In this subtly offbeat fantasy, a conscience-stricken screenwriter-turned-werewolf flees into hiding with his two teenaged children. Bitten by a werewolf near Pismo Beach, Ken pulls up stakes for his native Maine, settling in a small town, taking a job with a local telemarketer and figuring that his son Danny can row him out to a nearby offshore nature preserve whenever the full moon appears. That scheme works well enough for a while, even after a marijuana grower surreptitiously lands on the island one moonlit night and barely escapes with his life. Then a vicious December cold snap freezes the entire harbor, allowing the murderous monster access to the mainland, and Danny’s heroic efforts to drive his ravening dad back over the ice using smuggled fireworks leave the telemarketer’s office building a smoking ruin. Garfield lets the tale trail off shortly thereafter, rather than resolving anything—but readers will sympathize with Danny and his sister Miranda, as would-be normal teens forced into the role of protectors and caregivers for their feckless, periodically deadly parent. Readers who enjoyed the sardonic undercurrents in M.T. Anderson’s Thirsty (1997) are apt to catch them here, too. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-689-85180-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Richard Jackson/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last.
The rebellion against an evil archmage and his bowler-topped minions wends its way to a climax.
Dispatching five baddies on the first two pages alone, wand-waving villain-exterminator Vega Jane gathers a motley army of fellow magicals, ghosts, and muggles—sorry, “Wugmorts”—for a final assault on Necro and his natty Maladons. As Necro repeatedly proves to be both smarter and more powerful than Vega Jane, things generally go badly for the rebels, who end up losing their hidden refuge, many of their best fighters, and even the final battle. Baldacci is plainly up on his ancient Greek theatrical conventions, however; just as all hope is lost, a divinity literally descends from the ceiling to referee a winner-take-all duel, and thanks to an earlier ritual that (she and readers learn) gives her a do-over if she’s killed (a second deus ex machina!), Vega Jane comes away with a win…not to mention an engagement ring to go with the magic one that makes her invisible and a new dog, just like the one that died heroically. Measuring up to the plot’s low bar, the narrative too reads like low-grade fanfic, being laden with references to past events, characters who only supposedly died, and such lines as “a spurt of blood shot out from my forehead,” “they started falling at a rapid number,” and “[h]is statement struck me on a number of levels.”
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last. (glossary) (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-26393-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Who can't love a story about a Nigerian-American 12-year-old with albinism who discovers latent magical abilities and saves the world? Sunny lives in Nigeria after spending the first nine years of her life in New York. She can't play soccer with the boys because, as she says, "being albino made the sun my enemy," and she has only enemies at school. When a boy in her class, Orlu, rescues her from a beating, Sunny is drawn in to a magical world she's never known existed. Sunny, it seems, is a Leopard person, one of the magical folk who live in a world mostly populated by ignorant Lambs. Now she spends the day in mundane Lamb school and sneaks out at night to learn magic with her cadre of Leopard friends: a handsome American bad boy, an arrogant girl who is Orlu’s childhood friend and Orlu himself. Though Sunny's initiative is thin—she is pushed into most of her choices by her friends and by Leopard adults—the worldbuilding for Leopard society is stellar, packed with details that will enthrall readers bored with the same old magical worlds. Meanwhile, those looking for a touch of the familiar will find it in Sunny's biggest victories, which are entirely non-magical (the detailed dynamism of Sunny's soccer match is more thrilling than her magical world saving). Ebulliently original. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01196-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
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