Playful and fun for youngsters who know and love classic fairy tales.
A Cinderella with 21st-century attitudes begins a fairy-tale quest.
Kelk, a prolific author of light romance for adults, offers younger readers a fractured fairy-tale fantasy that is similarly entertaining. This volume begins as a story about a blended family, a palace, and a ball during which the prince will choose a bride. But nothing is quite what one might expect. There’s Sparks, a talking dog, and a woman named Brian, who is a fairy godmother, and then it’s Cinders herself who wields the magic—though not without difficulty, at least at first. Cinders is messy and prefers being outside. Prince Joderick would rather be baking brownies. The royal family is terrified of fairies, whom they believe to be monsters based on a long-ago rivalry and a royal pact that should have banished all the fairies from their land. However, late in the narrative readers learn information about Cinders’ mother that many might already have suspected. Curnick’s amusing grayscale cartoons show a dark-skinned royal family; Cinders and Brian appear White. There’s plenty of humor in the text as well. The abrupt ending, which takes a significant detour from the original “Cinderella,” will be a jolt to many but leaves the door open for the sequel.
Playful and fun for youngsters who know and love classic fairy tales. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: April 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300669-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Good-hearted fun—great for fans of Kit Feeny and Babymouse.
It’s a Bigfeet family reunion!
Everyone’s favorite frosty, furry cryptid, the yeti, actually has a name: Blizz Richards. From his supersecret HQ in Nepal he keeps in touch with his fellow cryptids, all of whom have sworn an oath to keep themselves hidden. That’s not always easy, especially when there are cryptozoologists, like the nasty (but bumbling) George Vanquist, who are always trying to expose the secretive creatures. Vanquist got a picture of Blizz’s cousin Brian near his home in British Columbia, causing the mortified Brian to disappear entirely. When Blizz receives an invitation to a Bigfeet family reunion in Canada, he calls his buddies Alexander (one of Santa’s elves), Gunthar (a goblin) and Frank the Arctic fox to help him get ready. When they arrive in Canada, Brian is still nowhere to be seen. Can Blizz and his skunk ape and other sasquatch cousins find Brian, have the reunion and evade Vanquist? If anyone can, the Bigfeet clan can. Illustrator Sherry’s first volume in the Yeti Files is a fast and funny graphic-prose tale full of labeled pictures and comic-style panels. Those just starting chapter books may have some trouble with a few big words, but they’ll enjoy the big friendly monsters and immediately ask for the next tale—which looks to be about the Loch Ness monster.
Good-hearted fun—great for fans of Kit Feeny and Babymouse. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-55617-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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