On a future Earth, 12-year-old Ellie pilots a fighter pod from an orbiting space station to England. Although she’s determined to reunite with her parents and twin brother Mika, she is recaptured by government agents. How Mika discovers the secrets of their dystopian society and begins to seek a peaceful solution to them propels the exciting, suspenseful plot. In fact, this compulsive read should not be started at bedtime if readers intend to get any sleep. Echoes of Ender’s Game and the Tripod Trilogy lend interest to Clayton’s skillful blending of science-fiction tropes into an original novel. Transportation pods, monstrous cyborg animals, advanced healing techniques and the scientific study of ESP provide the details that make this world work. The book’s climax, although satisfying in itself, does not resolve all readers’ questions or tie up the loose ends that provide an enticing glimpse of possibilities for future volumes. Since it ends with a walloping cliffhanger, here’s hoping a sequel appears in our not-too-distant future. (Science fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-439-92593-8
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
A very funny little book about a fairy and the family she elects to live with after they confess they believe in her. On a perfectly normal Sunday, as Caroline and her parents are motoring off to the Natural History Museum, a fairy who calls herself Hilary suddenly appears and asks to join them. She joins the family, too, looking like an ordinary child and behaving like one, at least until Caroline coaxes her into a little fairy magic. She gives the family cat, King Arthur, the power to talk, and makes him invisible so he can go to school with the girls. Her magic makes Halloween a little more wondrous, and helps the girls construct the biggest snowman ever. When they’re invited to a birthday party that features a lame magician, Hilary give him a hand, secretly, and he outperforms himself. A dour plane trip turns into a glorious one with Hilary’s aid, while her work in Caroline’s mother’s garden makes other gardeners jealous. In her wonderful frolic, Strauss mingles ordinary events and enchantment with ease; the fun is complemented by charmingly droll black-and-white drawings. (Fiction. 7-11)
Pub Date: April 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1418-3
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A teenage knight sets out to rescue a princess kidnapped by a dragon and discovers that compromise will (sometimes) solve more problems than violence. So eager is Crum to make this worthy point, however, that she’s neglected to embed it in a tale that has much to offer beyond trite story elements and scenes more described than experienced. Stout heart beating in a pipsqueak body, Thomas rises speedily from leatherworker’s son to Knight of the Realm, then borrows a donkey to chase after the dragon who has seized the aging King’s only daughter. Along the way, Thomas loses his sword, donkey and much of his clothing, reaching the dragon’s lair to discover that Princess Eleanor was taken to be nanny to a gang of cute-as-puppies dragon hatchlings. Being the eldest of ten siblings, Thomas expertly lands a hand—and as courage, honesty and courtesy are his only remaining “weapons,” the dragonlings’ huge mom obligingly limits herself to the same for their climactic competition. Fans of Gerald Morris’s similar tales of knightly morality will find this one disappointingly thin. (Fantasy. 10-12)
Pub Date: July 13, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-375-85703-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
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