An inventive, bewitching adventure.
Following The Memory Thief (2021), Rosie must rescue her twin from the Time Witch.
Witch hunter Rosie and her best friend, Germ, travel through time as well as geography via the Sea of Always in the belly of a magical whale, racing the clock to defeat the challenge issued by the Time Witch. To rescue Rosie’s long-lost brother, Wolf, they must defeat all the witches, and they only have 30 days to do it. But instead of bringing the girls to San Francisco in 1855, where Wolf is being held, their whale delivers them to Aria, another witch hunter recruit. Rosie idolizes cool, sophisticated Aria and tries to emulate her. To save the day, they must collect the witches’ hearts, a process that takes them to Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials; Onno, Nigeria, in 1952; 17th-century Reykjavík, Iceland; and even a time before the first humans. With the time crunch foregrounded via Rosie’s rapidly dwindling hourglass necklace (and hints about what will happen if the Time Witch wins), there are high stakes and high pressure on the team members, especially Rosie, to outthink their many opponents. There is a strong theme of self-acceptance that integrates well with the action and makes up for longer passages of exposition. The ending does justice to the weight of the story and primes readers for the next desperate quest. Most characters default to White; Aria has curly black hair and brown skin.
An inventive, bewitching adventure. (Fantasy. 8-13)Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8024-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Quirky and imaginative—postmodern storytelling at its best.
Friendly curiosity and a gift for naming earn a polar bear an assortment of (mostly animal) friends, adventures, mishaps, and discoveries.
Arriving at a northern ocean, Duane spies a shipwreck. Swimming out to investigate, he meets its lone occupant, C.C., a learned snowy owl whose noble goal is acquiring knowledge to apply “toward the benefit of all.” Informing Duane that he’s a polar bear, she points out a nearby cave that might suit him—it even has a mattress. Adding furnishings from the wreck—the grandfather clock’s handless, but who needs to tell time when it’s always now?—he meets a self-involved musk ox, entranced by his own reflection, who’s delighted when Duane names him “Handsome.” As he comes to understand, then appreciate their considerable diversity, Duane brings out the best in his new friends. C.C., who has difficulty reading emotions and dislikes being touched, evokes the autism spectrum. Magic, a bouncy, impulsive arctic fox, manifests ADHD. Major Puff, whose proud puffin ancestry involves courageous retreats from danger, finds a perfect companion in Twitch, a risk-aware, common-sensical hare. As illustrated, Sun Girl, a human child, appears vaguely Native, and Squint, a painter, white, but they’re sui generis: The Canadian author avoids referencing human culture. The art conveys warmth in an icy setting; animal characters suggest beloved stuffed toys, gently reinforcing the message that friendship founded on tolerance breeds comfort and safety.
Quirky and imaginative—postmodern storytelling at its best. (Animal fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3341-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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