Willow, the second-person narrator in Thorn (2005), determines to leave the village of the People of the Singing Seals before the male elders give her to one of the “Uncles” (all elder males are uncles) in their desperate hope to produce healthy babies. The plot is driven by Willow’s need to be free of her clan and their desperation. Her single-minded trek forces her through the emergent winter; she is supported by the knowledge and skills she developed in her tomboy years and a last-minute gift from a village boy. This book’s worldbuilding is firmly rooted in Thorn’s island home, and a chance meeting with one of the greatly feared Others fills in facts about the missing history and challenges the tenets of her upbringing. Themes examined in this novel include the reconciliation of friendship with independence and the obligation to challenge falsity in word and deed. This exciting read can stand on its own but will also appeal to readers of the first book and of Lois Lowry’s Giver and companions. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60819-097-0
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Namelos
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
A stronger-than-she-realizes heroine uses her disconcerting telepathic gifts to help others and heal herself in this...
After moving to a rural Australian town, Sasha’s unwelcome premonitions lead her to solve a string of art thefts while tackling her own issues.
Ever since her mum left, Sasha’s “life has turned into a huge, weird disaster area.” The sad, anxious Sasha knows her dad’s trying hard to hold the family together. When he accepts a police job in Manna Creek to “make a new life,” Sasha decides she’ll give “moving to the back of nowhere” a chance, just to make him happy. Unimpressed with the drab town, the bedraggled house behind the police station and the hostile locals who resent the new cop’s kids, Sasha and younger brother Nicky explore with their new pet police dog, King. Sasha’s freaked out when she finds that she and King can communicate telepathically and even more upset when she starts dreaming about local people, past and present, who are about to die. Is there something wrong with her? Should she tell her father or repress everything? In an authentic first-person voice, Sasha fumes at her missing mum, reacts negatively to Manna Creek, supports her father and brother and conveys her fears about her telepathic powers as she leads the tense, fast-moving plot to resolution.
A stronger-than-she-realizes heroine uses her disconcerting telepathic gifts to help others and heal herself in this satisfying adventure. (Paranormal adventure. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61067-063-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
An entertaining romp, even without the raunchy bits.
A faithful (if relatively clean) version of the world’s oldest surviving complete novel, written “for librarians, teachers, scholars, and extremely intelligent children,” according to the afterword.
Usher (Wise Guy: The Life and Philosophy of Socrates, 2005) frames his adaptation as a tale within a tale in which the author meets two travelers on the road. He listens as one describes how he was transformed into an ass by reckless use of a stolen magical ointment, is mistreated in turn by robbers, “eunuch priests” (homosexual con men, in the original) and other rough handlers—then transformed at long last into a human boy by the goddess Isis. Though all of the sex and most of the dissolute behavior has been excised, the lad’s first transformation is milked throughout for double entendres—“Oh no!” gasps a witness. “You’ve made an ass of yourself!”—and there are plenty of silly incidents and names (silly in Latin, anyway, like a dopey Centurion dubbed Decius Verissimus Stultus) to lighten the overall tone. Motley’s elaborate illustrated initials and pen-and-ink drawings add satiric bite (“Eat roses from my bosom,” intones Isis mystically, floating over awed worshipers like a divine Vanna White) and further comic elements. So thoroughly reworked that even the original’s most famous imbedded story, “Cupid and Psyche,” is relegated to an appendix, this nonetheless conveys a clear sense of Apuleius’ plot, language and major themes.
An entertaining romp, even without the raunchy bits. (afterword) (Classic. 11-14)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56792-418-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
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