21. A Magical Debut

The Clockwork Three, by Matthew J. Kirby, Scholastic, $17.99, ages 9-12, 400 pages. Three children desperate for a better life are mysteriously drawn together and, in a frantic quest to help one another, bring a clockwork man to life and save a great woodland hall. In this wondrous debut, an orphaned 11-year-old busker, Giuseppe, sets in motion a mystery adventure that will require all three of them to put their trust in each other. One day after a ship is lost at sea, Giuseppe finds an enchanted green violin that's washed into the harbor. He begins playing it on the streets behind his padrone's back so he can put away money to buy passage home to Italy. Knowing his padrone would put him in a rat cellar or beat him if he found out, Giuseppe hides the violin and the money in a cemetery crypt. One day after leaving the crypt, he sees a strange sight at the docks, a rope holding a crate breaks and a round bronze head rolls out. Little does he know, it's the head of a legendary automaton, and the magician who made it claimed the head could talk.

4. The Crowfield Curse

By Pat Walsh

Chicken House, 2010

$16.99, ages 8 and up, 336 pages

After rescuing a hobgoblin in Foxwist Wood, a servant boy discovers a terrible curse that could shake the church to its foundations and doom a stricken man to an eternity of torment.

When William Paynel, a 14-year-old orphan working at the Crowfield Abbey, goes into the woods to collect firewood, he stumbles upon a hob whose leg's been mangled in a trap and learns about a long-guarded secret.

As William nurses the hob back to health with the aid of his friend Brother Snail, the hob tells him that long ago two brothers at the abbey hid the body of a mysterious winged creature in the wood.

The creature, said to have "skin the color of shadows on snow" and to stand as tall as a hut, was killed by an ancient evil fay for rescuing another hob the fay was hunting.

Now a hundred years later, whispers from the spirit world are telling hobs that the evil fay, the Dark King, has returned to Foxwist and will be forcing all hobs who live alone to join the king's court or be hunted to the death.

Back at the abbey, strange things are happening as well. William overhears a visitor frantically tell to the prior that someone is asking in town about a dead angel, which Williams realizes must be the winged creature from long ago.

William confides what he's heard to Brother Snail, who confirms the story of the dead angel and leads William to a casket locked away in the abbey. Inside is a feather the monks discovered after burying the angel.

Until now, Crowfield's curse, the secret of the angel, had been well-concealed. Brother Snail warns that if word gets out that an angel can die like a mortal creature, people may no longer think God is immortal and their faith in Him could be lost.