Associations aside, a chromatic fantasy full of panache and a clever sense of fun.
A heavenly blue horse introduces a young girl to a land of merriment that finds itself besieged by serpents and Kermudgins.
Turner Flint discovers a rather magical creature among her collection of horse figurines: Glory, guardian of the morning glory vine, a horse that attains the dimensions of a real horse when night comes, and ferries Turner to magical Joya. This land is perfect, “but its seemingly crazy arrangement of beauty was in danger of being straightened.” Winding lanes and serpentine brooks would be chastened by “a terrible tribe of tidy-uppers” called the Kermudgins, currently on a march through Joya. These plug-uglies are greed-heads who like things nice, neat and without smell (though they possess an alarming flatulence of their own), and who, in a pleasing contemporary touch, bear a sound resemblance to your neighborhood developer and his spate of McMansions. Turner and Glory assemble a motley crew of Joyans–Mud-Dog, Rose Falcon, Ole Beaver, Stripe-ed Bees (“What is our bussssinessss of assssissstance?”) and a Pink Cloud–to battle the Kermudgins and the hideous serpent Armanget, spookily captured in one of Lippincott’s two dozen, fine-lined drawings. Chester’s tale displays a good collection of original characters and a disarmingly frank and flawed heroine, as well as a comical fantasyland that, despite its appeal, will make readers think twice about living in a place that values hilarity above all else. Chester maintains just enough menace and hard twists of fate to keep things interesting but not morbid. On the other hand, there are some serious echoes here, loud as church bells, of another land called Oz. In the correspondence of fantasy and real characters at story’s end, the very Munchkin-like Pansies (“Personally, I found them a little bit tiresome,” says Turner) and in the woeful updating of the ruby slippers as a pair of Adidas sneakers.
Associations aside, a chromatic fantasy full of panache and a clever sense of fun.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59543-616-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Troubled teen meets totemic catalyst in Mikaelsen’s (Petey, 1998, etc.) earnest tribute to Native American spirituality. Fifteen-year-old Cole is cocky, embittered, and eaten up by anger at his abusive parents. After repeated skirmishes with the law, he finally faces jail time when he viciously beats a classmate. Cole’s parole officer offers him an alternative—Circle Justice, an innovative justice program based on Native traditions. Sentenced to a year on an uninhabited Arctic island under the supervision of Edwin, a Tlingit elder, Cole provokes an attack from a titanic white “Spirit Bear” while attempting escape. Although permanently crippled by the near-death experience, he is somehow allowed yet another stint on the island. Through Edwin’s patient tutoring, Cole gradually masters his rage, but realizes that he needs to help his former victims to complete his own healing. Mikaelsen paints a realistic portrait of an unlikable young punk, and if Cole’s turnaround is dramatic, it is also convincingly painful and slow. Alas, the rest of the characters are cardboard caricatures: the brutal, drunk father, the compassionate, perceptive parole officer, and the stoic and cryptic Native mentor. Much of the plot stretches credulity, from Cole’s survival to his repeated chances at rehabilitation to his victim being permitted to share his exile. Nonetheless, teens drawn by the brutality of Cole’s adventures, and piqued by Mikaelsen’s rather muscular mysticism, might absorb valuable lessons on anger management and personal responsibility. As melodramatic and well-meaning as the teens it targets. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-380-97744-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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