An ambitious but awkward mashup of nursery-tale whimsy, Gothic tropes and modern didactic moralism.
Jane Eyre meets the Three Bears.
Once upon a time, in the faux-Victorian enclave of the Enchanted Forest, sentient creatures lived in harmony with humans—until the Anthropological Society began agitating for human supremacy. In this fraught atmosphere, the Vaughn family, three bears of great refinement, engage the young and naïve bear Ursula Brown as governess. Like any proper heroine, she forms an immediate bond with her charge, Teddy, and tumbles into star-crossed love. Still, she is troubled by ominous forebodings about Teddy’s resentful Nurse, the bigotry seething within the quaint village, and, above all, the dark secrets lurking in the titular stately mansion. Then, one night, a human girl with golden curls steals into her room….Ursula narrates in a deliberately old-fashioned cadence with “had I but known” asides. Principled and sincere, her dedication to Teddy and Goldilocks compels admiration, and the devoted friendship between cub and child is genuinely heartwarming. But the heavy-handed condemnation of prejudice jars oddly against Ursula’s genteel snobbishness, and her romance is downright mawkish. Like the other Enchanted beasts, her cultivated comportment—including corsets, pianofortes, Latin studies and conventional Christian piety—downplays her animal nature, making each reference to snouts, paws and fur appear intrusive. Likewise, the cameo appearances by storybook characters, while occasionally clever, often seem forced.
An ambitious but awkward mashup of nursery-tale whimsy, Gothic tropes and modern didactic moralism. (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-75573-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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