A goblin salute (i.e., a finger up the nose) for this brisk and funny outing.
In an inexcusably tardy sequel to Goblins in the Castle (1992), stakes escalate when old spells and new mischief collide, sending a giant stone toad bounding off with the previous episode’s protagonist in its mouth.
When a bit of incautious foolery with a book of spells leads to her friend William being carried away by the suddenly reanimated monument that gives Toad-in-a-Cage Castle its name, Fauna intrepidly hares off in pursuit. The chase takes her past diverting encounters with a particularly mercurial giant, an urbane troll, and others to the underground goblin city of Nilbog. She has the dubious help of a notably motley set of fellow rescuers, including an obnoxious ghost, the hunchbacked Igor (who clutches a weaponized teddy bear), and a brawny woman warrior with a speech impediment who introduces herself as “Bwoonhiwda.” Coville expertly stirs together moments of terror with goblin farts (“Oh, stop fussing. The smell ain’t gonna hurt you. At least, not much. You might lose a little skin, but it’ll grow back”) and like comical touches. He propels his tale to a climactic battle with a malign mage who threatens Nilbog’s very existence and then ties up all the plotlines both new and old with a neat round of counterspells, revelations, and just deserts.
A goblin salute (i.e., a finger up the nose) for this brisk and funny outing. (afterword) (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4169-1440-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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 waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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