It’s all great fun for middle school fantasy fans. (Comic fantasy. 9-14)
Plenty of laughs follow Jenny the Adventurer as she concludes her trilogy of comic quests in Fairy Land by fighting the Queen Fairy, who has stolen nearly all the magic in the world and intends to steal the rest.
Jenny only wants to rescue her parents, who have been missing for several years. She’s certain that the Queen Fairy has captured them, but when the queen captures Jenny too, the plot becomes complex. It turns out that the Queen Fairy is more than a bit insane. She’s turned her palace and her minions into a Disney fantasy. Deprived of magic, her subjects are powerless, save for the leprechauns, who are weakened. Worse, the Queen wants to steal the magic of the Committee, the group of identical elderly ladies who control all the magical realms and who employ Jenny as an adventurer. When Jenny actually finds her parents, she must concoct a plan to rescue them, but with no power and her friends disappearing, she faces difficulties. When she’s turned into a mouse—twice—she feels even more frustrated. Staniszewski’s ear for humor remains keen. Willy-nilly, Jenny spouts occasion-appropriate clichés even though it embarrasses her. She meets fantastical creatures, including a one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater. Of course Jenny will prevail, but how?
It’s all great fun for middle school fantasy fans. (Comic fantasy. 9-14)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7933-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
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
Salva Dut is 11 years old when war raging in the Sudan separates him from his family. To avoid the conflict, he walks for years with other refugees, seeking sanctuary and scarce food and water. Park simply yet convincingly depicts the chaos of war and an unforgiving landscape as they expose Salva to cruelties both natural and man-made. The lessons Salva remembers from his family keep him from despair during harsh times in refugee camps and enable him, as a young man, to begin a new life in America. As Salva’s story unfolds, readers also learn about another Sudanese youth, Nya, and how these two stories connect contributes to the satisfying conclusion. This story is told as fiction, but it is based on real-life experiences of one of the “Lost Boys” of the Sudan. Salva and Nya’s compelling voices lift their narrative out of the “issue” of the Sudanese War, and only occasionally does the explanation of necessary context intrude in the storytelling. Salva’s heroism and the truth that water is a source of both conflict and reconciliation receive equal, crystal-clear emphasis in this heartfelt account. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-547-25127-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
SEEN & HEARD
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