A beautifully executed, fantastical what-if tale for right now.
An Australian family sets off on an adventure and gets stranded in an enchanted valley for seven years.
Honey lives with her Nanna, Momma, Papa, and younger brother, Rumi, in the valley of the horses. They arrived on Honey’s fourth birthday, and now her eleventh is approaching, and her father is sick. Honey decides she’ll be the one to find an ambulance for Papa, even if it means heading back to “the wide world,” which they originally left because of a “terrible sickness.” Nanna’s grandfather said that he lived in a valley of magical horses for seven years when he was a child. Now Moongold, one of the special horse protectors of the valley, helps Honey find her way across the bridge the family originally used when they arrived (though Honey worries it might disappear, separating her from them forever). Each chapter ends with a text message from the family members left behind, enabling readers to piece together the situation and understand more than Honey does. Once Honey leaves the valley, the perspective shifts between her and Rumi as their storylines converge. Reminiscent of fairy tales and fish-out-of-water tales such as Brigadoon and Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Running Out of Time, this speculative story has a just-right mix of fantasy and reality, excellent descriptions of the settings (both enchanted and realistic), and a strong main character with an important quest. Honey and her family read white.
A beautifully executed, fantastical what-if tale for right now. (Q&A with the author) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781772783117
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Pajama Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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