by Leo LaFleur ; illustrated by Adam Oehlers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 2021
It doesn’t stand alone, but it should create some buzz among readers who like seeing lots of fairies in their fairy stories.
The third part of your mysterious journey brings you to the fairy Queen of the Eastern Forest with a tricksy gift from last episode’s Warlock of the Hill.
Though signs of an overarching storyline have yet to appear, this chapter, like predecessors The Errand (2017) and The Warlock of the Hill (2020), offers a beguiling combination of poetic second-person narrative and atmospheric illustrations, printed on sumptuous coated paper between nonjacketed covers. With the assistance of a shrinking potion and the Warlock’s ghostly daughter, Arielle, “you” find a way into Fairyland, past numerous guards and obstacles to the Forbidden City, and into the imperious Queen’s presence. The “gift” explodes into a rain of destructive insects, but the Queen’s magic transforms them into flowers “sprinkling the / sky like shards of dazzling confetti—flashing / and shimmering and flickering and falling.” Afterward you stay in Fairyland until, a timeless interval later, you find the potion bottle and recall the world beyond the forest. In undulant scenes that flow around the blocks and streamers of text Oehlers channels Arthur Rackham both in the deeply shadowed curves of background grasses and leaves and in the way he depicts the elfin, insectile fairies (who are, like “you” and Arielle, White…at least insofar as they have human features). Writhing tentacles on the final page hint at a nautical theme for the next episode.
It doesn’t stand alone, but it should create some buzz among readers who like seeing lots of fairies in their fairy stories. (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77229-050-9
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Simply Read Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
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by Jasmine Warga ; illustrated by Matt Rockefeller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2022
The intelligences here may be (mostly) artificial, but the feelings are genuine and deep.
A Mars rover discovers that it has a heart to go with its two brains.
Warga follows her cybernetic narrator from first awareness to final resting place—and stony indeed will be any readers who remain unmoved by the journey. Though unable to ask questions of the hazmats (named for their suits) assembling it in a NASA lab, the rover, dubbed Resilience by an Ohio sixth grader, gets its first inklings of human feelings from two workers who talk to it, play it music, and write its pleasingly bug-free code. Other machines (even chatty cellphones) reject the notion that there’s any real value to emotions. But the longer those conversations go, the more human many start sounding, particularly after Res lands in Mars’ Jezero Crater and, with help from Fly, a comically excitable drone, and bossy satellite Guardian, sets off on twin missions to look for evidence of life and see if an older, silenced rover can be brought back online. Along with giving her characters, human and otherwise, distinct voices and engaging personalities, the author quietly builds solid relationships (it’s hardly a surprise when, after Fly is downed in a dust storm, Res trundles heroically to the rescue in defiance of orders) on the way to rest and joyful reunions years later. A subplot involving brown-skinned, Arabic-speaking NASA coder Rania unfolds through her daughter Sophia’s letters to Res.
The intelligences here may be (mostly) artificial, but the feelings are genuine and deep. (afterword, resources) (Science fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311392-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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by Elinor Teele ; illustrated by Ben Whitehouse ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2016
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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