A richly detailed debut with a classic feel, full of grit, gore, and gilt.
When she tries to save her neck, a young girl learns there are dangers outside the dungeon too.
Brought to the Tower of London as a motherless baby, 12-year-old Moss hates her limited life and reviled role as the basket girl, carrying the heads of the newly decapitated after Pa beheads Henry VIII’s prisoners. She loves stories, like the one of the Riverwitch, but she rebels when she doubts her father’s tales of their ties to the tower. Seizing the first chance at freedom, Moss plunges right into the Thames and danger. She hobnobs with nobles, befriends a boot thief, and tangles with the supernatural spirit who tries to lure children beneath the icy surface. Hardstaff gambles with her blend of fiction and folklore and her compression of dates, but she excels with her depiction of Tudor England, offering lavish descriptions of clothing and food, a moderate amount of lower-class dialect, and a slew of stench and grime. Anne Boleyn comes off a bit too prescient and moralistic to be believed, but court politics get an arch appraisal. Unhampered by any real historical role yet propelled by the fairy-tale undercurrent, Moss shifts, rebellious adolescent, clever child, and fortuitous historical-fiction heroine by turn.
A richly detailed debut with a classic feel, full of grit, gore, and gilt. (Historical fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: April 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-60684-562-2
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Series fans may enjoy this patched-together prelude.
Twin wizards duel, fret, switch roles, and fall for the same guy in this prequel to the popular series.
Continuing on the theme that it isn’t as easy to distinguish good from evil as it might seem, Chainani goes back to a time when the titular school was run by a pair of immortal adolescents. School Masters Rhian and Rafal have been told that loving one another is the only way to maintain the balance between Good and Evil at the school, but a long run of folk and fairy tales written out by the mysterious pen called the Storian—in which Good triumphs—has led to a fraternal rift. The assignment of decided scapegrace Aladdin to, astonishingly, the School for Good widens the antagonism (could the Storian have made a mistake?). But though Aladdin is the main point-of-view character for major stretches in the early going, no sooner does he hook up with dazzling schoolmate Princess Kyma than the author shoves him deep into the supporting cast to make room for a jealousy-fueled break and some bad behavior that comes when first Rafal then Rhian lock gazes and lips with pirate trainee James Hook (latest of a long line of villains defeated by a certain other ageless teen). Most of the cast reads as White. Lush but rare illustrations underscore dramatic incidents.
Series fans may enjoy this patched-together prelude. (Fantasy. 11-14)Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-316152-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
A lesser-known aspect of Native American history that promises the excitement of riding the rails yet delivers a handcar...
Twelve-year-old Cal Blackbird trades the freedom of hobo living with his father, a World War I vet, for the regimented world of Challagi Indian Boarding School.
Set in spring and summer of 1932 Depression-era America, Bruchac’s (Abenaki) historical novel sees narrator Cal and his father riding the rails, eking out a meager and honest life as inseparable “knights of the road.” But when Pop reads news about fellow veterans gathering in Washington, D.C., to demand payment of promised bonuses, he decides to “join [his] brother soldiers.” To keep Cal safe while away, Pop tells him about their Creek heritage and enrolls him at Challagi. Even though he’s only “half Creek” and has been raised white, Cal easily makes friends there with a gang of Creek boys and learns more about his language and culture in the process. Though the book is largely educational, Creek readers may notice the language discrepancy when their word for “African-American” is twice used to label a light-skinned Creek boy. Additionally, Cal’s articulation of whiteness sounds more like a 21st-century adult’s then a Depression-era boy’s. More broadly, readers accustomed to encountering characters who struggle along their journeys may find many of the story’s conflicts resolved without significant tension and absent the resonant moments that the subject matter rightly deserves.
A lesser-known aspect of Native American history that promises the excitement of riding the rails yet delivers a handcar version of the boarding school experience. (list of characters, afterword) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2886-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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