Not likely to be an easy sell due to the unusual time period and slow beginning, but readers who forge ahead will enjoy an...
A 13-year-old boy joins a caravan to find someone who knew his dead father and encounters a sand sea of dangers in ancient China, 630 C.E.
A ghost wind calls Chengli to leave the Imperial City of Chang’an, which he loves, and Old Cook, who raised him, to sign on as a lowly camel boy with a trade caravan carrying silk and thousands of precious items. They trek west, leaving the protection of China’s Great Wall, and skirt the edge of the fearful desert until they reach Kashgar, where hundreds of caravans come together to buy and sell everything imaginable. When a princess betrothed to marry the ruler of a nomad kingdom joins the caravan, the 2,000-mile journey becomes even more dangerous. The rigors of sands and winds aren’t the only hazards Chengli faces: There are also a traitorous new friend, horse-riding thieves who abduct the princess, beatings and imprisonment. Cultural practices and beliefs are detailed, and descriptions depict the setting and era though the dialogue slips a few times into the colloquial. Three pages of historical notes serve as a glossary, but there is no map, which would be helpful. All in all, this is reminiscent of the work of Lloyd Alexander, though, sadly, not as sparkling.
Not likely to be an easy sell due to the unusual time period and slow beginning, but readers who forge ahead will enjoy an interesting adventure. (Historical fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-933718-54-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
The exquisite writing can’t compensate for the story’s overwrought elements.
In Wolk’s latest, a self-contained girl finds companionship in one of the most notoriously unfriendly of places: a Maine island.
Twelve-year-old Lucretia and her mother, both artists, have moved to fictional Candle Island for the isolation; grieving the recent loss of Lucretia’s father and with a big secret to keep, they need to be where, as her mother says, “they’ll let us be who we are.” Lucretia soon draws the ire of prickly Murdock and the tentative friendship of Bastian, her cousin, two townies with secrets of their own. Among the island’s summer people are a nosy art critic and three young sociopaths, who all complicate life for Lucretia and her mother, though in very different ways. At a sentence level, this work glows. Lucretia hears sounds as colors (although synesthesia goes unmentioned), layering them onto her narration the way she applies her oils to canvas. Wolk’s characterization and plotting, however, waver. The children too often speak with a formality that’s not attributable to the late 1960s / early ’70s setting, and Lucretia’s self-possession frequently makes her feel far older than 12. The tense cultural backdrop would be an effective one for the exploration of Wolk’s themes were it not for the three summer kids’ flagrant evil, which leaches the story of its subtlety. Most characters present white.
The exquisite writing can’t compensate for the story’s overwrought elements. (Historical fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780593698549
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
An epic muddle, all in all.
In typically buoyant cartoons, Williams presents a précis of Hugo’s epic.
It’s hard to imagine an illustrator less suited to this exhausting story and vice versa. In sequential panels large and small, Valjean and the other characters appear in picturesquely patched and rumpled costume. The background slums, sewers and, in later scenes, barricades are atmospherically stained and littered with detritus, but even during the most desperate and tragic events there are smiles and stage antics on view. Small birds, busy rats and cats, sprigs of garland and like decorative motifs add entertaining distractions within the pictures and along the borders of every page. Furthermore, even if portions of the dialogue enclosed in the speech balloons are credibly translated from the original, some of them have a jarringly jocular ring: “Since I am not arrested and I have things to do, I’m going”; “The old geezer and his daughter are on their way.” In contrast to the lively, fluidly drawn watercolors, the lines or blocks of narrative running beneath every picture offer a dry, past-tense plot summary that may possibly be helpful to assignment-driven slackers but go on long enough to try the interest of younger readers.
An epic muddle, all in all. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7476-2
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
