An imaginative example of fantasy done right.
With just the turn of a page, a boy is transported to new worlds in this fantastic middle-grade novel.
David Wilson is your average teenage boy. He’d much rather play sports with his friends than read, and he actively avoids his squabbling parents. When it’s decided he’s going to stay with a family friend, Mr. Linden, for summer break in lieu of going on vacation with his parents, David is, to say the least, unhappy. Resigning himself to three whole months of boredom, he discovers Mr. Linden’s library. As he pokes around, he is suddenly transported, via a red book from the shelf, into the strange kingdom of Ethelrod. There, the angry king, distrustful of outsiders, subjects David to a series of tests. Using his resourceful nature and a bit of humor, David beats the king at his own game, luckily making it back to Mr. Linden’s house unscathed. After Mr. Linden’s daughter, Hannah, shows up for an unexpected visit, she and David journey into his fictional kingdom, but this time, Hannah doesn’t make it back to her father’s library when the adventure is over. David and Mr. Linden are forced to work together to locate Hannah, learning many secrets along the way. As with David, it’s easy to get caught up in this work. Davidson (What A hodgepodge!, 2013, etc.) is an educator and reading specialist, which explains why he is such a gifted writer: Aside from his technical prowess, Davidson’s imagination and page-turning pacing help make this book stand out. David is a relatable character for adventurous young readers who might find it difficult to dive into school and reading, and the work obviously champions books as vehicles (literally and figuratively) into other worlds. With well-rounded characters and plenty of drama, this fun read will even appeal to read-along parents. It’d make an outstanding cornerstone for a new series, too, and readers are sure to look forward to whatever adventure David comes to next.
An imaginative example of fantasy done right.Pub Date: April 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1938326301
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Ferne Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0142413836
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
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