Likely to catch interest among series fans.
The youngsters who in past installments attempted to catch mythical creatures including Bigfoot and Santa now find themselves trapped in a gnome’s bewitching garden.
Pages in, it becomes clear that the gnome is narrating, in a landscape that looks boundless. A curious dog and seven diverse kids, armed with a map and a net, follow a strange set of footprints that lead them to a magic door to the garden. The door disappears, so they are trapped in a place abloom with lollipops and candies, featuring a chocolate river with floating cookies. The youngsters, understandably, seem unbothered and amuse themselves by making hats for sale. Later, the enterprising children engineer several attractions, apparently to entice the gnome; they confuse our narrator, who constantly frets that the youths need help to depart (too bad our protagonist has so many chores to tend to). A dragon ex machina delivers the visitors to the magic door, and they exit, now showing zero regret at leaving the paradise of sugar. The meter is on the shaky side, but the illustrations are as bright and fanciful as usual and should be enough to ensure interest; readers will likely imagine themselves in a garden of goodies, building elaborate contraptions, and maybe lunching on the landscape, though the seven children are mostly too busy to snack.
Likely to catch interest among series fans. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781464289422
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
A surprisingly nuanced lesson set in confidence-building, easy-to-decode text.
A unicorn learns a friendship lesson in this chapter-book series opener.
Unicorn Bo has friends but longs for a “bestie.” Luckily, a new unicorn pops into existence (literally: Unicorns appear on especially starry nights) and joins Bo at the Sparklegrove School for Unicorns, where they study things like unicorn magic. Each unicorn has a special power; Bo’s is granting wishes. Not knowing what his own might be distresses new unicorn Sunny. When the week’s assignment is to earn a patch by using their unicorn powers to help someone, Bo hopes Sunny will wish to know Bo's power (enabling both unicorns to complete the task, and besides, Bo enjoys Sunny’s company and wants to help him). But when the words come out wrong, Sunny thinks Bo was feigning friendship to get to grant a wish and earn a patch, setting up a fairly sophisticated conflict. Bo makes things up to Sunny, and then—with the unicorns friends again and no longer trying to force their powers—arising circumstances enable them to earn their patches. The cheerful illustrations feature a sherbet palette, using patterns for texture; on busy pages with background colors similar to the characters’ color schemes, this combines with the absence of outlines to make discerning some individual characters a challenge. The format, familiar to readers of Elliott’s Owl Diaries series, uses large print and speech bubbles to keep pages to a manageable amount of text.
A surprisingly nuanced lesson set in confidence-building, easy-to-decode text. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-32332-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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