bookshelf

DRAGONFLY SONG

Name: DRAGONFLY SONG
Author: Wendy Orr
ISBN: 978-1-77278-037-6

by Wendy Orr ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2017

As mesmerizing as a mermaid’s kiss, the story dances with emotion, fire, and promise

bookshelf

Orr (Nim’s Island, 2001, etc.) delivers a fantasy that follows an ill-fated girl’s journey from abandoned to accepted.

When Aissa is born with tiny, pink thumbs wiggling from her wrists, the Lady, her mother, is furious. Why have the gods forsaken her, the Lady wonders. Unable to bear the imperfection of her child, she demands that the wise-woman Kelya take the child and toss it off a cliff. Kelya cannot do it, however, and instead places the babe with a family that has just lost a newborn. Thus begins the arduous journey of a child forced to survive by her wits, who seems doomed to suffer loss after loss. Orphaned a second time and now a nameless servant in the palace, now-12-year-old Aissa sees opportunity in being chosen a bull dancer, one of the yearly sacrifices to the Bull King—but without a name, she cannot be chosen. Orr tells her tale in both narrative poetry and prose for an effect that is both fanciful and urgent, drawing a rich fantasy landscape filled with people and creatures worthy of knowing. An introductory note describes Orr’s inspiration in the legend of the Minotaur, but her story is no retelling but a meditation on rejection and acceptance, on determination and self-determination. The shifts between poetry and prose build tension just as surely as the bull dances do.

As mesmerizing as a mermaid’s kiss, the story dances with emotion, fire, and promise . (Fantasy. 10-14)

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-77278-037-6

Page Count: 408

Publisher: Pajama Press

Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OUT OF THE VALLEY OF HORSES
by Wendy Orr

- BOOK REVIEW
CUCKOO'S FLIGHT
by Wendy Orr

- BOOK REVIEW
SWALLOW'S DANCE
by Wendy Orr

bookshelf

THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL

From the School for Good and Evil series , Vol. 1

by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.

bookshelf

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)