This series opener dances compellingly along the border separating its young, naïve heroine from harsh political realities
An 11-year-old who can see lies is dragged from her family orchard into the cesspit of royal politics.
It’s not her secret magical “cunning” that sets Only Fallow apart from the other girls in her rural community, it’s her parents’ relative wealth. The other girls have been cruel to her ever since her family started selling cider to the king way up in Bellskeep. Thank goodness she makes friends among the boat-dwelling Ordish. Prejudice against the Ordish is extreme—the king orders many of their children kidnapped into servitude—but these itinerant farmworkers are lovely to Only and her brothers. When a child-stealer nabs Only’s Ordish friends, her secret is out: Only can see deception. Such a power, not seen since times long past, would be invaluable to the crown, and an inquisitor comes to take Only away. When she arrives at Bellskeep after a miserable journey, she’s instantly thrust into a complex web of power games, manipulation, and cruelty. The violence being fomented against the nomadic, magic-using, and romanticized Ordish frightens Only and makes no sense to her. This generic, vaguely European fantasy kingdom is a largely white one, with a handful of darker-skinned foreigners from South Asian–ish Achery who may play larger roles in sequels. As high fantasy has skewed older in recent years, it’s refreshing to see one that’s solidly middle-grade, helmed by a believable 11-year-old whose growth in savvy and understanding of her own privilege come naturally.
This series opener dances compellingly along the border separating its young, naïve heroine from harsh political realities . (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4000-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
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
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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