A delicious princess romp down the well-worn path first paved by The Practical Princess and followed by spunky royal girls ever since. Princess Margaret—Meg—is not at all interested in being bargained away with half the kingdom. She wants to save the dragon, warn the witch and rescue the bandits, while her father wants a gaggle of princes to vanquish them all in the name of economic development. A lot of tropes get stood on their heads here: Meg is imprisoned in a tower, for example, but doesn’t take long to wriggle out of it; alert readers will catch references to everything from The Wizard of Oz to Monty Python. Meg bonds with the dragon (only a baby), gets help from the witch (who has turned a great number of princes into frogs) and, assisted by her loyal friends Cam the gardener and Dilly the housemaid, bests a supercilious prince. The bandits, by the way, are led by a woman, and her handsome brother does a pretty good impersonation of a prince. The language is witty and tart and funny, the pace is quick and, in the end, Meg gets to study not only administration and diplomacy, but magic and swordplay. (Fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-374-35546-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
A thoughtful, humorous, community-centered exploration of identity and Buddhism.
Stories of Buddha’s past lives help a young boy “find [himself] in the moment.”
Binh and his siblings, who are of Vietnamese descent, can’t believe they’re spending the weekend at a silent meditation retreat. Binh would rather play his Game Boy so he doesn’t have to meditate and inevitably think about the bullies at school. It is only when Sister Peace tells stories about the Buddha and his past life that Binh is able to imagine himself entering a video game–inspired world and thus process his feelings of shame, isolation, and anger. With each Jataka tale, Binh’s awareness expands, and so, too, does his ability to be present for and helpful to those around him. A welcome addition to the handful of middle-grade stories featuring Buddhist protagonists, this exploration of identity and Buddhist principles will find an audience with young readers who love Raina Telgemeier but aren’t quite ready to level up to the complexity and nuance of Gene Luen Yang’s epic American Born Chinese (2006). The video game elements are compelling, although they understandably diminish as the story progresses and the protagonist’s inner life grows. Warm fall colors and luscious black lines anchor the story as it transitions among flashbacks, stories, and the present day. Filled with talking animals, the parables can be a little heavy-handed, but the witty banter between Binh and the narrator during fantasy sequences provides levity. (This review was updated for accuracy.)
A thoughtful, humorous, community-centered exploration of identity and Buddhism. (bibliography) (Graphic fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780759555488
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Reports of children requesting rewrites of The Reluctant Dragon are rare at best, but this new version may be pleasing to young or adult readers less attuned to the pleasures of literary period pieces. Along with modernizing the language—“Hmf! This Beowulf fellow had a severe anger management problem”—DiTerlizzi dials down the original’s violence. The red-blooded Boy is transformed into a pacifistic bunny named Kenny, St. George is just George the badger, a retired knight who owns a bookstore, and there is no actual spearing (or, for that matter, references to the annoyed knight’s “Oriental language”) in the climactic show-fight with the friendly, crème-brulée-loving dragon Grahame. In look and spirit, the author’s finely detailed drawings of animals in human dress are more in the style of Lynn Munsinger than, for instance, Ernest Shepard or Michael Hague. They do, however, nicely reflect the bright, informal tone of the text. A readable, if denatured, rendition of a faded classic. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3977-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
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