Imagination soars in this smart, humorous, visually captivating approach to a scientific concept.
In this physics-themed fantasy, an elf’s quest to prevent entropy has unintended consequences.
What is entropy, and what would happen without it? Originally published in the Czech Republic, this new U.S. edition of co-authors Klárová and Končinský’s book (translated by Oakland) is a don’t-miss for science-minded middle schoolers. Set in a wildly inventive world, “entropic elves,” invisible to humans, create disorder and chaos. The book’s lively, relatable narrator, Typo, a young elf in third grade at the Primary School for Aging Things, speaks directly to readers, explaining that all things inevitably become older, damaged, or lost thanks to the work of the entropic elves. (And today’s built-in obsolescence, he enthuses, is a golden age for the elves: “never before has aging occurred at such speed.”) Typo’s specialty is mistakes in published works. His best friend Skim excels at cocoa spilling (one page of the text in Štěpán’s inspired book design features a realistic cocoa stain). Typo considered entropy to be the elves’ noble calling, he says, until the day his faith was shaken: During a field trip to a human bakery, his creative misspelling of a little girl’s name on her birthday cake made her cry. Within the authors’ clever, informational framework, faintly reminiscent of The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), Typo recounts how he set out, with a talking dung beetle as his guide, to find entropy’s master, the legendary Cog of Time, and stop the process of aging and disorder. Špaček’s illustrations encompass witty, full-page, full-color imaginings of the elves’ busy, messy world and cartoon renderings, in color and black and white, of the characters, their gadgetry, and more, on text pages. With various font sizes for emphasis and eccentric juxtapositions of text, illustrations, and chapter titles in large, transparent blue letters, Petr Štěpán’s design adds to the book’s delights.
Imagination soars in this smart, humorous, visually captivating approach to a scientific concept.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9858-7871-4
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Val de Grace
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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