Both cheer- and shiverworthy, strong in narrative and visual atmosphere. (cast of characters)
Love and loyalty are put to the test when a young aerialist becomes the pawn of a bereaved mother bent on vengeance.
Taking place after the events of KidGlovz (2015), this companion novel follows a closely knit group of traveling performers. They turn a road trip into a rescue mission when a pair of scene-stealing (and genuinely creepy) gloves once belonging to accordion virtuoso KidGlovz transform his best friend and midair marvel, 15-year-old reformed pickpocket Shoestring. He relapses, becoming a secretive, self-absorbed thief with less and less control over his actions. As before, both the all-White cast, which is largely composed of loving adults and unusually talented young people, and Newman’s sheaves of softly textured, technically accomplished pencil drawings immediately bring to mind Brian Selznick’s illustrated stories. So does the way the characters outshine the plot—though the story does take several surprising and imaginative turns on its way to a tense, melodramatic climax. Readers get to know Shoestring’s adoptive mother, May, Queen of Hearts; the cruel, vicious dowager Mistress Adamantine; and a host of other colorful characters. In the end, all, gloves thankfully included, receive just deserts…though even as they hiss the thoroughly fiendish villain, readers may feel a twinge of sympathy for the offender.
Both cheer- and shiverworthy, strong in narrative and visual atmosphere. (cast of characters) (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: May 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-76029-721-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: A & U Children/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of mythology-based fantasies will devour this adventure and anxiously await the next installment.
Abby is your average 12-year-old North Carolinian—and Viking.
She has been eager for years to follow in her mother's footsteps as an Aesir, or Viking warrior charged with protecting the world from Grendels, descendants of the same monster faced down by Beowulf. Still reeling from her mother’s death four years ago, Abby is worried because she hasn’t developed the unusual abilities needed by Aesirs. After she is attacked at home, she and her father head to Vale Hall, an elite Minnesota private school her mother also attended. Along the way they are attacked again, and her father falls into a mysterious coma. Abby is positive a Grendel is after her, but the Viking council at Vale Hall doesn't believe her. She quickly befriends Grimsby and Gwynn, each with their own burdens and secrets. Together they try to find a cure for her father, in the process uncovering secrets from her mother's past and discovering some truths hiding at Vale Hall. This entertaining debut novel seamlessly blends Norse mythology with a modern-day setting to tell an action-packed and humorous story. In addition, the book explores grief, growing up, and starting over with sensitivity and insight. Abby and most other characters are cued as White; Gwynn is described as Asian American.
Fans of mythology-based fantasies will devour this adventure and anxiously await the next installment. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-63607-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Any yarn with the phrase “pinwheeling flatulence juggernaut” is a must-read, and not just for fans of Fowl play.
Artemis Fowl’s preteen sibs have it out with archnemesis Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye one last time.
Or so it would seem, though, considering Lord Teddy’s fondness for clones and the various nonpermanent fatalities in earlier episodes, nothing should be taken for granted. In a plot aptly framed as “a big bang, followed by a series of smaller bangs, then another big bang”—many of which turn out to be epic gaseous blasts or, to use the delighted Beckett’s term, “fartsplosions”—the evil genius’s latest (as the omniscient narrator puts it) “elaborate and unnecessarily complicated” revenge scheme pits young “aspiring mastermind” Myles and his action-loving brother, aided by diminutive but capable blue-skinned pixel (pixie-elf) Lazuli Heitz and the ghosts of a large number of indignant Bleedham-Dryes whom Lord Teddy has murdered over the years, against first a goblin hit squad then, climactically, an army of fireball-shooting goblins. Generous measures of banter and villainous gloating grease the wheels as well as ridiculous contrivances that pull the twins from any number of obviously hopeless pickles on the way to their hard-won triumph. In an epilogue set in Ho Chi Minh City, Colfer closes another series arc by dropping in a tantalizing revelation about Lazuli’s hidden parentage. Magical cast members come in a variety of colors; human ones read as White.
Any yarn with the phrase “pinwheeling flatulence juggernaut” is a must-read, and not just for fans of Fowl play. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-368-07567-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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