A thoughtful look at curse versus choice and an encouragement to youngsters to make their own paths.
Middle school years are hard enough without an actual curse ruining your life!
Sage knows this firsthand. Sage’s narration is plucky, if a bit one-note, through most of the story as she describes how the Contrarium Curse negatively affected her mother and Mrs. Petty when they were students, turning friends into adversaries. It’s preordained that Sage and schoolmate Priscilla Petty won’t get along. Priscilla makes fun of Sage, and she’s had more darts in her arsenal ever since Sage’s daddy was imprisoned for trying to rob a bank. Given a magic candle, Sage wishes for a reversal of the curse, but it doesn’t work as she had hoped. The consequences are disastrous, as expected. Magical thinking can’t hold a candle to the true solution, which includes forgiveness, reconciliation, and acts of kindness. These discoveries, as well as finding the courage to confront Daddy’s crime, allow Sage to grow. Primary characters seem to be default white, while some secondary characters are people of color. The feel-good ending satisfies, although Sage’s father’s appeal is realistically left pending.
A thoughtful look at curse versus choice and an encouragement to youngsters to make their own paths. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-265497-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Cleverly structured and sweetly engaging.
A 13-year-old embarks on a cross-country road trip with his famous grandfather.
Grief-stricken middle schooler Gonzalo Alberto Sánchez García’s summer is off to a rocky start. He feels like he’s in a fog, he can’t stop drawing monsters against photos of landscapes on his iPad, and he’s stuck visiting his cranky, standoffish abuelo in Mendocino, California. Gonzalo’s Cuban grandfather is the renowned but reclusive fantasy author behind a “billion-dollar book-and-movie franchise” run by Gonzalo’s mother. Though generally reluctant to promote his work, Abuelo agrees to a tour for the release of the last book in the bestselling series. But he turns the tour into a journey to visit old friends and share his own wounds with Gonzalo in an attempt to help them both heal from the traumas they’ve suffered. Indeed, Abuelo’s plan proves poignantly effective as both he and Gonzalo slowly open up to each other and to all the joy still to be found in the world around them. Cartaya peppers Gonzalo’s first-person narrative with chapters voiced by an omniscient first-person narrator who breaks the fourth wall, directly addressing readers with plot recaps and commentary. While the narrator’s interruptions risk jarring readers out of the story’s flow, the shifts in perspective are charmingly and humorously executed, may support reading comprehension, and further the overarching bookish themes, since the story both revolves around a fictional book series and follows main character Gonzalo’s transformation into the hero of his own story.
Cleverly structured and sweetly engaging. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780451479754
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Alternately humorous and heartrending, this lively fantasy will have wide appeal.
Can a 12-year-old girl and a dragon awakened from a 1,000-year nap save the world?
In the Draconic Empire, magic is forbidden outside the imperial bloodline. Any other magic use will summon the Revenants, who killed the dragons and the mighty Dragon Mage a millennium ago. Or will it? Five years ago, Ciara found Dragon Mage apprentice Bianca’s magical journal. Bianca’s exuberant, irreverent entries describe a warm (“She’s a hugger”), generous mage with “tawny-brown skin” who wanted dragons to teach all humans to use magic. Living in a mining village that’s been devastated by its cruel Warden’s greed and the Skael Cough that killed her father, Ciara yearns for magical assistance. Then, with the journal’s help, she accidentally wakens a long-sleeping dragon. Can Scorch, who was Bianca’s magister, teach Ciara magic so she can save both her town and her ailing mother? With the Warden willing to ravage and kill for the journal, the cliffhanger ending promises more peril to come. This fast-paced adventure’s hilariously dry humor may not prepare readers for the utter despair of other elements of the story. The characters are memorable and sympathetic, especially impulsive, brave Ciara, who’s cued white, and snarky, protective Scorch, both of whom are guilt-ridden for different reasons. They share the main narration, sometimes confusingly switching viewpoints within scenes. Avid fantasy readers will appreciate the complex magic system.
Alternately humorous and heartrending, this lively fantasy will have wide appeal. (Draconic spells) (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780593813171
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Labyrinth Road
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
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