by Lindsay Galvin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 2020
An underwater adventure bogged down by uneven pacing.
Aster wakes on a deserted beach, alone and confused, just days after she and her sister, Poppy, move to New Zealand to live with their mysterious aunt.
Aster, 13, and Poppy, 11, are officially orphans. Their dad died in a car accident when Poppy was a baby, and their mom recently lost her battle with cancer. Having no other relatives, the girls travel to New Zealand to live with their aunt, Iona, whom they haven’t seen in years because she works all over the world as a hotshot research oncologist. Iona moves them to Wildhaven, a remote ecovillage where she is doing fieldwork. Wildhaven is a research site filled with international students, secrets, and doctors at odds with one another. Following a catastrophic boat trip, Aster wakes up alone on a beach, bewildered. She works to uncover the mysteries of Wildhaven and Aunt Iona and to find Poppy. The cast is a range of races and skin colors—including Aster and Poppy, who are white, Korean, and black—but an absence of cultural markers suppresses a feeling of robust diversity. Character development is weak, so while readers will root for Aster to find Poppy, they won’t have a sense of who she really is. However, the depiction of her anxiety and panic attacks both feels authentic and is well written. While the twists are interesting, the information reveal is slow in coming, so they pack less punch than they might.
An underwater adventure bogged down by uneven pacing. (Thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-56739-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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by Ginny Rorby ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2015
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals.
Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive?
Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic.
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-67605-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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by Ginny Rorby
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by Ginny Rorby
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by Ginny Rorby
by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2015
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and...
Good has won every fairy-tale contest with Evil for centuries, but a dark sorcerer’s scheme to turn the tables comes to fruition in this ponderous closer.
Broadening conflict swirls around frenemies Agatha and Sophie as the latter joins rejuvenated School Master Rafal, who has dispatched an army of villains from Capt. Hook to various evil stepmothers to take stabs (literally) at changing the ends of their stories. Meanwhile, amid a general slaughter of dwarves and billy goats, Agatha and her rigid but educable true love, Tedros, flee for protection to the League of Thirteen. This turns out to be a company of geriatric versions of characters, from Hansel and Gretel (in wheelchairs) to fat and shrewish Cinderella, led by an enigmatic Merlin. As the tale moves slowly toward climactic battles and choices, Chainani further lightens the load by stuffing it with memes ranging from a magic ring that must be destroyed and a “maleficent” gown for Sophie to this oddly familiar line: “Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the Woods, you had to walk into mine.” Rafal’s plan turns out to be an attempt to prove that love can be twisted into an instrument of Evil. Though the proposition eventually founders on the twin rocks of true friendship and family ties, talk of “balance” in the aftermath at least promises to give Evil a fighting chance in future fairy tales. Bruno’s polished vignettes at each chapter’s head and elsewhere add sophisticated visual notes.
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and flashes of hilarity. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-210495-3
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2015
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More In The Series
by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by RaidesArt
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by RaidesArt
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Julia Iredale
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