A leisurely children’s fantasy with an ecological message.
Two fairies get lost in the Australian Outback in Ritchie’s middle-grade novel, the latest in a series.
Fairies Mica and Wrenna have left Fairy Land (situated somewhere in the Rocky Mountains) on an expedition to Australia to see the famed stromatolites of Shark Bay: “Living fossil rocks. Almost as old as the planet.” Due to the recent destruction of Fairy Land’s Barrier and its transportation portals, the pair are forced to travel by tunnel which, though faster than flying, still takes quite a bit more time than they are used to. They surface in a verdant grassland filled with dragonflies and strange birds, but a rainstorm washes away the entrance to their tunnel, stranding the fairies on this new continent. The two friends set about investigating their environment, figuring out what food they can eat, where they can sleep, and what animals (crocodiles? bandicoots? toads?) they need to be afraid of. They manage to befriend a rainbow-colored bird whom they call BB and, later, a human boy called Ghy. Ghy is an Aboriginal Australian, a “Traditional Owner” of the continent who shares information with the fairies about its six seasons and its millions of years of geological history. With the help of Ghy—and a tribe of Australian fairies—Mica and Wrenna must figure out how to find their way home. Ritchie’s simple prose captures the beauty of the Australian ecosystem: “Wrenna turned back to watch the rain falling, like a waterfall just outside their cave. ‘It’s all alive. It’s all connected. The land, the sky, the storm…all the plants and trees that grow, all the creatures that walk, swim, fly, crawl, even the air itself.’” The book does little to establish the rules of the fairy world, and readers unfamiliar with the previous books may have trouble finding their feet. The plot proceeds at a sleepy pace, though that seems to be the point: Ritchie’s fable of environmental stewardship requires readers to stop long enough to notice the world around them.
A leisurely children’s fantasy with an ecological message.Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2024
ISBN: 9798990818408
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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