A refreshingly different fantasy premise falls to pedestrian plotting. Twelve-year-old Petra admires her father’s magical talent for mechanical invention, but when he is blinded after crafting a clock for the Prince of Bohemia, she is as outraged by his resigned acceptance as by his mutilation. She runs off to Prague to steal back her father’s eyes, now bespelled for the Prince to wear. Assisted by the erudite tin spider Astrophil and the Gypsy boy Neel, Petra braves both the wonders and injustices of palace life to learn that the marvelous clock threatens the stability of all Europe. The fantastical alternative-Renaissance setting provides imaginative charm, and intrepid Petra is a resourceful, if self-centered, heroine. Alas, her quest plods along without suspense, relying on random encounters and convenient revelations. Despite occasional intriguing glimpses of magic in action, there is no sense of a coherent system. The tone veers irritatingly from fairy-tale adventure to unpleasant grimness to arch narrative asides, and erratic shifts in point of view add to the confusion. Disappointing. (Fantasy. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-374-31026-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2008
Hunt (Fish in a Tree, 2017, etc.) has crafted another gentle, moving tale of love and loss: the value of the one and the...
“The ones that love you protect your feelings because they’ve been given a piece of you. Others may toss them around for just the same reason.”
It’s the summer that Delsie hears that hard lesson from her grandmother and comes to fully understand what it means. Her best off-Cape friend has returned for the season, but now Brandy, once her soul mate, is wearing makeup and has brought along a mean, snobby friend, Tressa, who’s put off by Delsie’s dirty, bare feet and near-poverty. Ronan is new to the Cape, too, and at first he’s a hard boy to get to know. But Delsie, stunned by Brandy’s betrayal, perseveres, realizing that he’s just as lonely as she is and that his mother is gone, having sent him away, just as hers is—heartbreakingly lost to alcohol and drugs. A richly embroidered cast of characters, a thoughtful exploration of how real friends treat one another, and the true meaning of family all combine to make this a thoroughly satisfying coming-of-age tale. Cape Cod is nicely depicted—not the Cape of tourists but the one of year-round residents—as is the sometimes-sharp contrast between residents and summer people. The book adheres to the white default; one of Delsie's neighbors hails from St. Croix and wears her hair in an Afro.
Hunt (Fish in a Tree, 2017, etc.) has crafted another gentle, moving tale of love and loss: the value of the one and the importance of getting over the other. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-17515-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A slowly unfolding read for bug lovers and environmentalists.
Can Eden find a way to stop insect-hating August from killing all the bugs?
In this debut by the writer and director of Black-ish and other hit TV shows, 9-year-old August, a White boy who is the victim of bullying, hates insects: A cockroach climbs up his arm during a school play, a fly lands in his mouth and he vomits on his favorite teacher, and a spiderweb causes him to drop a box of his mother’s homemade jelly. August schemes to get his hands on a pesticide that is rumored to be exceptionally toxic—only its inventor is missing. On her 10th birthday, Eden, who has a White Jewish mother and Black father and comes from a musical family, learns she can talk to wasps using her kazoo. She saves a paper wasps’ nest from a group of destructive children, and, taken by her kindness, the wasp queen informs her of a mysterious school dedicated to teaching communication between insects and humans. Eden finds a card in a library book for the Institute for Lower Learning: Could it be the right school? Eden’s and August’s quests intersect at the institute. Though the prose is beautiful, the novel creeps along, with extensive passages of narration that are not broken up with dialogue. Despite the protagonists’ young ages, older middle-grade readers may be drawn to the strong messages about environmentalism, friendship, and self-discovery.
A slowly unfolding read for bug lovers and environmentalists. (Morse code and semaphore charts) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-40785-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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