Thought-provoking, if inconsistent.
A science-fiction short story collection that showcases the possibilities of the near and distant future.
This collection of 10 stories includes entries by a number of popular authors for young people. Most are written in traditional prose, such as A.R. Capetta’s second-person narrative, “The Most Epic Nap in the Universe,” but others branch out: Maddi Gonzalez’s “Zabrina Meets the Retro Club” is a black-and-white comic, and Eliot Schrefer’s “A Proposal to the Animal Congress” consists of a dialogue between two forms of artificial intelligence. Standouts include Kekla Magoon’s plot-driven, high-stakes heist story, “The Whistleblowers,” in which two kids battle big pharma to acquire medical research that calls into question the safety of EternaLife, a miracle drug intended to reverse the effects of aging. David Robertson’s “Of What We Never Were” also shines: In it, middle schooler Stacy is a test subject for whole brain emulation, a process in which the neural contents of a deceased person—in this case, Stacy’s best friend, Adam—are uploaded to an interactive AI device. Robertson sensitively raises questions surrounding grief, loss, and what it means to be human. Although several of the stories falter in the face of the challenge of explaining complex scientific theories in an engaging and accessible way to a younger audience, the themes of humanity, morality, and the quest for knowledge will appeal beyond aficionados of the genre. Naturally inclusive diversity is interwoven throughout, for example through the presence of nongendered characters.
Thought-provoking, if inconsistent. (contributor bios) (Science-fiction anthology. 10-14)Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781536236392
Page Count: 288
Publisher: MIT Kids Press/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A half-baked jumble of poorly connected themes, incidents, and tropes.
Eleven-year-old Georgie sets out to the rescue after seeing his dad snatched into thin air by a hideous figure.
In a confusing debut that reads like a first draft, the kidnapping impels the young slingshot expert to go from doggedly enduring vicious bullying at school to intrepidly plunging after his father through a portal to Scatterplot, an otherworldly realm where the memories of everyone in New York are uploaded by omnilingual Scribes. Classmates Apurva Aluwhalia (who’s cued South Asian) and Roscoe Harris (who reads Black and is confined to a role that’s largely limited to comic relief), each motivated by their own concerns, follow white-presenting Georgie on his adventure. In Scatterplot, they must remain alert for the “tribe” of “bad people” called Altercockers, formed by the exiled Rollie D. Meanwhile, Flint Eldritch, the menacing figure who was responsible for Georgie’s father’s disappearance, is bent on using the Aetherquill, a magical pen that can rewrite reality in unpredictable ways, to replace all those recorded memories with fake ones. In a story that’s marred by stilted dialogue, flat characterization, and awkward turns of phrase, Georgie and his friends, along with Scatterplot siblings Edie and Ore, embark on a quest to save both his father and the entire realm. The puss-oozing, misshapen villain Flint, crawling with bugs, does at least provide a memorably lurid element of horror. The novel ends with an abrupt cliffhanger.
A half-baked jumble of poorly connected themes, incidents, and tropes. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9798886453164
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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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