by Chris Rylander ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 18, 2019
A middle volume that turns more on moral and identity issues than keeping the plot rolling.
Greg (Dwarven name “Greggdroule,” please don’t use it) Stormbelly begins this sequel to The Legend of Greg (2018) by setting his pants on fire with a misdirected spell at a Gargoyle and ends by organizing an expedition to find a certain pivotal amulet in the episode’s abrupt conclusion.
In between he adds a diamond-pooping Rock Troll to his posse of staunch allies; battles elves in a literally spooky New Orleans cemetery; spends weeks imprisoned in Alcatraz by his Elven best frenemy, Edwin (who hints at an ominous plan to save the world by putting himself and a few other well-intentioned Elves in charge); and comes to realize that a bloodthirsty talking war axe isn’t really a good thing for a pacifist to own. He also gets at least a line on a cure for the Elven potion that has apparently driven his beloved dad “kookier than ever.” Unfortunately, between and even during the fun battle scenes and set pieces, Rylander breaks all too often for momentum-killing dwarfsplaining (enhanced, if that’s the word, by footnotes) of Dwarven history and values, comparisons of Elf and Dwarf religions, digressions, and open-ended ruminations. Greg and Edwin present white, but the cast’s Elves and Dwarves include some with brown skin; it’s unclear whether the Goblins, Harpies, Trolls, Orcs, and other races here enjoy like diversity.
A middle volume that turns more on moral and identity issues than keeping the plot rolling. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-3975-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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by Chris Columbus & Ned Vizzini with Chris Rylander
by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2015
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and...
Good has won every fairy-tale contest with Evil for centuries, but a dark sorcerer’s scheme to turn the tables comes to fruition in this ponderous closer.
Broadening conflict swirls around frenemies Agatha and Sophie as the latter joins rejuvenated School Master Rafal, who has dispatched an army of villains from Capt. Hook to various evil stepmothers to take stabs (literally) at changing the ends of their stories. Meanwhile, amid a general slaughter of dwarves and billy goats, Agatha and her rigid but educable true love, Tedros, flee for protection to the League of Thirteen. This turns out to be a company of geriatric versions of characters, from Hansel and Gretel (in wheelchairs) to fat and shrewish Cinderella, led by an enigmatic Merlin. As the tale moves slowly toward climactic battles and choices, Chainani further lightens the load by stuffing it with memes ranging from a magic ring that must be destroyed and a “maleficent” gown for Sophie to this oddly familiar line: “Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the Woods, you had to walk into mine.” Rafal’s plan turns out to be an attempt to prove that love can be twisted into an instrument of Evil. Though the proposition eventually founders on the twin rocks of true friendship and family ties, talk of “balance” in the aftermath at least promises to give Evil a fighting chance in future fairy tales. Bruno’s polished vignettes at each chapter’s head and elsewhere add sophisticated visual notes.
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and flashes of hilarity. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-210495-3
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2015
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
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by Katherine Rundell ; illustrated by Charles Santoso ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 27, 2019
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure
A Prohibition-era child enlists a gifted pickpocket and a pair of budding circus performers in a clever ruse to save her ancestral home from being stolen by developers.
Rundell sets her iron-jawed protagonist on a seemingly impossible quest: to break into the ramshackle Hudson River castle from which her grieving grandfather has been abruptly evicted by unscrupulous con man Victor Sorrotore and recover a fabulously valuable hidden emerald. Laying out an elaborate scheme in a notebook that itself turns out to be an integral part of the ensuing caper, Vita, only slowed by a bout with polio years before, enlists a team of helpers. Silk, a light-fingered orphan, aspiring aerialist Samuel Kawadza, and Arkady, a Russian lad with a remarkable affinity for and with animals, all join her in a series of expeditions, mostly nocturnal, through and under Manhattan. The city never comes to life the way the human characters do (Vita, for instance, “had six kinds of smile, and five of them were real”) but often does have a tangible presence, and notwithstanding Vita’s encounter with a (rather anachronistically styled) “Latina” librarian, period attitudes toward race and class are convincingly drawn. Vita, Silk, and Arkady all present white; Samuel, a Shona immigrant from Southern Rhodesia, is the only primary character of color. Santoso’s vignettes of, mostly, animals and small items add occasional visual grace notes.
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure . (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1948-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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