Alexander's six short fairy tales, set in Prydain before the time covered in his Newbery-winning quintet, demonstrates both the author's special talent for spinning this kind of story and the extent of his need to borrow plots and motifs on which to build. The foundling of the title story is the enchanter Dalben as a child, adopted by three hags who send him off with his chosen gift of wisdom after he (recalling Taliesin) acquires knowledge by licking the fingers he has burned while stirring their magic potion. The other five stories are more generally familiar and their connection with Prydain more gratuitous: there is the firmer whose wish (here, never to grow older — and it happens to have been granted by Doli of the Fair Folk) turns out to be a curse when nothing grows on his land and his teething baby's dental development is similarly arrested; there is the princess (incidentally, Eilonwy's mother) who chooses — unsurprisingly — not the arrogant enchanters who make darkness and demons to impress her but a third, poor suitor who "enchants" the court with his poetic words; there is "The Rascal Crow" who is saved from a hunter by smaller animals he had previously scorned; the harper who, true to his calling, defies the Death-Lord, and "The Sword" (this must be the entry that the author claims "bears on our own time and concerns") whose growing stain reflects the evil deeds of a King who becomes more and more suspicious and reclusive, and his deeds more monstrous, as he attempts to cover up what started as a callous oversight and led next to a rash murder. All worth another hearing as Alexander tells them, but hardly an important contribution to a mythological landscape.
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1973
ISBN: 0805080538
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1973
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
15
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In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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