Serafina

Morning, gentle reader!  Happy Feast of All Souls!  

Today, I bring you a sweet relief in mysterious and terrifying form: the Serafina books, perfect for this time of year!

These have such cool and beautiful covers, they were high on the list to read first.  I'm absolutely thrilled that they weren't dark, depressing, and pointless like the DMD series.  These books are full of imagination, wonder, genuine mystery, and some deliciously terrifying description on the part of the author. More on all of that later!  On to the books!   SPOILER ALERT in my response!

Serafina and the Black Cloak

293 pages

Serafina has never had a reason to disobey her pa and venture beyond the grounds of Biltmore Estate.  There’s plenty to explore in her grand home, although she must take care to never be seen.  None of the rich folk upstairs know that Serafina exists; she and her pa, the estate’s maintenance man, have secretly lived in the basement for as long as Serafina can remember.
But when children at the estate start disappearing, only Serafina knows who the culprit is: a terrifying man in a black cloak who stalks Biltmore’s corridors at night.  Following her own harrowing escape, Serafina risks everything by joining forces with Braeden Vanderbilt, the young nephew of Biltmore’s owners.  Braeden and Serafina must uncover the Man in the Black Cloak’s true identity…. Before all of the children vanish one by one.  Serafina’s hunt leads her into the very forest that she has been taught to fear.  There she discovers a forgotten legacy of magic, one that is bound to her own identity.  In order to save the children of Biltmore, Serafina must seek the answers that will unlock the puzzle of her past.



Serafina and the Twisted Staff
370 pages

Serafina’s defeat of the man in the black cloak has brought her out of the shadows and into the daylight realm of her home, Biltmore Estate.  Every night she visits her mother in the forest, eager to learn the ways of the catamount.  But Serafina finds herself caught between her two worlds: she’s too wild for Biltmore’s beautifully dressed ladies and formal customs, and too human to fully join her kin.  Late on night, Serafina encounters a strange and terrifying figure in the forest, and is attacked by the vicious wolfhounds that seem to be under his control.  Even worse, she’s convinced that the stranger was not alone, that he has sent his accomplice in to Biltmore in disguise. Someone is wreaking havoc at the estate.  A mysterious series of attack test Serafina’s role as Bilmore’s protector, culminating in a tragedy that tears Serafina’s best friend and only ally, Braeden Vanderbilt, from her side.  Heartbroken, she flees.  Deep in the forest, Serafina comes face-to-face with the evil infecting Biltmore—and discovers its reach is far greater than she’d ever imagined.  All the humans and creatures of the Blue Ridge Mountains are in terrible danger.  For Serafina to defeat this new evil before it engulfs her beloved home, she must search deep inside herself and embrace the destiny that has always awaited her.  

My Response

Summary- These two great stories take place in Biltmore, the estate of the famous Vanderbilt family, at the turn of the century.  Serafina is a catamount (half girl, half jaguar), but we don't find that out until the end of the first book.  However, Beatty describes her in a very feral and feline way, so it's easy to believe.  The series starts off with a really terrifying account of a child being abducted, and the game's afoot.  Serafina has to solve the mystery (in both books) of who the villain is and save the day.  She does an admirable job.

Promote Virtue?  Serafina is a bold and strong girl who strives to protect those closest to her.  She wants to do the right thing.  She takes her job as Chief Rat Catcher very seriously.  

Transcendentals?  The language of this book is a delight.  Beatty's descriptions are very realistic and somewhat horrifying at times.  I wouldn't say it points to the beautiful, but it does show us the good and the true, and those are beauty.

Overcome human condition?  Hm.  Yes and no.  There are some issues I have with the character being "half cat, half human," but I mostly think I need to get the hell over myself and realize that this is a children's story full of imagination and wonder.  Serafina is a virtuous character who is always striving to do what is right.  She does hide the truth at the end of the first book, though, which causes problems in the second book.  It's good to see the consequences.

Attitude toward Catholicism?  Grumble grumble.  Creating human-animal hybrids is a grossly immoral and unethical, and it's been given the green light in our culture, and I don't think that anything my child is reading should promote sympathy for this kind of idea.  

There were a few confusing quotes at the beginning of the book, when Serafina's pa is explaining how he found her in the woods:

"I took her to the midwives at the convent (Really?  Why would they need midwives at a convent?  What the heck?) and begged them to help, but they gasped as the sight of her, muttering that she was the devil's work.  They said she was malformed, near to death, and that there was nothing they could do to help her"

"But why?" Seravina cried in outrage.  "That's terrible!  That's so mean!"  Just because something looked different dindn't mean you just threw it away.  She couldn't help but wonder what kind of world it was out there.  The attitude of the midwives almost bothered her more than the idea of a yellow-eyed beast lurking in the night [...] 

"You have to understand the poor little thing had been born with her eyes closed, Sera, ande the nuns said that she would never see.  She'd been born deaf, and they said she would never hear" (53)

"I took that baby away, fearin' them nuns would drown her," he said.

"I hate them nuns," she spat.  "They're terrible!" (54)

The difference between Serafina's pa and the nuns is that he sees something that might look like a baby.  The nuns, if they were midwives, would be super familiar with human babies.  They'd know immediately that the man was not holding a human baby.  But we don't know that it's part human/part cat yet.  The audience just thinks Pa found a recently birthed wild animal in the forest.  We don't know for sure that it's a "human" baby, but that's what we're led to believe- that nuns would slaughter a human baby.  This part just makes me shudder because it's so subversive.  Children's fantasy/imagination or not, you just don't attack nuns and make children believe that they're evil when they are supposed to be a virtuous and holy example of right-judgment.  Ever.   

Paganry?  Yes- magic is used in a bad way, but everyone involved knows that it's bad, and they're trying to defeat it.

Swearing?  Not really.

Violence?  The first two chapters of The Black Cloak are a quite terrifying.  They depict the abduction and disappearance of a little girl.

Appropriate age?  12+

Writing Style- great dialect, colloquialisms, imagery and literary references.  There are so many awesome vocabulary words in  here that I can hardly read the book because I'm writing them all down.

Notable Quoteables:

Great words-  Vermin, timid, heinous, bandy back and forth, glumly, cacophony, scullions, attired, diversion, equestrian, dexterous, coterie, quipped, curmudgeon, camaraderie, vagrant, prattle, turmoil, fiendish, roiling, perturbed, catawampus, mortifying, chastised, reprimand, facade, detested, decrepit, plight, consternation, resplendent, intricate, boscage, eviscerated, cached, raucous, emaciated, apocalyptic, tumultuous, elusive, palpable.There were so many in the first book that I stopped keeping track during the second book!

This one is the bearer of our first So Close award.  It really is a great book, but I can't abide such hostility to nuns.  I guess I would have to ask a kid who reads it what they remember about the nuns or if that particular section had any impact on them.  If pages 53-54 didn't attack nuns, it would definitely be approved.