Rich in narrative choices, if not interactive features—and maybe not the best choice for a younger child’s first exposure to...
A concise version of the classic tale, with racy manga-style illustrations. Whoo-hoo!
Clad in a ruffled gown that is high of hem and low of décolletage, buxom, square-eyed Snow White poses fetchingly in the first scene beneath a white palace that belongs in a French manuscript illumination and sprawls across a row of dwarven beds (in her underwear, as a tap of the blanket reveals). After falling to the apple offered by her surprisingly young-looking evil stepmother, she lies in her glass coffin among pink roses in a navel-exposing camisole. Enter a shaggy-haired prince, who bends down (with another tap) to give her a smooch and whisk her away to a “happily ever after.” Though (aside from a nifty dissolve in the magic mirror) the animated effects are stiff and simple, a menu button on each of the ten screens allows viewers to select a text and (optional) audio narration in any of eight languages or choose a version without text. Unusually, readers can also control the volumes of the narration, the sound effects and the tinkly orchestral background music separately with sliders.
Rich in narrative choices, if not interactive features—and maybe not the best choice for a younger child’s first exposure to the story, but teen manga fans will love it. (iPad storybook app. 12-16)Pub Date: July 29, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: DICO
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
The sardonic tone of the narrator’s voice lends a refreshing air of realism to this riotously paced quest tale of heroism...
Edgar Award–winning Riordan leaves the adult world of mystery to begin a fantasy series for younger readers.
Twelve-year-old Percy (full name, Perseus) Jackson has attended six schools in six years. Officially diagnosed with ADHD, his lack of self-control gets him in trouble again and again. What if it isn’t his fault? What if all the outrageous incidents that get him kicked out of school are the result of his being a “half-blood,” the product of a relationship between a human and a Greek god? Could it be true that his math teacher Mrs. Dodds transformed into a shriveled hag with bat wings, a Fury, and was trying to kill him? Did he really vanquish her with a pen that turned into a sword? One need not be an expert in Greek mythology to enjoy Percy’s journey to retrieve Zeus’s master bolt from the Underworld, but those who are familiar with the deities and demi-gods will have many an ah-ha moment. Along the way, Percy and his cohort run into Medusa, Cerberus and Pan, among others.
The sardonic tone of the narrator’s voice lends a refreshing air of realism to this riotously paced quest tale of heroism that questions the realities of our world, family, friendship and loyalty. (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7868-5629-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sensitive subject matter that could have benefited from a subtler, more sober touch.
A Jewish girl joins up with Polish resistance groups to fight for her people against the evils of the Holocaust.
Chaya Lindner is forcibly separated from her family when they are consigned to the Jewish ghetto in Krakow. The 16-year-old is taken in by the leaders of Akiva, a fledgling Jewish resistance group that offers her the opportunity to become a courier, using her fair coloring to pass for Polish and sneak into ghettos to smuggle in supplies and information. Chaya’s missions quickly become more dangerous, taking her on a perilous journey from a disastrous mission in Krakow to the ghastly ghetto of Lodz and eventually to Warsaw to aid the Jews there in their gathering uprising inside the walls of the ghetto. Through it all, she is partnered with a secretive young girl whom she is reluctant to trust. The trajectory of the narrative skews toward the sensational, highlighting moments of resistance via cinematic action sequences but not pausing to linger on the emotional toll of the Holocaust’s atrocities. Younger readers without sufficient historical knowledge may not appreciate the gravity of the events depicted. The principal characters lack depth, and their actions and the situations they find themselves in often require too much suspension of disbelief to pass for realism.
Sensitive subject matter that could have benefited from a subtler, more sober touch. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-14847-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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