D’Lacey mixes up a lovely bag of dragons, squirrels and a strangely appropriate adult protagonist. Twenty-year-old David comes to live in Liz and Lucy’s extra room in a house full of ceramic dragons. Liz sculpts them, but what’s the Hrrr coming from her studio and how does she fire them without a kiln? Liz’s young daughter Lucy knows the dragon secrets but isn’t allowed to tell. Lucy latches on to David and pulls him into her search for an injured squirrel in the backyard and the nearby library gardens. She practically forces David to write a book for her about the squirrels she knows. Liz gives David a dragon named Gadzooks that seems to be helping him write somehow. Liz is an appealing mix of secretly magic-loving adult and disciplinarian. Two stories-within-the-story are inexplicably blander than the main narrative. Infused with a gentle sense of wonder. (Fantasy. 7-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-439-67243-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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
With plenty left to be resolved, the next entry will be eagerly sought after.
Drake has been selected by the king to serve as a Dragon Master, quite a change for an 8-year-old farmer boy.
The dragons are a secret, and the reason King Roland has them is a mystery, but what is clear is that the Dragon Stone has identified Drake as one of the rare few children who have a special connection with dragons and the ability to serve as a trainer. Drake’s dragon is a long brown creature with, at first, no particular talents that Drake can identify. He calls the dragon Worm. It isn’t long before Drake begins to realize he has a very strong connection with Worm and can share what seem to be his dragon’s thoughts. After one of the other Dragon Masters decides to illicitly take the dragons outside, disaster strikes. The cave they are passing through collapses, blocking the passageway, and then Worm’s special talent becomes evident. The first of a new series of early chapter books, this entry is sure to attract fans. Brief chapters, large print, lots of action, attractive illustrations in every spread, including a maplike panorama, an enviable protagonist—who wouldn’t want to be a Dragon Master?—all combine to make an entertaining read.
With plenty left to be resolved, the next entry will be eagerly sought after. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-64624-6
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Branches/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
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