The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
	The Bulletin Dozen is a monthly theme-based booklist available as an online-only Bulletin feature. Since we're awfully fond of bakers here at the Bulletin, we thought we'd adopt their philosophy of generosity and throw in an extra one or two when we have them to offer--so don't expect an even dozen. Please feel free to copy, download, or link to these lists. We ask only that you cite the source. See the archive for lists from previous months.
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Corsets and Cobblestones:  A Victorian Dozen --selected by Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Gaslit streets, dank alleys, sweeping romances, grisly murders, and dazzling glamour – what else could a reader ask for on a cold wintry night, but perhaps a nice cup of tea and a blanket to clutch tightly when the thrills get a little too chilling? This month’s dozens features books set in 19th century England and have enough intrigue and enchantment to keep you racing through the pages even as the snow falls lazily outside.

• Bray, Libba. A Great and Terrible Beauty. Delacorte, 2003. Gr. 9-12
  Raised in India for most of her life, sixteen-year-old Gemme Doyle longs to return to the glamorous civility of London but when her mother is viciously killed, she is sent to a stuffy English boarding school where she learns that the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death are much more mysterious than she ever believed. (BCCB 5/04)
  
  
• Hearn, Julie.    Ivy: A Novel. Antheneum, 2008. Gr. 7-12
  A slum dweller and con artist, fifteen-year-old Ivy has been a thieving to support her laudanum addiction for nearly ten years. When a wealthy painter takes her as his model, however, she thinks her troubles are behind her – until she meets his mother. (BCCB 7/08)
  
  
• Jubert, Herve. Dance of the Assassins. Eos/HarperCollins, 2004. Gr. 9-12
  In a virtually crime free futuristic society, theme parks based on famous historical eras entertain tourists with their exoticism but remain as safe as the outside world. That is until Jack the Ripper makes his return to the Victorian London Historic City, threatening to continue his grisly work and perhaps even unleash the devil himself. (BCCB 9/05)
  
  
• Lawrence, Iain. The Convicts. Delacorte, 2005. Gr. 5-8
  Poor Tom Tin seems to have a bit of Dickensian bad luck: his father is sent to debtors’ prison, his mother has succumbed to a grief-induced madness, and he has been wrongfully convicted of theft. And that’s just the beginning – the real adventure begins when he is imprisoned on a hellish slave ship destined for Australia and tries to rally the other youthful ruffians towards escape. (BCCB 4/05)
  
  
• Michael, Livi. The Whispering Road, Putnam, 2005. Gr. 7-9
  Orphaned siblings Joe and Annie flee from the cruelty of their adopted parents only to encounter the harsh grimness of the streets in their quest to find a loving family. A talented medium, Annie soon finds work with a traveling circus but Joe abandons her for a gang of street children and a life of crime, until they are both contacted by their dead mother’s spirit. (BCCB 6/05)
  
  
• Peacock, Shane. Eye of the Crow. Tundra Books, 2007. Gr. 6-9
  In 1867 London, a young Sherlock Holmes lives in poverty, reading crime blotters and observing his neighbors but generally keeping his distance. Soon, however, he is accused as an accomplice in a young woman’s murder, and Holmes must use his formidable intellect and keen reasoning to solve his first case. (BCCB 10/07)
  
  
• Richard, Justin. The Parliament of Blood. Bloomsbury, 2008. Gr. 6-9
  After witnessing a rather strange mummy unwrapping at the British Museum, young George Arthur and his chums uncover a coven of evil vampires with plans to take over the world by first taking over Parliament. The heroic trio must delve into the mysterious world of the London underground if they are to save their city and the human race. (BCCB 11/08)
  
  
• Sfar, Joann and Emmanuel Guibert. The Professor’s Daughter. First Second, 2007. Gr. 7-12
  This lushly illustrated graphic novel has it all: forbidden love, meddlesome parents, a mysterious murder, and of course, a 3000 year old mummy (give or take a few years). The daughter of a brilliant - but overprotective – archeologist finds herself falling in love with her father’s latest acquisition – Pharoah Imhotep IV, a mummy with no internal organs but still a keen desire to live and love. Can their romance survive the ensuing parental objections, various kidnappings, and Queen Victoria herself?
  
  
• Stewart, Paul and Chris Riddell. The Curse of the Night Wolf. Fickling, 2004. Gr. 5-7
  After he notices a mysterious uptick in werewolf sighting and survives a near attack himself, young Barnaby Grimes becomes suspicious of a local doctor hocking a cure all elixir and manages to get himself hired as the physician’s assistant, only to find himself entangled in a nefarious scheme to turn all of London’s poor into monsters. (BCCB 12/08)
  
  
• Updale, Eleanor. Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman? Orchard Books, 2004.
  After a robbery gone wrongs nearly costs him his life, Montmorency decides it is time to live the life of a refined gentleman – but of course, he needs the funds to do so, and devises a plan to use London’s sewers as escape routes as he performs a series of lucrative thefts to help him begin his new aristocratic existence. (BCCB 4/04)
  

• Wooding, Chris. The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray. Orchard Books, 2004. Gr. 8-12
  In Wooding’s alternative version of Victorian London, the city is under attack from strange supernatural monsters, creatures literally shaped from the stuff of Londoners’ nightmares. Seventeen year old Thaniel Fox, a skilled “wych-hunter” is intent upon finding a way to stop these demons and stumbles across a seemingly possessed young woman who might hold the key to it all. (BCCB 9/04)
  

• Yancy, Rick. The Monstrumologist. Simon and Schuster, 2009. Gr. 7-10
  In 1888, a group of headless, cannibalistic creatures called the Anthropophagi begin attacking a small New England and twelve year old orphan William James Henry and his mentor, the brilliant montrumologist Dr. Warthrop, must use their extensive knowledge of monsters to save the town. Grave robbing, gruesome murders, and scientific intrigue complete this Gothic horror story.  (BCCB 11/09)
  
  

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