A palette with daubs of time travel, artists, magic, evil, and possession paints an intriguing mystery. When his mom suddenly starts acting strange, going into trances, and removing all television sets from the house, 11-year-old Connor figures out that an art book about the painter Fitzgerald Cotton is the key. When he finds a loose sketch of his mom, he is transported back to 1926 to the Cotton family house, the same place where his mom had been summoned by Fitzgerald to serve as his muse. Piece by piece, Connor discovers that the paint powders from 1479 belonging to an evil genius/artist, Lorenzo da Padova, possess Fitz. Connor’s mom is a distant relative to Lorenzo’s muse and looks like her, and the more Fitz tries to paint her, the stronger the hold on both of them. Connor succeeds in breaking the spell, freeing his mom, and returning home—wiser and more appreciative of earlier times and family bonds. Like the jigsaw puzzles the Cotton family put together, pieces fall into place fairly easily though readers will share Connor’s confusion and will be piqued by his suppositions of how kids from then (1926) would be old people in his time. Fans of Reiss’s Time Windows (1991) will step right into this “Time Travel Mystery.” (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-216361-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A rich, enthralling historical mystery that engages and educates.
Siblings decode familial and wartime secrets in 1940 England.
Headstrong 14-year-old Lizzie Novis refuses to believe that her mother, a U.S. embassy clerk who was working in Poland, is dead. After fleeing from her grandmother—who’s attempting to bring her back to America—Lizzie locates her 19-year-old brother, Jakob, a Cambridge mathematician who’s stationed at the clandestine British intelligence site called Bletchley Park. Hiding from her grandmother’s estate steward, Lizzie becomes a messenger at Bletchley Park, ferrying letters across the grounds while Jakob attempts to both break the ciphers generated by the German Enigma machines and help his sister face the reality of their mother’s likely fate. With a suspicious MI5 agent inquiring about Mum and clues and codes piling up, the siblings, whose late father was “Polish Jewish British,” eventually decipher the truth. Shared narrative duties between the siblings effectively juxtapose the measured Jakob with the spirited Lizzie. Lizzie’s directness is repeatedly attributed to her being “half American,” which proves tiresome, but Jakob’s development from reserved to risk-tolerant provides welcome nuance. The authors introduce and carefully explain a variety of decoding methodologies, inspiring readers to attempt their own. A thoughtful and entertaining historical note identifies the key figures who appear in the book, such as Alan Turing, as well as the real-life bases for the fictional characters. Interspersed photos and images of ephemera help situate the narrative’s time period.
A rich, enthralling historical mystery that engages and educates. (Historical mystery. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780593527542
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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