Langrish blends medieval Catholicism and old folk beliefs seamlessly with the supernatural. In late-12th-century England, on the Welsh border, young Wolf flees from a monastery, desperate for a life safer and wider than a browbeaten monkhood. On the desolate landscape, a hunt erupts—Lord Hugo, dogs, wolves, horses and an eerie, naked elf, who vanishes into a hill. Seeing a position as squire as his escape route, Wolf squeezes underground and drags out the pale, ferocious elf-child to impress Hugo. Hugo believes elves hold his dead wife captive and charges Wolf with teaching terrified Elfgift to speak so she can guide Hugo to reclaim his beloved. Wolf befriends Hugo’s daughter, Nest; they work together to gentle Elfgift, but Brother Thomas, Wolf’s brutal former master, and Halewyn, a dangerously charismatic jongleur who never takes off his donkey-eared hood, stir up violent chaos. Wolf and Nest’s religious faith never wavers as they puzzle out what’s supernatural, what’s dangerous and what’s simply emotional yearning in a narrative that masterfully allows every possibility to exist. Never telling and always showing, this spooky yet utterly grounded story features pitch-perfect prose, suspense and redemption. (Historical fantasy. 10-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-111676-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
A moving, atmospheric journey of hope.
The old sourwood trees, the rushing streams and rivers, and the great mountain are home to 12-year-old Willa.
She and her mamaw live in Dead Hollow with hundreds of her dwindling Faeran clan. Ruled over by their fearsome leader and god, the padaran, the Faeran are a woodland race who once numbered in the thousands, living on the Smoky Mountain as stewards of the forest. Under the rule of the padaran, the old ways of speaking to animals and plants, foraging and caretaking, and using the old language are forbidden. Instead, Faeran children are forced to speak Eng-lish and drafted into his fearsome army of trained hunter-thieves called jaetters, who must steal from the day-folk, or white homesteaders. One night, Willa breaks into a homesteader’s cabin and is badly wounded. When the human man sees that she’s so gravely hurt, he tries to help—to her shock. Willa flees to Dead Hollow, where she is shocked to discover a young Cherokee boy along with many other human children imprisoned. As she sets out to unravel this mystery, she grows to understand the power of individual choice and of standing up for what’s right. Beatty writes a close third-person narration from Willa’s perspective, allowing readers to see the various humans she encounters through her eyes: the Cherokee the Faeran predated but live peacefully alongside; the day-folk the jaetters steal from; and the loggers and developers who do violence to them all—and with whom the padaran has more in common than he should.
A moving, atmospheric journey of hope. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-368-00584-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More knightly shenanigans, tongue deeply in cheek.
Knights-in-training Tim and Belinda undertake a terrifying sea voyage to fetch a golden fleece and a few other treasures.
Mostly what’s terrifying is that they have Sir Fass, Sir Render, and the rest of the Kingdom of Merryland’s inept, aptly named, and, as it turns out, treacherous Knight Brigade as shipmates…though surviving such nautical hazards as sirens, not to mention Scylla and Charybdis, are (not unlike a monstrous bargleboar, whose allergy to paprika leaves everyone covered in snot) nothing to sneeze at. Cribbing blithely from ancient sources but working in some inventive twists of his own—the song of the sirens, for instance, is so awful that rather than luring sailors to their deaths, it results in them wrecking their ships to avoid hearing it—Gibbs steers his young adventurers from one near disaster to the next before doing readers the disservice of leaving the pair hurtling toward certain death on the last page. As in previous outings, Curtis adds comical line drawings of knights in armor grimacing or looking confused to nearly every spread, and the author pauses the action periodically to define relevant vocabulary building words like overcompensating, nauseous, and (irritatingly) cliffhanger. Most of the cast presents White in the interior art, though Belinda appears to be Black.
More knightly shenanigans, tongue deeply in cheek. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 9781665917445
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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