An uneven but entertaining approach to mixed mythologies.
Introspective Sofia, a recent cancer survivor midway through seventh grade, acquires both a prosthetic leg and an unlooked-for role: Guardian of monsters.
The monsters hail from various cultural imaginings: the Jewish Golem, a Japanese Kappa, the wolflike French Beast of Gevaudan, an American Indian Thunderbird, a British Afanc. The role of Guardian comes with a bestiary, passed down through centuries from Aristotle’s student Xeno to Sofia in Atlanta, Georgia, which evidently “the Native Americans believed…to be a hive of supernatural activity.” Chemo-bald, white Sofia also acquires an enemy: Alexander the Great’s obsessed, witchy mother, Olympias, plans to avenge Alexander and complete his conquest of the world. Sofia is protective toward the monsters but also toward her anxious single mother and her estranged best friend. Meanwhile, the school’s alpha girl and the new boy (witty and good-looking but a bit of an outcast) seem to angle for her friendship. Garrett’s prose, frequently poignant and sophisticated, is punctuated with wry humor. But though the monsters—including one wrought from Sofia’s insecurity—menace with tooth, claw, and stink, they seem little more than fleeting threats. Xeno, caught between life and death and devoted to Aristotle’s theory about the monsters’ roles in human experience, is more comical than awesome. Garrett leaves the door open to sequels with Olympias’ melodramatic parting line: “oh, what surprises await!” The monsters in Mirtalipova’s occasional illustrations tend toward cute rather than scary.
An uneven but entertaining approach to mixed mythologies. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53524-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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