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
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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