A sweet, funny, sincere story in which siblings work together.
What happens when your playfully sentient stone palace goes off kilter and leaves you a bright orange egg to care for—secretly?
Princess Celie and her family love Castle Glower and its habit of adding and removing rooms on Tuesdays (Tuesdays at the Castle, 2011). But now the Castle changes on Wednesdays too, and the modifications have a frantic air. In a tower that only she can see, Celie discovers a huge egg and nurtures it. Startlingly, what hatches is a griffin. Celie keeps fast-growing Rufus hidden; she tries to tell the king and queen, “[b]ut as soon as I opened my mouth to do it, that pack of cloaks fell down the chimney.” The Castle allows only Celie, one older brother (Bran, the Royal Wizard) and amiable Pogue (the village blacksmith) to know about Rufus. George’s core mysteries—if griffins are mythical, why do hallway tapestries imply that the Castle once had “ordinary, every day griffins?” Is the Castle frightened or, possibly, angry?—intrigue. Historical exposition is somewhat dry, but Celie’s flights on Rufus’ back are exhilarating. Danger lurks, somehow related to a visiting wizard and an unknown foreign land, but its precise nature waits for next time, as this installment ends on a cliffhanger (almost literally—several characters are high in the air).
A sweet, funny, sincere story in which siblings work together. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59990-645-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
Move over Ramona Quimby, Portland has another neighbor you have to meet!
Ryan Hart is navigating the fourth grade and all its challenges with determination.
Her mom named her Ryan because it means “king,” and she wanted Ryan to feel powerful every time she heard her name; Ryan knows it means she is a leader. So when changes occur or disaster strikes, budding chef Ryan does her best to find the positive and “make sunshine.” When her dad is laid off from the post office, the family must make adjustments that include moving into a smaller house, selling their car, and changing how they shop for groceries. But Ryan gets to stay at Vernon Elementary, and her mom still finds a way to get her the ingredients she needs to practice new recipes. Her older brother, Ray, can be bossy, but he finds little ways to support her, especially when she is down—as does the whole family. Each episodic chapter confronts Ryan with a situation; intermittently funny, frustrating, and touching, they should be familiar and accessible to readers, as when Ryan fumbles her Easter speech despite careful practice. Ryan, her family, and friends are Black, and Watson continues to bring visibility to both Portland, Oregon, generally and its Black community specifically, making another wonderful contribution that allows Black readers to see themselves and all readers to find a character they can love.
Move over Ramona Quimby, Portland has another neighbor you have to meet! (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0056-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
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