A smart, refreshing alternative to stale genre tropes.
A spunky mechanic stars as a steampunk Cinderella who doesn’t need rescuing.
In a kingdom where Fey magic is illegal, orphaned Nicolette mustn't let on that she uses magic to clean her stepmother's house. To avoid trouble, she also keeps mum about her crafting of coal-powered contraptions in a hidden workshop. Nick's long-dead mother had been a superb mechanic, and when, on Nick's 16th birthday, the key to her mother's secret forge magically appears, the lonely girl throws herself into engineering. It's a small happiness in her life of drudgery, but it’s nothing to the hope she feels when the king declares a Cultural Exposition Gala. The exposition, to honor the achievements of the "most brilliant inventors and artisans” in the land, highlights what's so compelling about this retelling: Nick has no desire to attend a ball or meet a prince. Instead, the young businesswoman aims to set herself up as a working inventor. With the help of her new friends, loving Caro and gorgeous, brown-skinned Fin, Nick's determined to make it to the event. No fairy godmother here; with a little help from her friends, Nick's responsible for everything from glass slipper to carriage. Though the premise will beg comparisons to Marissa Meyer's Cinder (2011), Nick and her friends travel a very different journey, sidestepping typical romantic structures to find their own way.
A smart, refreshing alternative to stale genre tropes. (Steampunk/fairy tale. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-547-92771-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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