Both charming and wise.
When Otto’s mother disappears shortly after the pair arrives in Hodeldorf—“the coldest city in the world”—Otto meets an orphaned girl named Nim, and a series of adventures ensues.
The book evokes the worlds of Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, and traditional fairy tales. The third-person narrative meanders gracefully among the points of view of an omniscient narrator, Otto, and Nim. Naïve, kindhearted Otto is easily duped into servitude in the boot-polish factory of villainous Frau Ferber. Nim, motivated by guilt from an earlier encounter with Otto, manages to rescue him—and Otto expands his goal of finding his mother to rescuing all of Frau Ferber’s child labor force. Nim helps Otto join the tattercoats, a band of homeless children with a strict code of honor. Two of its five rules state that they must steal only what they need and that no one may possess more than one coat—despite the atrocious cold that forces them to sleep near people’s chimneys. Other than two brief, death-from-freezing descriptions, threatened dangers are frequent but violence rare; baddies meet imaginative but nonfatal justice. A misunderstood ex-tattercoat named Blink, a rat named Nibbles, and numerous forest denizens add humor and/or menace to an already engrossing tale. The light tone assures young readers that good will prevail over bad and that sometimes people just have to venture into the woods. All characters seem to be white.
Both charming and wise. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-51527-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
File under “laugh riot.”
A rogue spell-check program’s bid to transform all life-forms into that eminently useful office item, the paper clip, touches off a fresh round of lunar lunacy.
Predicated on the entirely reasonable premise that eliminating all spelling and grammar errors everywhere would logically lead to the necessity of exterminating carbon-based life in the universe, this third series entry combines high stakes with daffy banter and daring exploits. CheckMate—a chipper, jumped-up editing program—has invented the Transmogratron, a giant laser that will fulfill its ultimate goals in both the cyber world and “meatspace.” Facing challenges as random as prankster lunar unicorns and a disarmingly motherly Motherboard, scowling First Cat joins a motley crew of diversely carbon- and silicon-based allies, led by the pearlescent Queen of the Moon. They’re in a race to the finish—diverted occasionally by, for instance, a relentlessly punny comic-book interlude featuring a pair of literal and figurative Pool Sharks. They ultimately triumph thanks to teamwork and moxie. Following a celebratory party and toasts to “new friends…and steadfast comrades” (and, of course, “MEOW”), the story’s energetic, brightly colored panels close with a reveal of the next volume. (“I always hate it when comics end by announcing a sequel. SO CRINGE!” declares an authorial stand-in.) It can’t come too soon.
File under “laugh riot.” (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780063315280
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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