A captivating volley of revelations and resolutions.
Emmeline and company return to thwart the nefarious Lady Aisling in Connolly’s gripping conclusion to her Shadow Weaver duet.
When the Cerelia Comet, under which all magically talented children are born, streaks through the sky 12 years early, there can only be one cause—Lady Aisling. A centuries-old magic eater, Lady Aisling steals and traps other talented people, and the comet’s early arrival means she has gained control of a sky shaker, who has the power to rearrange celestial bodies at will. Meanwhile, Emmeline and Lucas work hard to hone their respective talents of shadow weaving and light singing, which allowed them to escape Lady Aisling’s clutches before, but when Lucas’ parents are captured, the duo must flee to find the secret network that protects talented people and seek help. Terrified at the prospect that Lady Aisling may cultivate more magical children to harvest, Emmeline and Lucas and a small handful of new friends prepare to take her down once and for all. But to have a chance of defeating Lady Aisling, they must work with someone just as dangerous—Dar, Emmeline’s former shadow and Lady Aisling’s twin sister. Picking up immediately after the events of the first book, this narrative immerses readers in the layered tensions of a fight for survival, building them to the breaking point. Conflict on a cosmic scale is no simple thing to contain effectively, but a more action-oriented focus than its prequel and a classic evil to defeat keep things balanced. The book assumes a white default.
A captivating volley of revelations and resolutions. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4998-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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