Freely embracing the literary principle that, at bottom, evil is better fun than good, this envelope-pushing bonbon may not...
Adult readers may find themselves desperately searching the subtext of this book for hidden lessons; children will probably just relish it.
Rather like The Bad Beginning, this curious uncautionary tale lays all its cards on the table right up front. To readers expecting growth in the aptly named child’s character arc, the narrator says, “If this were a Hollywood movie, or a fairy tale, or a run-of-the-mill chapter book, this would undoubtedly be the case. But in the real world such things rarely happen.” All of the elder, equally venal generations of Baddenfields having perished young, 12-year-old Alexander decides to have a life transplant, using the eight extra lives of his cat, Shaddenfrood, as a resource—and over the protests of his faithful servant, Winterbottom (as good as Alexander is bad). Lives installed, he goes on to run through them all at a spectacular rate. (Shaddenfrood, purring appropriately, survives.) Blackall’s characteristically knowing illustrations and dramatic design decisions reinforce Marciano’s gleefully morbid humor and bely the seeming amorality of the tale. The purposeful fading of the text during Alexander’s ninth and last demise encourages readers to grapple with it. Adults will be grasping for an obvious point, an impulse reinforced by references to the myth of Icarus and Frankenstein and digs at the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, but child readers will likely be way ahead of them.
Freely embracing the literary principle that, at bottom, evil is better fun than good, this envelope-pushing bonbon may not have an easily discernible moral, but that’s its strength. (Gothic humor. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-670-01406-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
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
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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