A stand-alone fantasy with questionable diverse representation.
Eska, a girl without memories, and Flint, an inventor boy, combine forces to fight the evil Ice Queen.
In the kingdom of Erkenwald, a dark power is rising as the Ice Queen’s reign takes hold. As the peace between Erkenwald’s three communities—the Feather, Tusk, and Fur tribes—erodes under her control, adults are imprisoned in the queen’s palace while most children hide. Flint, a child of the Fur Tribe who secretly uses magic, sneaks into the palace to save his mother but ends up rescuing Eska instead. She has no memory from before her capture and no known alliance to any tribe, but she knows there is something special about her voice that the queen needs in order to achieve immortality. The pair, along with Flint’s little sister, Blu, must journey across the kingdom in search of the powerful Frost Horn to stop the queen. This well-paced story deftly interweaves topics such as community and trusting one’s inner voice, but some elements are ill-conceived. Blu has unnamed physical and cognitive disabilities similar to Down syndrome; characterized as simple and loving, her existence centers others’ responses to her as a reflection of their degree of moral goodness. The tribes draw on a jumble of elements that evoke Indigenous peoples: the dark-skinned, black-haired, cave-dwelling Feather Tribe; the light-skinned, caribou-dependent Fur Tribe who live in tipis; and the blond, blue-eyed Tusk Tribe who have shamans and live in igloos.
A stand-alone fantasy with questionable diverse representation. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3855-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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