Australian artist Thompson moves from finely detailed illustration work into prose for this broadly brushed farce. An extended family that includes seven children—rightly counting Satanella, who only looks like a fox terrier and Betty, who only seems to be an ordinary girl—the Floods are a family of witches and wizards who decorate their suburban home in spider webs and nettles, bury semi-dead relatives in the backyard and work magic in a network of underground caverns. They’re the good neighbors. The bad ones, and truly despicable they are, live next door: Mr. Dent, a loud and abusive collector of rusty junk and stolen car parts; his shoplifting, TV-addict wife; and their psychopathic children, Dickie, at ten already a career criminal, and tart-in-training Tracylene. Once the two clans start to tangle, the Dents don’t have a chance, but the author is less interested in creating suspense in this series opener than in introducing the cast and dwelling with ghoulish delight on such niceties as the Floods’ customary breakfast of slugs, innards and rat brains. Well endowed with chatty footnotes and rounded off with a gallery of characters and creatures, this crowd pleaser will easily draw fans of Alan MacDonald’s Trolls, Go Home! (2007) and similar fare. Finished illustrations not seen. (Fantasy. 10-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-113196-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
However tried and true, the Harry Potter–esque elements and set pieces don’t keep this cumbersome coming-of-age tale afloat,...
Full-blown middle-volume-itis leaves this continuation of the tale of a teenage elf who has been genetically modified for so-far undisclosed purposes dead in the water.
As the page count burgeons, significant plot developments slow to a trickle. Thirteen-year-old Sophie manifests yet more magical powers while going head-to-head with hostile members of the Lost Cities Council and her own adoptive elvin father, Grady, over whether the clandestine Black Swan cabal, her apparent creators and (in the previous episode) kidnappers, are allies or enemies. Messenger tries to lighten the tone by dressing Sophie and her classmates at the Hogwarts-ian Foxfire Academy as mastodons for a silly opening ceremony and by having her care for an alicorn—a winged unicorn so magnificent that even its poop sparkles. It’s not enough; two sad memorial services, a trip to a dreary underground prison, a rash of adult characters succumbing to mental breakdowns and a frequently weepy protagonist who is increasingly shunned as “the girl who was taken” give the tale a soggy texture. Also, despite several cryptic clues and a late attack by hooded figures, neither the identity nor the agenda of the Black Swan comes closer to being revealed.
However tried and true, the Harry Potter–esque elements and set pieces don’t keep this cumbersome coming-of-age tale afloat, much less under way. (Fantasy 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4596-3
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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