This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative,...
Can this really be the first time readers meet the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County? Cousins and veteran sleuths Otto and Sheed Alston show us that we are the ones who are late to their greatness.
These two black boys are coming to terms with the end of their brave, heroic summer at Grandma’s, with a return to school just right around the corner. They’ve already got two keys to the city, but the rival Epic Ellisons—twin sisters Wiki and Leen—are steadily gaining celebrity across Logan County, Virginia, and have in hand their third key to the city. No way summer can end like this! These young people are powerful, courageous, experienced adventurers molded through their heroic commitment to discipline and deduction. They’ve got their shared, lifesaving maneuvers committed to memory (printed in a helpful appendix) and ready to save any day. Save the day they must, as a mysterious, bendy gentleman and an oversized, clingy platypus have been unleashed on the city of Fry, and all the residents and their belongings seem to be frozen in time and place. Will they be able to solve this one? With total mastery, Giles creates in Logan County an exuberant vortex of weirdness, where the commonplace sits cheek by jowl with the utterly fantastic, and populates it with memorable characters who more than live up to their setting.
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative, thrill-seeking readers, this is a series to look out for. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46083-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
An imaginative premise ill-served by its execution.
It’s a pirate’s life for Lintang.
For Lintang, humans and “mythies,” magical powerful creatures, tensely coexist. (A creature profile foreshadows some chapters.) Inspired by legends, Lintang yearns for adventure beyond her home island of Tolus. However, she only manages to make trouble despite good intentions and warnings from best friend Bayani. Her fortune turns when the infamous pirate captain Shafira appears, offering to rid the island of a deadly Night Terror in exchange for a child from the village—a necessity for a ship’s safe passage past Nyasamdra, the island’s sea guardian. Impressed by Lintang’s spunk, Shafira takes the girl onboard, promising a safe return and a priceless necklace to Lintang’s mother as collateral. The all-female pirate crew prepares to hunt sirens when attacks from mythies and a stowaway Bayani—as a boy, vulnerable to sirens’ calls—reveal a more complicated history. A bigger adventure ensues. Lintang’s impulsive tendencies push the plot along, at times frustratingly so. Moss models characters and worldbuilding after aspects of Southeast Asian cultures and Indonesian myths in addition to Western folklore and her own imagination. Inconsistencies coupled with the lack of a cohesive cultural system lead to disjointed details that detract from the story. Several twists provide a peak in intrigue and possibilities but in the end generate more questions than answers, hinting at a sequel.
An imaginative premise ill-served by its execution. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46030-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Readers will need to strap on their helmets and prepare for a wild ride.
Disaster overtakes a group of sixth graders on a leadership-building white-water rafting trip.
Deep in the Montana wilderness, a dam breaks, and the resultant rush sweeps away both counselors, the rafts, and nearly all the supplies, leaving five disparate preteens stranded in the wilderness far from where they were expected to be. Narrator Daniel is a mild White kid who’s resourceful and good at keeping the peace but given to worrying over his mentally ill father. Deke, also White, is a determined bully, unwilling to work with and relentlessly taunting the others, especially Mia, a Latina, who is a natural leader with a plan. Tony, another White boy, is something of a friendly follower and, unfortunately, attaches himself to Deke while Imani, a reserved African American girl, initially keeps her distance. After the disaster, Deke steals the backpack with the remaining food and runs off with Tony, and the other three resolve to do whatever it takes to get it back, eventually having to confront the dangerous bully. The characters come from a variety of backgrounds but are fairly broadly drawn; still, their breathlessly perilous situation keeps the tale moving briskly forward, with one threatening situation after another believably confronting them. As he did with Wildfire (2019), Newbery Honoree Philbrick has crafted another action tale for young readers that’s impossible to put down.
Readers will need to strap on their helmets and prepare for a wild ride. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-64727-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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