Voegelein: Clockwork Faerie by Jane Irwin and Jeff Berndt, ill. Fiery Studios, 2003. 978-0974311005

Summary: A tiny clockwork winged woman contemplates her life and looks for a new guardian to wind her.

Analysis: Beautifully done. Voegelein must be wound every 36 hours or she will lose her memories and revert to being a mindless automaton when she is finally rewound. She loves her guardians, but has grown increasingly dissatisfied with her situation after her original maker and his Roma trader friend die -- they had truly become parental figures to her, but her subsequent owners increasingly saw caring for her as a burden, and she resents having to depend on them for her existence, yet craves love and human contact. She also crosses paths with a bitter Sidhe, and argues about the effect humans are having on the land. There are excellent notes at the back explaining more about various aspects of the book, in particular Roma/Gypsy culture and the history of clockwork. This successfully avoids being a morality tale -- its themes truly asks questions about the nature of relationships, the impact of humanity, and other hard concepts, and leaves it to the reader to ponder them.

Illustrations: CGI-style soft digital illustrations. I get the impression this was originally in color, and if so, I think it loses something in black-and-white. But not enough that it interferes with the story.

Curricular connections: 6-12th grade lesson on relationships or as a supplement to a class studying inventions, fairy legends, or the industrial revolution.

--SLH