Suspenseful and heartening.
In this alternate historical London, anyone with more than 15% witch blood is banished; royals are not exempt.
Queen Alexandria, with her sister Isolde by her side, ascended the throne after crushing a witch uprising. Since then, all 13-year-olds have been tested for witch blood. When Prince Edgar and Isolde’s daughter, Emma, are tested, they fail. They, along with two others, Maddie and Eliza, are put on the Witch Express, a train supposedly heading to Scotland. But Eliza informs them that, actually, nooses await them. With assistance from a sympathizer, the foursome escape with instructions to find Witch City. But first, they must traverse the changeable In-Between as they are chased by the murderous queen, a witch hunter, and a monster. Survival depends on using their individual gifts: Maddie’s thought control, Eliza’s fire starting, Edgar’s bird communication, plus Emma’s alarming ability to hear others’ heartbeats—and even stop them. As they untangle the lies they’ve been fed, they uncover terrible secrets about the uprising and its aftermath. The brisk tale, colored with inventive details, is told with a focus on Emma’s perspective. Intrigue, betrayals, and threats of filicide heighten the drama, but it is the awesome possibilities awakened when one embraces one’s powers that lie at the heart of this story. Themes around rewriting history and the oppression of certain groups will invite the contemplation of parallels to the real world. Most characters default to White; Eliza has dark skin and curly hair.
Suspenseful and heartening. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-101-91931-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Gripping and pretty dark—but, in the end, food, family, friendship, and straight facts win out over guile, greed, and terror.
Rowling buffs up a tale she told her own children about a small, idyllic kingdom nearly destroyed by corrupt officials.
In the peaceful land of Cornucopia, the Ickabog has always been regarded as a legendary menace until two devious nobles play so successfully on the fears of naïve King Fred the Fearless that the once-prosperous land is devastated by ruinous taxes supposedly spent on defense while protesters are suppressed and the populace is terrorized by nighttime rampages. Pastry chef Bertha Beamish organizes a breakout from the local dungeon just as her son, Bert, and his friend Daisy Dovetail arrive…with the last Ickabog, who turns out to be real after all. Along with full plates of just deserts for both heroes and villains, the story then dishes up a metaphorical lagniappe in which the monster reveals the origins of the human race. The author frames her story as a set of ruminations on how evil can grow and people can come to believe unfounded lies. She embeds these themes in an engrossing, tightly written adventure centered on a stomach-wrenching reign of terror. The story features color illustrations by U.S. and Canadian children selected through an online contest. Most characters are cued as White in the text; a few illustrations include diverse representation.
Gripping and pretty dark—but, in the end, food, family, friendship, and straight facts win out over guile, greed, and terror. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-73287-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable.
Six New Jersey 12-year-olds separated by decades race to ensure the “good guys” win World War II in this middle-grade work by the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and her brother, a children's author and journalist.
It all starts with a ham radio that Alice, Lawrence, and Artie fool around with in 1944 and Henry, Frances, and Lukas find in 2023. It’s late April, and the 1944 kids worry about loved ones in combat, while the 2023 kids study the war in school. When, impossibly, the radio allows the kids to communicate across time, it doesn’t take long before they share information that changes history. Can the two sets of kids work across a 79-year divide to prevent the U.S.A. from becoming the Nazi-controlled dystopia of Westfallen? This propulsive thriller includes well-paced cuts between times that keep the pages turning. Like most people in their small New Jersey town, Alice, Artie, and Frances are white. In 1944, Lawrence, who’s Black, endures bigotry; in the U.S.A. of 2023, Henry’s biracial (white and Black) identity and Lukas’ Jewish one are unremarkable, but in Westfallen, Henry’s a “mischling” doing “work-learning,” and Lukas is a menial laborer. Alice’s and Henry’s dual first-person narration zooms in on the adventure, but readers who pull back may find themselves deeply uneasy with the summary consideration paid to the real-life fates of European Jews and disabled people. The cliffhanger ending will have them hoping for more thoughtful treatment in sequels to come.
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781665950817
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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