A light fantasy with a powerful message of hope.
A young girl who wants nothing more than to fit in with her classmates learns to stand out instead.
Włodzimira—Mira for short—is the “least-athletic girl” and shortest person in her fifth grade class. She’s also the only one who breaks a sweat when doing physical activity, and it’s because everyone else in her class takes Amber: a magical substance that essentially makes people stronger, healthier, and smarter. Only citizens of Amberland have access to Amber rations, and the government is strict regarding whom they let cross their borders. Just when narrator Mira and her family finally become citizens, news of Amber’s dwindling supply weaves panic into the community, causing protests and hate crimes. Staniszewski writes a fluid first-person narrative, providing valuable insight on Mira’s thoughts and feelings regarding how she’s seen as an outsider by her classmates and hopes for a better life in Amberland. While the worldbuilding feels thin at times, the magical aspects of the story are well balanced with the realistic issues tackled such as bullying and immigration laws. Naming conventions cue ethnicity in this analog America, which seems to be as diverse as the real one; Mira and her family are presumed Polish.
A light fantasy with a powerful message of hope. (author’s note) (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4278-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 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
BOOK REVIEW
Highly amusing.
The incompetent parents from The Willoughbys (2008) find themselves thawed by global warming.
Henry and Frances haven’t aged since the accident that buried them in snow and froze them for 30 years in the Swiss Alps. Their Rip van Winkle–ish return is archly comedic, with the pair, a medical miracle, realizing (at last!) how much they’ve lost and how baffled they are now. Meanwhile, their eldest son, Tim, is grown and in charge of his adoptive father’s candy empire, now threatened with destitution by a congressional ban on candy (opposed by an unnamed Bernie Sanders). He is father to 11-year-old Richie, who employs ad-speak whenever he talks about his newest toys, like a remote-controlled car (“The iconic Lamborghini bull adorns the hubcaps and hood”). But Richie envies Winston Poore, the very poor boy next door, who has a toy car carved for him by his itinerant encyclopedia-salesman father. Winston and his sister, Winifred, plan to earn money for essentials by offering their services as companions to lonely Richie while their mother dabbles, spectacularly unsuccessfully, in running a B&B. Lowry’s exaggerated characters and breezy, unlikely plot are highly entertaining. She offers humorous commentary both via footnotes advising readers of odd facts related to the narrative and via Henry and Frances’ reentry challenges. The threads of the story, with various tales of parents gone missing, fortunes lost or never found, and good luck in the end, are gathered most satisfactorily and warmheartedly.
Highly amusing. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-42389-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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