A variety of stories from Jones’some of which have appeared in other volumes in the US and/or the UK—have been newly gathered into this offering, certain to lure fans of the supernatural. The one entirely new story portrays Anne Smith, a girl in bed with mumps. To pass the time she dreams up “Enna Hittims,” a tiny out-of-control superheroine who attacks her own creator and ends up squashed. The other stories, products of a supremely quirky imagination, certainly deserve a new showing. In “The Sage of Theare,” a boy finds himself by stalking his own future. Jones tackles Greek myths in “The Girl Who Loved the Sun,” an exploration of a girl who decides to turn into a tree. In “What the Cat Told Me,” cat lovers will enjoy learning the history of a rather older-than-normal kitty who used her wiles to escape an evil magician. The remaining tales are “The Master,” “Dragon Reserve, Home Eight,” and the typographically-inspired “nad and Dan adn Quaffy.” Those who have a few of these stories collected elsewhere may balk at the purchase, but others will relish the stories. The intriguing introduction illuminates the author’s methodology, including a written admission that she finds ideas everywhere, even in typos. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16843-4
Page Count: 141
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
The 12th book in the animated epic about the inhabitants and friends and enemies of Redwall Abbey, this is a grand, seafaring odyssey about Martin the mouse warrior and his treacherous return to the place of his youth. After the evil Vilu Daskar mercilessly massacred Luke’s wife and most of his tribe, Luke left his son Martin behind in order to avenge his wife’s death, never to return. With only the words of an old ballad to go on, an older and determined Martin, Trimp the hedgehog, and the mousethief, Gonff, set forth to battle weasels, water rats, aggressive crows, and tree vermin. Tricking the fox, Sholabar, into giving up his sea vessel, they locate half of the wreckage of Luke’s ship wedged between two monolithic boulders. Martin is reunited with four remaining shipmates who give him Luke’s journal; it outlines his capture by Vilu Daskar and plan to ram Vilu’s boat into the mammoth stones, thereby avenging his wife’s death and ridding the seas of Vilu’s treachery forever. Martin’s inner search and struggles with beasts of both land and sea will remind older readers of Homer, while also satisfying voracious fans of Jacques’s series. The formulas are gratifyingly intact as Martin discovers, as all fatherless children hope to, that his parent had not abandoned him, but heroically sacrificed his life for the welfare of others. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-399-23490-X
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
Despite the title, Hite’s latest is no sci-fi, futuristic effort, but a modern novel with a first-person narrative with echoes of such classics as Catcher in the Rye. Cecil lives in “historic” Bricksburg, a Virginia backwater made up of colorful eccentrics, where the biggest excitement is over who altered a local sign to read “Welcome to Hysteric Pricksburg.” Such vandalism is of felony proportions, and the leading suspect happens to be Cecil’s best friend, Isaac, who maintains his innocence as well as his cool. Throw in Cecil’s romantic struggle between the town’s fickle bombshell and the girl-next-door, Isaac’s younger sister, and this has all the makings of a conventional read; it transcends such labels with the addition of Hite’s keen sense of the absurd, Cecil’s mature, witty observations and his morose pronouncements about life on Earth. Cecil’s ongoing discourse on the problems of the universe grow trying, but readers will relate to—and laugh over—his simple struggle to find his way. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5055-8
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
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