The Wild Book (Juan Villoro)

The Wild Book
Juan Villoro, translated by Lawrence Schimel
Restless Books
Fiction, MG Fantasy
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION: It was supposed to be another summer vacation spent playing with his best friends, but when his parents separate, plans change. His kid sister is sent to live with friends and Juan is packed off to the home of Uncle Tito, a man he barely knows. A lifelong recluse with the manners of an animal and almost no people skills, Tito has turned his house into a labyrinthine library - and, somehow, he's convinced that Juan himself has an inborn affinity for books. Indeed, he's certain the boy will help him find an elusive title hiding in his collection, The Wild Book, which has never let itself be read by anyone. At first, he thinks the man's just gone crazy after years with nobody but a part-time housekeeper for company... but soon Juan discovers that books have lives of their own - and some of them are quite dangerous, indeed.

REVIEW: I'm not sure if it's the translation or the basic story, but I couldn't connect with this one despite the promising subject. It seems to be trying too hard to cram Life Lessons down the reader's throat to remember that I need to care about the characters and be interested in unfolding events. Yes, the books move when nobody's looking, and there's a predatory Pirate Book lurking around the edges, but instead of feeling like I was immersed in a grand adventure in an amazing library, mostly I felt like I was, like Juan, stumbling around in cluttered rooms not doing much of anything, hoping that the elusive "wild book" would turn up by chance. Tito's overbearing and more than a little repelling, with a personality more like an oversized grade-schooler than a grown man; Juan comes across as the mature and reasonable one, except when he doesn't. (Character consistency wavers across the board, as the author tends to spell things out rather than let them act and react naturally.) There's a girl across the street who becomes a love interest, but again I wasn't really feeling the relationship, and his observations of her venture into creepy territory. For that matter, there are... I suppose I should say cultural overtones that don't translate particularly well and left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. (Speaking of translation, part of me wonders how much of my reaction was due to the translator's efforts and not the author's; at one point, it refers to spiders as insects, which has to be a translation error unless Villoro thinks middle grade readers don't know spiders are arachnids and not insects, which is information found in basic picture books.) On the plus side, it reads fairly fast, but I've read other, better books about books and the magic of reading.

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