A high-stakes, coming-of-age adventure with relevant real-world themes.
In the midst of ongoing war, a team of Jedi and Republic Pathfinders vanish during a mission to provide emergency fuel for a planet in energy crisis.
Jedi Padawan Rooper Nitani, a 14-year-old human with brown skin and eyes, eagerly anticipates the thrill of an adventure when she, her master, and their Pathfinder team follow a distressed message from another Jedi Master who reports sabotage and an ambush. They travel to the planet Aubadas, home of the Katikoot, an advanced civilization of flightless, batlike people. A promise to help with fuel supply problems sent the missing team to the mines of Gloam, Aubadas’ polluted and dying twin planet, but only the Katikoot guide returned alive from the mission after monsters attacked them. With the lives of her allies and the future of a whole civilization on the line, Rooper struggles with the heavy realities of her responsibility as a Jedi. The looming threat of further sabotage forewarned by the inciting distress message heightens the suspense as Rooper ventures into danger. Intertwining themes of environmental disaster, the detrimental impacts of capitalism, and what it means to be a monster play a significant role in the conflict. Sweeping action sequences, well-timed shifts among different points of view, and a touch of levity from bantering droids all add to the story’s appeal. Final art not seen.
A high-stakes, coming-of-age adventure with relevant real-world themes. (timeline) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-368-08010-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Disney Lucasfilm
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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