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
A very promising kickoff with arbitrary but intriguingly challenging magic.
A middle schooler discovers both up and down sides to being able to foretell the future.
Members of the Cleary clan in alternating generations have always been granted predictive powers on their 4,444th day of life, and Celia has been eagerly looking forward to her first vision—until, that is, it comes and reveals that cute, quiet classmate Jeffrey is slated to die in a hit-and-run. Weighing her horror against her wise Grammy’s warnings that fate is inexorable, she contrives a way to head off the accident…only to foresee another fatal mishap in his future. And another. By the time she’s saved his life five times in a row, she’s not only exhausted, but crushing on the hapless lad. (As, unsurprisingly, he is on her.) Reintgen generally keeps the tone of his series opener light, so even after Celia discovers that there’s ultimately a tragic price for her intervention, the ensuing funeral service is marked by as much laughter as sorrow. The author surrounds his frantic but good-hearted protagonist with a particularly sturdy supporting cast that includes gratifyingly cooperative friends as well as her Grammy and loving, if nonmagical, mom. There don’t seem to be many Cleary men around; perhaps that and certain other curious elements, like a chart listing particular Cleary specialties with names such as Dreamwalker and Grimdark, will be addressed in future entries. Main characters read as White.
A very promising kickoff with arbitrary but intriguingly challenging magic. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-357-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fun, if messy, thriller that’s not afraid to go straight over the top.
A middle schooler must outrun a cadre of strange individuals while puzzling out the truth of what he is in this science-fiction offering.
Fourteen-year-old Noah Prime longs to live somewhere bigger than his small town of Arbuckle, Oregon, though he is happily involved in motocross—at least until he learns that the course is being torn down to make way for a condo development. This bad news coincides with some particularly strange happenings in Noah’s life, such as a literal (and very confusing) collision he has with Sahara, a girl that he comes to find very interesting. This is followed by his experiencing a brief and total paralysis while arguing with some bullies, which his friend Ogden, who is on the autism spectrum, insists is due to a psychological phenomenon called conversion disorder. The truth turns out to be much more complex, and it sends Noah, younger sister Andi, Ogden, and Sahara on a madcap quest involving aliens, time travel, an erupting volcano, and much more. The adventure is laced throughout with goofy, sarcastic humor, balancing the fantastical and somewhat confusing turns of events. While there is resolution at the story’s end, it also clearly sets the stage for a follow-up. The main characters read White by default.
A fun, if messy, thriller that’s not afraid to go straight over the top. (Science fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5524-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
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