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LEONARDO’S SHADOW

Name: LEONARDO’S SHADOW
Author: Christopher Grey
ISBN: 1-4169-0543-X

OR, MY ASTONISHING LIFE AS LEONARDO DA VINCI’S SERVANT

by Christopher Grey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2006

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It’s difficult to imagine who will be attracted to this plodding historical novel. Told in the first person by the young Giacomo, servant boy to the master artist, it lurches and rambles by turns. Curiously lacking in any sense of time or place, readers are told it’s 15th-century Milan, but little situates them there. Giacomo wants to learn to paint, but Leonardo will not teach him. There goodhearted female servant who mothers Giacomo eventually dies. In Grey’s hands, the artist comes across as a pompous windbag and completely uninteresting. There are blocks of text in which the author tells readers about mural and fresco painting or about mixing and making paint colors, but no feeling informs them and they do not advance the story. There is a plot of sorts involving alchemy and Giacomo’s unknown parentage, and his need to speed up Leonardo’s painting of the Last Supper, but it doesn’t amount to much. The author can’t even get Italian names quite right, using “da Vinci” as though it were Leonardo’s surname. Good idea, bad execution. (Historical fiction. 10-12)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006

ISBN: 1-4169-0543-X

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT HISTORICAL FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION

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DARK LIFE

by Kat Falls ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2010

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The worldbuilding of countless eco-thrillers serves here as the setting for a classic Western. A Western, that is, with plankton instead of cows, harpoons instead of six-shooters and submarines instead of covered wagons. Ty lives below the ocean, in a future in which water levels have risen and Topsiders live cramped together in unbearable conditions. Undersea, any brave settler can stake a claim and build a huge homestead. Ty was born down here, and he loves it. When he encounters freckle-faced Topsider orphan Gemma, he revels in showing her his world, from inflatable houses shaped like jellyfish to beautiful schools of swordfish. If only they weren’t in danger from the villainous Seablite gang that keeps attacking homesteads! This caper features a slew of Western standards—the crabby old doctor (“Doc”), the saloon filled with bandanna-clad thugs, the posse of furious citizens—and a few plot twists keep the tension high. A thrilling conversion of the classics to one of our newer frontiers. (Science fiction. 10-12)

Pub Date: May 1, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-545-17814-3

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

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OCEAN DEEP

by Yan Nascimbene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999

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A child’s feelings of loneliness and isolation are eventually replaced with a longing for adventure in a mysterious book from Nascimbene (A Day in September, 1995, not reviewed). Sent to a boarding school in the Swiss Alps for the summer while her parents are vacationing, L£cia, homesick for S—o Paulo and family, remains detached from all activities until the day she hears distant hammering emanating from a local barn. Intrigued, L£cia discovers a kind farmer named Aldo behind the sound; he is keeping a secret from the outside world. Befriending the girl after she pours out her heart to him, Aldo decides to show her the large sailboat he has been building. L£cia, who renames all the wildflowers she finds according to her wishes, finds a wildflower she calls Ocean Deep and sends it to her parents, foreshadowing the dream she is to have later aboard Aldo’s boat; in this dream she sails close enough to her shipbound parents to wave at them. The beautifully conceived illustrations have a range of appearances, from the look of cut-paper silhouettes whose spaces have been washed in watercolor, to landscapes and seascapes with perspectives and of a simplicity of line associated with Japanese art. The typeface, though attractive, is a small size that makes this better for read-aloud sessions than reading alone; the story, long for a picture book, but deeply felt, is ripe for the interpretation of children. (Picture book. 7-11)