A veritable buffet of fantasy conventions.
A gifted heroine must fulfill her destiny, no matter how fraught.
Vicky is the middle daughter of Kat Wardrop, a notorious ex-Raven guard of Queen Evangeline—and the only one to ever leave her service. Advised by a shadowy group called the Collective, the queen wants new Raven recruits to attend the Hogwarts-like Corvus School for the Artfully Inclined. As her daughter shows prowess in both combat and magic, Kat wants to shelter Vicky from Corvus and let her choose her own path. When a sudden and devastating event forces Vicky into attending the school after all, she, desperate with grief, makes a rash decision that could alter the fate of the entire kingdom. Marr’s splashy offering is packed full of an extensive array of beloved fantasy tropes ranging from mystical creatures like gargoyles and kelpies to a magical boarding school, alchemists, thieves, and portals to other worlds. While certainly a crowd pleaser, the plotting tends toward being overcrowded to the point of cliché, but the fast-paced chapters, each narrated from a different point of view, help move everything along. Echoing elements from series like Harry Potter and Nevermoor, and even Disney’s Frozen franchise, this will be popular with a wide swath of readers. Main characters read as White.
A veritable buffet of fantasy conventions. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-51852-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
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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