A relatable lesson about online safety.
A young witch navigates the complicated world of the Internet and gets caught in the web of a deceitful spider in Jordan’s (One Creepy Street: Annica’s Broom, 2014) second installment of his children’s book series.
Annica, a 13-year-old witch with a pet bat named Murray, likes to spend time “Surfing the Web.” She watches funny videos on Creepy Tube, plays games, and starts chatting with a funny spider she meets in a virtual game room. After they stay up late at night talking and sending each other pictures, Annica agrees to meet the spider in person at the mall. Luckily for her, Officer Tate has heard that there’s “a spider on the Web unlike any other / Who prowled the Internet, using games as a cover,” and he calls on his informants—a pair of monster twins who live under the local burger shack, Mort the Mortician, and the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force—to try and track the spider down. When Annica leaves her computer open and her mother sees her email, she calls Tate, who rushes to save her. Jordan tells the tale in clear, well-written rhyming verse, which helps lighten a very serious story. According to the author’s note, he wrote the story after consulting an investigator from the real-life Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and it teaches a very important lesson about how kids can safely use the Internet and how cautious behaviors in real life—such as not talking to strangers—also carry over to chat rooms: “This type of spider is an expert at deception. / It uses camouflage to alter the prey’s perception.” Rose’s brightly colored, detailed, and successfully creepy illustrations will also help draw readers in. Overall, it’s a good book for parents and kids to read together and talk about how to avoid dangerous situations on the Internet, which has become an indispensable part of everyday life.
A relatable lesson about online safety.Pub Date: April 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61296-525-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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