Intellectually curious preteens model heroism in this engaging fantasy tale.
Procopio’s (Chelzy Stone’s Mystical Quest in the Lost and Found Game, 2013) middle-grade sequel brings the trio of adventurers to a medieval Camelot under threat.
Sixth-grader Tory Herold has an uncle who collects antiques. Uncle Tony’s latest find is a game stored in a beautiful chest. The seller tells him that it “will only open for a young person or someone on a quest for something extraordinary.” Tory and her friends Chelzy and Matthew Stone (who are in the 5th and 7th grades, respectively) wait a few weeks until spring break before opening it, expecting another otherworldly adventure. The chest reveals three smaller boxes, each engraved with a representation of a different element—water, light, and earth—and they soon discover that lifting the respective lids causes those elements to pour forth. The trio consults Grandpa Stone, who has helped them in the past. In medieval Albion, meanwhile, the sorceress Hextilda wreaks havoc in Camelot as revenge for her parents’ murders by the king. The wizard Azahti plans to recover the three pieces of the magical artifact called The Treskelion to defeat Hextilda. He has help from Sophokles, an owl, and Bianor, a dragon, but he also envisions the arrival of three children from “another existence” who will be instrumental to his cause. In this installment, Procopio’s heroes are hardly any older but quite a bit wiser when it comes to dealing with magical objects and situations. Still, the kids finish their homework and chores and get practical advice from Grandpa Stone (“Never start smoking and you’ll avoid health issues later in life”). The suspense of when and how the crew will travel to Camelot is amplified by the presence of Tory’s eccentric Aunt Flossy. Procopio’s prose is a vocabulary builder, as when Chelzy uses the word “concomitant,” to Matthew’s surprise. Later, in the Forest of Desperate Souls, Azahti eloquently tells the children about peace, saying, “Many living people have it right before them but do not recognize it or cherish it.” A crisp finale—and the hint of summer vacation shenanigans—prepares readers for a potential future volume.
Intellectually curious preteens model heroism in this engaging fantasy tale.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9860607-1-7
Page Count: 260
Publisher: RoseLamp Publications
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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BOOK REVIEW
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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