A lighthearted, rambunctious fantasy adventure with heartfelt musings on family and loss.
A young boy sprouts wings and flies into battle with supernatural forces in Ristau’s fantasy adventure.
Gwyn Wylde is bummed out that his uncommunicative dad is a seventh grade science teacher at his school, and he misses his recently deceased mom and the fantastic stories of sorcery she used to tell him. One day, while he’s on a field trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in his native Portland, a floating spark of light chases him up a dinosaur skeleton and knocks him out a high window; he’s astonished when, rather than plummeting to the sidewalk, he suddenly grows wings and soars aloft. His haphazard flight eventually takes him to a boat, where his Nana isn’t at all surprised to see him; she has tricks of her own up her sleeve, including the ability to summon a swarm of owls. They’re soon joined by Gwyn’s best friends: Jules, a know-it-all girl with a prosthetic arm; Kai, a boy with autism whose father works with Gwyn’s dad on a mysterious research project; and wise-guy basketball phenom Jaiden. Pursued by heavies and a horde of glowing blue zombies and aided by a giant demon dog and a choleric camp counselor, the group sets out to liberate a collection of sentient light sparks being held captive. Ristau, a folklorist and author of the Shadow Girl YA book series, draws on Welsh mythology as a colorful backdrop for this kids’ romp. The brisk narrative, decorated with artist Parker’s witty, black-and-white illustrations of Gwyn’s shambolic journal, features plenty of action, gruesome monsters, and fun flying lessons and pratfalls. Ristau’s limpid prose perfectly captures Gwyn’s dejected, 12-year-old dudgeon while also conveying nuanced characterizations and moods through evocative imagery: “When we’re at home and that blankness wraps around him,” Gwyn ruminates about his bereft dad, “his glasses are the only part of him that’s real.” Readers will be captivated as Gwyn flutters into a number of spooky entanglements.
A lighthearted, rambunctious fantasy adventure with heartfelt musings on family and loss.Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73708-793-9
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Hope Well Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Epic lunacy.
Will extragalactic rats eat the moon?
Can a cybernetic toenail clipper find a worthy purpose in the vast universe? Will the first feline astronaut ever get a slice of pizza? Read on. Reworked from the Live Cartoon series of homespun video shorts released on Instagram in 2020 but retaining that “we’re making this up as we go” quality, the episodic tale begins with the electrifying discovery that our moon is being nibbled away. Off blast one strong, silent, furry hero—“Meow”—and a stowaway robot to our nearest celestial neighbor to hook up with the imperious Queen of the Moon and head toward the dark side, past challenges from pirates on the Sea of Tranquility and a sphinx with a riddle (“It weighs a ton, but floats on air. / It’s bald but has a lot of hair.” The answer? “Meow”). They endure multiple close but frustratingly glancing encounters with pizza and finally deliver the malign, multiheaded Rat King and its toothy armies to a suitable fate. Cue the massive pizza party! Aside from one pirate captain and a general back on Earth, the human and humanoid cast in Harris’ loosely drawn cartoon panels, from the appropriately moon-faced queen on, is light skinned. Merch, music, and the original episodes are available on an associated website.
Epic lunacy. (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-308408-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
