Name: Tuesdays at the Castle
Rating: 4.05 (20 reviews)
ISBN: 9781599909172

Jessica Day George

Eleven-year-old Princess Celie lives with her parents, the king and queen, and her brothers and sister at Castle Glower, which adds rooms or stairways or secret passageways most every Tuesday, and when the king and queen are ambushed while travelling, it is up to Celie--the castle's favorite--with her secret knowledge of its never-ending twists and turns, to protect their home and save their kingdom.

Tuesdays at the Castle

Castle Glower #1

Sarah Sammis

Rick Dobrowolski

Really enjoyed reading this out loud with my 7 year old daughter. The concept of a magical castle was brilliant. Both she and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Alexandra Mellas

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Publication Date: October 25 2011
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 1599906449
Age Group: Children
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Source: NetGalley
Lootability: ****

Castle Glower isn't an ordinary castle. Every Tuesday the magic of Castle Glower will add a new room or wing. But is the magic of the Castle enough to protect Princess Celie and her siblings when the King and Queen disappear and the castle is ambushed.

What I Liked: Celie and her relationship with the living castle is quite fascinating and definitely very sweet. It's a nice soft fantasy story that makes it easy to settle in and relax with the book. Celie is an intuitive child with all the determination and curiosity of a good children's hero.
The story, of children fighting for the return of their home, was captivating and, like Castle Flower, the story kept taking unexpected turns. I also appreciated Day George's sense of humour shining through each type of room the Castle grew or through the planks the children and the Castle played on their enemies.

What I Didn't Like: It's hard to say it was childish when I know I'm talking about a book aimed at young readers, but that's not exactly what I mean. It was written simply, yes, but not in a bad way. The problem lay in how easily the whole thing rolled out - but I suppose to make it any more difficult would have pushed it outside the realm of a children's book.

If anyone is looking for something similar to Tuesdays at the Castle but isn't interested in picking up a children's book, Terry Brooks' Kingdom For Sale: Sold has a living castle and definitely picks up the pace.

MJ Laird

So, this year I've been trying to read every one of Jessica Day George's books. I've done really well so far with only the rest of the published books from this series and then her latest book, Silver in the Blood. There has not been a single one of her books that I didn't like - no, love!

This book, however, was certainly not my favorite of her novels. While I did enjoy the story and fall absolutely in love with her characters as I also do, there was something about it that just didn't sit right. I think it may have been the fact that everything kept getting worse and worse to the point where, even though I knew it could be fine, I couldn't think of how. Now, I'm not saying that nothing bad should ever happen in a story. I'm not even saying that it shouldn't have been quite that bad. I think that the issue was that within only 20 pages the main characters' parents and older brother (view spoiler)[ were assumed to be dead (hide spoiler)], which was only the beginning of the problems to come. The situation become worse and worse and, as I said before, I began to lose hope. I just wish that there had been a little more time in the story before all of the tragedy struck. That said, I thought that it was handled beautifully and even when things got really bad it didn't feel heavy. By that I mean that I didn't want to just shut the book and forget about it.

Now, I'm not saying that I think that it should've been changed because I really did love it. It was just unexpected, I suppose, because I have found that books with this much hardship from the beginning on are usually sequels. Again, I don't know that this was a bad thing. Just not what I expected.

Now, the characters. I really loved them all. Well, the good ones that is. I wasn't fond of the council.

The main characters are siblings. With the oldest brother, Bran, gone at school and later (view spoiler)[presumed dead (hide spoiler)], we are left with the younger three; Delilah, Rolf, and Cecelia. Now, I can't say much about Bran because he wasn't really in the story that much. The other three reminded be very much of the younger three Pevensie children fromThe Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Lilah especially reminded of Susan. Celie had quite a few Lucy qualities. Rolf would be a post-LWW Edmund, of course. Now, as a Narnia lover, I adored this. I don't know if they were supposed to feel reminiscent of Narnia or not but I loved it! So, I ended up totally picturing them as the Pevensies - even Bran as Peter who was hardly in it at all. Actually, I also pictured Pogue Parry as Caspian. So, this is pretty much how I pictured them:
   

While we're in Narnia mode, I happened to also picture Khelsh the way I've always pictured Rabadash.

Negatives

So, there really wasn't anything but if you're looking for a book that's just all kinds of happy, you probably want a different one.

Also, there were a couple of comments about Celie wanting to see Prince Lulath's rooms and people are a little shocked/horrified. This wasn't actually anything bad but I'll just put that out there in case that bothers people somehow. I don't know... I just thought I'd mention it.

Tuesdays at the Castle

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