A whimsical adventure that promotes individuality and self-acceptance.
In this fantasy sequel, a mysterious stone leads a young girl from her quiet life in suburban Hartsdale, New York, to the Icelandic home of an ancient mythical being.
Elika is embarrassed by her Icelandic name, her yellow-green eyes, and, above all, her eccentric Aunt Caroline. In Spudich’s (The Amber Giant, 2017, etc.) first novel in the series, Caroline befriended a yetilike creature in the Himalayas when she was a young girl; she’s now a geology professor who still frequently visits her hairy friend. Just after Elika’s 13th birthday, the girl begins hearing a high voice calling out in her dreams. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, she notices that the Fire and Ice quartz that her mother brought her from Iceland is glowing. She consults with Caroline, who thinks that the crystal may have a connection to another mythical creature. With her family’s support, she and her aunt travel to Iceland to find it. Elika locates the Ice Giant, who immediately takes a liking to her, insisting that she stay in her frozen cave. The girl must figure out a way to return to her family without making her newfound friend feel abandoned. Although this story is closely connected to The Amber Giant, it can easily be read as a stand-alone. Spudich uses straightforward language that’s well suited to young audiences. Her descriptions of Icelandic landscapes are filled with ethereal beauty, as when Elika marvels at how “Sunlight shone through the ice, filling it with turquoise light.” Later, she writes: “They stopped by a flow of ice that looked like a river frozen in time.” Spudich’s interpretation of the mythological Ice Giant will certainly pique readers’ interest. However, the story is rather brief, and readers may wish that there were more material to explore. Still, considering the brevity of the book, Elika’s character development is considerable; the journey to Iceland helps her overcome her insecurities and deepens her relationship with her aunt. Through conversation with the centuries-old Giant, she realizes the importance of her cultural heritage and hopes to learn more about her family’s history.
A whimsical adventure that promotes individuality and self-acceptance.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-947854-47-5
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Handersen Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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