Wickedly funny and surprisingly relatable beneath the exaggerated silliness.
Following The Beast and the Bethany (2020), Ebenezer and Bethany struggle to become do-gooders.
Troublemaking Bethany’s working hard to change, and she wants Ebenezer—less enthusiastic but willing—to purge his beast-gifted luxuries and join her de-beasting mission. In flashbacks, readers see that lonely young Ebenezer’s first friend was the beast; current-day Ebenezer knows he shouldn’t miss the monster, but he kind of does. Furthermore, a significant difficulty in do-gooding is that neither hero knows how to be good. Luckily, they have Claudette, the Wintlorian purple-breasted parrot, for guidance—except Claudette’s been feeling off ever since eating the beast. Though readers will be able to spot the not-so-vanquished beast operating through Claudette before the characters do, the exact schemes include intricate plans with details that still surprise. Bethany learns just how hard it is to overcome a bad reputation when she’s sabotaged and then blamed for the fallout as the beast manipulates its way to a very public bad ending for her. The humor offers a delightful blend of dry eloquence and gross-out subject matter, as in the description of a building as “an architectural equivalent of someone who freely picks their nose in public.” The resolution takes some clever thinking from Ebenezer but also a touch of deus ex machina. The story ends with a teaser for the next book. Some background characters in the illustrations bring racial diversity.
Wickedly funny and surprisingly relatable beneath the exaggerated silliness. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-7892-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship.
A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge.
In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father. With her friends’ help, she is in training to defend her championship when they discover that another player, operating under the protection of High Consul Silla, is presenting herself as Legacy. She is so convincing that the real Legacy is accused of being an imitation. False Legacy has become a hero to the masses, further strengthening Silla’s hold, and it becomes imperative to uncover and defeat her. If Legacy is to win again, she must play her imposter while disguised as someone else. Winning at tennis is not just about money and fame, but resisting Silla’s plans to send more young people into brutal mines with little hope of better lives. Legacy will have to overcome her fears and find the magic that allowed her to claim victory in the past. This story, with its elements of sports, fantasy, and social consciousness that highlight tensions between the powerful and those they prey upon, successfully continues the series conceived by late basketball superstar Bryant. As before, the tennis matches are depicted with pace and spirit. Legacy and Javi have brown skin; most other characters default to White.
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949520-19-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
An enthralling fantasy debut exploring exploitation by those in power.
Will 12-year-old Nura be able to outsmart the trickster jinn and save herself and her friends?
Nura lives in the fictional Pakistani town of Meerabagh, where she has worked mining mica to help support her family of five—her mother, herself, and her three younger siblings—since her father’s death. In the mines she has the company of her best friend, Faisal, who is teased by other kids for his stutter, and she enjoys small pleasures like splurging on gulab jamun. Although Maa wants Nura to stop working and attend school, she has no interest in classroom learning and hopes to save up to send her younger siblings to school instead so they can break the family’s cycle of poverty. Following a mining accident in which Faisal and others are lost in the rubble, Nura goes to the rescue. In her quest, she is plunged into the magical, glittering jinn realm, where nothing is as it seems. The author seamlessly weaves into the worldbuilding of the story commentary on real-life problems such as the ravages of child labor and systems that perpetuate inequities. An informative author’s note further explores present-day global cycles of oppression as well as the life-changing power of education. This action-packed story set in a Muslim community moves at a fast pace, with evocative writing that brings the fantasy world to life and lyrical imagery to describe emotions.
An enthralling fantasy debut exploring exploitation by those in power. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5795-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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