A quick, seasonal read likely to enchant the imaginations of young readers.
In Cary’s debut chapter book for young readers, three friends spend their summer in the company of fairies.
When school lets out and fireflies blink one by one into sight, summer has arrived. Cary adds magic to the familiar days of childhood by lighting the night sky with fairies in a book geared toward late elementary– and early middle school–readers. Siblings Nina and Jack, along with their cousin, Dee, discover the minuscule realm of fairies when a storm wrecks the home of two of the creatures, forcing them apart. With the help of fairy Lily, the children nurse the wounded Luna back to health through the magic found in a secret cavern, and their new winged-friends return the favor later on. The prose is clumsy at the book’s outset, as the author tries to find a balance between retrospective storytelling and simple past tense (“I hate it when she calls me String Bean. It reminds me that I’m too straight and tall.”), and every so often cliché disrupts the suspense and flow of the story (“If we’d known what was ahead of us, things would have been different.”). After a rough start, the story moves along without problem, and the dialogue mostly rings true to how children speak. Wing dust is imbued with special powers to heighten human hearing, enabling the children to communicate with fairykind. This unusual touch, among others, distinguishes Cary’s version of fey creatures from standard depictions. Most effective are scenes shown from the fairies’ perspectives, which skillfully illustrate the everyday encounters of tiny beings in a huge, unpredictable world.
A quick, seasonal read likely to enchant the imaginations of young readers.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1463782597
Page Count: 160
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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