Succinct and marvelously told; a middle-grade fantasy for everyone.
A would-be hero sets off on a quest to prove himself worthy in this middle-grade fantasy.
Twelve-year-old Hobart Septavious of Finnagen wants to be a knight. But he must be nominated to the King’s School for the Education of Future Knights by May Day or he’ll have surpassed the age limit to enroll. He leaves the family’s pig farm determined to perform heroic feats, and his mother says, “Have fun playing dragon slayer.” Hobart visits Mildred the Wise, who points him toward the last local dragon at Castle Flamegon. She also gives him an error-ridden almanac, an endless bag of turnips, a spool of unbreakable string, and Albert the talking horse. Though receiving a sword would have been nice, Hobart hits the road and soon encounters a wolf. After inadvertently chasing the beast away, he finds that he’s saved a boy named Tate of Fair Oaks. The boy joins Hobart’s quest to repay him, and eventually, they’re challenged by an elderly knight named Sir Danton of Mortico. A girl named Hero arrives and explains, “My grandfather gets confused.” When Sir Danton believes himself “bested,” he offers Hobart his sword, Guardian. Hero also joins the quest to face the dragon, which will be like nothing the teens have imagined. Mullaly’s middle-grade fantasy will effortlessly charm readers both young and old. Hobart has a stutter and is bullied by Lord Finnegan’s nephew, William the Tormentor, yet he chases his dream of knighthood. Clean prose bolsters dry humor, like when Hobart isn’t sure that having a talking horse is a good idea: “By the end of the day, I was sure. It was a bad thing.” During the adventure, each of Mildred’s seemingly useless gifts proves urgently needed in a particular situation, like the turnip bag that feeds starving villagers. One character tells the adventurers, “When we are young, we think we are immortal, but the years will pass...too quickly.” Mullaly’s message that compassion should supersede personal gain unfolds subtly and beautifully. Her cast exits the stage quickly, sure to make fans crave more.
Succinct and marvelously told; a middle-grade fantasy for everyone.Pub Date: July 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-647737-3
Page Count: 94
Publisher: Favored Oak Press
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
SEEN & HEARD
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