This imaginative, well-crafted story is hopefully the first of many from its precocious young author
A king learns that bigger isn’t always better in 13-year-old writer and illustrator Kahn’s debut children’s book
After accepting a piece of fruit from a mysterious stranger, a king awakens to find himself shrunken to a height of three inches. To save his kingdom, he will have to fight the evil sorcerer Sinerious, whose enchanted trees have knocked down the palace walls and spread over the land. To make matters worse, a bird swoops down and snatches up the miniscule king, carrying him off in its beak. It’s up to the royal family and loyal advisers to save his highness. Khan doesn’t oversimplify his hero’s plight. Out in the world, the king finds that his diminished size isn’t as limiting as he initially thought. Being tiny, he can hide from certain predators, such as the crocodile that unwittingly delivers him safely to shore on its snout after the bird drops his majesty in the river. Kahn’s illustrations are few, but his style is bright and expressive, if simply rendered; a flock of birds fills the moonlit sky as the king’s courtier takes a lonely walk up a hill to escape a giant and find the rest of his party. When the evil sorcerer reveals his true purpose for leveling the kingdom, the work takes on surprisingly political undertones, even more so when the evil sorcerer meets a grizzly end. Through it all, Khan weaves a compelling tale, with a vocabulary worthy of an SAT exam. Elementary school teachers might keep a copy of this book handy as an example of how to construct a fictional narrative, though Khan’s younger readers, whom he addresses in his forward, might have to wait a few grades to be able to get through all of his densely written text.
This imaginative, well-crafted story is hopefully the first of many from its precocious young authorPub Date: April 27, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4415-9070-1
Page Count: 31
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A book that will make young dog-owners smile in recognition and confirm dogless readers' worst suspicions about the mayhem caused by pets, even winsome ones. Sam, who bears passing resemblance to an affable golden retriever, is praised for fetching the family newspaper, and goes on to fetch every other newspaper on the block. In the next story, only the children love Sam's swimming; he is yelled at by lifeguards and fishermen alike when he splashes through every watering hole he can find. Finally, there is woe to the entire family when Sam is bored and lonely for one long night. Boland has an essential message, captured in both both story and illustrations of this Easy-to-Read: Kids and dogs belong together, especially when it's a fun-loving canine like Sam. An appealing tale. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8037-1530-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
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