A hopeful, exciting, and action-packed adventure.
Raised as a vital but passive magical knowledge repository, a girl gets the chance to play a more active role in saving her city of Danak-Tol.
Codex Delta (who thinks she’s perhaps 11 or 12) lives secretly in the Vault with the other young codexes, where they’re required to hold echoes of the past in their minds. It distresses her to remember nothing of her life before being summoned to the Vault nearly six years ago. Lonely Delta wishes she were allowed to befriend the other codexes (or anyone at all), but she knows that one day her service will end and she’ll get to live with her parents in Danak-Tol. That’s what Chief Warden Veela promises every codex. One day, Delta breaks the rules by allowing herself to be seen by a city dweller—a young girl whom she saves from a horrifying bloodstorm. In the aftermath, everything changes. When Chief Warden Veela shockingly takes Delta out into the city to meet with the governor, the children of a government official tell Delta that her whole life’s been a lie. As she tries to make sense of this new knowledge, everything spins out of control, and she must flee to the wastelands, where she’s faced with the question of what to do next. This multiracial environmental allegory is fast paced, barely letting white-presenting Delta draw breath between crises. Readers will be drawn in by the warm, wholesome cast of characters.
A hopeful, exciting, and action-packed adventure. (Science fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781665963572
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Black math-whiz and puzzle lover Bree starts a new life in Florida, where she’ll be tossed into the deep end in more ways than one. Keeping her head above water may be the trickiest puzzle yet.
While her dad is busy working and training in IT, Bree struggles at first to settle into Enith Brigitha Middle School, largely due to the school’s preoccupation with swimming—from the accomplishments of its namesake, a Black Olympian from Curaçao, to its near victory at the state swimming championships. But Bree can’t swim. To illustrate her anxiety around this fact, the graphic novel’s bright colors give way to gray thought bubbles with thick, darkened outlines expressing Bree’s deepest fears and doubts. This poignant visual crowds some panels just as anxious feelings can crowd the thoughts of otherwise star students like Bree. Ultimately, learning to swim turns out to be easy enough with the help of a kind older neighbor—a Black woman with a competitive swimming past of her own as well as a rich and bittersweet understanding of Black Americans’ relationship with swimming—who explains to Bree how racist obstacles of the past can become collective anxiety in the present. To her surprise, Bree, with her newfound water skills, eventually finds herself on the school’s swim team, navigating competition, her anxiety, and new, meaningful relationships.
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305677-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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