Despite a sense of playacting, this is a gently adventurous and luxuriously detailed romp.
A princess requests and receives a country for her 13th birthday.
With her very own country, Princess Juniper will be able to interact with others in informal, casual ways—kind of. She gathers kids to journey to her “brand-new kingdom,” where she’ll be queen and they’ll be her subjects. But instead of their scheduled departure, the kids are rushed off the palace grounds at night, hearing distant battle sounds and directed by the king to a place on no map. The hidden basin in the mountains is idyllic, with a waterfall, fruit trees, and bedrooms carved in the rock. Juniper loses her rule—for withholding information about the war back at home—and mounts an exciting scheme to recover it. However, this text isn’t anti-royalist: the other kids are her “friends” and “family” but still her “subjects”; and if a ruler’s heart is in the right place, it’s fine to demand heaps of work (and work itself is romanticized). Luxuries (“silks and scarves and paints and powders”) and sumptuous meals (“crispy cheese sticks”; “fresh sage griddle cakes topped with sweet butter and honey syrup”) evoke stories from a bygone era. Unfortunately, matching that old-fashioned sensibility is a “notoriously secretive tribe” of “obscure origin and uncertain habitation” and “wildness”—a stereotypical, Romany-esque portrayal regrettably poised for a larger role in the sequel.
Despite a sense of playacting, this is a gently adventurous and luxuriously detailed romp. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-17151-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A clever, magical romp, overflowing with high drama and low humor.
In this second series entry, blue-freckled foundling Spella De-broom Cauldroneyes and friends take an exciting shopping trip to Mummy City—arriving just in time to help save the world.
Gathering up both her shy best friend, Tolden Tutters (whose dragon, Softfang, serves as his hearing aid), and the many fantastical hats of her green-skinned guardian witch, Mathilda Cauldroneyes, 8-year-old Spella leaves jolly Hungry Snout Forest for the big city. There, the disappearances of a certain very powerful old cauldron and a rising number of the city’s residents signal that trouble’s beginning to bubble. (“Toothless Toz is ten feet tall and smells of old cheese…His arm fell off in 3356 BC and was never found again, so he used a feather duster in its place.”) As it happens, Stonescare, a “frightful, mean wizard,” has recruited some scary allies for a new scheme. Readers fond of stories filled with silly names, ingenious spellcasting both helpful (a sandwich-dispensing cardigan pocket) and otherwise (screaming farts), and engaging magical creatures (booger-eating purple unicorns, tree wart trolls quaintly collecting roozle wart for their morning tea) will echo Spella’s favorite expression of delight—“toadfire!”—at the many comical twists. They’ll also appreciate the summary way the fledgling wand-wielder sends a pair of sneering bullies packing. The ending promises more adventures to come. Final art not seen.
A clever, magical romp, overflowing with high drama and low humor. (Fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781665955348
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A fun coming-of-age romp.
When social misfit Frederick Frederickson rises to popularity due to a case of mistaken identity, he struggles to maintain the charade.
Even his friends see him as a loser, a flea among lions, but 10-year-old Frederick Frederickson is sure that he can overcome the pecking order of fifth grade, someday becoming “his true awesome self.” After a game of dodgeball goes wrong, Frederick can only hope that his family’s annual cruise will give him respite from school. But when a Category 5 hurricane cancels his vacation, Frederick is pushed to the limit and accepts a dare that sends him floating down a river without a paddle. Coming ashore at Camp Omigoshee, a disciplinary camp for boys, Frederick is mistaken for a camper whose bad reputation is infinitely cooler than his own. In his effort to keep up the facade, Frederick discovers that the other boys are also not what they seem. Beasley’s sophomore novel (Gertie’s Leap to Greatness, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki, 2016) is chock full of zany, nicknamed characters (Frederick shares a cabin with Nosebleed, Ant Bite, Specs, and the Professor) coming together in a story of friendship among boys. The boys’ races are not specified, though one character has an Indian name, and Santat depicts one as black and another as brown-skinned; Frederick is white. Readers will find it difficult not to compare this book to Louis Sachar’s more complex Holes, though depth is added with Frederick’s recognition of his economic privilege and questioning of the power his fake popularity gives him.
A fun coming-of-age romp. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30263-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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