This heartfelt adventure signals hope for humanity, even in the aftermath of darkness.
Thirteen-year-old Leandro Rivera and his 9-year-old sister, Gabi, brave the harsh reality of a segregated settlement in post-apocalyptic California.
Spanish-speaking Cascabeles like Leandro are forced to work the fields to provide for elite English-speaking Pocatelans or risk exile and certain death in the desolate and dangerous monster-filled outside world. Descended from farmers who worked the land before the calamity that made everything barren, the orphaned siblings, who survive as pickpockets, face discrimination within the city’s walls and are threatened with deadly punishment for even minor offenses. Leandro and Gabi hatch a plan to escape from their oppressors, live free in the wild, and return to the ways of their people. Their plans derail, however, when Leandro is banished for stealing after he covers for Gabi’s impulsive theft of a strawberry. But Leandro’s magical transformation leads to a breathtaking discovery that could transform the lives of everyone in Pocatel. In Leandro’s hero’s journey, alebrijes are brilliantly cast as animalistic machines from another era and saviors of the living. The story examines how people can build better societies from the ashes of unequal, oppressive, and corrupt ones. Softly rendered black-and-white illustrations evoke the terrors and wonders of a broken world through a child’s eyes. Strong worldbuilding uses the familiar and the fantastic to prod readers to consider the story’s parallels to real-world injustices and the ethics of power, storytelling, and greed.
This heartfelt adventure signals hope for humanity, even in the aftermath of darkness. (map) (Dystopian. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781646142637
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not as strong as the series opener, but the space battles galore will satisfy returning fans.
Lunar Jones and Dread the dragon rally the Dread Knights to defend Mars from attack by Triton, the dragon from Neptune’s largest moon.
About a year has passed since 14-year-old Lunar Jones became a dragoon and bonded with Dread, the planetary dragon of Mars. In this second series entry, Mars is now productive and again accepting Earthers as settlers, while Lunar adjusts to being in a leadership role, despite being younger than most of those he commands and “responsible for protecting all of Mars.” Proctor (strategy), Doc (programming), Little Will (lead scout), and Mara (who’s nicknamed “Wildcard”) reprise their crucial roles, while the story is fleshed out with other familiar faces, a batch of new recruits, and dragoons and dragons from throughout the solar system. Upon the approach of unknown vessels into Mars’ atmosphere, Lunar and Dread recall uncomfortable rumors about hostility from Neptune’s dragons, and the battles begin. Lunar narrates most chapters; occasional sections are told from Proctor’s point of view. A whiff of romantic attraction doesn’t impede the nonstop action, and the epilogue points to more entries to come. The dragon backstory holds together, although several innovations that appear at just the right time and support healing or offer battle advantages feel like overly easy solutions. Most humans present white.
Not as strong as the series opener, but the space battles galore will satisfy returning fans. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781665946544
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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