Fans of Greek mythology will find much to love in this fun novel.
A young girl discovers that she’s a daughter of the Greek god Zeus in this middle-grade fantasy series starter.
Phoebe Katz is a 12-year-old foster kid, and havoc, including hailstorms and lightning strikes, seems to follow her wherever she goes. As she moves from one terrible foster home to another (and from school to school), her one constant is Carl, the social worker who found her at the Manhattan bus stop where she was abandoned as a baby. Phoebe is determined to make things work at her new school, Dexter Academy—especially now that she has two new friends, Angie and Damian. But trouble finds Phoebe yet again when she discovers that she’s not only a daughter of Zeus and the twin sister to the great hero Perseus, but also connected to a prophecy of the end of Olympus itself—which is why she was sent away as a baby. After the god Ares, who wants the prophecy to come true, kidnaps Carl, Phoebe and her friends time-travel to ancient Greece to rescue him. Nerdy Damian’s convenient encyclopedic knowledge of Greek mythology, Angie’s daring, and Phoebe’s developing demigod powers help them as they tangle with personages of myth, including numerous monsters. This first installment in Adams’ Legend of Olympus series is a nonstop, fast-paced adventure with an engaging, brave, and resourceful protagonist; fans of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, in particular, will likely enjoy it. Phoebe’s story arc involves her coming to terms with who she is and with her place in the world. The book intriguingly examines the balance between her choices and the unfair expectations that have been placed upon her—both as a troubled foster child and as a demigod child of prophecy. Phoebe’s touching relationships with Carl and her two best friends form the heart of the book, and the charming, realistic grayscale illustrations by Thompson effectively show the people and the creatures they encounter.
Fans of Greek mythology will find much to love in this fun novel.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68463-028-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.
A teenage orphan enters a curious school and encounters mysteries and dangerous secrets in this first installment of a debut YA fantasy series.
Life in Croswald is about to change for 16-year-old orphan Ivy, a lowly castle maid in charge of the kitchen “scaldrons,” oven-heating, fire-breathing dragons. Fleeing the castle after a messy scaldron mishap, Ivy hops a strange conveyance that transports her to a school for potential quill-wielding, spell-casting “scrivenists.” (The author’s creative language—students are “sqwinches,” and “hairies” are lanterns housing fairies with luminous hair—is one of the book’s pleasures.) Learning that there is more to her gift for sketching than she realized, Ivy studies spells and the magical properties of inks and quills, but strange things keep happening. Why is an old scrivenist, long thought dead, working in secret? Why is the head of the oddly familiar school moving paintings to the “Forgetting Room” so that no one will remember they existed? How can Ivy get a look at a certain journal stored there, and what does it have to do with her recurrent dream? And why has Ivy drawn the interest of the Dark Queen of Croswald and her truly fearsome Cloaked Brood? The intrigue is layered with such whimsical inventions as one school lunchroom run by ghostly bad cooks and another by a jester who is best avoided, scrivenists who end their lives as tomes in a library, and small houses pulled by a gargantuan flying beast with its own weather system. Yes, there are many Harry Potter–ish elements: a school for young wand-wielders, quirky shops dealing in enchanted student supplies, eccentric characters, spells gone wrong, an evil pursuer. But Night’s blend of magic, danger, and suspense (and a touch of steampunk) is a well-realized, fresh fantasy world all its own, and Ivy is an appealing protagonist of relatable complexity. A few bobbles: Ivy seems to go without food for long stretches; the use of “effected” rather than “affected”; a professor who is both standing and perched on a chair.
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.Pub Date: July 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9969486-5-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Stories Untold Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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