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
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
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