A thrilling head-rush of an adventure.
Robison’s debut novel follows a runaway on a fast-paced adventure.
After fleeing her foster home, Kit finds a none-too-warm welcome in the big city. On the surprisingly mean streets of Winnipeg, she’s shanghaied into selling fake identification. In too-quick succession, she runs from the cops, witnesses the murder of her own lookalike, becomes the victim of a kidnapping and gets stranded in the wilderness. She finds her way to a secret training camp, where all the campers can fly, and where no one knows who she is. Assuming the identity of a murdered girl, Kit adjusts to this strange, unfamiliar Native American tribe. The book packs the plot of three novels into one, leaping from one tragic episode to the next. Sometimes the story moves forward at the expense of certain plotlines, even cutting off a promising love triangle only to cram in more explosions. The narrative flows well, although it’s fractured and, at times, soap opera–esque. Robison clearly conveys a complicated storyline, despite the jarring transition from an almost post-apocalyptic, nightmarish cityscape to tribal forests and hidden mountains. The breakneck pace becomes tiring, but it also flatters her brave heroine, creating a character whom readers will cheer on. Kit’s apparent ignorance concerning her past—or perhaps her unwillingness to divulge it to the reader—is irksome. Some features of the novel, like the flowery descriptions or the hard-to-believe plotline, can annoy readers, but the novel presents an intriguing adventure with more than enough twists and turns to hold interest. Much like her character, the debut takes flight, leaving readers eager for the next installment.
A thrilling head-rush of an adventure.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-0985046514
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Quil Books, Inc.
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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