With brightly colored illustrations of undersea scenes, this appealing tale offers an important anti-bullying theme.
When a fish who looks different faces bullies, his friends come to the rescue and set the culprits on a path toward redemption with two useful acronyms in this debut picture book.
Finley and Cisco live in Lake Superior. But Finley and his family originally came from Lake Erie—a smaller body of water that some Superior fish feel doesn’t measure up. To set Finley aside even more, a near escape from a fisherman when he was young requires him to keep a safety pin in his dorsal fin. For popular Cisco, Finley’s unusual qualities trigger admiration: he has overcome adversity, and, despite his injury, he’s a strong swimmer. The two are friends with Camie, an ocean fish who can camouflage herself. When Camie and Cisco catch a pair of large, threatening-looking fish picking on Finley, they confront the bullies, who are immediately contrite, not wanting to lose Cisco’s friendship. Thankfully, by listening to Camie’s experiences with bullying, the two really do change their ways. Ozalis-Graham’s clever use of “Friend in Need”/FIN and “Power in Numbers”/PIN bring home the idea that readers should always help a bullying victim because rescuers are stronger together (and Finley with the pin in his fin makes this easy to remember). But the immediate repentance of the two tormentors is a bit simplistic, and Camie’s ability to survive in lake water when she comes from the ocean may spark reader questions.
With brightly colored illustrations of undersea scenes, this appealing tale offers an important anti-bullying theme.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4808-5154-2
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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