Offering just the right amount of imagination, humor, and contemporary nuances to engage young readers, this is a must-have...
A diverse collection of futuristic stories set within contemporary emotional landscapes, tailor-made for millennials.
Each author offers a distinct vision of what life may be like for teens of the future, from life on Mars to living with robots and having aliens for best friends. Authors interweave these plots with delicate true-to-life situations including coping with the divorce of one’s parents and losing a parent, themes that let readers know that with all of the wonder and possibility that future technology might bring, parents that live on Mars still get divorced, and human beings still die of cancer. Dianna Sanchez presents the story of a young Latina born into an agrarian Martian family who visits her extended relatives on drought-ridden Earth for the first time. Mike Barretta imagines a high school biology project that genetically modifies a live chicken egg into a dragon. Adding a dash of humor, R.W.W. Greene brilliantly depicts what a space-age timeout might look like. Other authors include Nancy Kress, Zach Shephard, Deborah Walker, Eric Choi, and Leandra Wallace, and more. This collection of short science fiction is an ideal entrée to the genre for neophytes, as it’s not laden with heavy doses of technological jargon or larded with dystopian violence.
Offering just the right amount of imagination, humor, and contemporary nuances to engage young readers, this is a must-have in science-fiction collections serving middle graders and teens. (Science fiction/short stories. 10-16)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-940924-21-2
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Dreaming Robot
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
