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CITY OF DOGS

Name: CITY OF DOGS
Author: Livi Michael
ISBN: 978-0-399-24356-1

by Livi Michael ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2007

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A wise and witty animal fantasy wherein none of the dogs die. A beautiful, dog mysteriously appears on young Sam’s birthday, with a mistletoe dart in her teeth and a confused but urgent sense of mission. Christened Jenny, she becomes accustomed to our world, with its electricity, automobiles and unfriendliness to dogs; and she comes to love Sam and five neighbor dogs as her own pack. But as Jenny’s memories of her old life slowly fade, Fenris the Wolf starts to howl and Ragnorak is unleashed. Now six dogs and one boy must prevent the destruction of all Nine Worlds. Nimbly threading her plot between four separate narratives and three different mythologies, Michael provokes in quick succession gasps of amazement, snorts of laughter and tears of aching grief. Above all, she clearly knows and loves dogs—not the idealized noble canines of fiction, but realistic dogs who are excitable and foolish and fearful and slow, dogs who chew papers and widdle on floors and grow old and smelly. But these dogs are also brave and loyal and loving beyond all human deserving—except when we create new worlds that are almost worthy of them, in stories like this. Simply perfect. (Fantasy. 10-14)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-399-24356-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

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SEE YOU IN THE COSMOS

by Jack Cheng ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2017

Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.

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If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?

For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.

Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MANY MASKS OF ANDY ZHOU
by Jack Cheng ; illustrated by Jack Cheng

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THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL

From the School for Good and Evil series , Vol. 1

by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.

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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)