An engaging effort, though it reads mostly like a bridge between more eventful books.
The second book in Eliopoulos’ (The Mythic Forest, 2013) Fabelwald saga tells the tale of twins Dandle and Lion, children of the first volume’s Erich and Rapunzel, as they begin to discover the magic inside them and the struggle between Light and Dark that defines the world around them.
In the Clearing, humans and elves live in harmony, working for themselves rather than a king or lord of the manor. It’s here that Dandle and Lion grow up, orphans raised by Auntie Rose, whose former nobility and close brush with a “dybbuk,” a demon who possesses living beings, make her an oddity in the village. While she schools them in human skills, their magical abilities are nurtured by tattooed Daskalos, who has some of the skills the elves and faeries possess. He helps Dandle and Lion learn how to listen to trees, track, and cast simple spells. Smart, opinionated Dandle is frustrated by the sexist attitudes that disallow her from fun like splashing in the falls with the boys: “It was unfair that she was kept from the most strenuous work because she was a girl.” Lion, who’s also smart and capable, begins to hear whispers in the night; fearing a demon’s influence, he’s relieved to realize it’s the call of the Sword of Princes, a hereditary weapon that he doesn’t know marks him as a future king. Meanwhile, a couple of ogres far from home—one a mindless beast known only as Hungry, the other the shrewd but still bloodthirsty Sneaky—make their way through the Dark Wood, plotting to snare themselves a human meal. As a sophomore entry to a series, the book is heavy on exposition and worldbuilding, skillfully developing the world of Brutes, dwarves, elves, faeries, and men. While there’s some narrative tension, it’s mostly a coming-of-age story, preparing Dandle and Lion for their roles in the fight between Light and Dark. Eliopoulos’ well-drawn illustrations, a combination of pencil and digital techniques, enrich the world, with further adventures on the horizon.
An engaging effort, though it reads mostly like a bridge between more eventful books.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499137750
Page Count: 258
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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