A charming and engaging fantasy with characters readers will love and a strong positive message.
A debut children’s book stars a bull and a heifer determined to follow their hearts and their dreams.
The season for the Running of the Bulls at the Feria del Toro in Pamplona, Spain, is quickly approaching. Only the finest bulls are selected for this prestigious event. The mother and sisters of Diego Del Toro are counting on him to bring honor to their herd. But Diego has other plans. His greatest desire is to become a rodeo bull. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ranch, there is another offspring of a great bull who wishes more than anything to run in Pamplona, to be considered “noble y bravo.” Unfortunately for Alicía Catalina Cortés, she is female. Swifter than her brothers, she is nonetheless forbidden by her father from going to Pamplona. Heifers are not allowed to participate in the Running of the Bulls. Even worse, Alicía’s father wants her to marry Don Julián Hernández, a frightening older bull. In front of Don Julián and Don Murciélago, Alicía falsely declares that she loves another, casually pointing her horns toward the field where Diego, whom she has yet to meet, is grazing. And in that moment of defiance, Alicía unknowingly unleashes a series of events that lead to adventure, romance, and almost certain death. Avner has a well-honed sense for both the dramatic and the humorous in this enchanting fantasy. When a domineering Don Julián meets the feisty and independent Alicía in a field, she so angers him that he charges her, knocking her into the air. As she lands, Diego happens to come running around the bend and collides with Don Julián, knocking him out. The two lovers-to-be run away, bickering, bantering, and sharing their dreams. In true Hollywood fashion, each has a best friend to aid in the coming misadventures. Diego has the irrepressible Jesús de los Jabalíes, an Iberian hog, and Alicía has the imperious Doña Madonna de Doñana, an Iberian lynx. Both are delightful secondary characters. Everyone winds up in Pamplona, where the action scenes become riveting. The appealing story has plenty of animated film potential.
A charming and engaging fantasy with characters readers will love and a strong positive message.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68433-523-7
Page Count: 142
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship.
A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge.
In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father. With her friends’ help, she is in training to defend her championship when they discover that another player, operating under the protection of High Consul Silla, is presenting herself as Legacy. She is so convincing that the real Legacy is accused of being an imitation. False Legacy has become a hero to the masses, further strengthening Silla’s hold, and it becomes imperative to uncover and defeat her. If Legacy is to win again, she must play her imposter while disguised as someone else. Winning at tennis is not just about money and fame, but resisting Silla’s plans to send more young people into brutal mines with little hope of better lives. Legacy will have to overcome her fears and find the magic that allowed her to claim victory in the past. This story, with its elements of sports, fantasy, and social consciousness that highlight tensions between the powerful and those they prey upon, successfully continues the series conceived by late basketball superstar Bryant. As before, the tennis matches are depicted with pace and spirit. Legacy and Javi have brown skin; most other characters default to White.
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949520-19-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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