The appealing premise is hamstrung by lengthy exposition and sluggish characterization.
Smart, 11-year-old Wren has just tied academic rival Simon at the Science Olympiad Trivia Challenge when a huge, white bird begins the magical apprenticeship of both children to the Ancient and Honorable Guild of the Fiddlers.
The Fiddlers are not violinists; they are, apparently, the sole, remaining workers of magic on Earth, revered in days of yore but now living anonymously. They use stardust to disguise their nearby workplace at a college campus from all but insiders, and snippets of old nursery rhymes are a part of their secret codes. There are creative descriptions of magical places and adventures—some strongly reminiscent of classics of children’s fantasy—but the storytelling has an awkward, sometimes-patronizing quality. Often, change comes too easily for credibility: the children’s parents allow Simon and Wren to spend a month away with strangers; the supposed rivals form a friendship all too quickly; Simon, Wren, and adult Fiddlers are strangely willing to accept odd apprentice Jack into their confidence; Wren’s thespian mother uses Wren’s idea of reworked Mother Goose rhymes for an annual play. Readers must make their ways through almost 100 pages of bits of hocus-pocus, hints of intrigue, and weak characterization to start to feel empathy with Wren and to spy the beginning of a tale that eventually includes the Voldemort-esque villain Boggen.
The appealing premise is hamstrung by lengthy exposition and sluggish characterization. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-229155-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Georgie's story will capture readers' imaginations with the very first sentences and then hold them hostage until the final...
In 1871, in the small town of Placid, Wis., a sister goes missing and a great adventure begins.
Disconsolate over the end of a promising courtship, Agatha Burkhardt runs off without so much as a goodbye to her younger sister, Georgie. When the sheriff attempts to locate and retrieve Agatha, he brings home not the vibrant sister that Georgie adores, but an unidentifiable body wearing Agatha’s ball gown. Alone in her belief that the body is not her sister’s, Georgie sneaks away in the dead of night, determined to retrace Agatha’s steps in order to solve the mystery of her disappearance and, she hopes, to bring her home. To Georgie's surprise, she’s joined on the journey by her sister’s former flame. And what a journey it is, fraught with mountain lions, counterfeiters and marriage proposals. The truly memorable characters and setting—particularly descriptions of the incredible phenomenon of passenger-pigeon nesting and migration—and the gradual unraveling of the mystery of Agatha’s disappearance make this one hard to put down. The icing on the cake, though, is Georgie’s narration, which is fresh, laugh-out-loud funny and an absolute delight to read.
Georgie's story will capture readers' imaginations with the very first sentences and then hold them hostage until the final page is turned. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-86925-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Fans of unbridled, melodramatic tomfoolery will be over the moon.
A taste of poisoned soup spurs the Queen of the Moon and her feline companion into embarking on a quest for a curative fruit from the orbiting orb’s only golden glumpfoozle tree.
In further exploits attended by the monosyllabic, spacesuit-clad titular feline (“Meow”), Harris and Barnett bring back the cast of The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza (2022), from diaper-wearing buccaneer Captain Babybeard to computerized toenail clipper LOZ 4000, for a lunar ramble past a pair of mysterious killbots, Psychic Flying Eyeballs of Death, and other hazards. Depicted in rolling arrays of changing palettes and panel sizes and led by the opalescent Queen of the Moon—who, ignoring her loudly rumbling tummy, stoutly declares that “my reign will not be cut short by soup”—the expedition fetches up at last on the edge of a bottomless crater for a last-minute save, appropriately over-the-top grandstanding by a familiar AI with futile protagonistic ambitions (“How many pages did I get this time? 73?”), and a closing celebratory soupfest, depicted Last Supper–style by a vermiform da Vinci. This volume continues the nonstop madcap fun; returning readers will not be disappointed, and new ones will quickly become avid followers of the world’s first feline astronaut.
Fans of unbridled, melodramatic tomfoolery will be over the moon. (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9780063084117
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
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