Some tonal inconsistency, but overall, an original, entertaining YA fantasy.
A young boy discovers a dream world that exists between the cracks of reality in his home in this omnibus of the first five books of Batt’s Tales of Dreamside series.
Keaghan is a seemingly ordinary kid who one day accidentally slips into a magical reality called the Dreamside, which is full of lost things both from Keagan’s real life and his dreams. It’s inhabited by small, twiglike creatures—the Caretakers and the Knitters. As Topit, the main Caretaker who befriends him, explains, all homes have a Dreamside. As a Caretaker, his main responsibility is to ensure that everything runs smoothly, while the Knitters mend the holes in reality that are torn whenever someone dreams. In the first novel, Keaghan becomes acquainted with this strange world and eventually finds his way home. The second through fifth follow a longer arc; all Dreamsides are under attack by malevolent creatures known as the Tomsi, who seem to have been set off by Keaghan refusing to give them his lost tooth, causing him to take up a quest to save the land and friends he’d grown to love. This is a phenomenally imaginative series, with a strong, relatable child protagonist, collected in this handsome, beautifully illustrated edition. It can also be appealingly dark, with eerie fairy-tale motifs such as the clever concept that the Tomsi once required a tithe of children’s bones, until they agreed to take teeth instead, thus explaining the origins of the Tooth Fairy myth. If it has any major faults, it’s that these richer, wickedly funny elements don’t always rest fully easily with the books’ otherwise lighthearted tone and sometimes simplistic morals. The former seem more suited to slightly older children raised on Roald Dahl novels, while the boy’s epiphany at the end of the first novel that “A home is a dream of love made real” feels targeted to a much younger crowd.
Some tonal inconsistency, but overall, an original, entertaining YA fantasy.Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990638506
Page Count: 388
Publisher: StoryJitsu
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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