A cluttered and confusing start to a new animal-fantasy series.
Laoch, a 14-year-old Iguana, is training to be a Master Grower, but the rebellious Lizard would rather be an inventor and leave his village of Talamh for the city of Utomia.
When one of Laoch’s experiments goes awry, the Utomian Military Forces and the nefarious Other Army converge on quiet, agrarian Talamh. Just before the latter arrests Laoch’s parents, his father gives Laoch a mysterious gilded disc, instructing him to take it to Utomia, where he’ll discover its purpose. Is it connected to the purple smoke from his big fail? Why is the city, surrounded by the magical, domed Water Shield, so heavily guarded? As Laoch and his twin brother, Leeland, and their friends Nudge (a Meerkat) and Sty (a Bat) make the dangerous journey to the legendary city, their personal transformations surprise themselves and one another. Worldbuilding includes a detail-heavy background of politics, warfare, tradition, and technology as well as a superabundance of capitalized words. Laoch, Leeland, and most of the Lizards in their village are “hybrids”; the twins also have Gecko and Chameleon blood. Marginalized Beings such as Bats are literally given “Other Status.” There’s a pronunciation guide to help with the numerous Irish spellings, but readers will also be forgiven for feeling that a who’s-who chart wouldn’t go amiss. Too many shifting third-person perspectives muddy the story. These include the four main characters and at least five major secondary characters whose roles are unclear. Here’s hoping they get more airtime in Book 2.
A cluttered and confusing start to a new animal-fantasy series. (Fantasy. 8-14)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-945293-69-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Adaptive Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
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