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THE FLOURISHING OF FLORALIE LAUREL

Name: THE FLOURISHING OF FLORALIE LAUREL
Author: Fiadhnait Moser
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0668-7

by Fiadhnait Moser ; illustrated by Vivien Mildenberger ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2018

An ambitious story that suffers from a lack of clarity.

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Sometimes family is the friends you make and sometimes the friends you make turn out to be family.

In 1927 England, 11-year-old Floralie Alice Laurel and her older brother, Tom, survive by selling flowers—Floralie from a basket on the street and Tom from his shop. They also get help from their grandmother. However, Grandmama’s help comes with strings attached. Grandmama owns an orphanage, and she is convinced that Floralie would be better off there and less likely to succumb to the mental illness experienced by their artist mother. In an effort to escape Grandmama’s clutches and find her mother, Floralie accepts the help of a quiet boy living in the attic over the flower shop and the local librarian, who is blind. They escape with her to France to find someone who can decipher the flowers she found hidden in the wall of the attic. This confusing series of events relies heavily on coincidence and is delivered in language that is often as flowery as Floralie’s sales job. Interesting flashbacks are woven well into the story, and the quirky relationship Floralie has with the world is intriguing. Mental illness plays a confusing role in the story, presented as an affliction that Floralie’s mother suffers from but with no clear explanation or exploration of it. A few black-and-white sketches illustrate the cast of white characters.

An ambitious story that suffers from a lack of clarity. (Fiction. 10-14)

Pub Date: May 1, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4998-0668-7

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Yellow Jacket

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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SEE YOU IN THE COSMOS

by Jack Cheng ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2017

Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MANY MASKS OF ANDY ZHOU
by Jack Cheng ; illustrated by Jack Cheng

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THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL

From the School for Good and Evil series , Vol. 1

by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.

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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)