Thin Elderly and Littlest One are dream-givers. They bestow dreams, using fragments collected from buttons, toys, photographs, shells and other personal objects that collect and hold memories over the years. The collected fragments become stories of the person to whom they belong, and as dreams they transmit restorative feelings of love, pride, happiness, companionship, laughter and courage. However, Sinisteeds are at work here, too, inflicting nightmares and undoing the careful work of the dream-givers. Readers familiar with The Giver will most appreciate Lowry’s riff on the value of memories and dreams and the importance of the sad parts of our lives, too. For such a slim work, the characterizations of Thin Elderly and Littlest are strong—she the sprightly little girl learning her trade, he the bemused and patient elder. The prose is light as gossamer; the story as haunting as a dream. (Fiction. 10+)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-68550-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Walter Lorraine/Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
A muddled middle, with little sign of movement toward a final conflict or resolution.
Nightmarish visions prompt desperate gambles for young magic-wielder Fort as he continues his efforts to rescue his father from the mysterious Old Ones.
Showing no inclination to pick up the opener’s plodding pace, Riley marches his preteen spellcaster through wordy reveries and exposition, conveniently overheard conversations, and recurrent dream encounters with a foe given to ALL-CAPS bombast as one ill-starred rescue scheme gives way on the fly to others. Doing his best to shuck annoyed friends and allies who insist on saving his bacon anyway, Fort eventually finds himself in a subterranean realm facing dwarves, elves (one elf, anyway), huge monsters—and an Old One who turns out to be a dragon willing to help subdue his three repressive kindred elementals before laboriously “fathering” an egg. (Just to muddy the waters a bit more, the titular dragon turns out to be another one altogether, hiding back on Earth and remaining offstage throughout this episode.) Magic, mostly teleportation and telepathy with admixtures of mind control and the occasional exploding fireball, gets brisk workouts, but in the end, the dark is still rising. Fort seems too colorless to inspire the sort of loyalty he gets from his supporting cast, which is well stocked with firecrackers and wild cards. Again, Fort’s circle isn’t entirely white, but the default is in operation.
A muddled middle, with little sign of movement toward a final conflict or resolution. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2572-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Busy—but exciting action and a likable character make up for it.
A chosen-one adventure through the Southwest.
Zane’s backyard in New Mexico is unique—it has its own volcano. He lives with his mom and their dog, Rosie, and his biggest problem is having to start a new school…until he makes a huge mistake and sets loose ancient Maya god Ah-Puch, also known as the Stinking One. A mysterious girl named Brooks appears at Zane’s school and then at home, and she reveals to Zane that she is a nawal, or shape-shifter, and she’s there to help him fulfill his destiny in a great prophecy. And so begins a race against time as Zane, Brooks, and a growing band of sidekicks race across the Southwest to find Ah-Puch, learn who Zane’s estranged father is, and save the world. As readers accustomed to Rick Riordan’s books will expect, additional Maya gods and magical creatures are revealed along the way. Unevenly paced and complicated by gods with two or three monikers, this second in Riordan’s eponymous imprint may frustrate close readers, but the high stakes will grab kids who just want to turn pages as quickly as possible. Zane is Mexican-American; his limb disability turns out to have a magical origin (not unlike Percy Jackson’s dyslexia), which may well feel like a cheat for readers with disabilities themselves. Nevertheless, Zane’s incredibly appealing kid voice and wry internal interjections make him easy to root for.
Busy—but exciting action and a likable character make up for it. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-368-01634-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Rick Riordan Presents/Disney
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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