Scenes from a cafe in Flowers, Kansas, where ``magic'' mingles with everyday life. Apart from the cafe itself, there are two fixed points in the book: the owner, Marc, and his daughter, Clara, 10. Everything around them is in an impressionistic state of flux, and enchantment comes in a succession of gusts that slowly gather momentum, become a mistral, and then evaporate. Lightning strikes the cafe and in the next few weeks the food cooks itself to perfection, while Marc starts writing poems that foretell the future; an old film star makes a quiet entrance and a peaceful final exit; a writer finds something like inspiration in the setting. These are peculiar episodes, described in fine-tuned prose, with every description, rhythm, and syntax positioned to create, overall, a perfectly smooth surface, along which the narrator glides like a figure-skater: always a little distant from the action, constantly reflecting on what constitutes magic and what makes a story. This little book never stops rushing forward. Every chapter points to the next, in which something even more wonderful may happen. The present-tense narrative creates a sense of the future; it becomes the tense of excited anticipation. Rylant (Mr. Putter and Tabby Bake the Cake, 1994, etc.) has no need for a car crash or someone jumping off a bridge to entertain; this one does it with the light-filled strokes of ordinary events. (Fiction. 8- 12)
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-15-200843-8
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
Come for the dragons but stay for the suspenseful reveals and relatable characters.
A lonely and anxious English girl discovers a family secret in this series opener from acclaimed Scottish author Murray.
Twelve-year-old Alex Evans, who presents white, lives a cloistered life with her controlling mother. Her only escape is the nearby forest, which reminds her of her deceased father. There she meets Oliphos, a kind (and oddly dressed) Black man with a Scottish accent, who tells her something surprising about her heritage. Oliphos introduces Alex to Dr. Archibald P. Puppinsworth, a Dragon Scholar who knows all about the Otherworld, the magical dimension where dragons live. Alex realizes that she possesses a special power that might help locate the Phylactery, a long-missing magical object sought by the villainous Drak Midna, a terrifyingly manipulative—and enormous—ancient dragon. Along the way to Skralla, one of the last dragon refuges, with Oliphos, Alex meets Erik, an orphan with “chestnut curls” who understands what it’s like to feel like an outsider. Both young people are battling unknowns and deep loneliness, and their complex characterization feels realistic even though fantasy worldbuilding forms the backdrop of their friendship. Coming from a highly sheltered background, Alex may be naïve at first, but she grows in maturity and bravery as the book progresses. The well-executed worldbuilding includes portals called waypaths and dragons with creative features. Murray explores themes of intolerance through the world’s history of human-dragon conflict.
Come for the dragons but stay for the suspenseful reveals and relatable characters. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9798217113217
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
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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