A breezy, straightforward approach to time travel featuring unforgettable characters.
In Yanni’s debut YA adventure, four siblings discover a way to travel through time, giving them the opportunity to possibly prevent their parents’ deaths.
After the Fitzgerald children lose their mother and father in a plane crash in 1974, their Aunt Alicia becomes their new guardian. She ships them off to Choate Rosemary Hall, a boarding school in Connecticut. Teenagers Ken, Deb, and Joe and 10-year-old Kim slowly adjust to their new lives; they make friends, and the teens start dating classmates. Joe, however, has a tougher time dealing with his grief, and he focuses his energy on some files that he found in an abandoned campus building. They detail a machine prototype and a “theoretical calculation” for making time bend—which could make time travel possible. Joe, who excels in math and science, manages to develop the machine with help from campus caretaker Mr. Brewster and his own siblings (Ken is studying mechanical engineering). Joe suggests that they go back in time to save their parents, so Deb comes up with a strategy: She believes that stopping the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 will spark a series of events that will keep their parents away from their fatal plane trip. Yanni establishes strong foundations for all the young characters before the time-hopping takes center stage; for example, Deb writes letters to Denise, her best friend whom she misses, and Ken ditches his plan to join the Marines so that he can look after his siblings. Throughout, the author clearly shows how the Fitzgeralds care for one another. He also simplifies the sci-fi concept by offering few particulars on how time travel or the machine actually work, but there are intriguing discussions between the siblings and their friends regarding the changes that time bending could generate—including the Fitzgeralds never attending Choate. The story’s historical references are mostly solid, although there are noticeable anachronisms, including mentions of Star Wars and the Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday prior to their existences.
A breezy, straightforward approach to time travel featuring unforgettable characters.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-6847-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.
A teenage orphan enters a curious school and encounters mysteries and dangerous secrets in this first installment of a debut YA fantasy series.
Life in Croswald is about to change for 16-year-old orphan Ivy, a lowly castle maid in charge of the kitchen “scaldrons,” oven-heating, fire-breathing dragons. Fleeing the castle after a messy scaldron mishap, Ivy hops a strange conveyance that transports her to a school for potential quill-wielding, spell-casting “scrivenists.” (The author’s creative language—students are “sqwinches,” and “hairies” are lanterns housing fairies with luminous hair—is one of the book’s pleasures.) Learning that there is more to her gift for sketching than she realized, Ivy studies spells and the magical properties of inks and quills, but strange things keep happening. Why is an old scrivenist, long thought dead, working in secret? Why is the head of the oddly familiar school moving paintings to the “Forgetting Room” so that no one will remember they existed? How can Ivy get a look at a certain journal stored there, and what does it have to do with her recurrent dream? And why has Ivy drawn the interest of the Dark Queen of Croswald and her truly fearsome Cloaked Brood? The intrigue is layered with such whimsical inventions as one school lunchroom run by ghostly bad cooks and another by a jester who is best avoided, scrivenists who end their lives as tomes in a library, and small houses pulled by a gargantuan flying beast with its own weather system. Yes, there are many Harry Potter–ish elements: a school for young wand-wielders, quirky shops dealing in enchanted student supplies, eccentric characters, spells gone wrong, an evil pursuer. But Night’s blend of magic, danger, and suspense (and a touch of steampunk) is a well-realized, fresh fantasy world all its own, and Ivy is an appealing protagonist of relatable complexity. A few bobbles: Ivy seems to go without food for long stretches; the use of “effected” rather than “affected”; a professor who is both standing and perched on a chair.
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.Pub Date: July 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9969486-5-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Stories Untold Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There is something profoundly elemental going on in Smalls’s book: the capturing of a moment of unmediated joy. It’s not melodramatic, but just a Saturday in which an African-American father and son immerse themselves in each other’s company when the woman of the house is away. Putting first things first, they tidy up the house, with an unheralded sense of purpose motivating their actions: “Then we clean, clean, clean the windows,/wipe, wipe, wash them right./My dad shines in the windows’ light.” When their work is done, they head for the park for some batting practice, then to the movies where the boy gets to choose between films. After a snack, they work their way homeward, racing each other, doing a dance step or two, then “Dad takes my hand and slows down./I understand, and we slow down./It’s a long, long walk./We have a quiet talk and smile.” Smalls treats the material without pretense, leaving it guileless and thus accessible to readers. Hays’s artwork is wistful and idyllic, just as this day is for one small boy. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-79899-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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