A fun, if somewhat overstuffed, story about one girl’s magical coming-of-age.
In this fantasy novel for young readers, the second volume in the Zephrum Gates series, the titular heroine finds herself at an unusual school for kids with special abilities while hoping that an old adversary won’t come back to harm her.
Zephrum Gates is no ordinary teenage girl: Part wind fairy, she can control the air, though she hasn’t quite figured out how to manage that power just yet. In order to learn how to harness her abilities, Zephrum enrolls in the newly launched Fiddlesticks School for Alternative Thinkers with Unusual Abilities, where kids are taught about the magic in the world around them while they also learn circus arts and environmentally friendly living habits. At Fiddlesticks, Zephrum rooms with her friend Daphne, who can predict the future through her artwork. Zephrum also develops a crush on Gai, who has an unusual gift for growing things. However, her life at this hippie-influenced Hogwarts is threatened by her old enemy, the nefarious Strasidous Rowpe. Diminished to a mere wisp of smoke, Rowpe blames Zephrum for his downfall and enlists his goblin minions to capture her, steal her blood and use it to bring him back to full force. The resulting adventures involve a chicken-stealing sasquatch, a dragon whose only desire is to find his soul mate, a fairy who speaks in verse, a troll who lives under a bridge and other fantastical beings. Riel (Zephrum Gates and the Mysterious Purple Haze, 2005) has a wild sense of humor and a colorful imagination that occasionally overwhelms; she packs so many weird, wacky things into the story that the plotline often gets trampled underfoot. Wrapping one’s head around the crazy universe will be even more difficult if one hasn’t read the first installment of Zephrum’s adventures. However, amid the confusion, there’s much fun to be had. Young people, girls in particular, will admire Zephrum and her tough, tomboyish ways as they learn about the importance of friendship through her relationships with Daphne, Gai and others.
A fun, if somewhat overstuffed, story about one girl’s magical coming-of-age.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1492293231
Page Count: 362
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A must-own adaptation chock-full of such stuff as kids’ dreams are—and will be—made on.
Mirth, magic, and mischief abound in this picture-book retelling of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays.
Ariel, the beloved sprite whose conjurings precipitate the eponymous tempest, gets top billing in this adaptation and recounts the narrative in the first person. Through Ariel’s eyes, readers are introduced to the powerful Prospero, his lovely daughter, Miranda, and the shipwrecked nobles who are brought to the island to right an ancient wrong. Ellinas’ picture book largely divests the tale of its colonialist underpinnings and breathes three-dimensional complexity into the major and minor characters. Caliban, for instance, is monstrous due to his callous treatment of Ariel rather than because he is racially coded as savage. Another delightful change is the depiction of Miranda, who emerges as an athletic, spirited, and beautiful nature-child whose charms are understandably irresistible to Prince Ferdinand. The text is perfectly matched by Ray’s jaw-droppingly beautiful illustrations, which will enchant readers from the front cover to the final curtain. The greens of the waters and the blues of the island’s night sky are so lush and inviting that readers will wish they could enter the book. Peppered throughout the story are italicized fragments of Shakespeare’s dialogue, giving both young and older readers something to enjoy. Large, granite-colored Caliban is plainly nonhuman; the human characters present white; Ariel is a translucent, paper white.
A must-own adaptation chock-full of such stuff as kids’ dreams are—and will be—made on. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1144-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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