Perhaps a tad longer than necessary, this generally well-paced post-legend take on the Robin Hood myth will captivate action...
A young novice nun wrongfully accused of Robin Hood’s murder must clear her name.
Elinor Dray has been living at Kirklees Abbey since her mother was hanged for poaching on the baron’s lands four years prior. Nevertheless, need outweighs danger, and Ellie often slips out to hunt in Sherwood Forest with her friends, the League of Archers. One evening she helps a lone archer injured by a poisoned arrow only to discover he's Robin Hood—and the mother abbess is Maid Marian. Third-person narration communicates Elinor’s confusion, elation, and disappointment in meeting her hero only to have him die—and wonder if he was a hero after all. Readers may need to suspend disbelief when the baron accuses Ellie—who, though a skilled archer, is just 12—of Hood’s murder. Ellie eventually escapes the baron’s clutches and reunites with the League, but in order to stay safe and save Maid Marian, she must find the Merry Men while grappling with such questions as whether the sacrifice of life for the greater good is ethical. This book doesn’t shy away from deep moral dilemmas often unexplored in middle-grade novels and important to acknowledge in a story with life-or-death stakes. Unsurprisingly, the principal characters are white.
Perhaps a tad longer than necessary, this generally well-paced post-legend take on the Robin Hood myth will captivate action and adventure fans and lovers of historical fiction alike . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6037-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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