Fun, fairy adventures for tweens who appreciate frills, sparkles and a clever female protagonist.
Holy Molar! A lower-order tween fairy overcomes the naysayers to introduce modernization into the sparkly, twinkly tooth-fairy trade in Collen’s debut novel for tweens.
All fairy people (Fleeple) in Sparkleshire have roles in the “collecting and re-engineering of human baby teeth,” and Enjella, who sorts teeth, is no exception. But, being a girl, Enjella has the potential to become a First Class Tooth Fairy. The boy fairies (Flandles)—who are angry because they can never be tooth fairies—relentlessly tease and mistreat her. Enjella has another problem—condescension from her co-workers—who don’t respect her inventive ideas for improving Fleeple life and consider her a show-off. Just when her life seems most miserable, two life-changing events occur: A mysterious blue fairy saves Enjella from a police Fleeple who was ticketing her for falling on the village green, and the Queen of the Fairies promotes her from a low-level tooth sorter to Third Class Tooth Fairy Assistant. Even when Enjella’s first assignment turns out to be as an assistant to the notorious Ghastly Gevinda, she gets support from the blue fairy, who becomes her best friend and watches over and encourages her. But as Enjella learns to fly tooth-fairy routes and tries to introduce her innovations for computerizing the fairy trade, things never go smoothly, and she flits from one adventure to another, until she finally faces her biggest challenge: the fairy equivalent of a court martial for interacting with a child. The Fairy Vocabulary list, which seems intended to help younger readers, includes invented words unique to Sparkleshire and a list of difficult vocabulary by chapter, but it’s not very useful because it lacks definitions and misses some obvious candidates for inclusion (such as molar, bicuspids and grandeur), with the result that this book will challenge the readers who are most likely to enjoy and relate to a story of a girl outwitting the meanies and coming into her own.
Fun, fairy adventures for tweens who appreciate frills, sparkles and a clever female protagonist.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0985573201
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Streamline Brands
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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