An extraordinarily moving, powerful tale about the resilience of grace and the joy of friendship.
Stuffed animals search for a long-lost friend in this debut literary fantasy for all ages.
The three inhabitants of well-appointed apartment 1K on New York City’s Upper West Side enjoy a fulfilling life of work, walks in the park, good food, and warm friendships. It’s a setup as cozy as themselves—all stuffed animals or, as they call themselves, wawas. Mr. Rabbit is an artist; Benny the Bunny is a writer; and Dr. Ursa, a bear, has a medical practice. One day, their comfortable routine is upended when Custerd, a “shockingly orange” cat wawa and a childhood friend of Benny’s, makes an unexpected visit. Though usually a bouncing, confident sort, Custerd has been feeling empty lately. His therapist believes he must search for Rogo, his and Benny’s stuffed lion companion from the old days, who went missing 25 years ago in Australia. Mr. Rabbit, Benny, and Custerd head for Sydney, where they learn that after becoming separated from his boy, Rogo went on a walkabout (or, as kangaroos call it, a “hop-about”). With some Australian wawa companions, the friends’ hunt for Rogo brings them to a mysterious, forbidding fortress in the Outback that will test their courage, love, and ingenuity. Colin Krainin achieves something remarkable in his accomplished and poignant novel, giving a profound emotional and spiritual range to his stuffed-animal characters. They’re undeniably cuddly, appealing, and kind yet acutely aware of loss, which in turn is tempered: “But shining through the melancholy there often came, as sudden as the first aching sprouts of spring, a kind of grace.” Similarly, Custerd understands human evil as the desperate, dangerous refusal to be vulnerable. Debut illustrator Joan Platek Krainin’s charming pencil drawings capture the wawas’ cuteness but less so their pathos.
An extraordinarily moving, powerful tale about the resilience of grace and the joy of friendship.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-691066-90-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Crowell Creek Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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