Sometimes entertaining but largely underdeveloped and forgettable.
Hunters-in-training travel to the frozen wastes to defeat a great evil.
Phoenix (the tween formerly known as Twelve) has a new Hunter name and a shocking fire elemental power, but the world has changed for the worse since the great battle at the Hunting Lodge. When Headwitch Yelara appears, it’s the first contact any of the clans have had with the witches for 40 years, and she bears a dire warning. Phoenix and her friends Five, Six, and Seven, who read White, must journey to the great frozen wave of Icegaard to battle the Shadowseam, a terrifying hole in the world. The all-female band of witches have been entirely isolated in the decades since all the adult witches were killed by the Shadowseam; nevertheless, they have children (a diverse trio, one pale and blue-eyed, one olive-skinned, and one with dark brown skin and braids). Phoenix, trying to master her elemental fire and constantly trying to remember monster descriptions from A Magical Bestiary, doesn’t notice that Seven is acting strangely. Never fear, the reveal of Seven’s behavior at the end of this overlong adventure sets up Phoenix and Seven’s next adventure. Like Widge, Phoenix’s squirrel friend who exists only to chitter periodically on her shoulder, most characters feel like mere set dressing for Phoenix’s quest.
Sometimes entertaining but largely underdeveloped and forgettable. (map) (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9780062996749
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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
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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