This middle-grade fantasy deftly and compellingly centers Indigenous culture.
Two uprooted Cree children find themselves in a dreamlike adventure in this series opener.
The edginess 13-year-old Morgan feels runs deep. As a First Nations kid whose whole life has been lived in one White foster home after another, she feels little reason to get excited about anything. Two months in to her new foster home placement, she inherits a new foster brother, Eli, a young Cree boy who spends his time quietly drawing in his sketchbook. After a blowup with their earnestly well-intentioned White foster parents, Morgan and Eli shelter themselves in the attic, where a drawing in his pad seems to come to life, creating a portal into the wintry Barren Grounds of Misewa, where the passage of time is, Narnia-like, different from in Winnipeg. After Eli disappears into this world, Morgan is determined to go after him to bring him back. When she finds him, they discover that the Misewa community of animal beings needs their help to survive the White Time. Robertson (Norway House Cree Nation) carefully establishes Morgan’s anger and feelings of alienation, her resentment at their foster parents’ clumsy attempts to connect her to her culture culminating when they awkwardly present a gift of moccasins. The shift into a contemporary Indigenous fantasy is seamless; it is in this world that these foster siblings discover hope and meaning that sustain them when they return to Winnipeg.
This middle-grade fantasy deftly and compellingly centers Indigenous culture. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-73526-610-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Puffin/Penguin Random House Canada
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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 REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Ponderous and protracted, with more work needed on both the world and the characters.
Two young teens with special powers face an ancient evil rising from the very heart of the Tinvali Empire in this doorstopping series opener.
Pursued by ruthless agents eager to exploit her mysterious ability to read peoples’ true feelings, Arden—eventually, after many chapters alternating between dual narrators—links up with foundling Mako, a budding music mage who’s carefully hiding the fact that he’s invited an invisible smooth-talking trickster spirit named Narrix to be his lifelong guardian. It seems that some of Narrix’s fellow spirits may be even nastier—and there are ominous hints that they might be sneaking back into the world. Several of Arden’s adventures do more to bulk up the page count than advance the plot in any meaningful way, and though (like many of Mull’s protagonists) she’s a dab hand at snarky banter, she otherwise comes off as a rather wooden character. Readers may find Mako’s journey and conflicts more absorbing, as he struggles to balance the joy of blossoming into an outstanding warrior under Narrix’s tutelage with the sneaking suspicion he’s made a bad choice of tutor. Whether his concerns are valid or not remains to be seen. The leads present white.
Ponderous and protracted, with more work needed on both the world and the characters. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9780593712047
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Labyrinth Road
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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