A beautiful—though complex—exploration of generational trauma.
Ten-year-old Kohei knows that his impossible memory is the key to fixing everything.
Somehow, he has a memory of large Japanese ryū marching in a war parade and a single Western dragon circling the sky while his grandfather watches it, awestruck. But large ryū have not been seen in Japan for the last 20 years, since the end of World War II. Kohei believes that seeing a large dragon again will allow Ojiisan to experience a range of emotions instead of his constant anger and heal Kohei’s family, broken even before his father’s death. When their new American tenants arrive with their daughter, Isolde, who is Japanese American and Jewish, Kohei is excited to hear that they have a dragon, but their Yiddish-speaking dragon, Cheshire, is even smaller than Kohei’s own tiny dragon, Yuharu; disappointed, Kohei lashes out. But when Ojiisan is hospitalized, Kohei convinces Isolde to go to New Ryūgū-jō, a replica of the underwater palace of the ancient dragon gods, in an attempt to hatch a large dragon egg. Their journey reveals a tragic truth that shakes Kohei to the core. Watanabe Cohen’s use of the fantastical both parallels and is juxtaposed against real history and trauma. Fleshed-out and flawed characters pose difficult questions and make mistakes; conflicts aren’t neatly resolved but rather are realistically depicted as ongoing. This quiet novel tackles complicated topics, including the devastation of war; readers with some knowledge of the period will likely get the most out of it.
A beautiful—though complex—exploration of generational trauma. (author’s note) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64614-132-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and...
Good has won every fairy-tale contest with Evil for centuries, but a dark sorcerer’s scheme to turn the tables comes to fruition in this ponderous closer.
Broadening conflict swirls around frenemies Agatha and Sophie as the latter joins rejuvenated School Master Rafal, who has dispatched an army of villains from Capt. Hook to various evil stepmothers to take stabs (literally) at changing the ends of their stories. Meanwhile, amid a general slaughter of dwarves and billy goats, Agatha and her rigid but educable true love, Tedros, flee for protection to the League of Thirteen. This turns out to be a company of geriatric versions of characters, from Hansel and Gretel (in wheelchairs) to fat and shrewish Cinderella, led by an enigmatic Merlin. As the tale moves slowly toward climactic battles and choices, Chainani further lightens the load by stuffing it with memes ranging from a magic ring that must be destroyed and a “maleficent” gown for Sophie to this oddly familiar line: “Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the Woods, you had to walk into mine.” Rafal’s plan turns out to be an attempt to prove that love can be twisted into an instrument of Evil. Though the proposition eventually founders on the twin rocks of true friendship and family ties, talk of “balance” in the aftermath at least promises to give Evil a fighting chance in future fairy tales. Bruno’s polished vignettes at each chapter’s head and elsewhere add sophisticated visual notes.
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and flashes of hilarity. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-210495-3
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2015
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