A strong sequel with a clear message about embracing one’s true self.
In Hewitt’s children’s fantasy sequel, five girls reunite with a mysterious fox to break through illusions in another world.
Since their last adventure in Foxtale Forest, third graders Amy, Kez, Eva, Pax, and Dani have all felt a desire to belong, whether it’s in the popular group at school or in their own families. None of the girls are happy, and they each yearn for a return to the forest. However, when the Fox calls them back there, they don’t leave their personal issues behind. The Fox sends them to investigate the city of Lumina, where almost everyone wears special glasses called Visionizers that show them images of a flourishing and modern urban landscape: “Where you’re going, the truth is hard to see. To uncover what’s real, you have to look with more than just your eyes.” The only people in Lumina who don’t regularly wear Visionizers are Tyler, who does so secretly so he can enter the mayor’s citywide Visioneering Games, and his mother, Mira, an engineer who doesn’t trust the universal addiction to a false reality. When Ty runs away to enter the competition, the girls decide to track him down in order to protect him from the mayor’s schemes. This second book in Hewitt’s series presents a larger-than-life adventure with a relevant lesson about being yourself and stepping away from screens to embrace the real world—two things that Amy, in particular, grapples with throughout the story. It’s difficult to keep track of the individual personalities of each of the five girls, other than Amy, but many readers may find the lives of individual members of the diverse group to be relatable. Burke's dynamic full-color illustrations punctuate key moments in each chapter, and smaller black-and-white insets appear throughout.
A strong sequel with a clear message about embracing one’s true self.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781964010052
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
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
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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