Guinevere St. Clair is indeed 100 percent unforgettable.
If Scout Finch had had a sister, she would be future “world-famous lawyer” Guinevere St. Clair.
When Guinevere, now 10, was 4, her mother, Vienna, lost all memory of her life after the age of 13, and now, believing she is 13, often acts like a difficult older sister. Jed, Gwyn’s father, has relocated the family to Crow, Iowa, where he and Vienna grew up, hoping that the familiar surroundings will help her regain her memory. Iowa is a world away from Gwyn’s beloved New York City. People greet one another on the street, it’s always quiet, and it smells like cows. And speaking of cows, Guinevere gets her very own registered bovine, whom she names Willowdale Princess Deon Dawn. (Sadly, her plan to ride Willowdale like a horse doesn’t work out.) Not long after the St. Clairs arrive, Gaysie Cutter tries to bury Guinevere alive—at least that’s how the imaginative Gwyn sees it. When a local farmer goes missing, Guinevere puts on her lawyer hat to investigate. She’s certain short-fused, unpredictable Gaysie murdered him. She just has to prove it, but it won’t be easy, because it seems as though everyone in seemingly all-white Crow has a secret. With the same nostalgia-tinged humor as Dead End in Norvelt and A Long Way from Chicago, Makechnie’s debut will have readers in stitches. Gwyn’s voice is distinct and likable, carrying readers through the eventful narrative with ease.
Guinevere St. Clair is indeed 100 percent unforgettable. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1446-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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
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