Ambitious, if not entirely successful, with strong family-oriented messaging.
A Silicon Valley teen navigates AI-generated troubles.
Thirteen-year-old Bran Joseph Lee’s parents—a descendant of “poor colonial Virginian farmers” and a daughter of Sichuanese immigrants—are brilliant but financially unsuccessful tech inventors. They’re pinning their hopes on winning a cash prize at the local Invention Convention with the Vale, the AI-based virtual reality fantasy world they’ve trained on public domain content and interactions with Bran. Gnomly, an elf created from one of Bran’s drawings, is a key feature of the Vale—but during the judging demonstration, he goes missing. Unable to pay the rent, Bran’s family is evicted. Bran turns for support to warm family friend Uncle Roy and new friend and hacker Piper, a girl he met at the convention (both are coded white). The third-person narration alternates between the real and virtual worlds. Within the Vale, Gnomly discovers an evil wizard who’s capturing elements of the world, hoarding their power and fundamentally changing the dynamics. In a last-ditch effort to help his family, Bran enters the Vale in a coding competition, in the process discovering uncomfortable truths and newfound courage. Some events feel contrived, and the clunky story sometimes buckles under the weight of the worldbuilding, but themes of family, friendship, and personal integrity shine in the last act. Static illustrations reminiscent of computer games bookend chapters and embellish key plot points.
Ambitious, if not entirely successful, with strong family-oriented messaging. (cast of characters, map, discussion questions, QR codes) (Science fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9798890130310
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Third State Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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