Exciting and heartfelt.
Two boys stuck in an unexplained temporal anomaly join forces and try to escape.
The middle kid of five, Ezra often feels overlooked in his family; Finn is an only child with adoring parents but no friends. Both boys end up trapped in a 55-hour time loop on their shared bar mitzvah weekend at the Bergenville Hotel in New Jersey. When they figure out what’s going on, Finn announces, “We’re in this together for some reason. And we’re gonna get out together too.” They try everything they can think of, from doing good deeds and running a “perfect loop” to winning the lottery to carrying out a bank heist. In the process, they learn about their families, each other, quantum physics, and time travel in the Talmud. The first-person narration alternates between Finn and Ezra; varied chapter lengths effectively help control the pace of the story. Ezra’s family attends a different synagogue and is more religious than Finn’s, so some of Ezra’s explanations to Finn will help readers who are unfamiliar with Judaism. Ultimately, both boys, who read white, learn to look more carefully at what’s right under their noses. Facing the ordinary challenges of life is what enables them to break out of their extraordinary “timey-wimey” challenge.
Exciting and heartfelt. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9780063248243
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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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A page-turner that creatively explores resonant themes.
When Hurricane Jessamine assaults North Carolina, the Highground Home for Children is threatened by a once-in-a-lifetime flood.
Thirteen-year-old Sylvia Doe, who has brown skin and black hair, is a runaway who’s fled yet another foster home to once again return to Highground, a transitional institution that offers equine therapy for children awaiting foster placement. But this time her journey back to Highground is driven by different concerns. As the hurricane batters the valley, unprecedented flooding threatens the horses, home, and people Sylvia cares about. She secretly hitches a ride in a logging truck, risking her life to save her beloved horses. She also helps Jorna Grant, a mysterious 13-year-old Black boy. Jorna is strange, and Sylvia can’t quite figure him out, although he, too, seems “like a runner. And every runner has a reason.” Her social worker tries to figure out a new placement where Sylvia will stay put, but Sylvia longs to remain at Highground permanently, even though North Carolina state rules won’t allow it. She also has another goal: to find out where Jorna came from and help him return home. She’s also convinced there’s “something much more happening” with the flood. Adventurous and suspenseful, this story pairs environmental science content with a genre-blurring mystery. Field guide–style illustrations of the animals that Sylvia encounters on her journey add a valuable learning component that emphasizes the ecological themes present throughout the book.
A page-turner that creatively explores resonant themes. (author’s note) (Mystery. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781368007580
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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