A whimsical food concept brought vividly to life.
A boy from a society where only sweets are eaten journeys to far-off lands of vegetable and fruit consumption in this illustrated middle-grade fantasy.
Ten-year-old Henry lives in Choco-Locoville, a town in Sugarland. Like all the inhabitants of Sugarland, Henry is overweight. Since his father’s death (brought on by obesity), Henry has tried to diet, but with only sweet things to eat, he finds it impossible. Henry is also lonely. His mother works long hours overseeing the family’s chocolate factory, and Henry’s only friend is his fat cat, Tiger. Disaster strikes one day when Sugarland’s chocolate clouds are stolen. These are essential for the running of the chocolate factory, and, seeing an opportunity to recapture his mom’s attention, Henry resolves to bring them back. Along with Tiger, Henry strikes out for the Monster Mountains and, beyond these, the mythical lands of Veggington, Fruitopolis, and Barebone Island, which features dairy products. In Veggington, Henry eats vegetables for the first time and makes a new friend—a carrot girl named Carrotina, who joins him on his quest. Henry’s journey helps him to lose weight, but even with Carrotina’s help, will he be able to find the missing chocolate clouds and break down the national boundaries between food groups? Remus writes in the third person, past tense, from Henry’s point of view. The prose is a simple mix of narrative, dialogue, and description, enhanced throughout by the author’s partial and full-page illustrations. These pictures—textured black-and-white sketches of considerable intricacy—contribute greatly to Remus’ worldbuilding and to the depictions of Henry, Carrotina, Tiger, and others. Henry is a likable protagonist, conscious of his own shortcomings but determined to overcome them. Carrotina is a particularly memorable character. She is kind and companionable but also acutely aware of being a sentient, anthropomorphized vegetable. Her perspective on life encapsulates the magical suspension of disbelief that underpins the four food-based lands of Foodtopia. The story itself is sweet and nonthreatening, although Henry’s quest is not without peril. While adult readers may find the plot predictable, there are surprises on a page-by-page level and wonder aplenty for the target audience. The moral, likewise, is overt but not intrusive. Younger readers will be thoroughly entertained.
A whimsical food concept brought vividly to life.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-3-949488-01-6
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Misty Moon Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
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