A compassionate, humorous animal tale.
Dogs and cats team up and put on a show in an endearing celebration of friendship, cooperation and creativity for children by clinical psychiatry and psychology scholar Othmer (The Clinical Interview Using DSM-IV-TR Vol. 2, 2002, etc.).
A California family reunion brings together seven idiosyncratic pets—wise Labrador/pit bull Mr. Guinness; compassionate shih tzu Lexi; spunky Tibetan terrier Rosie; bumptious (and gassy) beagle/bassett hound George; kindly yellow Lab Bailey; and suave tomcats Cosmo and Miles. The big question is how to pass the time, and, through trial and error, the animals—captured with artistic wit by illustrator Rosean—discover their individual talents. After the group lets loose in a cacophonous song-and-dance frenzy, some hummingbirds teach them to sing and perform in harmony. (The author includes two jaunty original tunes at the book’s website.) The friends decide to perform a show, but have difficulty deciding on a location. Cosmo votes for the Galápagos Islands; George prefers Africa, with a post-show hunt for wildebeests and elephants. Discouragement sets in when they realize they have no means of travel, but Bailey comforts them, using real-world coping skills that Othmer imparts with lightness and humor (“Just because we can’t figure out right now how to get there doesn’t mean we will never know”). The pets eventually live their dream of performing when the human master of the house flies them to a woodsy Missouri city. The friends learn about themselves throughout their give-and-take creative process, and their story is enlivened by anthropomorphic animal behavior: Alpha dog Mr. Guinness makes lists with pencil and pad, Miles and Cosmo are tango experts, Cosmo carries a “mouse leather satchel.” The book warmly encourages self-discovery, and it’s a satisfying journey.
A compassionate, humorous animal tale.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475961515
Page Count: 162
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
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