If Dad seems less a character than a collection of folksy forest do’s and don’ts, the author’s practice of recounting...
Her dad has climbed Denali, North America’s highest mountain, six times, so when he’s reported as having fallen to his death in a deep crevasse, narrator Lily, 12, knows better than to believe it.
Lily talks her sister, Sophie, 18, into a camping trip in Denali National Park but omits the true reason for their journey: rescuing Dad. Guilt-ridden over her fight with Dad before he left, Sophie doesn’t share Lily’s conviction but likes the suggestion that Dad will hear her apology better there. Mom agrees to their trip reluctantly when reminded that Ranger Collins at the Wonder Lake campground will be there to keep an eye on them. The trip isn’t easy. At the crowded Wilderness Access Center, they’re told that Wonder has no vacancies until the following night. Lily agonizes over the delay—Dad’s now been lost for four days. At Wonder, the weather is rainy and mosquitoes are biting, but Lily’s conviction and drive persuade Sophie to take off, exhausted and sleep-deprived, on the 20-mile trek to the glacier where their father disappeared. Dad’s portrayed as a free spirit and savvy woodsman. His remembered teachings and outdoor lore sustain Lily and help the girls ford icy rivers and survive wildlife (porcupine and grizzlies) encounters. An absence of racial markers will likely have readers seeing them as white.
If Dad seems less a character than a collection of folksy forest do’s and don’ts, the author’s practice of recounting terrifying events in a matter-of-fact tone (an Alaskan specialty) renders the sisters’ journey more than sufficiently compelling. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-97800-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
A lighter-than-air blend of knightly exploits and rib-tickling twists.
Princess Grace of Merryland needs rescuing again, forcing two young knights-in-training to face a series of challenges, from hungry cave sharks to a minotaur named Chad.
Actually, Princess Grace is perfectly capable of rescuing herself—again: see Once Upon a Tim (2022)—except that this time, kidnappers have stashed her in a room that’s locked and bolted on the outside…and in the middle of a maze billed, supposedly, as “the most complex and dastardly labyrinth in the world.” So it is that former peasants Tim and his more capable friend Bull—otherwise known as Belinda when she’s not disguised as a boy—plunge into a mess of dark and bewildering tunnels, armed with a ball of twine provided by the surprisingly sapient village idiot Ferkle, to face a series of deadly threats…though the most legendary of all turns out to be an amiable monster with the body of a bull and the head of, well, a dude. Throughout Gibbs’ lighthearted, laugh-out-loud tale, Curtis supplies proper notes of farce or stark terror as appropriate in flurries of line drawings that present most of the humans and the monsters with human features as White, though Belinda appears to present as Black. Along the way, Tim adds educational value to his narrative by flagging and then pausing to define vocabulary-building words like laborious and vexing.
A lighter-than-air blend of knightly exploits and rib-tickling twists. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-9928-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An entertaining continuation to a magical series that celebrates diversity with a magical twist.
With Rumpelstiltskin and his band of villains still on the loose, the students and staff of Fairy Tale Reform School are on high alert as they prepare for the next attack.
Classes are devoted to teaching battle techniques and conjuring new weapons, which narrator Gilly finds preferable to learning history or manners. But Maxine, her ogress friend, has had it with all the doom and gloom. The last straw is when the agenda at the Royal Lady-in-Waiting meeting is changed from “How to Plan the Perfect Fairy Garden Party” to designing flying rocks and creating flower darts. While on a class field trip to the village to investigate their future careers, Maxine finds a magic lamp housing a genie named Darlene. Her wish that everyone be happy works a little too well. War preparations are put on hold as the school fills with flowers, laughter, and plans for a musical production. But when Gilly is tapped to fill in for the local chief of the dwarf police, things really take a turn for the worse. The students, including fairies, ogres, and the part-human/part-beast offspring of Beauty and the ex-Beast, focus on friendship and supporting one another in spite of their differences. Humility, forgiveness, and loyalty are also highly regarded in the FTRS community. Human Gilly is white, but there is racial as well as species diversity at FTRS.
An entertaining continuation to a magical series that celebrates diversity with a magical twist. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-5167-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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