Better in its parts than its whole—but even second-drawer Jinks tops the general run.
Weary “Go-Devil Man” Alfred Bunce and his uncertain apprentice, Ned, face a seemingly overwhelming plague of child-eating bogles in this busy trilogy closer.
In what amounts to a wrap-up volume livened by gross bits, Jinks sends her bogle hunters—with help from the ad hoc Committee for the Regulation of Subterranean Anomalies—into Victorian London’s dark nooks and noisome sewers after a series of shadowy menaces. She also sets ex-apprentices Birdie and Jem on to careers in the theater, trots in a country witch to explain how to mass-produce bogle-killing magical spears, consigns vicious butcher/crime lord Salty Jack to a suitably brutal fate, and ties off various other loose ends. Though en masse the darksome creatures seem less hideously menacing than the rare and terrifying haunts of previous volumes, here their toothy, tentacled bodies do slither chillingly enough into view and explode with satisfying violence, “like a gigantic pimple,” when speared. (One particularly memorable battle takes place in a privy.) Set pieces notwithstanding, though, the climax turns to more of an anticlimax as the growing crisis is averted via an authorial rationale that even younger readers may find hard to buy. An epilogue leaves the majors married or nearly married and Bunce in happy retirement.
Better in its parts than its whole—but even second-drawer Jinks tops the general run. (map, glossary of slang) (Historical fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-08696-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions.
The efforts of six New Jersey kids to prevent the Nazis from winning World War II continue in this sequel to Westfallen (2024).
In 1944, Alice, Lawrence, and Artie struggle to correct their catastrophic error that, as Alice repeatedly has it, “DESTROYED THE FUTURE.” In 2023, Frances and Henry desperately research the changed history that finds the U.S. transformed into the Nazi-controlled tributary state of Westfallen. Jewish Lukas is largely confined, unable to help them or reach the magic shed that houses the radio that allows the kids to communicate across time, putting him at risk of losing his memories. Meanwhile, in 1944, Lawrence collects scrap metal alongside a kid who grows up to be a patient in the Home for Incurables, where Henry works in 2023. Could that kid hold the key to restoring the timeline? In this volume, Lawrence and Frances join Alice and Henry as first-person narrators, depriving Lukas and Artie of narrative agency. This lack is particularly distressing in Lukas’ case, as his isolation is affecting his personality. It falls to Henry and Alice to prod him into action—which is unfortunate for a novel that never names the Holocaust and omits persecution of the Jews from Alice’s father’s explanation of Nazi ideology (although antisemitism is an obvious feature of life in this alternate timeline). The crackling pace can’t obscure these lapses. Alice, Artie, and Frances are white, Lawrence is Black, and biracial Henry is Black and white.
Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781665950848
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
This hopeful adventure leaves an indelible mark.
A rare disorder elicits fear in a young Black artist with a unique sense of the world.
Seventh grader Etta’s Quiet Days are becoming more frequent and, frankly, irritating since her “maybe-diagnosis” of Ménière’s disease in both her ears. Her parents are monitoring her diet, vigilant about stressors, and learning ASL. In contrast to Etta’s Loud Days, not being able to hear sometimes makes it easier to focus on her comic book about Invincible Girl (the novel includes some enticing panels featuring Etta’s work). But, as peculiar weather patterns begin to overwhelm her Chicago neighborhood and exacerbate her allergies, the corresponding tinnitus and vertigo as well as the increased anxiety from everyone around her leave Etta feeling hopeless. Even meeting Eleazar, an artsy new Colombian friend with an adorable goldendoodle, leads to doubts about her abilities to communicate—Eleazar is also still learning English—and her future with Ménière’s. When Eleazar’s dog gets lost on a magical train that is linked to the weird weather, the two must traverse the train cars, solve mysteries, and overcome their fears to fix what’s broken and heal what can’t be fixed. Just like the magical challenges, their journey yields great emotional rewards. Even as Etta and Eleazar make new connections, losses—of family, hearing, and home—are somber reminders of life’s challenges. With snappy narration that’s rich in sensory detail and metaphor, readers progress through well-paced storytelling that is ethereal and artfully inclusive.
This hopeful adventure leaves an indelible mark. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6837-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
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