The Librarians and The Mother Goose Chase
By Greg Cox
For millennia, the Librarians have secretly protected the world by keeping watch over dangerous magical relics. Cataloging and safeguarding everything from Excalibur to Pandora’s Box, they stand between humanity and those who would use the relics for evil. Stories can be powerful. In 1719, Elizabeth Goose of Boston Massachusetts published a collection of rhyming spells as a children's book, creating a spellbook of terrifying power. The Librarian of that age managed to dispose of all copies of the book except one, which remained in the possession of Elizabeth Goose and her family, temporarily averting any potential disaster. However, strange things are happening, A window washer in San Diego who was blown off his elevated perch by a freak gust of wind, but miraculously survived by landing on a canopy over the building entrance. A woman in rural Pennsylvania who was attacked by mutant rodents without any eyes. And, a college professor in England who somehow found herself trapped inside a prize pumpkin at a local farmer’s market. Baird and her team of Librarians suspect that the magic of Mother Goose is again loose in the world, and with Fynn Carson AWOL once again, it is up to Cassandra, Ezekiel, and Stone to track down the missing spellbook before the true power of the rhymes can be unleashed.
This is the 2nd in a series based on the TNT television show, The Librarians, which also spawned a few movies. It’s an action-packed story written with a fast pace that will have you quickly turning the pages. If you’ve never seen the show you won’t have to worry about being lost but it might add a new television show to your watching list as it expertly captured the fun and humor of TNT’s offering.
I had not read the first book in this series but love the movies and television show, particularly since I’m a huge Christian Kane fan, so I was a little apprehensive about how this would turn out. Thankfully Greg Cox captured most of what made the visual version so good with its snappy dialogue and quirky characters. Since this is a book and not bound by the same constraints visual media is Cox was able to add more depth, facts, detailed scene work and whimsical elements which add another layer of excitement to a set of stories that already set the bar pretty high.
The book was entertaining and is a good fix for when the show is between seasons but can’t replace the magic the actors create on screen. Although Cox did a good job having the literary characters act like their visual counterparts as well as mimic their dialogue patterns, he still can’t encapsulate their mannerisms, tone of voice and other parts the actors bring to the stories.
I’d still recommend checking it out. As a fan of Chris Colfer’s Land of Stories which takes childhood nursery rhymes and turns them upside down, I found the similar idea in Cox’s book of using something we’re all familiar with to make it a little bit more fun.
Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor allowing me to review this book.
*synopsis and pic from amazon.com