Readers will applaud the Monty Python–esque exploits of this hoofed hero. Just don’t call him a horse.
Fun and games in the Coliseum.
Captured and shipped from Africa with other animals to the big city, Julius Zebra is naively thrilled to discover that he’s headed for the circus. Juggling monkeys! Dogs riding horses! The reality—that he and his mates are headed not for the seats but the arena itself for gladiatorial slaughter—comes as a terrible shock. Instead of going meekly, Julius grabs a sword (readers may wonder how, but the author breezily ignores such cavils) and puts up so stout a defense that he wins over both the crowd and Emperor Hadrian himself. In a romp liberally endowed with scribbly line drawings and comical dialogue in balloons, Northfield puts his striped celebrity at the head of a diverse band of animal captives, including nerdy warthog Cornelius and Lucia, a vegetarian crocodile. They proceed through a series of abortive escape attempts and bruising but bloodless battles, including a re-enactment of the conquest of the Gauls. To give the manic proceedings a tinge of historical color, the author also tucks in real Latin place names and martial vocabulary, numbers the pages with Roman numerals, and helpfully appends both a glossary and a tutorial. Considering the setting, the situation, and the looming prospect of violent death, the nonexistent body count seems a bit of a stretch.
Readers will applaud the Monty Python–esque exploits of this hoofed hero. Just don’t call him a horse. (map) (Farce. 10-12)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7853-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Less charming than the opener but does feature a thimbleful of moral quandary at its center.
Armed only with her magical sewing needle, foundling mouse Delphine sets out to confront the cruel rat king in this duology closer.
As vicious rat armies pillage the mouse realms in search of her and her pointy, long-hidden treasure, Delphine finds herself waging an inner war that parallels the outer one. According to dusty documents and other reputable sources, the needle’s good powers can be perverted, but she sees no other way except killing to stop evil rat King Midnight. While struggling with a grim determination to go over to the dark side that sets her at odds with her own fundamentally loving nature, Delphine threads her way along with loyal allies past various scrapes—only to come, climactically, face to face with not only her nemesis, but her own past. Moon stitches in flashbacks to fill out the details of a tragic old love triangle that reaches its fruition here and sews her tale up with a return to Château Desjardins just in time for Cinderella’s wedding and a celebratory rodentine ball in the chandelier overhead, and she leaves a fringe of epilogue hinting at further installments to come.
Less charming than the opener but does feature a thimbleful of moral quandary at its center. (secret codes) (Animal fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-368-04833-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A charming series opener.
A foundling mouse sets out to uncover the mystery of her origins and of the magical needle sized for humans that was left with her.
Delphine’s travels begin with a summons to the palace, where her growing reputation as a brilliant seamstress commands an order for a ball gown for Princess Petits-Oiseaux—and also gives her a chance to discover exciting hints about a vanished order of needle-wielding magic mice known as the Threaded and of an ancient war with the rats. Meanwhile, no sooner does Midnight, cruel king of the rats, learn that the needle they have been seeking for a century has been found than said old war suddenly heats up and turns into a deadly chase. Also meanwhile, only barely noticed by the animal cast but sure to snag readers’ attention, certain events involving another seamstress, a pumpkin coach, a ball, a prince, and a glass slipper are happening above the floorboards in the parallel human world. That isn’t the only sly touch in this bibbidi bobbidi debut, which is rich in clearly delineated character types, features plenty of brisk action, and is also, overall, more than a bit reminiscent in tone and setting to Brian Jacques’ Redwall series (though with more focus on fashion than food). While this volume is mostly setup, heroes and villains alike end up on their marks, and plenty of loose ends remain to stitch up later.
A charming series opener. (Animal fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-368-04802-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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