An entertaining fantasy for readers interested in magic and science.
In this debut middle-grade novel, a tween gets caught in a dangerous situation involving a magical world.
Ever since magic returned with the Big Boom nearly 40 years ago, the continent of Harmonycan has never been the same. Magic is illegal, a government agency called FAHLT executes its users, and the world of anthropomorphic, animal-like biests is strictly separate and hidden from human society. It’s in the settlement of Hope Town that Zyk, a 12-year-old boy with a missing father, yearns to study the nature of magic: “It’s not enough to just read about them in FAHLT dispatches. I want to learn more about magical stuff for real.” During a covert investigation of a feroxcat sighting in the nearby forest, Zyk stumbles across a magical villain called Blight attacking a catlike biest named Pitch. Zyk takes the hit instead and blacks out, only to wake up in Misty Ruse, the biests’ community outside Hope Town. He discovers that he’s been cursed by Blight and can’t leave Misty Ruse. Fortunately, the biests turn out to be a welcoming group of many different kinds of species with varying abilities. Despite his concern for his mother back home, Zyk is excited to learn magic and make new friends while he remains in Misty Ruse. His cousin Eva soon joins him and, together with Pitch, they must not only experience the rites of passage of growing up magical, but also resist Blight’s continued attacks on the community. While much of the novel is simply focused on Zyk struggling to adapt to his new education and lessons about Misty Ruse, it doesn’t feel slow or poorly paced. Instead, readers will discover the wonders of this world alongside him. The occasional illustrations do break the effect, as their highly edited nature and lack of proper lighting make them confusing and off-putting. Still, Growler’s enjoyable fantasy series opener provides the magic school genre with some original twists in its vivid introduction of the biests.
An entertaining fantasy for readers interested in magic and science.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 979-8988648604
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
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