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
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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