Tiefenthaler again proves his ability to craft a humorous, suspenseful story with depth and an authentic voice.
In this middle-grade book, a seventh-grader faces his fears in an attempt to prove that he’s actually seen his town’s legendary monster despite widespread skepticism from the townsfolk.
In 2015’s O.K. Is Great, author/illustrator and middle school teacher Tiefenthaler introduced readers to Otis “O.K.” Kalshwonkee, a 12-year-old whose desire to be more than average led to comical, challenging ups and downs in the odd farm town of Boykinville. O.K. makes a welcome return here, again narrating and illustrating his quirky fantasies, hopes, and daily observations of people and events. (Tiefenthaler’s convincingly childlike pencil drawings are a hoot.) O.K., with his best pal, Leo, confronts more middle school tribulations, a different mean-girl nemesis, and spiky family dynamics (including a macho big brother, wunderkind little sister, and seemingly oblivious parents). Meanwhile, they also set out to prove that the Beast of Boykinville Road, a werewolf said to lurk in the nearby woods, is real. The trouble is that O.K. is afraid of seemingly everything, including the dark, heights, spiders, and “my mom when she’s looking at my report card.” His efforts to find courage, which involve a high dive, a tarantula, bear repellent, and a baseball bat, all go awry. How can he face the Beast if he’s frozen with fear? A practical joke occurs in the story’s climactic scene, but Tiefenthaler mitigates its potential cruelty with the hilarity of O.K.’s realization that being afraid doesn’t preclude taking action. The author wears his educator hat throughout this tale—O.K.’s formidable yet kind literature teacher is the book’s primary authority figure, and well-read Leo explains the difference between “famous” and “infamous,” defines such words as “oxymoron” and “plight,” and shares various historic and scientific facts. But Tiefenthaler never sacrifices story and fun for the sake of educational content, just as he knows just how far to go with his portrayals of O.K.’s inner fears and outer torments without copping out. Readers will find the unexpectedly juicy plot turn at the end to be highly satisfying.
Tiefenthaler again proves his ability to craft a humorous, suspenseful story with depth and an authentic voice.Pub Date: June 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-69681-1
Page Count: 198
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
While it fails to reinvent the genre, this action-packed ride through a grim but fascinating world should delight fans of...
A power-hungry government controls the populace through music, and one young woman accepts the formidable task of saving her family and helping to kick-start a revolution in this dystopian YA adventure.
Hanson’s debut novel, the first in a planned trilogy, takes place in the walled-off, steampunk city of Revinia, where all the inhabitants have devices called Singers implanted in their ears at birth. The machines ensure obedience to Revinia’s ruler, The Conductor, by transmitting a form of mental and emotional control called The Music. The heroine, Ronja, has been branded a Mutt, the lowest rung on the social ladder. She works as a driver on the underground train system, struggling to keep her ailing mother and two young cousins afloat. Destiny comes calling when she accepts a courier’s job, delivering a mysterious package to a member of an underground enclave of freedom fighters known as The Anthem. Among them, she learns, “Everything you have ever felt besides strict loyalty—love of a partner, hate of an enemy, terror, excitement, anxiety—all are muted by The Music. Every time your passions spike, they are beat down. You have lived your life shackled to a weightless iron ball.” Freed from her Singer, Ronja joins forces with Roark, one of the leaders of the Resistance, to convince her family to join the group and thwart The Conductor’s plan to unleash an even more crippling form of The Music upon the citizens of Revinia. The central premise of music as a mechanism of control works well here, and the plot moves at a snappy pace, introducing distinctive new characters nimbly throughout while adding shades of detail to more familiar ones. Ronja’s journey to adapt to a life as a rebel fighter while negotiating the repressed memories that emerge following the removal of her Singer is captivating and memorable. Although the protagonist’s evolution from guttersnipe to superhero in the novel’s last quarter feels like quite a sudden leap, it makes for supremely fun reading.
While it fails to reinvent the genre, this action-packed ride through a grim but fascinating world should delight fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent and leave many waiting impatiently for the sequel.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-56983-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Calida Lux Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Exciting, well-written, and thoughtfully humane, this YA adventure should win many fans.
A teenage boy from Kashmir embarks on a quest to retrieve powerful objects for the elephant-headed god Ganesha in this debut fantasy tale.
YA fantasy novels based on Christian, Norse, Celtic, or Greco-Roman sources are legion, from the Narnia books to the Percy Jackson series. Less easy to find are stories drawing on Hindu myth and religion—a gap that this book helps fill. Fourteen-year-old Tarun Sharma lives in Srinigar, in politically unstable Kashmir, with his older brother, mother, and father, who is Kashmir’s chief minister. On the closing day of a festival celebrating the four-armed deity Ganesha, rebels set off a bomb among the revelers, then kidnap Tarun and his mother. The culprits’ truck crashes in the mountains; Tarun escapes, finding his way to a cave. Waiting for him is Ganesha, who needs Tarun’s help to journey to the Veiled Lands and regain three stolen, hidden mystical objects: the deity’s sacred ax, rope, and broken tusk. Recovering them will restore the god’s powers, reunite Tarun’s family, and “end the civil war both inside the Veiled Lands and in Kashmir.” As Tarun faces down dangers and difficulties, he gains new and powerful abilities, earning a place in the continuing fight against evil. Gaur writes a rousing, well-paced adventure story. Though the structure is familiar—a quest giver, three tasks, coming-of-age—in Gaur’s hands, it never feels stale. The tasks provide excellent settings for Tarun to test his wits and courage, show his mettle, and learn more of the Veiled Lands. In Candeuil, for example, Tarun notices the mountain city’s many carved rams’ heads: “Images of bighorn sheep had even been placed on every tenth cobblestone that lined the edge of the roadway. It gave the city an artistic unity.” More than that, the cobblestones turn out to help Tarun in his search. The novel’s ecumenical spirit is generous and intriguing, with hints of a worldwide (not India-specific) battle going on, such as a teenage girl’s mission to recover objects stolen from Gitche Manitou, the Algonquian Great Spirit.
Exciting, well-written, and thoughtfully humane, this YA adventure should win many fans.Pub Date: April 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-66378-3
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Rohit Gaur Studios
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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