.T. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

September 8, 2014
Funke (the Inkheart trilogy) spins her fictional magic in this witty novel, written in 2002 and newly translated by Latsch, starring an eight-year-old girl with four pesky brothers. At night, Emma and her dog Tristan escape to the chilly beach, where “the moon poured a silver highway onto the water,” at the end of which she envisions a warm land with camels and palm trees. One evening, she finds a bottle containing Karim, a despondent blue genie who has been left “as small as a desert hedgehog and as weak as a nosebug” ever since an evil yellow genie stole his enchanted nose ring. Emma and Tristan accompany Karim back to his home turf—the land of her dreams—on his flying carpet. In a swift-moving sequence of events, the villainous genie kidnaps and cages Emma and Tristan before they and Karim collude to defeat him. Funke’s visual descriptions and playful dialogue lift this above standard good-versus-evil fantasy fare, while Meyer’s full-color spot illustrations underpin the text’s humor. Ages 7–10. Author’s agent: Jenny Savill, Andrew Nurnberg Associates.