A well-stirred, high-spirited medley of traditional elements.
In a yarn based on songs and tales heard in Newfoundland and Labrador, a cocky young card shark takes on Greensleeves, the tricksy “grand vizier of all magicians.”
Having held a pack of cards practically since birth, Jack, known as “Jack o’ Hearts,” will play anyone—even the green man made of grass and nettles, lily pads, and wax beans who comes into the church hall one Twelfth Night. A win and a loss later, the green man declares that the tiebreaker for Jack’s life will be played at Greenchapel…wherever that might be. Left to find the way on his own, Jack charms his way past encounters with surly giants and other obstacles. Reaching the magician’s hideaway is only the start of Jack’s trials, as he finds himself tasked with climbing a “glassen pole” and other seemingly impossible feats. Luckily, Jack has an ally in Greensleeves’ youngest daughter, Ann (“dark skin, with a hint of green, and black black hair”), who is a powerful magician herself and furthermore willing to jump the broom with him if they can only escape her father’s wrath. Jones tells the latest in his series of eastern seaboard Jack tales with a confident lilt. Erdelji enhances its flow with ingenuously drawn scenes within broadly brushed circular borders and a tongue-in-cheek tone with marginal vignettes that resemble medieval graffiti.
A well-stirred, high-spirited medley of traditional elements. (long source note) (Folk tale. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-927917-07-7
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Running the Goat
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
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