A fast-paced read featuring a smart, young protagonist.
In McClean’s debut middle-grade novel, a 12-year-old Caribbean boy must save the day when he discovers danger lurking in the forest in the first installment of the Secrets of Oscuros series.
Jason “JV” Valentine lives on the Caribbean island of Alcavere with his grandmother, Granny B, the town’s herbal healer. JV has always had a longing for travel and adventure and decides that during his vacation, he’ll explore Oscuros, the mystical, forbidden forest on the outskirts of town. Despite the mystery and superstition surrounding Oscuros, JV is unafraid. He’s frequently accompanied Granny B on trips there to pluck herbs and flowers and “often…felt a strange pull from the forest—as if an unseen force wanted to usher him deeper in, away from his grandmother, his home, and his village.” But when Adelle De Couteau, a neighborhood girl, goes missing in Oscuros, tensions run high, and JV’s friends urge him not to return there. Then the boy overhears a neighbor say that Granny B found the abandoned, infant JV in Oscuros long ago. He’s shocked, as it reveals that everything that his grandmother had ever told him about his traveling, adventurer parents was a lie (including their handwritten letters, likely written by Granny B herself). But as JV wanders deeper into the forest, he stumbles upon a dangerous operation and receives assistance from an unlikely supernatural ally. Overall, JV’s side story about discovering his true parentage could have been fleshed out a little more. That said, he remains a consistently strong character throughout this tale and one whom readers will root for. McClean effectively infuses Caribbean elements into the text, including specific elements of Trinidadian folklore and culture. For example, JV’s aforementioned encounter with Papa Bois, the titular protector of the forest, is an integral part of the plot. Additionally, the text is peppered with local words and phrases (such as “Bless my eyesight,” meaning “I can’t believe my eyes”), which helps to create an authentic setting. McClean also provides a helpful glossary of terms at the end of the book.
A fast-paced read featuring a smart, young protagonist.Pub Date: May 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9978900-7-5
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Caribbean Reads Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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