An original and witty adventure that celebrates the imagination.
An ogre poet embarks on a quest to save his lively bad ideas from a monster in this debut children’s novel.
Mulrox is not your typical ogre. He’s scrawny, and worse, he loves poetry more than smashing things. All in all, he’s a huge disappointment to his Great-Aunt Griselda, who’s an ogre’s ogre. After breaking a hip in a roof-stomping accident, she has taken over Mulrox’s bedroom—and now threatens to take over his house. He can stop her, she says, only by winning an upcoming talent competition; Mulrox accepts the challenge but is full of self-doubt, never satisfied with his own work. On top of that, a squirrelmonk has a message for him: “Events are in motion….It can’t be helped. You’ll just have to do your best.” His destiny, it seems, is to help a swarm of malcognitos—his own bad ideas come to life—defeat the Vaccus, their enemy and the embodiment of writer’s block. But first, they must find the portal to Sounous, the malcognitos’ home, and that won’t be easy, even with Mulrox’s eccentric neighbor Yahgurkin tagging along to help. In her book, Smith demonstrates the same love of words that characterizes Mulrox. Her wonderfully expressive, inventive vocabulary resembles that in Norman Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), with an ogre flavor all its own. The story thinks through its mythology in compelling ways, as when Sounous, the land of ideas both good and bad, is described as a “magnificent palace with a thatched roof and wooden door. Everyone should be interested in it.” Because the novel presents itself as a portal/quest story, readers will likely expect the real adventure to begin after the portal is found—but that doesn’t happen until well over two-thirds of the way through, making the pace feel off.
An original and witty adventure that celebrates the imagination.Pub Date: March 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73421-690-5
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Fog Field Press
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Imaginative, feel-good fun.
More magical al fresco adventures abound!
In this full-color follow-up to Aster and the Accidental Magic (2020), Aster and her talking dog, Buzz, return in two new tales. In the first, “Why So Much Wool?” strange accidents repeatedly occur around Aster’s village, and upon investigation, she and Buzz discover a rogue band of muttonheaded sheep (known as the BAAAAAH-ligerent Army) led by a talking ram named Keras, who has proclaimed himself the Great Leader of the Sheep Revolution. Lucky for Aster, the dimwitted sheep are easily outsmarted, but not Keras, whom she must stop before he destroys her home. The second tale, “The End of Everything (and What Was Left),” focuses more on the natural magic from the previous volume. Each season has a royal who helps preserve the balance, passing along a crown to mark the transitions between their reigns. When the crown disappears, Aster ventures to the Labyrinth of Chimeras in an attempt to reforge it and restore the balance before the trickster Rapscallion can escape. This second outing pulls readers into a delightfully wrought world with a strong emphasis on nature and the outdoors and the real and imaginary magic contained therein. Joyous, effervescent illustrations mark this French import. For Aster aficionados, further journeys are hinted at in a subsequent volume in which Aster and her family travel to Japan. Aster and most human characters read as White.
Imaginative, feel-good fun. (Graphic fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12534-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A fantastical adventure full of hope.
Two tweens embark on a journey to fulfill a prophecy and save their kingdom.
Years ago, Lyrica was filled with life, warmth, and hope, protected as it was by the Song and Feather of the Firebird. Until the night when the Spectress and the Demon of Fear filled the sky with darkness, killing the queen and everyone else in the castle—and leaving behind a cold land, devoid of hope. In the present, Prewitt is turning 12, the Age of Hope, and Granny Arila is finally telling him the truth about Lyrica’s dark past, satisfying his curiosity about things no one speaks of openly. Prewitt discovers not only that the Lost Princess survived that terrible night, but that their destinies are tied together through a mysterious prophecy. Prewitt leaves home, searching for the princess, and runs into Calliope, a girl who has been hidden from the world for 12 years. When he realizes she is the Lost Princess, something she had not known herself until recently, they embark on a dangerous quest to find the Firebird’s Feather and Song and save Lyrica. Their journey is a fast-paced adventure full of monsters and magic. Told in the third person, the book focuses on Calliope and Prewitt, but secondary characters’ stories are neatly woven in. Finding hope, true friendship, and bravery lies at the heart of their journey. Prewitt has brown hair and skin; black-haired Calliope has honeyed skin.
A fantastical adventure full of hope. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0512-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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