A promising start to a series for fledgling fantasy readers
The first entry in the Last Firehawk series introduces the whimsical adventures of a brave little owl and his friends.
In the land of Perodia, a dark Shadow encroaches on Valor Wood. The evil vulture Thorn (who, oddly, doesn’t appear in this first book though he’s mentioned in the introduction) controls The Shadow’s dark magic, aiming, for reasons unknown, to destroy the beautiful forest. Enter Tag, a small barn owl with big dreams. He longs to join the Owls of Valor, a group of warriors who protect Valor Wood from threats like Thorn and The Shadow. When Grey, their wise old leader, forbids all animals from entering the treacherous Howling Caves, Tag sees his chance to prove his bravery. Tag and his best pal, Skyla, a mischievous, slingshot-wielding girl squirrel, set off to investigate the caves, where they find a mysterious golden egg. Soon, the egg hatches the eponymous last firehawk, whom Tag names Blaze. Firehawks are magical birds, long thought extinct, who guard the Ember Stone against any who might use it for ill. Unfortunately, the Stone is broken and scattered about Perodia. Tag, Skyla, and Blaze must race to collect the Stone’s pieces before Thorn can get his vile talons on them and destroy the world. The black-and-white sketches depict Disney-esque, wide-eyed animals, while onomatopoeia pops off the page at regular intervals. The story is heavy on dialogue, with no shortage of exclamation points, keeping the energy level high and pages turning.
A promising start to a series for fledgling fantasy readers . (Animal fantasy. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-12230-5
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Branches/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Silly reads for new readers to dig into.
A turnip-loving duck and its friends defend their garden.
Alas, the duck, sheep, dog, and donkey immediately discover the eponymous pest in the garden when it (a groundhog?) eats a row of beans. The duck is frantic that turnips are next, but instead the pest eats the sheep’s favorite crop: corn. Peas occupy the next row, and the pest gobbles them up, too. Instead of despairing, however, the donkey cries, “Yippee! He ate ALL THE PEAS!” and catching the others’ puzzled looks, continues, “I don’t like peas.” After this humorous twist, the only uneaten row is sown with turnips, and the duck leaps to devour them before the pest can do so. In a satisfying, funny conclusion, the duck beams when the dog, sheep, and donkey resolve to plant a new garden and protect it with a fence, only to find out that it will exclude not just the groundhog, but the duck, too. A companion release, What Is Chasing Duck?, has the same brand of humor and boldly outlined figures rendered in a bright palette, but its storyline doesn’t come together as well since it’s unclear why the duck is scared and why the squirrel that was chasing it doesn’t recognize the others when they turn and chase him at book’s end.
Silly reads for new readers to dig into. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-94165-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Young readers will clamor to ride along.
Like an ocean-going “Lion and the Mouse,” a humpback whale and a snail “with an itchy foot” help each other out in this cheery travelogue.
Responding to a plaintive “Ride wanted around the world,” scrawled in slime on a coastal rock, whale picks up snail, then sails off to visit waters tropical and polar, stormy and serene before inadvertently beaching himself. Off hustles the snail, to spur a nearby community to action with another slimy message: “SAVE THE WHALE.” Donaldson’s rhyme, though not cumulative, sounds like “The house that Jack built”—“This is the tide coming into the bay, / And these are the villagers shouting, ‘HOORAY!’ / As the whale and the snail travel safely away. . . .” Looking in turn hopeful, delighted, anxious, awed, and determined, Scheffler’s snail, though tiny next to her gargantuan companion, steals the show in each picturesque seascape—and upon returning home, provides so enticing an account of her adventures that her fellow mollusks all climb on board the whale’s tail for a repeat voyage.
Young readers will clamor to ride along. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8037-2922-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
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