Fast, funny episodes featuring creative takes on close-to-reality science.
Hautman’s latest features wacky adventures in a near-future small town packed with engineers.
Flinkwater, Iowa, is a small town where most residents—like narrator Ginger’s parents—work in some capacity for a tech company that makes robots. Smart but smarter-mouthed, sarcastic, and high-spirited Ginger recounts five loosely connected episodes in an engagingly conversational tone. First, Flinkwater residents are “bonking” themselves into catatonia while using their tablets and computers. As the naturally curious engineers all bonk themselves in checking it out, Ginger and boy genius Billy must solve the mystery and cure the town. The second story involves smuggling an escaped lab animal to safety, a sad-looking dog with a collar that broadcasts his thoughts as speech. The third finds Ginger’s hilariously awkward quest for a first kiss juxtaposed against a light nanotechnology subplot. The fourth and fifth build directly upon each other: in these, the Department of Homeland Security—annoying but till this point harmless and on the scene since bonking emerged as a security threat in the first episode—takes a turn as villain in a convoluted evil scheme; it has high stakes and delightful twists, but it unravels too easily. The book ends with a “where are they now”–style afterword and a parsing of the book’s science from its fantasy elements.
Fast, funny episodes featuring creative takes on close-to-reality science. (Science fiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3251-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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
This delightful debut welcomes readers in like a house filled with love.
A 13-year-old biracial girl longs to build the house of her dreams.
For Lou Bulosan-Nelson, normal is her “gigantic extended family squished into Lola’s for every holiday imaginable.” She shares a bedroom with her Filipina mother, Minda—a former interior-design major and current nurse-to-be—in Lola Celina’s San Francisco home. From her deceased white father, Michael, Lou inherited “not-so-Filipino features,” his love for architecture, and some land. Lou’s quietude implies her keen eye for details, but her passion for creating with her hands resonates loudly. Pining for something to claim as her own, she plans to construct a house from the ground up. When her mom considers moving out of state for a potential job and Lou’s land is at risk of being auctioned off, Lou stays resilient, gathering support from both friends and family to make her dream a reality. Respicio authentically depicts the richness of Philippine culture, incorporating Filipino language, insights into Lou’s family history, and well-crafted descriptions of customs, such as the birdlike Tinikling dance and eating kamayan style (with one’s hands), throughout. Lou’s story gives voice to Filipino youth, addressing cultural differences, the importance of bayanihan (community), and the true meaning of home.
This delightful debut welcomes readers in like a house filled with love. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1794-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
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