A rich window into a unique cultural community.
A family emergency sends a tween to live with a relative she didn’t know existed and who holds the secret to her beloved grandmother’s past.
Eleven-year-old Delphinia Baker is used to being uprooted. Her dad’s in the military, and changing duty stations means Del and her grandmother must pack up and move too. However, when Gramma suddenly falls ill, Del’s world changes unimaginably. With her father deployed, she’s sent to stay with Nana Rose, Gramma’s mother, on one of South Carolina’s Sea Islands. Nana Rose runs a boarding school dedicated to keeping the lore and traditions of the Gullah people alive, including conjure magic. Del is skeptical about magic, and her worries about Gramma plus the island’s isolation weigh on her mind. The school, the teachers, and even the other students feel strange. Eva, Del’s roommate, is friendly, but Del is reluctant to open up to her. Soon it becomes clear that the magic is real, and Del is determined to discover why Gramma kept this part of her life hidden. Her struggles to work magic cause her to worry whether she will ever understand her family’s past—and land her in some precarious situations. Following her acclaimed debut, Root Magic (2021), Royce offers readers another strong fantasy steeped in Gullah culture, featuring mythic creatures, ghosts, and brooms that facilitate spells. Del is a fully realized protagonist who convincingly changes from a wary observer to a young person embracing her heritage.
A rich window into a unique cultural community. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9780062899613
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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