Awash in magical exploits and creatures.
Daisy Thistledown and her Greenwild cohorts seek help from hostile water magic folk to fight the rising tide of environment-destroying Grim Reapers.
The grown-ups may have their plans to relieve the beleaguered enclave of Botanists (including Daisy’s mother) who are lost in the Amazon rainforest, but it’s up to Daisy and her young fellow fledgling Botanists of the Five O’Clock Club to save their bacon once again. Daisy and friends—animal whisperer Indigo, the brainiac dubbed the Prof, and doughty Acorn—are joined along the way by Max, a fugitive with a hidden past and a distinctive facial birthmark. They face multiple ambushes mounted by the murderous Reapers who leave bleached coral and plants in their wake. Along with riding magnificent water horses and rescuing a menagerie of rare creatures from an animal market, the young folk learn both how to trust one another and how to control their individual magical gifts in time to scupper a usurper’s evil scheme and enlist needed aid for the climactic conflict to come. Paganelli’s flourishes of spot art and monochrome views of magical beasts and the racially diverse human cast add elegant accents to this bustling middle episode. More experienced genre readers may not find many surprises in the plot but will enjoy the adventure nevertheless. Daisy’s mother is Persian, and her late father was English.
Awash in magical exploits and creatures. (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780374391393
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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