With magic and a bit of danger, and touching on themes of family, loss, friendship, misunderstandings, kindness, and second...
Stanley’s fantasy offers an enticing blend of suspense, an ancient curse, a lonely girl, a hint of romance, and a fairy-tale trope.
When Joplin’s estranged grandfather, a famous yet reclusive author, dies, her mother insists she take something of his to remember him by. Joplin chooses a broken, centuries-old delftware platter. Once mended and hanging on her wall, the lonely 11-year-old white girl, friendless and bullied at school, admires the painted girl in the platter’s center and wishes for a friend. The next morning, the Dutch girl from the platter is sitting in the garden! Sofie is cursed, forced to grant any wishes made by the platter’s owner. With the help of a new friend, fellow lunchtime-hider-in-the-library Barrett, a white boy who, like Joplin, has “just the right amount of geekiness,” Joplin attempts to free Sofie. After Sofie’s kidnapping by the centuries-old, menacing alchemist who placed the curse, the kids devise a plan, with some adult help, to reverse the curse. First-person narrator Joplin is a likable, sensitive girl whose middle school travails will ring true with readers. The story of how the platter came to Joplin’s grandfather nicely connects Sofie and Joplin’s mother. An afterword revealing the book’s connections to the author is moving.
With magic and a bit of danger, and touching on themes of family, loss, friendship, misunderstandings, kindness, and second chances, Joplin and Sofie’s story is not soon forgotten. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-242370-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
A pleasing premise for book lovers.
A fantasy-loving bookworm makes a wonderful, terrible bargain.
When sixth grader Poppy Woodlock’s historic preservationist parents move the family to the Oregon coast to work on the titular stately home, Poppy’s sure she’ll find magic. Indeed, the exiled water nymph in the manor’s ruined swimming pool grants a wish, but: “Magic isn’t free. It cosssts.” The price? Poppy’s favorite book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In return she receives Sampson, a winged lion cub who is everything Poppy could have hoped for. But she soon learns that the nymph didn’t take just her own physical book—she erased Narnia from Poppy’s world. And it’s just the first loss: Soon, Poppy’s grandmother’s journal’s gone, then The Odyssey, and more. The loss is heartbreaking, but Sampson’s a wonderful companion, particularly as Poppy’s finding middle school a tough adjustment. Hartman’s premise is beguiling—plenty of readers will identify with Poppy, both as a fellow bibliophile and as a kid struggling to adapt. Poppy’s repeatedly expressed faith that unveiling Sampson will bring some sort of vindication wears thin, but that does not detract from the central drama. It’s a pity that the named real-world books Poppy reads are notably lacking in diversity; a story about the power of literature so limited in imagination lets both itself and readers down. Main characters are cued White; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast. Chapters open with atmospheric spot art. (This review has been updated to reflect the final illustrations.)
A pleasing premise for book lovers. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780316448222
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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