The twists along this charming road make for an enchanting journey.
An ugly princess with magical powers must save her island from invasion by the vicious Druzazzi.
In the tradition of The Princess Bride (with somewhat less whimsy) and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Smith’s debut is a fairy tale in a new world. Olive is princess of Rosemount and one of a race of women known as the Winnowwood, who have a magical connection to the natural world and the ability to shape-shift into animal forms. However, each time she uses her powers, a Winnowwood gets progressively uglier. If she cuts off the extra joint, or crux, on her left pinkie that holds her magic, she becomes beautiful—but loses her powers. Olive’s sister Rosaline happily sacrifices her crux for beauty and looks forward to marriage to the handsome but shady Prince Victore, leaving Olive as the last Winnowwood with a crux. Olive has vowed never to cut it off, despite her father’s hatred; even when she saved their island from a Druzazzi invasion, her father was more embarrassed that his fellow kings saw her ugliness than thankful that she and her animal friends saved them from certain death. On Olive’s 18th birthday, her father is ambushed and taken prisoner by the neighboring king of Alganoun; the ransom is for Rosaline to marry an Alganoun prince. Olive takes Rosaline’s place in hopes of rescuing her father, but on the road,she’s kidnapped by the dreaded highwayman Black Bart—himself no Adonis. Soon, it becomes clear that there are deeper conspiracies at work and that the Druzazzi are about to make another attempt on the island. Olive begins to wonder if Bart may be the man to lift the curse of the Winnowwood—by loving her despite her looks. Unfortunately, the text is in need of another round of editing—inexplicable switches in tense, clunky phrasing and a need for some better-placed punctuation—and certain scenes, such as Olive in cat form spying on Bart with a mouse sitting on her head to guide her, need more attention to detail. Yet the theme of the power of natural magic versus that of human beauty is treated seriously without getting didactic, and most of the characters, including Olive, are intriguingly flawed. In the end, most readers will look forward to the sequel promised in the epilogue.
The twists along this charming road make for an enchanting journey.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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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