A treasure of a middle volume, shot through with veins of terror, triumph, and redemption.
An oval stone mask, “chalky-colored and threaded with veins of a very faint violet,” that’s fused to part of his face draws Benjamiah Creek back to the mazelike world of Wreathenwold, where old stories can come terribly—and wonderfully—true.
As Benjamiah knows from The Labyrinth of Lost and Found (2024), unmappable Wreathenwold can be a dangerous place, where people carry shape-shifting dolls called poppets and poachers lie in wait to steal the colors from the eyes of passersby. Now someone is kidnapping children and transforming them into feral snatchlings. In evocative language (“Brother Cayne smelled of cloth and teeth”), Lees elaborates on his immersive setting to continue a story based on his imaginary world’s folktales and imbued with themes of tolerance and friendship. In hopes of freeing the snatchlings from captivity and himself from the witchstone mask, light-skinned Benjamiah, who has brown eyes and “messy, mousy hair,” undertakes five trials that test his cleverness, kindness, courage, loyalty, and curiosity. Horrors ranging from a slavering child stealer and savage ceiling dwellers with clutching claws lie in wait to beguile readers as much as the good-hearted yet flawed allies who join Benjamiah on the way to a resolution that leaves him and his friends in good places but portends further crises for Wreathenwold. To’s hazy, atmospheric illustrations intensify fraught moments. Names and skin tones cue diversity in the supporting cast.
A treasure of a middle volume, shot through with veins of terror, triumph, and redemption. (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9781665950169
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: today
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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