From the author of A Woman's Place (1978, not reviewed) and several children's books: an amusing and inventive twist on the inexhaustively fecund Arthurian legends. Here, the narrator is one of the magical, somewhat fearsome, Fey—the fairylike beings called (erroneously) ``the Good Folk'' by wary villagers. Crompton's version tells of how Niviene, the daughter of the Lady of the Lake, has to leave the forest of the Fey with the magician Merlin in an effort to save King Arthur's Peace—a tale that begins rousingly enough as young Niviene and her friend Elana (whom Niviene suspects of having a Human heart) consider eating the huge, beautiful, drugged Gwenevere, who's been abducted by the Fey Otter Mellias. Merlin and the Lady decree that Gwenevere must be returned, since King Arthur, who saved their forest from the Saxons, himself might invade to avenge his Queen. So Niviene's beloved brother Lugh sets out, disguised as a knight- -and, yes, turns out to be you know who. While Lugh/Lancelot suffers almost Human attachment to that great ninny Gwenevere, Elana dies in a boat of flowers, and Niviene succumbs to a ``strong, handsome, terrified'' Human, none other than Arthur, with baby Bran the result. When little Bran is lost, however, a heartbroken Niviene begins her long search—a quest that will take her and old Merlin to Camelot, the horrifying den of Morgan le Faye, and, after miles of galloping over Britain, to a hermit's hut and the secret of the Holy Grail. Throughout, Niviene, who attempts to douse her Human side, reads auras, turns invisible, and smiles to hide her little pointed teeth. At the close, she'll find Bran (tragically) and witness Arthur's supposed death. Several fairy leagues in sophistication below the Elfin Kingdom tales of Sylvia Townsend Warner (which appeared in the New Yorker in the '60s and '70s); still, this spirited saga is told in lyrically appealing prose—and spates of rhyme. An easy double for young adults.
Pub Date: Dec. 8, 1995
ISBN: 1-55611-463-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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