A fine tale with well-conceived quests, strong characters, exciting confrontations, and a delightful resolution.
Three children continue their mission to ensure the world’s survival in this fantasy sequel.
In the first installment of this series, the white Temple kids—older sister Julie and her brother, Leo—along with their African American neighbor Annabel—sailed in a magical, invisible flying boat on a quest to free water sprites from their monstrous captors. This was the first step in reuniting humans with elementals (such as dwarfs and fairies), ushering in the new age of light. But a great battle is still to be fought, with the children playing an essential role. As Brathnar, King of the Dwarfs, explains, many forces “desire the destruction of the inner light and our shared world….Earth’s fate depends on you.” The kids make a long and perilous journey to bring the Water of Light from deep underground and distribute it (in the form of magical seeds) as healing medicine for Mother Earth’s droughts and wildfires. The threesome also discover what’s happened to Annabel’s missing older brother, Massud, and retrieve an essential artifact that helps them and the elemental powers battle Zuratrat, the fearsome Molten Dragon. Succeeding could heal the world, gain a treasure, and make many wishes come true. The author continues the fun, thrills, and lively characters from the series opener (The Invisible Boat, 2014) in this follow-up for fourth graders and up. Readers learn more about the neighbors in the Temples’ brownstone who contribute to the quest; Mr. Hoover, for example, is a private detective, and he helps the three children nail down clues related to Massud. Müller’s (Rounding the Cape of Good Hope, 2017, etc.) ending nicely brings all the good guys together for a conclusion that’s logical and satisfying. The author’s descriptions, especially of settings, are a joy, with well-chosen details to linger over, whether the location is a fantasy landscape, a magic shop, or a detective’s office. As before, the book has an urgently serious message of ethical responsibility to the environment, but it doesn’t feel preachy thanks to the story’s highly colored adventures.
A fine tale with well-conceived quests, strong characters, exciting confrontations, and a delightful resolution.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943582-98-3
Page Count: 396
Publisher: Waldorf Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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