Bursting with empathy and magical delights.
In this duology opener, 12-year-old Faye Gardner works behind the scenes to preserve the magical castle Celurdur until a new Wizard of the West can be appointed.
The current Wizard West died in his bed, and his ghost is so cross about it that he curses Faye, partially turning her into a cat. To salvage his reputation following such a mundane demise—and safeguard the Balance of the kingdom of Solum—Wizard West holds a tournament to determine his successor, while keeping his death a secret. Ever since the Shadow Queen wrought destruction centuries ago, girls haven’t been allowed to become apprentices to Solum’s four wizards (North, South, East, and West). But Faye and other servants have secretly been performing small, forbidden acts of magic, covering narcissistic Wizard West’s duties for him. Faye loves Celurdur, so when the tournament endangers the only home she’s ever known, she must use her wits to keep it safe—more malignant forces may be at work than the rude contestants and selfish wizards. Descriptions of magic, sometimes deliciously food related, imbue the story with life, evincing Faye’s enchantment with her own world as she utilizes her knowledge of Celurdur to naturally assume a position of leadership. The book replicates the whimsy and subtle feminism of Hayao Miyazaki’s work (a tribute that’s given a nod through the eastern estate, which is named Ghibli). Major characters are coded white.
Bursting with empathy and magical delights. (map) (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9780063229419
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
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