by Jane Louise Curry ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001
Tee is resentful, irritable, shy, self-conscious, contrary, and determined to be miserable. In short, she’s a fairly typical middle-school-age girl. She is particularly unhappy because her parents have moved the family from Maine to a small desert town upon receiving a substantial inheritance from an eccentric great uncle, who was an expert in Egyptology. He left Tee a shabti, a small box containing a wooden figure that would act as a servant in the afterlife of an entombed princess. When the hieroglyphs on the box are deciphered, the shabti is awakened. Tee is delighted at first, as she commands the shabti to do her chores, her homework, and even go to school for her, while she spends her days at home reading her beloved adventure stories. The shabti becomes more comfortable in Tee’s world than Tee is herself and eventually attempts to take her place permanently. Fantasy must be completely logical, and must create in the reader an absolute belief in all the possibilities—and Curry (The Wonderful Sky Boat, 2001, etc.) masters the technique admirably. She makes each incident seem not only plausible, but also inevitable. Tee moves from skepticism to total immersion in the magic, and from pleasure to concern about the shabti’s growing power. Along the way she comes to accept her strengths instead of wallowing in her shortcomings and thus achieves a satisfying solution. A well-crafted, unusual, and entertaining voyage. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-84273-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2002
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adapted by Jane Louise Curry & illustrated by James Watts
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adapted by Jane Louise Curry & illustrated by James Watts
by Annie Matthew ; developed by Kobe Bryant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 24, 2021
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship.
A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge.
In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father. With her friends’ help, she is in training to defend her championship when they discover that another player, operating under the protection of High Consul Silla, is presenting herself as Legacy. She is so convincing that the real Legacy is accused of being an imitation. False Legacy has become a hero to the masses, further strengthening Silla’s hold, and it becomes imperative to uncover and defeat her. If Legacy is to win again, she must play her imposter while disguised as someone else. Winning at tennis is not just about money and fame, but resisting Silla’s plans to send more young people into brutal mines with little hope of better lives. Legacy will have to overcome her fears and find the magic that allowed her to claim victory in the past. This story, with its elements of sports, fantasy, and social consciousness that highlight tensions between the powerful and those they prey upon, successfully continues the series conceived by late basketball superstar Bryant. As before, the tennis matches are depicted with pace and spirit. Legacy and Javi have brown skin; most other characters default to White.
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949520-19-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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by Annie Matthew ; developed by Kobe Bryant
by Neil Gaiman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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by Neil Gaiman ; illustrated by Various
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by Neil Gaiman ; illustrated by Chris Riddell
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by Neil Gaiman ; illustrated by Divya Srinivasan
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