STAR WIND

by Linda Woolverton ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1986

Cosmic word-leech steals words from the minds of children until a dynamic girl-cat duo defeats the thief and restores the words to the kids. Camden returns from camp to find best friend Mitch preoccupied with The Game, led by WT-3 and his mysterious cube. After Camden joins them and begins speaking their Kidster argot, she has dreams in which the star wind brings her to another planet where the Word Police are slowly forcing all the people to give their words to The Teacher. When she can't read her beloved Jungle Book because she has lost so many words that it no longer makes sense, Camden and her cat Maggie follow WT-4 to The Teacher's world, where they defeat the word despot and free her people, then bring the word sponge home and disgorge its contents back into the kids' minds. An uneasy cross between sci-fi, fantasy, and allegory. The setting--a decaying California hotel--conveys a sense of menace, and the kids are well drawn; but the extraterrestrials are cardboard, their defeat too easy, the cat too accomplished. The fair dialogue and story pace are outweighed by weaknesses--more wind than star.

Pub Date: April 28, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION