Recommended to youths eager to read about a strong, teenage heroine fighting monsters but who aren’t quite old enough for...
A young girl from a low-income home discovers a surprising family legacy in English’s debut novel, a darkly funny young-adult fantasy adventure.
Thirteen-year-old Coriander Jones and her younger sister, Autumn, are on the bus to Happy Haven, a summer camp that mostly takes children from poor families, along with a number of friends and neighborhood kids, when their bus driver—or rather the lizardlike creature that seems to have possessed him—suddenly tries to kill them. Shortly after subduing and decapitating him, Coriander and her compatriots learn the truth: This isn’t an ordinary camp but rather one of the last lines of defense between our world and the Old Ones, ancient, Lovecraftian gods who want to tear down the barriers between the universes and take over reality. And so on top of the typical teenager problems, conflicts and such that occur at camp, Coriander also has to worry about fighting off creatures of darkness. She even learns that her “crazy” Aunt Collette is also a warrior in the fight to preserve this universe. Throughout the book, English balances suspenseful situations with a sharp sense of humor. Coriander makes for a fun, unusual first-person narrator for a female-driven YA story, neatly switching from self-deprecating digs at her social status to coping with the burden of being an otherwise everyday kid now learning how to fight actual gods and monsters. Centering on such a tough, self-reliant tomboy of a girl makes for a refreshing break from the angsty, pretty Barbie dolls that populate so much of YA fiction. Meanwhile, Coriander’s repeated warnings to readers to turn away if they would like to read something less frightening is nicely reminiscent of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Coriander’s story doesn’t have quite the bite of that series, and it isn’t a wildly new concept, but for young readers, it’s a nice introduction to urban fantasy and Lovecraft, with an entertaining mythology and even more entertaining characters.
Recommended to youths eager to read about a strong, teenage heroine fighting monsters but who aren’t quite old enough for Buffy.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615878935
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Cricket Cottage Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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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