An imaginative fantasy stuffed with too many characters and details.
A debut YA novel focuses on a magical land of positive thinking.
Rousing presents Levi Levy: a 15-year old who has received a strange message from something called the Interdimensional Council of Cognition. Levi is invited to attend the Selective Thought Studies Program in Dimension 11. It certainly sounds like a wild idea. Yet Levi doesn’t have a whole lot going for him in Earth’s regular dimension. Perhaps he can become something greater in a new place. Levi is soon transported, thanks to a purple funnel cloud, to a land of magic where he will be in training to become a “thought sifter.” The key throughout his training will be the ability to harness the power of his thoughts. He will even be able to fly in this world if he can train his mind to keep him in the air. Under the gentle watch of a wizardlike man named Hemp, kids like Levi keep thought journals, engage in an aerial sport called Solarshay, and eat veggie burgers at the local diner. But all is not mere fun and games. A figure named Orable has his own set of dastardly plans for up-and-coming thought sifters. Will Orable be successful or can his schemes be halted with the power of positive thinking? Positive thinking is, of course, the whole point here, and it is a theme that is driven home time and again. As Hemp asserts, “Directing your thoughts is the key to, well—everything.” While the message may be obvious, that does not mean the events surrounding it always are. A lot happens in just over 300 pages and it all progresses quickly. Nevertheless, the story can be jumbled at times with additional aspects like enchanted cupcakes, a creature called a “think bug,” and supporting characters of varying interest (take, for instance, Levi’s Yorkshire terrier, who has managed to follow him to Dimension 11 without a whole lot to contribute). But ultimately, the tale is open to any number of tantalizing outcomes. The burning question is: Will Levi be able to direct his mind to choose the right one?
An imaginative fantasy stuffed with too many characters and details.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-615-71924-5
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Thoughts To Die For Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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