Reviews for Popular culture in the classroom

The average rating for Popular culture in the classroom based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-03-04 00:00:00 David Klein 3.5 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature: Pretender to the Crown (2017) follows the adventures of Willow North, a professional thief who's always been a lone wolf type of personality. Willow has an inherent magical talent for sensing worked metals: she both sees it ― even in total darkness and through walls ― and feels it. It's a particularly handy talent for a thief, since she can see where metal jewelry is hidden and when guards with swords are approaching. Anyone with a strong magical talent is required by law to study to become a mage or "Ascendant," but Willow holds such bitter feelings against Ascendants, who are typically arrogant and abusive, that she hides her talent and uses it for burglary instead. Willow's life as a thief gets upended when her former fiancé Kerish, who she hasn't seen for five years, unexpectedly shows up asking for her help: the king of Tremontane has been assassinated by his Ascendant brother Terence Valant, Kerish's former employer, who is now usurping the crown, in disregard of the fact the Ascendants are legally prohibited from ruling Tremontane. Now the dead king's eight year old son Felix, the heir to the throne, is in grave danger, hunted by Terence and his armies of soldiers and Ascendants. Kerish has rescued Felix from the palace and now wants to sneak Felix out of Tremontane to his own country of Eskandel, and who better to help Kerish sneak Felix out of the country than his former girlfriend Willow, the thief? Pretender to the Crown is the first book in the SAGA OF WILLOW NORTH trilogy, which is a prequel series to the CROWN OF TREMONTANE series by Melissa McShane that I've enjoyed very much. McShane's books tend to hit my sweet spot of intelligently written fantasies with a fairly strong romance element. In this new series we jump back a couple of centuries to find out the history of one of the prominent members of the North family, which is ruling Tremontane in the later books. It's fascinating to see Willow North's humble beginnings and the twisted path that will lead her to a place she never expected or wanted to go. The characters are well-drawn and complex, though the romance subplot in Pretender to the Crown is frustrating. Willow and Kerish have a deep divide over their views of what type of life they should live, which is understandable, but it turns into one of those relationships where you want to shake some sense into both parties and tell them to just communicate with each other. Felix Valant is a charming boy who elicits your sympathy for the difficult situation he's in. McShane takes on a challenge in developing the Escandelic society, where the leading families form polygamous harems, with one prince married to several women. At least to some extent, that's offset by the fact that it's a matriarchal society, where the wives make the key political decisions on behalf of their principality. For the most part it felt quite realistic, with Kerish's family having distinct personalities, issues and concerns relating to their lives, their principality, and the chances that Willow and Kerish are asking them to take. Pretender to the Crown ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger, so interested readers should plan on reading the entire trilogy. The second book, Guardian of the Crown, has also been published, with the third still pending. This book, and the series thus far, has some slow spots but overall has kept me engaged and interested in what happens next. I received a free copy of this ebook from the author for review. Thank you!

Review # 2 was written on 2008-04-08 00:00:00 Dario Machleidt Yes, I'm reviewing another of Melissa's books. And yeah, feel free to disregard this as hopelessly biased'even more so as I show up in the dedication of this one. I do try to be honest in all my reviews and these are no different, but I am pretty close to the material. Willow North is a thief with a favorite prey: Tremontane's magical Ascendants. The largely unaccountable Ascendants act with a great deal of impunity and arrogance and Willow hates that and everything they stand for. So much so that it comes between her and Kerish, the man who captured her heart. Still, when he comes to her in the dead of night with the young heir to the throne in tow she finds herself unwilling to cast them out without helping at all. And thus begins a journey that takes her far, indeed, both physically and emotionally. I love Melissa's strong heroines and Willow is no exception. She's competent and self-assured and unwilling to compromise on the things that are important to her even when that seriously complicates her life. I particularly enjoyed seeing her fall in love with the eight year-old boy king and become his protector, first by the necessity of being the only one willing and able to step up, but eventually in his own right as the boy who needs both her love and protection. And I tell you, Felix rips my heart out, every. single. time. I also ache for Kerish, though more subtly so. He's obviously trying to bridge the gap between them, but Willow has a hard time getting past the pain of their parting all those years ago. And, to be honest, he does as well and that's heartbreaking, too. If there's a drawback to the book, it's that the trilogy really does encompass a single, coherent story and this one ends with a lot still to be resolved. It isn't a cliffhanger in the sense that nobody is in danger or lost or anything. But there is a number of open issues that will be addressed in the next book, so if that's going to bother you, then I highly suggest waiting a month or two for the others to be published. That said, it's an excellent story and one I very much enjoy, even after having read it several times and coming back again for another go. About the magic: For those wondering about Tremontane's magic, this book has a ton more detail than the others. Many of the things that are so common in the other books are being invented in this one and the origins of the hatred against those with inherent magic becomes pretty clear while we're at it.