An unexpected—and pleasing—combination of propitious and disquieting.
A boy arrives at a new school where he hopes to be healed of a mysterious condition that causes him insufferable pain.
The Ash House isn’t an ordinary school: It is literally made of ash, and the dorm is an old but verdant greenhouse. The Headmaster has been gone for three years, leaving no adults around, yet the children hold on to the hope that he will return. They have no recollection of anything before they arrived at the Ash House, and each has been named after Nicenesses, positive attributes that they are expected to possess such as Concord, Happiness, Temperance, and Liberty. The new boy, who can’t remember his outside name, becomes Solitude. Initially, the students are wary of Sol, but with help from his new friend, Freedom—Dom for short—the others warm to him. Then the Doctor arrives. The Doctor claims he can cure Sol, but the children quickly discover he is pure Nastiness. As the children struggle to free themselves from the Doctor’s tightening grip, they discover that Courage is the only Niceness that matters. Chapter headings helpfully indicate when the third-person narration switches between Sol’s and Dom’s perspectives. Action scenes unfold slowly at times, but when they’re intense, they’re nail-bitingly so, encouraging readers to push through to the satisfyingly ambiguous conclusion. Assume Whiteness for all.
An unexpected—and pleasing—combination of propitious and disquieting. (Mystery. 11-14)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-63631-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls.
Three young ghost trappers take on deadly wraiths and solve an old murder case in the bargain to kick off Stroud’s new post-Bartimaeus series.
Narrator Lucy Carlyle hopes to put her unusual sensitivity to supernatural sounds to good use by joining Lockwood & Co.—one of several firms that have risen to cope with the serious ghost Problem that has afflicted England in recent years. As its third member, she teams with glib, ambitious Anthony Lockwood and slovenly-but-capable scholar George Cubbins to entrap malign spirits for hire. The work is fraught with peril, not only because a ghost’s merest touch is generally fatal, but also, as it turns out, as none of the three is particularly good at careful planning and preparation. All are, however, resourceful and quick on their feet, which stands them in good stead when they inadvertently set fire to a house while discovering a murder victim’s desiccated corpse. It comes in handy again when they later rashly agree to clear Combe Carey Hall, renowned for centuries of sudden deaths and regarded as one of England’s most haunted manors. Despite being well-stocked with scream-worthy ghastlies, this lively opener makes a light alternative for readers who find the likes of Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series too grim and creepy for comfort.
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls. (Ghost adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not for the faint of heart or stomach (or maybe of any parts) but sure to be appreciated by middle school zombie cognoscenti.
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle meets Left for Dead/The Walking Dead/Shaun of the Dead in a high-energy, high-humor look at the zombie apocalypse, complete with baseball (rather than cricket) bats.
The wholesome-seeming Iowa cornfields are a perfect setting for the emergence of ghastly anomalies: flesh-eating cows and baseball-coach zombies. The narrator hero, Rabi (for Rabindranath), and his youth baseball teammates and friends, Miguel and Joe, discover by chance that all is not well with their small town’s principal industry: the Milrow corporation’s giant feedlot and meat-production and -packing facility. The ponds of cow poo and crammed quarters for the animals are described in gaggingly smelly detail, and the bone-breaking, bloody, flesh-smashing encounters with the zombies have a high gross-out factor. The zombie cows and zombie humans who emerge from the muck are apparently a product of the food supply gone cuckoo in service of big-money profits with little concern for the end result. It’s up to Rabi and his pals to try to prove what’s going on—and to survive the corporation’s efforts to silence them. Much as Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker (2010) was a clarion call to action against climate change, here’s a signal alert to young teens to think about what they eat, while the considerable appeal of the characters and plot defies any preachiness.
Not for the faint of heart or stomach (or maybe of any parts) but sure to be appreciated by middle school zombie cognoscenti. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-22078-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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