A warm and fantastical tale about empathy and kindness.
A mysterious sage empowers a young boy to spread kindness throughout his village in Harbour’s middle-grade chapter book.
In the coastal Welsh village of Aberdoethus lives a young boy named Corazinda, whose summers are marked by the influx of seasonal tourists traveling to his hometown and staying in his family’s bed and breakfast. Corazinda has a loving relationship with his parents, but one morning, his father isn’t as kind to him as he usually is. Upset, Corazinda wanders off to his favorite spot—under an apple tree with a view of the ocean—and tries to understand his parents’ occasional anger and sadness. There, Corazinda is approached by a mysterious sage named Ddraigddyn. After Corazinda confides in them about the morning’s strife, Ddraigddyn gives him a magic seashell, instructing him to put it under his pillow and to find them the next morning to discuss the dreams that the shell brings. The next day, Corazinda recounts his dream, in which his friends and neighbors are tethered to crates filled with rocks. Ddraigddyn explains that each rock symbolizes the burdens that people carry. They teach Corazinda how to see these “rocks” when he’s awake and also that kindness can lighten someone’s load. This is an imaginative and whimsical story that promotes kindness and helps to explain the concept of empathy to young readers. Harbour’s writing is descriptive and detailed, although perhaps redundant in some areas (“Focused on the mysterious sound, he didn’t notice the approach of a wise old sage, a figure whose presence seemed to radiate ancient wisdom and serenity. ‘You appear lost in contemplation, dear child,’ the wise sage spoke...In front of Corazinda stood a sage”). The use of gender-neutral pronouns for Ddraigddyn is a nice touch, but is muddled when Corazinda describes them to his father as “a woman wizard.” These issues, however, do not diminish the story’s positive message. The text is enhanced by Malygina’s beautiful watercolor illustrations.
A warm and fantastical tale about empathy and kindness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780971023048
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Orsorum
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark.
An animal ghost seeks closure after enduring aquatic atrocities.
In this sequel to The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter (2020), sixth grader Rex is determined to once again use his ability to communicate with dead animals for the greater good. A ghost narwhal’s visit gives Rex his next opportunity in the form of the clue “bad water.” Rex enlists Darvish—his Pakistani American human best friend—and Drumstick—his “faithful (dead) chicken”—to help crack the case. But the mystery is only one of Rex’s many roadblocks. For starters, Sami Mulpepper hugged him at a dance, and now she’s his “accidental girlfriend.” Even worse, Darvish develops one of what Rex calls “Game Preoccupation Disorders” over role-playing game Monsters & Mayhem that may well threaten the pair’s friendship. Will Rex become “a Sherlock without a Watson,” or can the two make amends in time to solve the mystery? This second outing effectively carries the “ghost-mist” torch from its predecessor without feeling too much like a formulaic carbon copy. Spouting terms like plausible deniability and in flagrante delicto, Rex makes for a hilariously bombastic (if unlikable) first-person narrator. The over-the-top style is contagious, and black-and-white illustrations throughout add cartoony punchlines to various scenes. Unfortunately, scenes in which humor comes at the expense of those with less status are downright cringeworthy, as when Rex, who reads as White, riffs on the impossibility of his ever pronouncing Darvish’s surname or he plays dumb by staring into space and drooling.
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark. (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5523-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
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