Hoffman has brought to life a huge world worth exploring for young girls in search of exciting stories about female...
Having saved her people from enslavement, Dara must now save the world from the forces of Chaos in the concluding chapter of the Shamra Chronicles.
In the third volume of his Shamra trilogy, Hoffman winds up the threads he had set in place in the two previous volumes. Dara finally reaches Stone Mountain to join forces with the hunter clan left behind when the rest of the Shamra people migrated two centuries before. She knows that ultimately she must defeat Chaos, the powerful force that had been disabled but not destroyed by the clanswoman Anis. But first, Dara must reunite the two estranged factions of Shamra and teach them how to escape the dogmatic religion and corrupt social standards that had led to their dire circumstances in the first place. Drea and Atyra—two other legendary women featured in a previous volume—also return from the shadowy otherworld where Shamra go after death, but Dara can’t be sure of their intentions. Are they her comrades or her enemies? Or are they simply using her for their own ends? After Dara gives birth to twin girls named Elise and Janae (featured in the bonus novella Safe Haven), she gains insight into the dynamics of family loyalties, which helps her overcome the interpersonal conflict that complicates her quest. The many people—Mitchkeys, Rulan, Shrieks and others—whom Dara had encountered on her previous adventures all join forces to finally defeat the Chaos that threatens them all. Although the previous volume, Shamra Divided, seemed disjointed, in the end Hoffman manages to tie together most of the strands that were laid out in the first two books. The most moving subplot involves the redemption of Heber, the Shamra male who had alternately supported and betrayed Dara, while other elements—like the fate of Garz, the evil Troc, whom we last saw chuckling ominously at the end of book one—disappear from the sprawling narrative.
Hoffman has brought to life a huge world worth exploring for young girls in search of exciting stories about female empowerment.Pub Date: May 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1934267240
Page Count: 369
Publisher: Edge Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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