More than a dino-infused historical adventure.
Older offers the third installment in the Dactyl Hill Squad series.
Opening where Freedom Fire (2019) ended, this sequel finds 12-year-old Afro-Cuban orphan Magdalys Roca reunited with her older brother, Montez, a Union soldier in the U.S. Civil War. Third-person, past-tense narration highlights brave, genuine Magdalys’ continued fight to thwart the plans of the white supremacist Knights of the Golden Circle and ensure the U.S. doesn’t become an empire of slavery, all while battling racism, sexism, and ageism—and riding dinosaurs. In a New Orleans lit through with intimate details, Magdalys finds a mentor, LaFarge, and discovers there’s more to dino-wrangling than she’s realized. LaFarge, a white man, is a pacifist (for sympathetic reasons), but Magdalys doesn’t let him off easy, reminding him he’s forgotten “what it means to care about something enough to fight for it.” Magdalys’ path leads her to the deserts of Mexico, where the new, democratically elected president is Zapotecan—welcome Indigenous representation. Good triumphs over evil—at least temporarily—and as “safety is always a fleeting thing,” Magdalys’ commitment to the struggle persists. Another book seems likely. As usual, Older infuses what could have been a basic romp with depth, using a critical social justice lens to examine the past while also embedding in it representation that we can aspire to in the future.
More than a dino-infused historical adventure. (author’s note) (Historical fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-26887-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
A thrilling first installment in an adventurous new series.
An orphaned street urchin is recruited into an elite school for thieves.
In an alternate world where France is the dominant world power, 13-year-old Tom Morgan has had to scrimp, starve, and steal on the streets of London to survive. Born into a workhouse, he doesn’t know anything about his father, while his mother may have been from North Africa. One thing he does know is the sort of cruelty that awaits the poor who are sent to the workhouse, and he’s determined not to go back. But when their camp is raided and his friends are captured by workhouse agents, the only thing Tom can think of is how to get them out. Enter the Corsair, a cunning and mysterious man with a proposition: He wants to recruit Tom into Beaufort’s School for Deceptive Arts. From nabbing treasures to forging identity papers, Beaufort’s promises to teach Tom everything he needs to know to become a Shadow Thief and a member of the Shadow League, the secret global organization that helps keep the world’s political power in balance. But Beaufort’s has its own rules and secrets, and if Tom is to survive long enough to help his friends, he’ll need to figure them out quickly. Clever and gripping, this fast-paced boarding school story will appeal to fans of the Mysterious Benedict Society and Spy School series.
A thrilling first installment in an adventurous new series. (Adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781665982283
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
