A page-turning tale about an appealing, young narrator suddenly thrust into a magical world.
Life isn’t going so great for Haley until she finds out one of her teachers is her fairy godmother.
Haley is a typical middle-schooler: Her older sister is seemingly perfect and gets all her parents’ attention; she has a tough time with her classes; the boy she likes doesn’t pay attention to her; and all she wants to do is eat junk food, hang out with her best friend and babysit the neighborhood kids. After a particularly tough day at school, she starts hearing her language arts teacher’s voice in her head and realizes that Ms. Hagglesworth, a warm, friendly, understanding woman who lets her students sit on the floor and drink tea, is her fairy godmother. Haley starts to depend on Ms. Hagglesworth to help her out of difficult situations—trying out for violin chair in band, forgetting her instrument and getting home on time after a night of babysitting. But Haley soon learns that the help she receives has a price, not the least of which is forgetting the impending due date for a science-fair project, something that slips her mind while she’s learning to fly with Ms. Hagglesworth and otherwise engaging in magic. The story has a few twists, including the ending, which changes the tone of the story. Veil, author of several young adult and children’s stories has mastered the vocabulary and tone of a kid’s lit; e.g., “ ‘Ank ew,’ I said with a very full mouth. My mom would have been very disappointed in my diet and my lack of manners. Ms. Hagglesworth was so much fun to be around.” Haley is a likable, sympathetic main character, and the supporting characters are also fleshed out. The pacing is exactly right; Veil takes time to set the scene and introduce characters before beginning the magical parts of the book. Finally, it’s an attention grabber, particularly when the plot turns darker toward the end of the story.
A page-turning tale about an appealing, young narrator suddenly thrust into a magical world.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492831556
Page Count: 114
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
