The king orders the children of his kingdom to find out what is on The Other Side. By various routes and various means, they get there; some arrive sooner, others later. After many years, they return and tell the king, ``The same as here. The same but backwards. Just the same except reversed.'' The king wants them to carry him there, but when they reach The Other Side, it is he who must carry them. He orders the children to take him back; instead, in a kind of negation of the negation, they take him ``to the other side of The Other Side.'' Gukova creates a full-fledged surreal landscape, complete with strange apparatuses, hybrid creatures, impossible architecture that could not be more evocative, and an atmosphere that is at once exotic, nostalgic, and even abstract. Aura's text is almost as abstract, although toward the end it starts to smell like a political metaphor. The brief text is laid out inventively, and printed in a variety of fonts. Everything about this brief work is unusual, to be appreciated first by frequent flyers over Etienne Delessert's landscapes; Gukova's remarkably beautiful vision is a holiday for the heart. A small masterpiece. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-55037-405-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
A quiet, comforting fable of identity and belonging.
Puppets yearn for greater things.
In a toy store, a lonely old sea captain named Spelhorst spies a puppet who reminds him of a lost love. He tries to buy her but is told he must purchase the full set—a king, a wolf, an owl, and a boy—as these puppets “are in a story.” The captain agrees, and that night, he mourns and writes a mysterious letter before dying in his sleep. Sold by the rag-and-bone man, the puppets eventually find their way to two sisters. While the older sister begins writing a play for the puppets, misadventures befall them; each engaging escapade is relevant to the story arc of the puppet in question. For instance, some of the wolf’s teeth are yanked out by the younger sister, and after the maid tosses the puppet out, a fox absconds with her—the first devastates the wolf, as her teeth were her pride, yet traveling through the wild woods fulfills her deepest wish. Gentle tension builds as the puppets wonder if they will be reunited. After exploring their desires and identities, the recovered puppets put on the older sister's play, a story that, though she couldn’t have known it, has beautiful symmetry with the puppets’ adventures. Theatrical language prevents the parallels from becoming too heavy-handed. The vaguely Victorian characters present white in charming drawings that set the mood.
A quiet, comforting fable of identity and belonging. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781536216752
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Good, solid fantasy fun.
Nine-year-old Brooklynite Jaxon meets a witch, becomes her apprentice, and protects baby dragons all in one eventful day.
As the story opens, Jaxon and his mom are being evicted. While Mama tries to secure a place to stay, she leaves him with Ma, the woman who raised her. Ma clearly doesn’t want Jaxon around, but it becomes apparent that’s at least partially due to a mysterious package she’s received. Jax soon discovers that Ma’s a witch, his mom used to be Ma’s apprentice (a mantle he takes up), and that Ma’s package contains…baby dragons! The dragons need to be taken to the magical realm, but a transport malfunction strands Ma while Jax is sent back to Brooklyn. Desperate to save Ma, Jax enlists the help of his friend Vikram, whose little sister, Kavita, tags along. Curious—or is it nosy?—Kavita discovers the dragons and does the worst: feeds them. This not only increases their size, but bonds them to her. Thankfully, Trub, Jax’s maternal grandfather, is a magic user and helps Jax find Ma and get the dragons to the magical realm, where (discerning readers won’t be surprised) they discover one dragon is missing….What a breath of fresh air: a chapter-book fantasy with an urban setting, an array of brown-skinned magic wielders, and a lovable black protagonist readers will root for and sympathize with. Geneva B’s black-and-white illustrations depict a cast of color and appear every few pages.
Good, solid fantasy fun. (Fantasy. 6-10)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7045-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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